by Tony Medawar
Out on the side road he stopped with a grin. The drunk had evidently dropped the orange. It was lying in the gutter. The Kid picked it up and polished it with his handkerchief.
As he stood in the shadow of the hedgerow that surrounded the Grapevine he stiffened suddenly. Two cars slid along the side road, pulled up on the waste ground in the shadow of the trees.
The Kid watched them. Saw four men get out of each. Two with Tommy-guns, two with sawn-off shot-guns. Moonlight flashed on a Sam Browne belt buckle. The law!
The Kid stood there thinking. There flashed back into his mind the remark of the fruit girl—‘I told the sap that Mr Parelli said it wasn’t to be touched …’
Why should Parelli want that orange left there, and why did Irma suddenly want an orange? And why was he sent out to meet Windy Pereira and his exit timed with the arrival of a couple of police gun-squads?
The Kid got it. So he was to be the sucker!
He walked quickly back across the lawn, around to the back of the Grapevine, into the garage. He found his roadster, started it up, backed it out on the gravel path at the back of the inn rear wall. He got out and left the engine running.
He opened the tool box in the rear carrier and took out what he wanted. He put it inside the breast of his jacket. Then he eased quietly around to the side entrance, went in and up the stairs.
Irma was waiting in the corridor. She looked a trifle surprised when he appeared.
‘Hello, kid,’ he said. ‘Come along here. I got something funny to tell you.’
They walked along to Parelli’s room. The Kid kicked the door open, pushed the girl in and stepped in after her. He had a flat, snub-nosed automatic in his left hand.
Inside Parelli, Scanci and Fannigan looked at him. Nobody said anything.
‘O.K.,’ said the Orange Kid. ‘Here we go!’
He put his right hand inside his coat, brought it out with something that looked like an orange in it. He threw it into the room, stepped back, shut the door. As he ran for the stairway the bomb detonated. The roar shook the inn. Downstairs a woman shrieked.
The Orange Kid put his foot down on the accelerator and headed for the State line. He didn’t expect to get far, but it was worth trying.
He was doing 70. He took his right hand off the wheel and felt about on the floor. After a second he found the orange he was feeling for.
He changed it over to his left hand and drove with his right. He bit hard through the orange skin and appreciated the tang of the juice.
Somewhere behind him a police siren shrieked.
PETER CHEYNEY
Reginald Evelyn Peter Southouse Cheyney was born in 1896 in Whitechapel, London, the youngest of five children. At the age of fifteen, his parents removed him from Hounslow College, where the only subject for which he had shown any aptitude was mathematics. After a spell in a solicitor’s office he embarked on a career in the theatre, appearing in plays such as Break down the Walls and The Butterfly on the Wheel. He enlisted on the outbreak of war in 1914 but was invalided home after being wounded by a bomb in the second battle of the Somme two years later. Despite his experiences in the First World War, during the Second World War, at the height of his fame, Cheyney joined the Home Guard and commanded its sole armoured unit.
After the Great War, Cheyney had returned to theatre, writing character sketches and songs for music hall artists such as Nellie Wallace and Albert Whelan. He also took to the stage himself and in 1923 performed monologues and songs on 2LO, which became the British Broadcasting Company. Cheyney also produced several plays but the rewards were low so he got a job as a journalist, reviewing new films, writing special features and working as a crime reporter. Around this time, while going through a protracted divorce from his first wife, Cheyney decided to try his hand at fiction. Published as newspaper serials, these early efforts had Rohmeresque titles like The Gold Kimono (1930), The Vengeance of Hop Fi (1931), Death Chair (1931) and Deadly Fresco (1932). A friend then bet Cheyney that he couldn’t write a thriller ‘in the American gangster vernacular’ … The result, This Man Is Dangerous (1936), was the first novel to feature Lemmy Caution, a character whose language and mannerisms almost laughable today but in the 1930s and ’40s was so popular that one newspaper would later estimate that Cheyney had earned the equivalent of more than ten million pounds from his many books. Ironically, none of them was published by the Crime Club.
Peter Cheyney died in a London hospital on 26 June 1951 with his third wife at his bedside. He had been suffering from bronchitis and heart trouble.
‘The Orange Kid’ was published by the Sunday Dispatch on 6 March 1938.
AND THE ANSWER WAS …
Ethel Lina White
‘Before you go home, Jones,’ said Timothy Rolls, ‘bring me in a cup of tea and three ham sandwiches.’
Casually he rattled off the order, which was to be of vital importance to his destiny.
‘Are you working late, Boss?’ asked his staff—a youth of seventeen.
‘Yes, Jones, I’m not so lucky as you. I’ve a darn bad employer. But he won’t sack me, and I can’t give him notice.’
His staff grinned dutifully at his joke, which expressed his pride and wonder at being his own master.
As he sat at his sewing-machine in the window of his shop, the light glared down on him. He was a little man with a plucky smile and pale from a constant steam atmosphere.
His large eyes held a wistful expression which was the result of muddled thinking about War, unemployment, and Eternity; but that evening their gravity sprang from a different cause.
He was concerned about the recent murders in the town. Two women had been killed and the criminal was still at large. As long as he lurked hidden—like the shadow quivering in deep sea-water, which alone betrays the presence of the shark—there was menace to every unprotected girl.
In particular, Rolls feared for his fellow-boarder—Miss Loretta Smith—who was employed in the bureau of the Bear Hotel and kept late hours. She was an attractive blonde, with a smart line of repartee and sound sense which would make her an ideal life-partner to a young man starting in business.
Because of her possible peril, Rolls scowled at the pair of trousers he was repairing, while his staff came back with his tea. The youth had left a few minutes when the door-bell jangled violently to announce a customer of municipal importance—the Mayor of Millbrook.
He was a prosperous and popular auctioneer—sandy and burly—who modelled himself on John Bull and thereby did the National Character grave injustice. At first, Rolls did not recognise him, for his normally florid face was pale and his light overcoat splashed with mud.
‘Been bowled over by a blasted bike,’ he panted. ‘Chap scorched off before I could take his number. Here—take my coat and clean it up. Can’t go through the town looking like a tramp.’
Rolls carried the coat over to the board, and, conscious that he was watched, tried to make a sponging-record, before placing the garment between the steam-rollers.
When the Mayor recovered his breath, he began to chat.
‘How do you like the provinces after London, Rolls?’
‘Fine, sir. This town’s more friendly than London … Only—it’s not safe for ladies until they catch this murderer.’
‘Hum. He seems too smart for the police.’
‘Not quite, sir. I lodge with Mrs Bull, and her husband’s been in the force, so I get the inside dope. He says these mystery cases are usually the work of a sort of Jekyll and Hyde—like the film.
‘The police may know who he is, but they can’t convict him without direct evidence. And the people who know, won’t tell … I would.’
‘More fool you. Suppose you got something on some big man. Who’s going to believe you? They’d think you potty. And if there’s the least shadow of doubt, you might as well put up your shutters. You’d be finished here.’
Rolls shuddered at the thought as he turned the coat inside out, to examine the lining. Arrested
by the sight of a dark smear around the pocket, he made a closer examination.
‘I’m afraid, sir,’ he suggested diffidently, ‘this coat ought to be sent to the cleaners. I couldn’t get out the blood.’
‘Blood?’
The Mayor’s voice was that of a stranger. Their eyes met … In that moment, Rolls felt transported to a dark unfamiliar place where he was locked in a stranglehold of horror.
‘It’s him,’ he thought. ‘I’m holding the evidence. Here—in my hands … If he won’t leave the coat, I’ll know. I must ring the police. He can’t kill me here, with people passing the window … But I must keep the coat.’
Suddenly he returned to his own brightly lit shop at the sound of the Mayor’s laugh.
‘Good show. That’s the other chap’s claret—not mine. Glad he got what was coming to him … Well, Rolls, send the coat to be properly cleaned. When do you knock off?’
‘I’ll be late tonight, sir. Good-night, sir.’
Directly he was alone, Rolls locked the garment in his press. Although the Mayor had vindicated himself, he felt vaguely upset by the incident. He went back to his machine, gulping down his tea and sandwiches as he worked.
It was after nine when he finished, which was too late to go back to the boarding-house, and too early to meet Miss Loretta. He decided therefore to go to the pictures, although he had to pay more than his usual price for a seat, since the cinema was crowded.
He enjoyed the first film, because he could imagine Loretta as the blonde, wise-cracking heroine, but the second was disquieting. It was about a girl who witnessed a murder and, consequently, became a fugitive from gangsters.
To increase his discomfort, he grew extremely thirsty—the penalty for eating lean ham, plastered with mustard—so that he could only think of ways of getting something to drink.
All the public houses would be closed and also the cafés. Eventually, however, he remembered a coffee-stall which was open all night for the benefit of motor-traffic.
While he was at the cinema his boarding-house was honoured by a personal visit from the Mayor.
‘I want to see young Rolls,’ he said pompously to the overworked slattern who answered his ring. ‘I’ll go up and wait for him if he’s not in. Where’s his room?’
‘Top. First door,’ replied the woman.
‘Right. I’ll find my way up. Don’t wait. I’ll let myself out.’
Apparently he was doomed to a long vigil, for it was after eleven when Rolls left the cinema and began to trudge towards the Gloucester Road. Presently he left the shops behind him and reached a bleak indeterminate region where town and country fused in a desolate road.
As he caught sight of the cheery glow from the coffee-stall, he hurried towards it eagerly, fishing the while for the last coin in his pocket. When he held it to the light he found, to his keen disappointment, that instead of being sixpence it was a farthing.
Too late, he remembered that he had paid extra for his seat at the cinema. As he lingered on the muddy footpath—too diffident to borrow from strangers—he was cheered by another recollection.
The room below his own at the boarding-house was occupied by a genial married couple—the Mitchells. The man was conductor of the Bear Hotel orchestra and came home late, when his wife always made coffee for him in their room.
Rolls was sure that they would not grudge him a cup. He turned to hurry back, when his attention was caught by something a man at the stall was saying.
‘She put up a good fight, but she was all in when my Alf heard her holler. Bleeding like a stuck pig, she was, but they say at the hospital as she’ll pull through.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Rolls.
‘Not heard?’ The man was delighted to get a new listener. ‘Major Blake’s daughter was attacked by a chap with a knife, on her way home from hockey. Young Alf chased him, but he got away. The girl says his face was covered with a dark handkerchief, but he was a big chap and wore a light fawn overcoat.’
‘W-what time?’ quavered Rolls.
‘Round about six-thirty.’
Rolls grew cold as he made a rapid calculation. At that time, he had sent his staff home and the Mayor had burst into his shop a few minutes later.
He hurried back to the town—a prey to conflicting emotions. A bomb seemed to have exploded inside his brain, spattering blazing thoughts.
‘Me. A little repairing-tailor—against His Worship the Mayor. He’ll stick to his tale about the blood coming from the cyclist and the police won’t have it tested, to compare it with the young lady’s … And suppose he doesn’t want any talk? I’m the only one that knows.’
Suddenly he realised the loneliness of his surroundings. On one side was a cemetery—on the other a football-ground. The dim light revealed a cinderpath, a thorn hedge and a hoarding where torn posters hung forlornly. Every shadow was a crouching form, poised to spring—every corner a test for quivering nerves.
When—at long last—Rolls reached the security of the High Street, he was exhausted and out of breath. Released from fear, he grew conscious again of his thirst. By this time it had increased to a pitch of near-torture, when every shred of ham turned to a little Red Devil goading his baked tongue.
Suddenly, he saw lying upon the pavement an orange, which had evidently rolled from a shuttered fruiterer’s shop.
In that parched moment, it seemed a wish fulfilled; but although his eyes gleamed, he did not pick it up. He was very particular about food and shrank from eating an orange that had been lying in the dirt of the street.
As he passed it the town hall clock began to strike. To his dismay he counted three chimes … By a quarter to twelve the Mitchells would be in bed. No coffee for him from them.
Water, then? That too was denied him. He could not grope down into the basement without disturbing the Bull family who slept there; and he dared not risk drinking from his dingy carafe, which, in spite of his complaints, always smelt stale.
Turning back, he picked up the orange. By the time he reached Madeira Terrace, he had wiped it clean and scooped out a bit of peel. As he let himself into the stuffy gloom of the hall, he began to suck the juicy pulp greedily—noisily. Treading softly, he felt his way upstairs. When he reached the Mitchells’ room no light shone through the transom, so he began to creep up the last flight.
Suddenly the darkness above him seemed to shake slightly, as though someone had moved. Aware that something was wrong, he dropped his orange and made an instinctive dart forward towards the light-switch. In the same moment, he felt a dull crash upon his skull, as though the roof had fallen, and then he knew no more.
Before he could fall, a man, who bore some resemblance to the Mayor, caught him and tugged him inside his room. This person was worked up to a state of dangerous excitement when the veins in his temples beat like tiny gongs and a red mist obscured his sight.
Dragging his victim over to the gas fire, he draped an eiderdown over him and the stove and then turned on the tap.
There was a frozen grin of ferocity upon his lips as he pocketed his weapon—a length of lead piping wrapped in a woollen sock—before he laid a letter upon the table. It was in his own handwriting and bore his signature, but was, by implication, Timothy Rolls’s suicide letter.
Dear Rolls
Re the matter we discussed in your shop this evening. I regret I can advance no capital to finance your business. My feeling is youth should have the guts to succeed without help, as I did myself.
Shutting the door carefully behind him, the Mayor prepared to steal from the house. His foot had barely touched the first step when he trod on the slippery remains of the orange. Instantly his heel shot out and he crashed heavily down the stairs.
As he lay at the bottom, half-stunned, the landing light was switched on and the huge band conductor, looking like Hercules in pyjamas, rushed out.
‘Why, Mr Mayor,’ he shouted. ‘What’s up, sir?’
It was then that the shock of his fall proved the Mayor’s
undoing, since it had re-started the old mental trouble, previously released by a recent accident to his head. Dazed and unaware of his action, he drew out his cosh and tried to attack the conductor.
While the two men struggled together Mitchell bellowed an order to his wife.
‘Little Rolls. See if he’s all right.’
As the two young gentlemen from the drapery rushed out of their rooms to assist her husband, Mrs Mitchell nipped up the stairs for she could smell gas. The bedroom was far from being lethal, but Rolls, who had monopolised most of the output from the stove, was already passing into a nice long sleep.
She opened the window, turned the tap of the gas, and then dropped on her knees beside the unconscious man. Rolling him over and over, she got him outside the room.
An hour later he was still on the landing, lying on a pile of rugs, while his room was being aired. He had already surrendered his keys to the police, who had the bloodstained coat in their possession, besides the person of the Mayor. All around him were the other boarders and drinks were in circulation as each person shouted against the other.
Presently Rolls spoke to Loretta alone.
‘I keep thinking how queer things work out. Are they planned? Why did I have to pick up an orange at 11.45 to save my life?’
‘Orange?’ repeated Loretta smartly, snapping at her chance. ‘Then the answer is not a lemon.’
ETHEL LINA WHITE
Ethel Lina White (1876–1944) was born in Wales and, together with several of her siblings, worked for her father’s construction materials business. After their mother died and the family lost all their money, White and two sisters moved to London where she got a job with the Ministry of Pensions. She had been writing for many years and had had several short stories published. In the mid-1920s she completed her first novel, The Wish-Bone (1927), and the modest success of this and two other early titles—including the futuristic fantasy The Eternal Journey (1930)—prompted her to take up writing as a career. Her first novel-length mystery, Put Out the Light (1931), is a brilliantly structured puzzle. It is especially noteworthy for the focus on the psychology of the characters, something that became a hallmark of her work.
