by Richard Hull
Ford pushed away his unfinished turkey and pretended to eat some Stilton. What he really wanted to know was whether Anstruther was going to dine or not. If not, he would linger over dinner. If he was, he would get away as soon as possible. For a moment his attention wandered, and during that second the doctor sat down next to him.
Very much to his surprise he saw that Anstruther was looking pale and haggard. In his eyes there was a look that almost seemed to amount to fear. Turning his back on the rest of the room the doctor spoke in a hushed voice.
‘Must talk to you sometime. This fellow, worrying me. Keeps on demanding things. Threatening. Apparently there is something you won’t do.’
‘Me?’ Ford tried to show surprise. At the same time he tried to convey by a glance that the silence of the room made it impossible that their conversation would not be overheard.
‘Yes. Says he has written to you and that he believes you have taken no notice. Tells me complete exposure possible, that something awful is going to happen. Don’t know what it is you are to do, but remember this fellow is not a man with whom you ought to trifle. Do what you are told, whatever it is. By the way, I got this.’
He flicked across a piece of paper on which one sentence was typewritten. Ford was at first glad to see that it was not the typescript which haunted his dreams. On second thoughts, however, he was not certain that he was not sorry. Apparently someone else was taking a hand.
The message ran: ‘Look out for Pargiter.’
He read it again, completely puzzled. ‘Look out for Par – What do you think this is? A friendly warning?’
‘No idea. Better say no more now; the man himself might hear. But – don’t go on keeping this fellow’s letters from me as he says you are. Show them. And whatever it is you’re told to do, do it. I am.’
How much more of this Ford would have stood is uncertain. The strain of conducting a conversation of so peculiar a nature only just above a whisper was beginning to break his already frayed nerves. Momentarily an intense curiosity to know what it was that Anstruther was doing in accordance with the instructions he was receiving overcame him; then it was followed by a desire to know nothing. Whether the doctor was supplying irritant poisons or deadly poisons was no concern of Ford’s, and he did not intend that any particle of such knowledge should become part of his responsibility.
Just, however, as the strain was getting too great, two interruptions occurred, apart from the inquisitive glance which Pargiter himself was throwing in their direction. Pargiter was the kind of man who always listened to other people’s conversations, but, even if he had not been, the faint noise of two people whispering would have been enough to arouse (and slightly irritate) anyone’s curiosity.
The first interruption was a big breezy one. A cheerful hearty member of the Club had just arrived, and was looking round the room with boisterous mirth.
‘Good lord, what’s this place? A morgue? Here am I just back from abroad – boat held up by fog, and so I’ve missed my train – but I’m not going to be miserable. Heavens, waiter, aren’t there any crackers? Can’t we make the party cheerful somehow? After all, it is Christmas Day.’
Pargiter turned in his seat and fixed a malevolent eye on him. On the words ‘Christmas Day’ he raised his eyes to heaven in mute protest. Ford was well aware that the next day he would have to answer a letter of complaint. Anstruther looked at his plate. He had not joined the Whitehall to talk to strangers. Only the little old bent man seemed pleased. With a silvery little chuckle he beckoned the hearty man towards him and went on to explain that he would love to pull a cracker. He did not think that he had pulled one since the Jubilee of ’97, and now that his family had all gone, he had never hoped to pull one again. It emerged too, that he was longing to take a glass of wine, and hoped that his newly made friend would join him to celebrate his return to England. With a bottle of Ruinart 1914 in front of them, they settled down to make friends, the old man talking away garrulously in his shrill piping treble. He might be ill the next day, but who cared for his doctor, anyway? He would have a happy Christmas Day after all. He felt friendly to this young man, a trifle noisy perhaps, but then all young people were – they were little the worse for that. As for the ‘young’ man (he was thirty-seven), he felt a little strange, a little condescending, perhaps, as he listened to the funny little senile platitudes coming from his neighbour; but, after all, poor old boy, he was delighted to cheer him up – and, ‘come to think of it,’ he added to himself, ’the old buffer’s doing me a power of good.’ Whatever else may be said of the hearty, they have a heart.
But now the second interruption was about to occur. For an event which afterwards was to prove so definitely important, it took a small form, being nothing more alarming than the arrival of a page-boy to say that Ford was wanted on the telephone. Secretly relieved at the opportunity to escape, the secretary tried to keep up appearances, and, as usual, rather over-acted.
‘Can’t even leave me alone, you see, on Christmas night,’ he remarked resignedly to Anstruther as he got up. ‘Do you know who it is, boy?’
‘He didn’t give a name, sir, but I think it was Mr Cardonnel’s voice.’
Anstruther looked slightly surprised. So much intelligence was unusual for a page-boy. His own experience, which, as a doctor, was extensive, was that the page-boys were not too good on the telephone.
‘Cardonnel?’ he asked. ‘What’s he likely to want, Ford?’
‘Oh, some wild idea of his which he’s gone mad about. Thinks he’s a detective or something. Of course, it’s all absolute nonsense. I wish he really was some use.’ Then, realising rather late that he was expressing his opinions rather freely before the boy, and possibly before Pargiter, he added: ‘Very able man, though. Very able indeed. Most useful to the Club. May help us in this matter, too,’ and walked away trying to look official and businesslike.
Below stairs the atmosphere had changed. All the staff were busily rushing about searching in the most unlikely places for a cracker. There was a belief that one had come in accidentally, or had been left over from the previous year’s staff dance. Anyhow, someone had expressed a wish for a cracker, and a cracker they would produce. The staff of the Whitehall prided themselves that they had never been defeated by any request, reasonable or unreasonable. One page achieved temporary popularity by announcing that he could make one. His fame, however, was short-lived, as in the same breath he added a desire to be supplied with gunpowder.
Eventually two were miraculously discovered and solemnly served on a plate. The strangely assorted pair of diners had by then forgotten all about the remark that had brought them together. The young man was just trying to persuade his companion to join him in a glass of port. The arrival of the crackers finished it. The old boy, casting his doctor and caution to the winds, was on for anything. With tears pouring down his cheeks he gaily pulled both crackers and placed a purple paper cap on his head.
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) Pargiter had finished his dinner and left. He would have resigned from the Club the next day.
17
The Literary Sherlock
‘That you, Ford? What a long time you take coming to the telephone!’ Cardonnel’s voice did not sound really annoyed. He happily accepted the apology that was offered to him with a good-humoured complaint, clearly not to be taken seriously, that his arm was aching with holding up the receiver.
‘However,’ he went on, ‘really the apology is due from me for troubling you on such a night. I do hope I haven’t spoilt your Christmas dinner.’
On that point Ford had no qualms about reassuring him. He managed not unreasonably, and quite truthfully, to imply that the fact that he was at his post at such a moment was highly creditable. By this time, however, his own arm was starting to ache, and he began to think it was desirable to bring Cardonnel to the point. Characteristically he dropped what he thought was a gentle hint, but which was in fact an almost direct question.
‘What
do I want?’ came the voice from the other end. ‘Oh, simply to know this. Do you keep a record of who occupies the bedrooms?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could I look at it?’
‘Why, certainly. That is,’ Ford went on, his voice losing his assurance, ‘if it is still in existence. I’m not sure, but I think that after a certain time we destroy it.’
Cardonnel was not surprised. It would be like Ford to do away with what might be useful evidence to him. It was even more like him not to know what happened under his own management. He listened with a slight smile, while Ford stumbled along and contradicted himself as to the system. Eventually he cut him short.
‘Well, never mind. Would you mind putting together what you can get and handing it to me tomorrow at lunch time? Or, if you will not be in there yourself – and I suppose you do take a day off sometimes – leaving it so that I can pick it up? I want it of course for my little enquiry.’
‘And how’s that getting on?’ The enquiry was more polite than hopeful. Ford had little expectation of catching his book thief as the result of anything Cardonnel might do, an assumption which was foolish, for if anyone should have been aware of Cardonnel’s uncanny trick of finding things which it was hoped would escape him, it should have been the secretary of the Whitehall Club.
‘Oh, not so badly. There is, as they say, some progress to report. I can’t actually name the man yet, but he lives in Nottinghamshire, has a sister-in-law whose birthday is in May, is between sixty and seventy years old; I think he is a Socialist in politics, and his favourite musical composer is Beethoven. If he is married, of which I am not quite sure, he probably plays bridge. But I’ll explain it all to you tomorrow. Good night, Ford. Oh, and by the way, a merry Christmas to you.’
‘And to you.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve had the most amusing one I’ve had for years. Good night.’
Ford addressed his ‘Good night’ to an irresponsive receiver. At any rate there was something he could do that night. Before Cardonnel was due to arrive the next morning he had a complete list of all those members whose addresses ended ‘Notts’. Somehow from what he knew of their characters he could not imagine any of them being the man for whom they were looking. Still, as Ford said: ‘You never could tell. Even in the best regulated families–’ which was a peculiarly inappropriate remark even for Ford. One thing was quite certain. If any of Cardonnel’s deductions were right, it was a matter of system and not of accident. Nor were there any grounds for believing that the man belonged to a family regulated in any way whatever.
In the course of the morning of Boxing Day, however, Cardonnel rang him up again. He had, he said, the very slightest chill – nothing in any way infectious. If Ford would be good enough to lunch with him, he would be charmed to point out the steps by which he had arrived at his conclusions, ‘and if you could bring the information as to bedrooms?’
Ford would be charmed to do both, but unfortunately the hall-porter who kept the bedroom list, so that members could be told the number of their room immediately on arrival, was off duty. The secretary therefore had been unable to get all he wanted. In this way he disguised the fact that he had forgotten to take any steps about it during the previous evening.
Arrived at Cardonnel’s flat, he found his host’s sitting-room covered with past files of The Times, which Ford now remembered he had given him leave to take away from the Club over the Christmas holidays – a permission which he was quite unentitled to give, and which he strongly suspected Cardonnel would have been the first to have objected to his having given to anyone else. Besides The Times, there were sporting calendars, the book from the Club showing what books were received and what were returned to the circulating library, a volume which had no right itself to have left its place in the smoking-room; a theatrical annual or so, Wisden for the past two years, while the pile was crowned by the Oxford University Calendar for 1934, and the Cambridge University Calendar for 1934–5, the difference in date offering a silent commentary on the respective outlooks of those two seats of learning. On the writing desk in the corner were sheets of foolscap covered with commentaries and columns in Cardonnel’s neat, legal handwriting.
The lawyer was clearly in very good form. Standing on his own hearthrug, his grey hair neatly brushed, his sparse figure clad in a carefully pressed suit, he made a startling contrast to his tall, ungainly guest, whose clothes always looked as if he had slept in them.
‘Sherry, my dear Watson? You know my methods, I think? At least you don’t, but I feel so like Holmes that I forget you are not the learned doctor. We ought to have had that odd bird, Anstruther, whom I have seen you talking to so often recently, along to play that part. At least, on second thoughts, not so often recently as a month or so ago. But I wander from the point. It’s the greatest fun playing the detective, a most amusing role. I’m quite absorbed in it. I thought, you know,’ he cocked his head on one side, with a twinkle in his eyes, ‘of receiving you in a dressing-gown and refusing to talk until I had played two sonatas, or whatever Holmes did play on that violin. But, unfortunately, I have no musical accomplishments.’
Ford, not being well versed in his Holmes, but having a slight doubt as to the exact accuracy of the picture, contented himself with a grin.
‘Now I see no reason to keep lunch waiting while I do explain my methods,’ went on Cardonnel laughingly, ‘so I propose to bring down some of my notes and talk to you over lunch. Some sherry first, though?’
It was one of Cardonnel’s little tricks as a host that he never said ‘more sherry’. It was also typical that he could not resist a little dig.
‘You recognise the wine, perhaps? The one that was recently finished at the Club and the finding of whose successor gave you so much trouble. Come, come, my dear Watson, and now to lunch while I tell you everything. Though I am sure that the real Holmes would have kept you in suspense much longer and I really don’t see how I am to get any food at all if I indulge in a monologue all the time.’
Partly over lunch, but partly also for a considerable time afterwards, Cardonnel explained his ‘methods’, which, as he said, ‘might fairly be said to run on the deductive lines of the late Sherlock Holmes, or is he late? I always forget. He returns and comes to life again so often. However, let that be. This is roughly my idea.
‘I took the dates on which the books were stolen, and then I set to work to find out exactly what was happening in every sphere of life, not only on those days, but also on the days preceding and following them. You see, I had no idea whether the man lived in London or came up for the day, or came up and spent the night and took back something to read in the train, nor whether whatever brought him to London took place on the day of his arrival or the day after. It’s a little confusing, but if you think for a minute, you will find I could not safely exclude either to start with.’
Ford thought for very nearly fifteen seconds, at the end of which he decided it was quite impossible to comprehend but that he was perfectly prepared to take Cardonnel’s word for it.
‘That of course was to begin with. Later on I began to understand his habits. His usual technique is this. He comes up to London, generally on a Friday night, stays probably at the Club – we are going to find out from your bedroom records if that is so, and we shall also be able to add the detail of his name from them – steals his book on Friday night or Saturday morning, goes to a professional football match in the winter, or a cricket match in the summer, and returns home.’
‘But the books don’t always disappear on Saturday.’
‘Not always. That’s the beauty of it. I said generally, but if they go in the weekday there is always either a professional football match or some cricket on in London on that day, or one day either side.’
‘But there’s cricket going on in London almost all the summer. I don’t know much about professional football, but surely there are never three consecutive days in the winter free of it.’
‘Oh, yes, quite
often. You look at my list. But – and this is the real point – the days in the summer correspond each time with the matches of Nottinghamshire in town. Each time a book goes Notts are playing either Surrey or Middlesex or the M.C.C. at the Oval or Lords, except once, and then they were playing Essex at Leyton.
‘The winter was more difficult. I didn’t get it at first, because I had not realised how many league teams there were, nor, I must admit, was I quite sure of the geographical centre of each team. I wasted a great deal of time,’ Cardonnel shook his head sadly, ‘owing to a mistaken idea as to the locality of Tranmere Rovers. However, once I had got on to Notts, it was all plain sailing. On each occasion either Notts Forest or Notts County were playing a London league team. At least, I think Clapton Orient is in London. That I have still to confirm.
‘But leaving that one occasion aside as the possible exception, that is my reason (and I will prove it to you in detail) for saying that the man lives in Nottingham, or at any rate, Nottinghamshire.’
Ford thought a minute. ‘Supposing he was born there or used to live there, but had now gone to live in Surrey, but still took an interest in his old county and took the opportunity of seeing them when they were in town.’
‘Most improbable.’ Cardonnel brushed it aside airily and then, remembering his manners, hurriedly substituted: ‘At least a very interesting idea, and though I think it will prove to be wrong, one we must bear in mind in case we find ourselves at fault. But to continue.’
Once more he got into his stride.
‘In the same way it cannot be a coincidence that the loss of the books always coincides with the dates on which there is a concert which includes at least one item of the works of Beethoven.’
Having very little idea of how many concerts there were in London, or what proportion of them were likely to include that particular composer as an integral part, Ford contented himself with looking as wise as he could and nodding his head.
