As he groped his way along the corridor walls there came over Robert the queer feeling that he was not alone. His heart began to beat quickly.
“Are you there? Anyone there?” he said sharply.
There was no answer. Then it could not be the policeman.
Even if one was still on duty he would not be standing in black darkness. He walked along a little farther very quietly, feeling for his box of matches. With a quick gesture he struck a light. He was too quick. The head of the match lit, and flew off the stalk. But in its fall for one split second it made an arc of dim light, and by that light Robert saw to his horror a man’s boot with a frieze of trouser-leg. Some one was standing not three yards away from him.
“Who’s there?” he said again. He had a feeling that some one was moving very silently. He put his fingers into the box to get another match.
“Oh, damn,” he said aloud, “that was the only one.”
Then he cursed himself for a fool. He had given some one a valuable piece of information by saying that. For some one must be there. That boot had a foot in it.
Sheer fright had sobered Robert by now. Whoever was in the corridor was no friend of his or the police, or they would have spoken. Who were they and what were they, or was there only one? What were they doing in the darkness? Robert felt pretty sure that the clue to the Oissel murder, perhaps even the murderer himself, had been at that moment within reach of his hand, and in the most closely guarded building in London, with police only two hundred yards away. It was maddening.
If he could reach one of the smaller dining-rooms he could get his hands on the light switches. They were all on the same plan as in Room J, which he knew by heart. Feeling his way very cautiously, and with his heart beating to suffocation, Robert made his way along the wall. Any moment some blow might fall from the dark, as mysteriously as the shot that killed Georges Oissel in that empty room.
He got to Room J and stealthily tried the door. It was locked. So the policeman was not on duty. Or had the owner of that boot retreated inside the room? Carefully he groped his way next door to Room H. The door opened as he turned the handle. With a gasp of relief he found the switch and turned on the light. But even with the door open most of the corridor was in darkness. He could see no one. It was he who was illumined, a target for any foe that was lurking in the shadows.
A box of matches had been left on the table. Robert struck a light and walked along the corridor. Of course he would find no one that way. But at least that meant that they were avoiding a fight. He went back to Room H. He must get police while there was still a chance that the owner of the boot had not been able to get away.
As he went back into Room H he almost screamed. A face was pressed against the window. It vanished as soon as he saw it. With a swift gesture Robert switched off the light. He was safer in the dark. He groped his way to the window and cautiously looked out on to the Terrace. All was dark; only the lights on Westminster Bridge twinkled in the distance. He went back to the door and cautiously opened it. A fresh draught of air struck his face. Some one had opened the door that led from the corridor on to the Terrace.
A flashlight was turned full in his face. “Thank God,” said Robert. “Where did you come from?” It was a policeman.
“I was on the Terrace when the light in Room H was switched on. I thought it was Room J, and right glad I was to see it was you, sir, but you did look scared.”
“You are on duty here all night?”
“Yes, sir. Orders about Room J. I haven’t left it before, sir, but I felt awful queer—room going round. I felt I must get on to the Terrace for a bit of air… I…” The policeman made a gesture of grabbing the air, and then collapsed at West’s feet.
“Good God!” gasped West. One never expects to see a sick policeman. An awful thought shot through West’s brain. Was the policeman drugged? Had some one been trying to dope the watch-dog?
He left the policeman stretched on the floor, while he groped his way to the telephone in the room he had just left. He rang up Sergeant Bourne. No reply. He got through to the police room at the Members’ entrance. A cheery voice answered. It seemed like a life-line from a sane world.
While waiting for the police to come Robert went back to the prostrate policeman. He switched the usual official flashlight around and strained his ears. All was deadly still, until he heard the hurrying footsteps of the policemen coming down the stairs. Had the owner of that foot been able to make his getaway? Certainly he had had every opportunity, but he must have known the terrain better than himself. That was one point he must remember to tell Blackitt.
When the police arrived Robert left one with the sick constable, while he and the other searched the kitchens and the dining-rooms. They unlocked Room J and switched on every light in the place, but no one could be seen.
Robert phoned Blackitt at his home in Camden Town and was asked to stay where he was until the Inspector arrived. By this time the policeman who wore an ambulance badge had managed to get the unconscious man round by the liberal application of doses of salt and water. Robert’s immediate concern was to keep the night’s affair as quiet as possible. Need the policeman be taken to hospital?
“Not he,” said the ambulance man, who was giving him a dose of brandy. “Right as rain now. Takes some dope to knock a chap like you over, eh, Robinson?”
Well, thank heaven, that danger of leakage to the newspapers would not happen! West shuddered to imagine the morning papers if news of this night’s adventures got out. He hinted at secrecy to the older of the constables. “I shall have to make a report to the Superintendent, sir.”
“Yes, of course,” said Robert, “but do see to it that nothing gets into the papers. I am sure Inspector Blackitt will be most particular about that.”
By the time Blackitt arrived the constable was better, but still shaky, and very worried about having left Room J. He explained that the waiters always left a cup of coffee for him or whichever policeman was on duty there each night. No, he hadn’t noticed which waiter had left the coffee this night. It was put on the service shelf outside Room J. He had just drunk it before going into the room, and the cup had been cleared away. After drinking the coffee he had gone into Room J, but had begun to feel ill. No, he hadn’t felt ill at once, it came over him slowly. He thought the place might be stuffy, and had decided it wouldn’t do any harm to go on to the Terrace for a stroll and keep an eye on Room J from there.
“Did you see anyone about?” asked Blackitt.
“No, Inspector. Mr West and Mr Murray Grey were about the last to go out after their party, and the waiters weren’t two minutes after them.”
“Had you drunk your coffee before the waiters went?”
“Yes, sir. One of them said, ‘Here, hurry up, we want your cup,’ so I drank it up quick.”
Blackitt and West exchanged glances. “Which waiter said that?”
“It was that little chap, youngest of the lot he is, apple cheeks, I don’t know his name.”
“That’s not the one who served in J,” said West. “Was he the one who put the coffee there for you, constable?”
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t know who did. The young lad took it away, sir, but any of them might have brought it.”
“Some more combing in that kitchen is indicated,” West said to Blackitt.
“I’ve done a good bit there already without getting much forrarder, but this takes the biscuit,” said Blackitt. “Anyway, we can’t do more to-night,” and he repeated West’s orders to the constables that nothing should be said as yet about the events of the night, except the report to the Superintendent.
After the sick policeman had been sent home and another guard put on the room, West went to look for his attaché-case and was relieved to find it where he had left it.
“That policeman was obviously doped by some one who wanted to get into Room J,” he
said as Blackitt walked back with him to his flat.
“Yes, and not too well done. I suppose they just wanted to give him enough to send him to sleep while they did what they had to do, so that he would wake up before questions were asked in the morning. They evidently hadn’t realized how much a hefty man like Robinson would need.”
“It must have upset their plans that instead of going to sleep in the room he’d been able to lock the door behind him and get on to the Terrace, and so keep himself going for a while.”
“Yes, probably, but the question we want to know is, whose was the foot that was inside that boot you saw?”
“Well, obviously it must have been some one who knew the run of the place pretty well—a waiter, or perhaps… a Member.”
“All your party went out before you?”
“Yes, I think I was the last out with Murray Grey. We all rather went out in a mob, you know… and… er… well, I wouldn’t like to swear to everything that was happening just then. We had been drinking all we wanted. Murray Grey isn’t one of the House pussyfoots.”
“Can you remember who was there, besides Mr Kinnaird and Mr Murray Grey?”
West tried to think. “Honestly, it’s all rather a blur, but we could get a list from Murray Grey to-morrow, or later to-day, rather.”
“But there were some men there who were not M.P.s?”
“Oh, yes, the majority, I should think. There were about fifteen or sixteen men in the room altogether. But I’m damned sure that Murray Grey had nothing to do with any monkey tricks. He’s as straight as a die.”
“I don’t suppose he had. But we mustn’t neglect the fact that here was one obvious way in which people not connected with the House of Commons could be on the lower corridor long after the House had risen, and when there was no one else in the building. Now can you remember what kind of a boot it was that you saw? Was it an evening pump, for instance?”
“No, it was a man’s walking boot. But that doesn’t help much—none of Murray Grey’s guests were in evening dress.”
“Can you remember if it was a good-looking boot, or might it have belonged to a waiter, for example.”
“There you’ve got me. I have the vivid impression of a boot with the edge of a black trouser on it. Only a second, remember—I couldn’t exactly take notes,” and West looked rather apologetic.
“That’s all right. You’ve remembered quite a lot. It might therefore have been a waiter’s or a guest’s or some one not connected with either.”
“It might have been a waiter’s, but somehow that impression wasn’t left on my mind… a more substantial boot than waiters would wear in the House.”
By this time they had reached the narrow street in Soho where Robert rented his odd little flat. Blackitt paused for a moment under the street lamp at the corner, to relight his pipe. Robert, waiting for him, was standing on the other side of the road about four doors up from the entrance to the narrow stairs up to his flat. He was astonished to see a slender man in a light overcoat, his hat pulled well down over his eyes, walk out from the doorway and pass rapidly along the street.
Robert darted across the road and gripped Blackitt’s arm. “Who’s that? He’s come out of my doorway.” With Blackitt at his heels Robert ran after the man, but he had already turned the corner. When they got there they could see no one. The man had vanished into the darkness of the mass of little passages of Soho’s back streets.
“Better let me go first,” said Blackitt, as they went back to the stairs which led to Robert’s flat. “Was he hiding in the doorway, do you think?” For there was a passage at least ten feet long before one came to the heavy door which was Robert’s private entrance.
There was no sign on the door that anyone had been trying to force it. The men went carefully up the winding stairs and reached the actual door of West’s flat. There were no signs here of its having been tampered with. West opened the door and switched on the lights. The flat was empty, and nothing had been touched.
“Perhaps the man was just sheltering, or taking up a position for the night,” said Blackitt.
“Might be,” said West thoughtfully. Then he added slowly: “Queer thing, Blackitt, but though I couldn’t see his face there was something familiar about that man. I felt as though I’d seen him before, or he reminded me of some one, but I can’t think who. It’s tantalizing… I… no, I can’t pin that recollection down—it was just a momentary feeling of recognition.”
“Some one waiting to beg, perhaps, and disappointed at your not coming home alone?” suggested Blackitt. “Or,” he added with interest, “could it conceivably be the owner of the boot you saw in the darkness?”
Robert perched on the edge of the table. “I didn’t see his boots, but I feel I know the man. Oh, my God,” he added with a desperate irritation, “what a night! Things just at the tips of one’s fingers all the time and yet one isn’t able to get hold of anything! It’s damnable!”
“Make some of that coffee you promised me. Perhaps the connexion will come back to you,” smiled Blackitt.
“Good. I’ll get this giddy percolator going. I warn you it’s liable to blow up, Blackitt, but this chicken needs some strong black coffee. You look in the pink in spite of being yanked out of bed at one a.m. Sign of a mis-spent youth, I fear.”
Blackitt grinned from his creaky armchair by the gas-fire, wishing that all his colleagues in the work he had to do were as pleasant to deal with as this cheerful, friendly young politician.
He accepted gratefully the strong black coffee which Robert finally produced. “I wonder,” he said thoughtfully, as he stirred several lumps of sugar into it, “whether whoever was in the corridor was really after Room J.”
“If they were connected with the Oissel case, surely they must have been. That was the scene of their operations then, anyway.”
“Yes,” said Blackitt in his slow, deliberate way, “but what my mind has been working on is this. We’ve all concentrated on Room J. We’ve assumed that what killed Oissel must have been inside that room. Well, need it have been? I’m beginning to doubt it.”
“But the bullet must have been, or else it couldn’t have killed him.”
“True, but need the revolver that the bullet was fired from have been in that room. That’s what I keep worrying round.”
“You mean that whoever was in the corridor to-night was trying to cover up some tracks that we haven’t found yet?”
“Either that… or he was preparing for a second murder.”
“Good Lord, Blackitt… what on earth——?”
“What I feel about this business,” continued Blackitt, “is that we’ve all been going round in a little circle, so to speak. Not looking for the bigger things behind, if you get me.”
West, thinking of the notes in the Home Secretary’s file, murmured a feeble “Ye… es.”
“When we—I mean the police—had to start off with the burglary at Charlton Court, we went through the usual investigations. And there was only one conclusion we could come to.”
“What was that?”
“Well, not only that it wasn’t a burglary—not in any ordinary sense—but also we became pretty sure that it wasn’t any of the usuals. Everything pointed to some one who knew the run of the place.”
“Got any theory who?”
“We went through all his customary visitors as you know. Not a shaky one amongst the lot. As respectable as the Archbishop’s.”
“Kinnaird?”
“I went into his affairs pretty thoroughly, but couldn’t get anything on him. Been hit a bit by the slump, but who hasn’t? Nothing that his friends couldn’t help him through, I gather. And there’s no motive in his case. He is practically engaged to Miss Oissel, and was on the best of terms with the old man. No, I’ve come to the conclusion that we must begin thinking from the starting-point of the loan. I think that�
��s the skeleton in the cupboard.”
“Or the cupboard which the skeleton is in,” smiled Robert, in spite of his utter tiredness. He was longing for sleep, but now that Blackitt had got his ally to himself he was in the mood to talk.
“And that’s where I’m worried about the Home Secretary.”
Robert sat up with a jerk, all attention. “Why?”
“Well, I take it this loan business isn’t finished?” Robert felt that the Inspector must be guided into safer paths.
“It is as far as he is concerned. He was only in it at all because he knew Mr Oissel personally. Now he is out of it the Home Secretary is out of it too.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Blackitt thoughtfully. “I wish I knew more about… er… well, how friendly the Home Secretary was with Mr Oissel.”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.”
Blackitt knocked out his pipe. “Well, I’m arguing like this, though I don’t see my way too clear as yet. There was big money in this loan for somebody.”
“Not for the Home Secretary,” said Robert hotly, but even as he said it he thought of those notes in the file, and felt rather sick.
“No, but perhaps his friendship with Mr Oissel was stopping some one else having a look in, and his influence may be being used in that way now.”
“This is getting all too fantastic, Blackitt, it really is. Are you suggesting with this talk of a second murder that some one is going to put the Home Secretary out of the way in order to get in on the loan? How on earth could that help whoever is responsible for Oissel’s murder?”
The Division Bell Mystery Page 13