The Progress of a Crime

by Julian Symons

  “Jones. The boy who sang last night. His father, nasty piece of work in a small way, been inside a couple of times for petty pilfering, rang this morning early. He said after his boy came home last night a note was pushed through the letter-box. Jones didn’t see the note himself, and can’t find it now, but he says when the boy opened it he was frightened, said the others were going to cut him up. The way he talked, young Jones might have been a shy violet instead of a little rat who’s had his nose in the gutter ever since he left the cradle. So it seems he got the wind up and skipped. Not likely he’ll get far,” Langton added, but there was no comfort in his tone.

  There was something inhuman, Norman felt, about Twicker’s calmness. To have his decision of the previous night so clearly shown as mistaken, to have to make a report which couldn’t possibly be a justification, to have to inform the Chief Constable, these were painful humiliations. It would have got Langton on his side if the super had admitted that he’d guessed wrong last night, or if that was too much to ask, had at least let go a few comradely curses. But Twicker simply made a gesture in the direction of the Chief Constable’s room and said, “He knows about it?”

  Langton nodded. “That’s done.”

  “Good. Then we’d better bring in the other five.” Twicker turned to Norman. “I’ll have a word with the C.C. now, then we’ll go out to Far Wether. If you can come with us I’d be pleased,” he said to Langton.

  It was an olive branch extended reluctantly and too late. Langton said stiffly, “I’ve got a lot on around here this morning. The local chap—his name’s Buckley—can help you with the people out there more than I can.”

  Twicker merely nodded. It was an object lesson, Norman thought, in how to lose friends and alienate people. As they left the station it began to rain.

  Late that afternoon Norman typed up the notes of what they had got from people at Far Wether. He had got very wet, and was not in a good temper. Not for the first time, he thought that a detective’s life had little to recommend it. This was Saturday afternoon, and he might have been at home with his feet up in front of a roaring fire eating buttered toast, after an afternoon spent watching Fulham at Craven Cottage. Instead, he was sitting in a cold and draughty room typing out a mass of boring notes in a case that was likely to provide glory for nobody, and certainly none for Sergeant Norman, after eating a stale bun and drinking a cup of tea. It was a hard life, he thought, deliberately putting out of mind how much he enjoyed the drinking and the comradeship and the feeling that he belonged to an élite which possessed powers denied to the rest of society. And there’s not a piece of crumpet in the case, he thought, I dare say there’s not a piece of crumpet in this whole dead-and-alive city. He twisted the paper round the platen and began to type.

  Joe Pickett. Age 45. Works as jobbing gardener at various houses in district. Attended dance, saw Corby throw out boys. Said that actually at dance Corby was involved in struggle with only two boys, others left. Confident he would recognise these two again, and probably others. Close to Corby on Guy Fawkes night. Saw him attacked. Saw two boys actually strike blows. Saw a knife drawn by one boy, not sure which one. Heard a voice cry, “Get him, King.” Called out to boys to stop. Saw boys run away.

  Joshua Mackintosh. Age 52. Local doctor. Not at dance, but present on Guy Fawkes night. Confirms Pickett’s story, except that he says “two or three” boys attacked Corby. Thinks he might recognise one of them. Examined Corby immediately after attack, and will give evidence as to injuries.

  Maureen Dyer. Age 11. Daughter of local farmer. Present on Guy Fawkes night. One youth stumbled against her, knocked her over. She felt in his pocket “something hard and sharp.” Saw youth clearly, thinks she would recognise him again.

  There was a lot more of it, but the rest was unimportant. These were the witnesses who had really seen something of the boys and who might be able to identify them. There was the reporter from the Gazette, too, but Twicker, a glutton for work, was looking after that himself.

  13

  Clare lurched on her high heels across the Reporters’ Room and said with haughty archness, “Your sins have found you out.”

  “What?” It was half-past five, and the office was deserted. Hugh Bennett, there only because he was duty reporter for the evening, was dozing over Of Human Bondage.

  “Don’t look so alarmed, sweetie. It’s a police superintendent, a real one all the way from Scotland Yard. I met him on the doorstep and brought him in.”

  He blinked back sleep and said to the man who stood a little behind and to one side of Clare, “Oh yes. I’m sorry. You’re—”

  “My name is Twicker.” The voice was low and impersonal. “I wanted to have a word with you, Mr. Bennett. I shan’t keep you long.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you for your help,” Twicker said to Clare, speaking rather as though she were a child. Clare, who had, as Hugh knew, a belief that she was attractive to what she called older men, looked annoyed. He did his best for her.

  “This is Clare Cavendish, one of our reporters.”

  “Sometime,” Clare said with ghastly vivacity, as Twicker gravely bowed his grey head in acknowledgment of her name, “sometime I’d like to interview you, Superintendent, so that I could do a piece for my women’s page. Something absolutely personal, you know. What you eat for breakfast, whether you take the dog for a walk at night, funny things that have happened to you—you know?”

  “You’re confusing me with a celebrity, Miss Cavendish.” Twicker turned away from her so decisively that Clare had no choice but to leave. She made a face at Hugh just before closing the door.

  Hugh shivered. He felt cold, in spite of the electric radiator’s shining bars, and was still not fully awake. “It’s about the Far Wether business, I suppose.”

  “Yes. My sergeant and I were out there to-day. We took a number of statements. You were there yourself.” There was something uncomfortably intense in Twicker’s gaze. What was it Fairfield had said about him? “What I want you to do is to tell me just what you heard and saw that evening.”

  “You mean I shall be called as a witness.”

  The superintendent smiled briefly. “We haven’t got as far as calling witnesses yet. We take dozens of statements, hundreds perhaps, in a matter like this. You know that, I’m sure. This is just routine.”

  Had all this happened less than two days ago? Hugh wondered as he told haltingly of that evening, trying to remember and trying also, what seemed somehow even harder, not to invent, not to clarify artificially something that was in essence confused. Twicker made a note or two, but for the most part sat and listened. At the end he said, “This youth—you had your arms round him—did you recognise him? And would you know him again?”

  It was quiet in the room that was often so noisy, and Hugh Bennett took in the room’s details, the pipes resting on an inkstand at Lane’s desk, the open typewriters, the copies of Vogue and Harper’s stacked neatly at Clare’s place, the general genial familiarity of chipped old desks and yellowing curled notices pinned up on the walls. One of the juniors had left a piece of paper in the very old Oliver that was reserved for junior staff and, straining his eyes to look, he saw that it said in capitals GOD IS LOVE BUT LANE IS OUR NEWS EDITOR.

  “Did you recognise him?” Twicker repeated without impatience.

  Why should he notice these things at this moment, why should what he said seem important? “Yes,” he said, and began immediate qualification. “That is, I didn’t recognise him at the time, but I’ve seen him since and recognised him.”

  “When?”

  “This morning. I was in Peter Street when he was arrested. His name is Leslie Gardner.”

  Twicker’s deep-set eyes stared uncomfortably at him. “You are sure this was the same boy?”

  His boats were burnt now, and rightly burnt. “Quite sure.”

  “When he left you,
he went towards Corby?”

  “Yes.”

  “This was before you heard somebody shout, ‘Get him, King’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think you would recognise the voice of the boy who said that?”

  He tried to evoke the voice, to catch any flavour of individuality in it, and failed. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s all, then.” Then Twicker said with apparent casualness, “When you had your arms round Gardner, did you feel anything in his pockets?”

  “In his pockets.” He considered, trying to stretch out those few seconds of contact. “Yes. I came up against something hard on his right-hand side. I wouldn’t like to say which pocket.”

  “Could you feel what sort of shape it was? Could it have been a knife?”

  “It could have been, yes.”

  “All right.” Twicker got up. “I’d like you to come down to the station and make a statement, when it’s convenient. To-morrow morning?”

  “Yes.” A shade too eagerly perhaps, he said, “Is there anything you can tell me for the Gazette?”

  “We have made five arrests in connection with the murder.” Twicker spoke slowly. He was a remarkably handsome man, Hugh thought. “We believe that a sixth boy, Frank Jones, can help us with our inquiries. We are anxious to interview him.”

  “You can’t say more than that?”

  “Not at the moment. A man has been killed, and I’m here to find out who did it. To you this may be just a piece of copy, but to me it’s something personal.”

  Was it true, Hugh wondered after Twicker had gone, that to him the case was just a piece of copy? He read again what that over-bright junior had written: GOD IS LOVE BUT LANE IS OUR NEWS EDITOR. Then, for no particular reason, he began to think about Jill Gardner.

  14

  The Rotor was in Yates Road, the main street of Paradise Vale. It stood, blinking its name in neon, between a multiple clothing store and a multiple grocer, both of which were closed on this Saturday evening. Norman pushed open the swing-door and went in. He was feeling much more cheerful since Twicker had given him the job of making inquiries here, even though the accompanying remark that this was the kind of thing Norman did well might not be taken as wholly complimentary. Now his fleshy nose sniffed something, as he would have put it, that you could get your teeth into, in this world with its dance music heard beyond a farther door, its voices and laughter and its rich feminine smell. He looked deliberately at the pay-desk girl, a spotty brunette who wore a sky-blue pill-box hat, a darker blue jersey, and yellow tights, and said, “I want to see the manager.”

  “Mr. Nicholas? But you haven’t paid.”

  Norman showed his fine big teeth in a smile. “I didn’t say I wanted to go in. Just to see the manager.”

  “Is it a complaint?”

  “I’ll tell him when I see him, shall I?” Norman’s smile broadened. He showed her his badge.

  “A real detective.”

  “I’m really real. Would you like to pinch me to make sure?” He offered her a thick arm.

  “I’ll tell Mr. Nicholas.” She called another girl to the pay-desk, whispered something, and disappeared. Norman felt pleasure in the pit of his stomach. The moments that generated this feeling of warm pleasure provided the reason, or one reason, for being a detective. When the girl had come back and taken him to Mr. Nicholas the sensation did not diminish. Small, alert, uncertain, and very hairy—bushes of hair sprang from his ears and cheek-bones, and covered the backs of his hands—Mr. Nicholas represented a type that Norman instantly recognised as his natural victim. He accepted the whisky that was poured for him, refused a cigarette, and put his thick body into a comfortable chair.

  “You’re a stranger here, Mr.—”

  “Norman. Detective-Sergeant Norman. That’s right.”

  Mr. Nicholas shot his cuffs over his hairy hands, and said with a mixture of boldness and uncertainty, “And what brings you to the Rotor? What have we been doing wrong?”

  “Have you been doing something wrong?” He felt the whisky go down.

  “I hope not, Sergeant.”

  “I hope not, too.” They both laughed. “But you’ve been keeping some rather bad company.”

  “This is a respectable dance hall. We have had no trouble for more than a year—”

  With discourteous heaviness Norman interrupted. “Some boys who call themselves the Peter Street lot come in here.”

  The little man spread out his hands. “I am afraid—I do not think I know them.”

  “You ought to. They’re bossed by a kid named Garney. They call him King.”

  “Ah, Garney.” Mr. Nicholas rubbed his hands with pleasure at the identification. “I know him. And some of his friends.”

  “They’re bad company.” Norman swilled round the rest of the whisky, sloshed it down. “They’ve been arrested for murder. You hadn’t heard? And the thing that interests us is that they were in here on Thursday night shortly after the job was done, fixing a bit of an alibi. Looks as though they found the Rotor a convenient place.”

  “But—” Mr. Nicholas tried hard to be outraged.

  “Maybe you had nothing to do with it. But we want your help. You help us, we’ll help you,” Norman said meaninglessly.

  There was silence. The little man looked at Norman’s glass, poured more whisky.

  “It’s the job out at Far Wether, I expect you’ve heard about it?”

  “No. Mostly I read a Greek paper.”

  “You’re living in England now, you want to read an English paper.” Mr. Nicholas smiled, trying to pretend that this was a joke. “There was a man stabbed to death on Guy Fawkes night, and we think Garney and his friends did it. Later on they came in here, or some of ’em did. Now, I want to talk to anyone who talked to them that night, you understand. I want to know what they did and what they said.”

  “I understand. You should talk first to my chief hostess, her name is Jean Willard. She is a pretty girl.”

  “Good,” Norman said heartily. “I like to talk to a pretty girl. Then I shall want a place to talk to her.”

  “Yes. You will please use this office.”

  “Thanks. You’ve been very co-operative. I appreciate that.”

  “And now I will go downstairs and send Jean up to you.”

  “I’ll just come with you,” Norman said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, an Englishman always trusts a Greek until he finds out better, but I’d just like to break the news to Jean myself.”

  It was a dance hall like half a dozen in London suburbs, and Norman saw that Nicholas had not been lying when he said it was respectable. Or upon the whole respectable. Sixty per cent of the people there were office workers, typists, secretaries, book-keepers, and their young men. There was another ten per cent, it might be, of older men who were dancing with the hostesses and looking out for girls. The rest were a job lot, boys with thick sideboards and brightly coloured suits, slick but untidy girls in jeans, their social differences blended by an identity of dress. Half a dozen girls sat together talking, and Mr. Nicholas tapped one of them on the shoulder.

  The girl turned round. Her mouth was a pencil line, artificially shaped into a bow, and she was chewing gum. She looked at Norman and said, with an assumed American accent, “You want to dance?”

  “No. My name’s Norman, C.I.D., Scotland Yard. I believe you may be able to help me.”

  “You do?” She did not stop chewing.

  “Anything that you can do to help this gentleman you will please do, Jean,” Mr. Nicholas said earnestly.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” But the Rotor had no licence. He nodded to Nicholas, who scuttled away among the dancers, bought two Coca-Colas, and sat down with the girl at a metal table. She sucked up the drink through a straw. “It’s about King on Thursday night, that right?”

 
“And the others. You know King well?”

  “I ought to. I used to be his girl.”

  “Used to be?”

  “He’s been going with Susie Haig the last few weeks. She’s not here to-night.”

  “Who broke it up?”

  “None of your business.” Somehow the girl managed to chew and to drink at the same time. “It was mutual.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t like the boys he was going round with?”

  “Look, mister, you’d better ask me straight out what it is you want to know. If I feel like answering I will, and if not I’ll say so.”

  Norman had not tasted his Coca-Cola, and now he pushed it aside. He felt anger rising within him. He put a hand on her thin arm. Her voice rose.

  “Take your hand off me.”

  “Listen,” Norman said furiously. “You can come with me up to your boss’s room or you can come down to the station, I don’t care which. Make up your mind.”

  The cupid’s bow curved in a smile. “All right, let’s go upstairs. But leave go of my arm, you’re hurting.”

  He followed her upstairs. She had a good figure with stringy, but well-shaped legs. In Nicholas’s office he sat on the desk. The whisky bottle had been left out, and he poured them both whisky. Away from the music and the bodies moving in their unbroken clinch round the dance floor he felt more relaxed.

  “First things first. Your name’s Jean Willard, and you’ve been here—how long?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “So you know what’s going on. Now, Jean, Garney and some of his pals came in on Thursday night.” He paused, but she did not answer. “I want to know how they looked, who they talked to, what they said.”

  “You don’t want much.” A little whisky slopped over on her chin. She wiped it away and leaned forward, her body straining at the purplish frock she wore. “By what you say, these boys cut up the chap out at Far Wether. What’s to stop them doing me?”