by Tony Medawar
Time and again his uncle’s money and influence had got him out of nasty scrapes. But when it came to giving stumer cheques in Mr Underwood’s own native town …!
Oh, he’d been fair enough to the young rascal, nobody could deny that. He had sent for him that morning and told him exactly what he meant to do.
He would meet the cheques, and buy him a ticket for any part of the Dominions he might care to select. But, at the same time, he would write to his lawyer and instruct him to draw up a will in which Victor’s name should not appear.
What else could he have been expected to do? Fair? Of course he had been quite fair …
At last Mr Underwood dozed off, for how long he could not tell. Then, still more than three parts asleep, he shifted lazily into a more comfortable position, and, as he did so, half opened his eyes.
His glance fell upon the orange, conspicuous on the table in the bright moonbeams that poured through the cabin skylight.
And it seemed to Mr Underwood’s senses, clogged with sleep, that the orange was moving, rolling slowly towards the forward end of the table.
Ridiculous! Must be the effect of the whisky. If he opened his eyes wider, he would see the orange standing perfectly stationary where he had put it.
But no. The orange continued to move, increasing the speed of its rolling until it reached the end of the table then fell, with a splash, not a thud, on the cabin floor.
Mr Underwood sprang out of his bunk and stood for an instant on the floor, ankle-deep in water.
The Amelia was tilting, ever more rapidly: the water surged past his feet like a mill race. He must get out quick, before …
Somehow he tore open the folding doors, struggled into the cockpit, and thence on deck. The motor cruiser’s bow was already beneath the surface of the water.
Mr Underwood leapt for the quayside, slipped back. His groping hands clutched a mooring-ring, and with a supreme effort he dragged himself to safety.
As he picked himself up the Amelia’s stern rose vertically into the air. Mr Underwood held his breath as she remained in that position for a couple of long-drawn seconds.
Then, with a prodigious gurgling, she plunged bow-first to the bottom of the harbour, leaving behind her a swirl of oily water.
Mr Underwood’s mind was so enthralled by the miracle of his escape that for the moment he could spare no thought for the cause of the foundering.
‘Talk about a bit of luck!’ he exclaimed. ‘If it hadn’t been for that blessed orange …’
JOHN RHODE
The writer best known as ‘John Rhode’ was born Cecil John Charles Street (1884–1964). He is one of the most prolific writers of the Golden Age, responsible for around 150 novels, published under four pseudonyms. As well as crime fiction, which he took up only after an impressive career as a military propagandist, he wrote short stories and plays, and also translated from the French biographies of Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a military engineer of the seventeenth century, and the explorer Captain Cook. Street was awarded the Military Cross and the Order of the British Empire for his war work, but is today best known for his crime fiction and the extraordinarily diverse and creative means of murder he devised. While some find John Street’s fiction humdrum, others delight in his ingenuity and the gentle pace with which the mysteries are carefully unravelled. His major series are those published as by ‘John Rhode’, the majority of which feature the sleuth Lancelot Priestley, and as by ‘Miles Burton’, all but six of which feature Desmond Merrion. In a third series, published under the pen name ‘Cecil Waye’, the detectives are siblings, Christopher and Vivienne Perrin.
As well as writing extensively, Street also played a major role in the life of the Detection Club, the dining club for crime writers established by Anthony Berkeley at the end of the 1920s. Most notably, he was responsible for wiring up the eyes of Eric the Skull, the gruesome artefact on which all new members are required to take the Club’s light-hearted oath of allegiance.
‘The Yellow Sphere’ was published by the Sunday Dispatch on 3 April 1938.
THE ‘EAT MORE FRUIT’ MURDER
William A. R. Collins
Let us consider Mr Hildegard Silvercat, who stood leaning precariously against the sharp corner of a shop window in the region of Berkeley Square on a winter’s night.
And, while we are about it, let us face the fact that Hildegard had dined both wisely and too well.
Wisely because his prolonged dinner with his partner, Mr Anthony Gallery, had resulted in a nasty hatchet being buried; too well because Hildegard—a very simple soul really—was not so used to champagne and brandy as the more alcoholic Anthony, and the night air was a little too strong for his already tremulous mind.
Hildegard gazed, wide-eyed, across the square with that peculiarly wise expression that denotes the second stage of intoxication.
Hildegard was happy. He realised that life could still be worthwhile, that Anthony, in spite of his bad tempers, his drinking, and his suspicions, was an extraordinarily nice feller, dammit, and that Venetia Gallery, his wife, was a definitely nice feller too—and a wise one.
Say what you like, Hildegard told himself, giving a manly push against the window and thereby obtaining sufficient momentum to begin to negotiate the square—say what you like, there were moments when a woman’s intuition was definitely the thing.
If it hadn’t been for Venetia’s intuition, if she hadn’t guessed somehow that Anthony had got the ridiculous idea into his head that there was something going on between herself and Hildegard, there might have been the devil to pay.
But she had. She had somehow guessed that the tortuous and odd mind of Anthony was filled with vague suspicions about his wife and his partner. She had observed his growing ill-tempers, his hatred for the inoffensive Hildegard.
What had put such a fatuous idea into Anthony’s head in the first place?
Hildegard attempted to shrug his shoulders. He failed dismally, merely succeeding in hiccoughing with such energy that he nearly ricked his neck.
By Jove, sir, it was clever of Venetia to have found it out, to have shown her husband what a fool he had been, to have convinced him of the idiocy of his baseless suspicions, and then, as a supreme gesture, persuaded him to ask Hildegard to dinner, to open his heart and to apologise for all the nastiness, the bitter remarks, the quarrels of the last six months.
Ten minutes ago Anthony had left him. Somebody had telephoned, and Anthony, staggering back from the call, had informed Hildegard that he was leaving, that he had to go home.
He was careful to instruct Hildegard that he was to follow, in ten minutes’ time. Anthony had ordered a final brandy for Hildegard before he had gone off. Anthony was a good feller, dammit.
Hildegard crossed the road and stood swaying gracefully in Davies Street, gazing at a poster that exhorted the world to ‘Eat More Fruit.’
Eating more fruit, ruminated Hildegard, was a national necessity. The poster was right.
He, Hildegard, believed in eating more fruit, dammit, and if he could get some fruit at that moment he’d just show you something—a nice juicy orange, for instance.
The very idea made him run a somewhat furry tongue over dry lips.
And at that very moment it happened. In answer to his prayer, a fruit barrow came out of a mews half way down Davies Street.
Hildegard, thanking a kindly fate for hearing his prayer, endeavoured to hasten after it. But it was of no avail. The barrow moved faster than he. No matter how he might try he could not catch up. His legs just wouldn’t work properly.
Fate intervened again. As the pusher of the barrow swung it across the road an orange fell off, rolled, unobserved by its rightful owner, into the gutter.
Using a first-class Red Indian technique, Hildegard stalked that orange. He approached it as a cat approaches a mouse. He sprang upon it eventually with joy.
It was a very good orange. Hildegard, having laid his overcoat in the gutter, examined it with pride, the
n, with great difficulty, he pushed it into the inner breast pocket of his evening tail coat. He would eat it with triumph just before he went to bed.
He looked about for a cab. He forgot that he was supposed to go along to the Gallery flat. Turning, he saw for the first time that evening Venetia, gracious, dark and mysterious as ever.
‘Well … well … well, Hildegard,’ she said softly. ‘You are in a state, aren’t you? But I can understand. I’m so glad that you two have talked all this nonsense out and that everything’s all right.
‘I was just going home when I saw your distinguished figure reeling in the distance. You’d better come in for a nightcap.’
Hildegard explained that that was what he was doing. That somebody had telephoned Anthony and that Anthony had instructed him to follow to the flat. Venetia smiled and took his arm.
‘Come along, Hildegard,’ she said. ‘We’ll go in by the side entrance. You wouldn’t want the porter to see you like this, would you, Hildegard?’
The Chief Inspector looked at Detective-Sergeant McCaffey, with a raised eyebrow.
‘Just where is Silvercat?’ he asked.
‘He’s round at the office,’ McCaffey said. ‘He professes to know nothing about it at all. He says that he met Mrs Gallery on the way home, while he was walking down Davies Street. He says he was fearfully tight.
‘His story is that somebody telephoned to Gallery while they were drinking liqueurs after an excellent dinner which had been going on since nine o’clock, and Gallery said that he had to go off home and asked Silvercat to follow on after him.
‘When they got to the flat he says he threw his coat on to the hall table, that Mrs Gallery insisted that he had another drink—that she gave him a strong one, and that he sat in a chair and went off to sleep.
‘He says he woke up at some time after midnight and went off quietly. He walked home.’
The Chief Inspector grunted.
‘He did it all right,’ he said. ‘There’s motive proved and everything. The woman’s story is supported by statements taken from half a dozen people.’
He paused.
‘But before we do anything serious,’ he said, ‘you might get around to his flat, McCaffey, and see if you can get hold of his evening clothes. Have a look at them and see if there are any bloodstains. We might as well get every bit of corroborative evidence we can.
‘Pick up Silvercat on the way back. Ask him to come down here and make a statement. We can get the warrant while he’s down here if necessary and arrest him here.
‘I suppose Brown is keeping an eye on the office in case he decides to try and run out on us?’
McCaffey nodded.
‘There’s just one other thing,’ he said. ‘It’s not important. Silvercat says that he met Mrs Gallery by accident.
‘He says that he crossed the road to pick up an orange that fell off a fruit barrow. He says he was thirsty and thought he’d like an orange!’
The Chief Inspector grunted again.
‘I bet he’ll feel like eatin’ one the day they hang him,’ he said grimly. ‘Go ahead, McCaffey,’ he concluded, ‘and on your way down ask them to send Mrs Gallery in again. I want to check her statement.’
‘l don’t think that there are any other points, Mrs Gallery,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘The main points are these. Interrupt me, please, if everything isn’t exactly right.
‘For the last six months Silvercat had been making unpleasant advances to you. You told your husband about this, and there had been trouble between the two men.
‘Your husband was keen on trying to put the matter right without having to dissolve the partnership.
‘Last night Silvercat invited your husband to dinner. You were rather frightened of this because you thought that Silvercat had something in his mind. You asked your husband not to go. Your husband arrived home at eleven thirty, rather intoxicated.
‘He told you that he had quarrelled with Silvercat, who had made one or two slighting remarks about you, that he had got up and walked out of the restaurant after telephoning you to say that he was coming home.
‘Ten minutes afterwards Silvercat telephoned from a callbox. He said that your husband had walked out on him, and that he was coming along and going to give him a first-class hiding.
‘Almost immediately after this call your husband arrived home.
‘He was in a state of intoxication and went straight to his room to bed. Your one idea then was to prevent Silvercat from coming into the flat.
‘So you went out and walked down the street to meet him and ask him to go away.
‘He was perfectly sober. You talked him into a better frame of mind, and he said that he would go off quietly if you allowed him in for a final drink with you. You agreed.
‘He went into the flat with you, threw his overcoat in the hall.
‘You went into the kitchen for some soda water. While you were there you heard the sound which you describe as a bump, and you imagined that your husband had fallen over in his room.
‘When you returned from the kitchen Silvercat was standing in the hallway outside your husband’s door, laughing fiendishly. Instinctively, by his expression, you felt that something awful had happened.
‘You dropped the glass and ran up to him. You seized him by the lapels of his coat and you saw, protruding from the inner breast pocket, the butt of an automatic pistol.
‘Silvercat pushed you away, and you fell. You struck your head in falling against the flat side of the hall table. You became unconscious. When you came to he was gone.
‘You remembered what had happened: you went into your husband’s room and found him dead, shot through the chest. You immediately telephoned the police.’
The Chief Inspector looked up.
‘Is that right, Mrs Gallery?’ he said.
She nodded. She could not speak.
The policeman shook his head.
‘It’s a bad business, Mrs Gallery,’ he said. ‘But if it’s any satisfaction to you to know it, his murderer won’t get away with it. It’s an obvious case. There isn’t any possibility of doubt.’
She got up slowly as the telephone bell rang. The Chief Inspector answered it. He talked for some time. Then:
‘Mrs Gallery,’ he said. ‘Just a minute. I’ve just heard that one of my people has been examining Silvercat’s coat. There’s an orange stuck in the breast coat pocket. It’s stuck there so hard that it can’t be moved without a great deal of force.
‘The coat was lying on the floor where Silvercat evidently threw it last night. Tell me, Mrs Gallery,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘Just how was the pistol butt protruding from the small inner breast pocket if an orange was jammed there?
‘You can’t carry a .32 automatic and a large orange in the inner breast pocket of an evening coat.
‘The point’s rather important,’ said the Chief Inspector, ‘because Silvercat told us something about an orange. We didn’t believe him. We thought he was trying to make out he was drunk.
‘But the detective sergeant who found the orange has made some enquiries in Davies Street.
‘A street-hawker keeps his barrow in a mews there. This hawker says that he lost an orange somewhere in that district last night, that he was an orange short this morning.’
He folded his hands and looked at her seriously.
‘Sit down, Mrs Gallery,’ he said kindly. ‘Perhaps you’d like to have a cup of tea and think things over.
‘Perhaps you’d like to make another statement about what really happened last night, but,’ he went on quietly, ‘I must tell you that anything you say from now on may be used in evidence against you …’
WILLIAM A. R. COLLINS
William Alexander Ray Collins, known to all as Billy, was born in 1900. Educated at Harrow and Magdalen College, Oxford, he accepted his destiny and in the 1930s joined the family business, the publishing firm of Collins, which had been established in Glasgow by his ancestor William Collins in 1819. Collins was
of course the publisher behind the Crime Club imprint.
‘One’s first impression is that he is very intellectual and possibly inclined to asceticism,’ wrote Peter Cheyney. ‘As usual, one’s first impression is quite wrong. He rides to hounds twice a week, shoots, plays no mean game of tennis, and finds time to talk to verbose people like myself. He directs—with other members of the Collins family—a publishing business which, last year, published an average of two books a day!’
Billy Collins became the company’s Chairman and Managing Director in 1945. His drive and abilities were the stuff of legend and, widely acclaimed as one of the greatest publishers there has ever been, he guided the firm through a period of significant growth, internationally as well as at home. He developed a particularly strong friendship with Agatha Christie, admittedly influenced by her significant value to the company, and was invited to deliver the eulogy at her memorial service in 1976, shortly before his own death. Outside publishing he was a keen ornithologist and cared passionately about wildlife conservation: like the actor David Niven, he accepted an invitation from the naturalist Gerald Durrell to be a trustee of the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. In recognition of his many achievements, he was awarded many honours and knighted in 1970.
Sir William Collins OBE died on 21 September 1976. ‘The “Eat More Fruit” Murder’ was published by the Sunday Dispatch on 10 April 1938. Despite publishing detective fiction throughout his working life, this story appears to have been Collins’ one and only attempt at writing it …
FOOTNOTES
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THE SCARECROW MURDERS
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THE CASE OF THE UNLUCKY AIRMAN
1 On 30 September 1966, the British protectorate of Bechuanaland became the independent republic of Botswana.
