Mr. Corby pondered further. After all, he had worked at the Grafton Building for many years, and he felt a kinship with its occupants. True, one of them appeared to be a crook, but what were friends for if not to help in crucial moments? And how better could he help than by destroying the evidence of the theft? Pleased with this solution, Mr. Corby’s brow cleared. He stripped the balance of the wrapping material and burned it in the grate together with the incriminating note. He then uncorked the evidence and, tilting it to his lips, took the first step in destroying it.
The heavy body of the whiskey was as he remembered; the fine flavor held the same rewarding smokiness of his memories. If there was anything different about it at all, it could only have been the sudden sleepiness which it induced. In order to properly ponder this new quality, he laid his head upon the desk and quickly faded into oblivion.
Mr. Clifford Simpson, replete with two cups of strong tea and a variety of small sandwiches and sugared buns, came strolling back to the Grafton Building. Light streamed from a window high on the fifth floor, and he nodded in satisfaction. So far, so good. It only remained to see if the porter had followed his natural bent in order to get on with the job.
He suffered a momentary qualm as he entered the building lobby, for sounds seemed to come from the porter’s recess, but as he advanced farther into the gloom he readily identified them. Mr. Corby suffered from a deviated septum and, when sleeping, snored. Mr. Simpson viewed the vibrating visage for some moments with almost proprietary interest, but then felt called upon for a solution. Various positions of the head being unproductive, he ended by covering Mr. Corby’s head with a towel and closing the door of the cubbyhole firmly behind him as he left. A moment’s attentiveness in the empty lobby convinced him that the acoustical danger had been met, and he therefore proceeded with their plan.
Entering the small lift, he reached up and quickly unscrewed the bulb. This he placed in the pocket of his topcoat, replacing it in its socket with one which was burned out, and which had attained this electrical euthanasia through quite natural causes. Preferring to continue his labors in a less hazardous location than the ground floor, he fumbled in the darkness for the buttons that controlled the mechanism and, selecting the uppermost, pushed on it briskly.
He rose silently through the heart of the building. When a slight shudder advised him of his arrival, he pushed back the door. Here in the protected enclosure of the familiar sixth-floor areaway he felt safe in lighting his small flashlight, and he found, as he had known, that there was no crack through which a wandering beam could betray his presence to the outside world. They really built doors in those days, he thought approvingly, and began the most essential part of the operation.
The manufacturers of the Arvo Self-Operated Lifts, faced with the problem of automatizing their brainchild, had connected to each car a series of fingers which had to contact the proper switch on any floor before the doors could be manually slid open. These fingers, while extending a scant inch beyond the frame of the enclosure, had greater body within the small electrical switch box from which they protruded, and this small box Mr. Simpson now proceeded to dismantle. With the cover removed, this affair had a slightly bewildering complexity, for, in addition to harboring the door controls, it provided the maze of wiring necessary to call the cab to any specified floor. Mr. Simpson, however, had not spent the afternoon in the library studying the workings of Arvo Lifts for nothing. With a competence born of sure knowledge, he made two simple changes in the contacts and quickly screwed the cover back in place. Then, standing outside the cab, he reached in, pressed the first-floor button, and, withdrawing his hand, slid the doors shut. He listened to the hoodwinked mechanism descend, and then followed the puddle of light cast by his flashlight to the stairway in the corner and slowly descended to the fifth floor.
The barest halo of light illuminated one door, but he paid it no heed and continued with his schedule. His first move was to check the effectiveness of his previous efforts, and to this end he tugged gently on the doors of the lift shaft. Faithful to the deceived intelligence stored in the cab below, they responded by sliding open. A faintly stale breeze wafted up from the depths below. Mr. Simpson stood well back from the yawning abyss at his feet and with outstretched arms coaxed the doors back into closed position. Once they had clicked with what appeared to be an authentic latching sound, he nodded in a satisfied manner and went on to the last item on the program.
His flashlight beam climbed the stuccoed wall and came to rest on the arrow indicator above the lift door. This, not being in rapport with the door circuits, still stubbornly pointed to One. By reaching up, his arm extended by the length of his screwdriver, Mr. Simpson was able to free the locking screw and shift the light bronze arm about. When it pointed to Five, he tightened it in place and stepped back.
As far as he could discern, all preliminary steps had now been taken; the stage was set. It was now time to ring the curtain up on the final act. Replacing his tools in his cavernous pockets, he dusted off his fingers and approached the door from which light seeped. Without hesitation he beat a light tattoo upon the panel.
There was a hesitation in the rhythm of the typing within. Then the typing ceased completely, and footsteps could be heard. The door swung back, revealing a hard-faced woman, amply built, dressed in a shade of green that was particularly revolting. Simpson did not need to refer to the portrait in his pocket; there was no doubt but that he faced Mrs. Sarah Bosler. Behind her he could see a forest of bare desks, piles of paper, and rows of typewriters—all the paraphernalia of modern-day philanthropy.
“Yes?” she inquired suspiciously, and flicked on an additional switch on the wall, flooding the areaway with light. For a moment Simpson nearly succumbed to panic, but then he realized that this light, too, would have to be extinguished when the offices were eventually locked up.
“Is this—or, rather, are these—the offices of Peace Lovers, Incorporated?”
She stared at him. “PLINK?”
For a second this musical sound confused him, but then he realized that she was, in the modern manner, only abbreviating the name. He bobbed his head gratefully. “That’s right.”
“No,” she said shortly. “We work with them, of course, but these certainly aren’t their offices.” Unable, or unwilling, to stifle her resentment, she continued. “The Plinks don’t feel that their cause warrants their staying one second after seven, and it’s ages over that now, you know.” She looked up at him, her suspicion returning. “Why didn’t you stop by and ask the porter?”
But Simpson had been prepared for this question.
“I did, you know,” he said gently. “Stopped, that is. I couldn’t ask him, you see, because he wasn’t there.”
She bit her lip viciously. “That Corby! That incompetent! I suppose he’s stepped out for a—for a tea or something. He does, whenever he thinks he can get away with it.” The cold glitter in her eye clearly indicated that if she were in charge Corby would never again step out for anything except his dole payment.
Simpson put on all his charm and smiled at her in quite a friendly fashion. “I understand,” he said pleasantly. “Porters will be porters. Tell me,” he continued, wandering beyond the threshold of the office as if drawn in almost against his will, “what is the tremendous magnetic power of this work that draws a charming person such as yourself into staying so late at your tiring efforts?”
She checked her first rejoinder; after all, her visitor was obviously a gentleman, and well past the age of either flippancy or idle flirtation. For the first time her eyes took in the neat clothing, the warm sincerity of the friendly brown eyes, the huge lankiness of the man before her. Really not too different from Lord Hough, she found herself thinking; other, of course, than their general appearance.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, trying hard not to sound girlish. “One feels that one has a mission, you know.”
“But a mission until all hours of the night?” he insiste
d, smiling down at her. “Certainly there should be a limit to the time such a charming person expends, even on the most vital of missions.” Where do I get it from? he wondered, even as he spoke. From what dried-up wells of almost-forgotten authorship do such sweet streams of pure unadulterated blarney flow? But he realized that the tactic had been a correct one, for the woman before him actually simpered.
“Well, the fact is,” she began coyly, and referred to the tiny wristwatch almost lost in the folds of her wrist, “it’s nearly time for me to leave.” He was suddenly convinced that had he made a move to leave at that moment, his arm would have been instantly grasped.
“Fine!” He countered the querying eyebrows by adding, “At this late hour, the very least a gentleman can do is to escort a lovely lady to her transportation. Unless you might care to stop for a … tea, or something?”
She giggled and then froze at her own impetuousness. “I’ll only be a sec,” she said, and tore back into the depths of the office. Covers were flung on typewriters and documents thrust hastily into drawers. Without a pause for breath she came around the pylon turn of the water cooler, catching up her hat and coat on the run.
“There!” she said, trying to control her panting. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
“Not at all,” Simpson said politely, and stood aside from the door as her fingers fumbled with the switches within. The Stygian darkness that suddenly descended lasted but a fraction of a second; her fingers snatched at the switches once more, and light returned.
“I’m so sorry,” she said contritely. “Usually when I work late, I call the lift up to this floor and lock the offices by the light from the cab.” She tilted her head coyly in the direction of the lift. “Would you mind?”
“A pleasure,” said Simpson with Old-World courtesy, and walked over to press his finger firmly against the wall within an inch of the button. He sincerely hoped she would not notice the indicator pointing to Five. He leaned forward in a listening attitude and nodded solemnly.
“It’s coming.” His eyes came up. “If you’d like to lock up, I have a cigar lighter.”
She hesitated, but the scratch of the lighter and the flare of fire seemed to call for decision, so she clicked off the lights and, pulling the heavy door closed, swung her key in the lock. And then turned to face a smiling Simpson.
“It’s finally arrived,” he said, and supported his claim by holding his long arm aloft. His lighter flickered inches from the indicator pointing to Five. “But,” he added in a surprised tone of voice, “it appears that the cab light isn’t functioning.”
“That Corby!” she spat.
“Porters!” he murmured, and reached for the elevator doors. By some coincidence his lighter was suddenly extinguished even as his fingers found the handle. “Lighters!” he said humorously in her ear, and pulled the doors back.
“After you, madame,” he said in such a gallant voice that it would have been unthinkable to refuse the urging of that warm tone. Happy to be able to respond to such pleasant encouragement, she smiled and stepped forward….
“So you see,” Briggs said reasonably, “there really wasn’t anything to worry about after all.” He poured brandy all around and slid two glasses toward his companions. “Your plan worked perfectly, and so I say: Success!” He began to lift his glass and then noticed that Carruthers was not joining them. “Here, now!” said Briggs, slightly aggrieved. “Aren’t you even going to drink to that?”
“Cliff,” said Carruthers, disregarding the smaller man completely, “are you certain you put the indicator pointer back in place?”
“Positive,” replied Simpson, looking at Carruthers in surprise.
“And rewired the control panel? Properly?”
“Well, I put it back the way I found it. I don’t swear it was all right in the first place.” He shook his head. “Had to do it all on the first floor, too, because I didn’t want to move the cab with her up on top. And the ceiling all sagged, too—you have no idea what her twelve stone did to that flimsy roof!”
Carruthers bit his lip in silence. “And the burned-out bulb? You left that, of course?”
“Of course. It’s what we had planned on, wasn’t it?” He looked at Carruthers in faint alarm. “Just exactly what is bothering you, Billy?”
But Carruthers disregarded the question and continued with his cross-examination. “And the porter? How did you leave him?”
“In peace, although I’m afraid he’ll have a bit of a head when he wakes up. I detoweled him, opened the door to his room, and bid his sleeping figure fond adieu. In fact,” Simpson added, recalling, “I even removed temptation from his path, because I poured the rest of the bottle down the W.C. and flushed it before returning the empty bottle to his hand.” He stared at Carruthers curiously. “Why? Did I do something wrong? Did I forget anything?”
Carruthers sighed and shook his head.
“If you did,” he said despondently, “I fail to see what it was. The schedule was followed exactly. Everything that we planned happened, and nothing happened that we did not plan.”
“So? Is that bad?”
Carruthers looked at them with a face so torn with misery that for a moment they thought he might be ill. “In that case,” he asked in a haunted voice, “why is my premonition as strong as ever? Why do I feel as fearful now as I did before the job? What went wrong that we haven’t as yet foreseen?”
Briggs snorted angrily. “Rubbish! Nothing went wrong! What you need is a drink!”
“Really, Billy,” Simpson said in irritation. “Aren’t you overdoing it a bit? Relax, for God’s sake! Have that drink!”
“Well, all right,” Carruthers said hopelessly, and took up his glass. “I’ll have that drink, and I’ll toast success, but take my word for it—this one was a mistake. I feel it in my bones.”
“Drink up!” Briggs snapped. “You’re beginning to get the wind up me!”
Carruthers lifted his glass in a subdued manner. “Sorry,” he said apologetically, and then, with one heave of his leonine head, flung the brandy down his throat. “All right,” he said quietly. “It was fine. It was perfect. We have nothing to worry about. Satisfactory?” He poured his glass full again and lifted it in a toast.
“To success,” he said, and shook his head dolefully.
8
The error into which Briggs and Simpson had fallen, of course, was in assuming that only the Scottish and the Welsh were mentally attuned to prognosticative forebodings. Had they been better grounded in their esoterics, they might have known that the majority of horses kept on the farms surrounding Hull are believed to be descendants of kelpies, and the whistling that is heard in the shrouds of ships alongside the Hull quay in reality comes from undines who like to whistle.
Aware of these facts, they might have exhibited less tendency to scoff at Carruthers’ auguries; they might even have forgotten the tenth case and have been satisfied with the nine thousand and forty pounds, eight shillings and fivepence. But they weren’t, and no undine or kelpie came along to advise them. They were therefore forced, together with Carruthers, to discover the full extent of their sophistry in the following morning’s Times.
The headline and article which proved Carruthers’ intuition so correct appeared on the second page, and read:
PORTER HELD IN BOSLER DEATH
No Alibi for Fatal Hour
Police are holding Mr. Arthur Corby, porter of the Grafton Building in Clayton Street, for the willful murder of Mrs. Sarah Bosler, secretary of the Jarvis Greater-Love-Hath-No-Man Foundation, whose crushed body was found on top of the lift-cab in the building early this morning.
Early arrivals at the building noted blood dripping from the cab-roof and called police. Investigation proved it to be coming from Mrs. Bosler. Scotland Yard, called in as soon as the corpse’s identity was established, thoroughly questioned all witnesses, and then arrested Mr. Corby.
Depositions by many of the building’s occupants show that an active st
ate of enmity has existed between the two for some time, and just two days ago Mr. Corby is quoted as having said, “Someday I’m going to heave that old (censored) down the (censored) liftshaft.”
Mr. Cory pleaded a blinding headache as his excuse for giving confused answers to his questioners, but did admit to being, as far as he knew, alone in the building with Mrs. Bosler, although he claimed he was sleeping through the crucial hour when it is thought the murder took place. Beyond this he stated that he had had some whiskey, and this had caused his drowsiness; but witnesses were produced who claimed that Mr. Corby often had had as much as a quart in their presence without exhibiting any ill effects.
Because of the open-and-shut nature of the case, Scotland Yard did not interdict the premises, but simply took Mr. Corby into custody. The offices of the building are closed today, however, out of respect for the dead woman.
It is expected that Mr. Corby will come up for early trial, shortly after the inquest on Mrs. Bosler is held.
The three stared at each other in consternation.
“Well?” Carruthers said bitterly, in the manner of one who would have said “I told you so” had he been less under control.
“Well, what?” Briggs snapped, taking his shock out in anger. “This Mrs. What’s-her-name, Whimple, didn’t say anything about any feud! So how were we to know?”
The Murder League Page 11
