Murder in the Basement

by Anthony Berkeley

  “Good heavens, man, Gregory knows how to handle a revolver.”

  “I mean, because of the prints it might have on it, sir!” almost squeaked Sergeant Johnson, in extremely hurt tones.

  “Oh, I see. Yes, well done, Johnson. Very thoughtful. Yes, and then?”

  “Well, that’s all, sir. I told him I must take charge of it, and I brought it away with me, wrapped in a handkerchief. Because of the prints,” added Sergeant Johnson.

  “And the party?”

  “Well, sir, I did think of putting him under arrest for being in possession of fire-arms without a licence, and then I thought perhaps you mightn’t want it, so I came here to telephone you for instructions. We saw the party back to the house, and then left together. Outside the gates I sent Gregory back with instructions to get into the grounds unobserved and watch the house, and, if the party went out, tail him. Would you like me to go back and put him under arrest, Mr. Moresby?”

  “No,” Moresby said, after a second’s thought. “We really haven’t enough to hold him on yet. Bring the revolver to headquarters at once, Johnson. You’ll find me in my room. I shall want to see you before you go. You’ve done very well.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Moresby,” said the gratified Johnson, and rang off.

  Moresby hung up the receiver and came back to the fire beaming and rubbing his hands. “Well, thank you, sir,” he said, as Roger silently handed him his refilled glass. “I don’t mind if I do. Well, you heard that? We’ve got the revolver.”

  “So I gathered. Your one little bit of real evidence that you were bleating for a minute ago.”

  “That’s right, sir, that’s right. And now the luck’s going to turn. You see if it doesn’t.”

  “You’ll need it,” Roger said drily. “It isn’t a capital offence to own a revolver, is it? And you’ve nothing to show that this is the revolver which committed the crime.”

  “No, no, that’s true enough. We haven’t got the bullet, you see. No, it doesn’t connect him with the crime really, but the circumstances will look bad when they’re put before a jury. Very bad. It would have been better for him if he’d left the thing innocently in his drawer. It’s the first proper mistake he’s made. Well, now he’s begun making them, let’s hope he goes on.”

  “It was a very foolish mistake,” Roger agreed, rather wonderingly. It was not the kind of mistake he would have expected Wargrave to make. It was beginning to dawn on Roger that he must have read that beetle-browed man not altogether correctly.

  “He got rid of the revolver from his bedroom yesterday after I’d gone, just in case,” Moresby pronounced. “I don’t suppose he thought he was really under suspicion then, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Then this morning of course in my room he did know we had our eye on him, and he knew we’d be making search for the weapon sooner or later in the grounds of Roland House; so the sooner he got rid of it properly the better. I wonder what he was going to do with it. There is a canal somewhere near, isn’t there? Yes, the Grand Junction runs through those parts. That’s where he was probably going to pitch it. And he’d have got away with it too, if by a bit of luck I hadn’t sent Johnson down to look for it.” Moresby’s tone implied, however, that luck was not really the right word, which only modesty forbade him to employ.

  Roger eyed him with distaste. When there was any bragging of his own to do Roger had no hesitation in doing it; but he hated to have to listen to others. “Hurry up with your sherry, Moresby. Dinner’s due.”

  “Dinner, Mr. Sheringham? I’m afraid I can’t stay to dinner now. I’ve got to get back to headquarters, to meet Johnson.”

  “Good heavens, Johnson can wait. Meadows will never forgive you if you don’t eat what he’s got ready—nor me either, which is much more serious. Besides, it’s tripes à la mode de Caen.”

  “It’s what, sir?”

  “Tripe.”

  “Tripe?”

  “Tripe.”

  “Johnson,” said Moresby, “can wait.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  The revolver did all that was expected of it, and more. So much more that Roger, when he heard about it later, marvelled at the fatuity of one whom he had set down as an intelligent man.

  In the first place it showed one man’s finger-prints only. As Wargrave had been seen with it actually in his hand, it was indisputable that these were his although there was no official set with which to compare them. In the second place it had not even been cleaned. The barrel was rusted and full of fouling, which the experts pronounced to be approximately six months old. And thirdly, it was loaded in five chambers, while in the sixth was an empty case.

  Except for the all-important fact that there was nothing to establish that it was this particular revolver which had killed Mary Waterhouse, it might have been enough to have hanged Wargrave.

  More than ever Moresby deplored the loss of the bullet. Now that the experts can decide whether a certain bullet was fired from a certain weapon or not, the bullet has become as important as the weapon. With the bullet in his possession Moresby could have arrested Wargrave and been practically certain of a conviction. Without it, except for the fact that Wargrave had behaved suspiciously, the case against him was scarcely advanced.

  Moresby debated whether he should send for him to Scotland Yard again.

  The episode warranted another interrogation, if anything could be gained by it. Besides the actual hiding of the revolver, too, there was the threatening with it of Johnson. Had Wargrave really meant to shoot Johnson? Johnson seemed to think so. But then Johnson, though a sound man, was inclined to think things that made for his own importance. It would be very foolish of Wargrave if he really had had any such intention. On the whole Moresby did not believe that he had. Johnson had probably mistaken a purely instinctive action of surprise for a threat.

  Moresby decided not to send for Wargrave again just yet. He would wait until something else turned up on which the man could be interrogated as well. Wargrave would undoubtedly be expecting a summons, and would have his story all pat; when it did not come he would be wondering what was happening and why he had not been sent for. He would know that the revolver episode could not be left in abeyance. By all the rules he should become worried and anxious; and when a murderer becomes worried and anxious he usually does something foolish. Moresby hoped very much, but without a great deal of faith, that Wargrave would do something foolish.

  A messenger interrupted his musings with a chit.

  Moresby opened it. It was from the Records Office of the Army Ordnance Department, and was in answer to a query he had sent them first thing that morning.

  “In reply to your telephone message, service revolver No. D. 7748 was issued on 14th September, 1917, to Second-Lieutenant Wargrave, 7th Batt., Northamptonshire Regiment.”

  The revolver had said all that it possibly could say, without its bullet.

  It had said, too, all that was said in the case at all for the next day or two. The other tentacles which Moresby had put out came back empty. Sergeant Afford, having questioned all the porters, and the ex-porters too, at Euston and Charing Cross, and the cloak-room men, and the ticket-inspectors, and everyone else whom he could think of to question, had been unable to find the slightest trace of any extra-heavy suit-case passing through either of the stations eleven months ago. Inspector Fox had no more luck in tracing the ring. The two enquiries were written off as part of the usual loss of time and energy which a difficult case invariably entails.

  Meanwhile a close watch was kept on Wargrave, which also was quite without result. He scarcely went outside the school grounds, and then only to buy tobacco in the village or for some equally harmless purpose. Enquiries of course had been unobtrusively in progress ever since the body had been identified, among the villagers and residents of Allingford; but except for the connecting links of Miss Crimp and the Rev. Michael Stanford, the two communities of
Allingford and Roland House had scarcely any ties; in any case the enquiries had brought nothing to fruition, not even the usual crop of rumours which might have been expected had Roland House not been so self-contained and cut off from the rest of Allingford.

  It seemed as if the case was dead.

  On the third day after the finding of the revolver it sprang once more into vivid life.

  The news editor of the Daily Courier rang up Scotland Yard, and the call was switched through to Moresby’s room.

  “You remember that photograph of the Waterhouse girl you sent us, chief inspector?” he said. “Well, I’ve got a man in my office here who’s pretty sure he recognises her as a girl who took a furnished flat in Kennington last August. Want to see him? ”

  “Do I not!” Moresby exclaimed. “Send him round here at once, will you? And I’d take it as a favour if you’d send one of your chaps with him, just to make sure he doesn’t lose his way or get run over by a bus. I can’t afford to lose him now.”

  “And we get first claim on the story?”

  “As soon as I give the word. Certainly you do. But don’t print anything till I’ve seen him and got in touch with you again.”

  “Right you are.” There was the sound of muffled voices at the other end of the wire. “He says he’ll be delighted to come round to you. I’ll send one of my chaps along to introduce him.”

  Within twenty minutes the newcomer was seated in Moresby’s room and being welcomed with all Moresby’s most genial smiles.

  “Very good of you to come forward, sir. Very good. Your duty, of course, but everyone doesn’t do their duty always, as you know as well as I do. If they did, our work here would be a lot easier, I can tell you.”

  The newcomer, who had announced himself as Mr. Pringle, preened himself. He was a tubby little man with a red face and gold pince-nez, and his manner was as effusive as Moresby’s own.

  “Not at all, chief inspector. Not at all. Delighted to be of assistance, if I can be.”

  Moresby asked his questions.

  It appeared that Mr. Pringle was a house-agent, carrying on business in Kennington. On the 23rd of July of last, year, according to his books, a young woman had called at his office to ask if he had a furnished flat to let for a short period. He had, in a quiet street not far from the Oval; a top floor, with a bedroom, sitting-room, and kitchen-bathroom; rent, two-and-a-half guineas a week. The young woman said it would suit her very well and had taken it on the spot, for the month of August only. On the 1st of August she called at his office for the keys and had, presumably, taken possession.

  “I see,” said Moresby, rubbing his hands with pleasure. It had been on the 1st of August that Roland House broke up.

  “Have you any idea what time she called for the keys on the 1st?”

  “What time? Dear me, that’s rather a poser. No, I’m afraid I can’t. I’ll ask my clerk if he can remember, when I get back, but—no, I couldn’t say myself.”

  “Now, it was actually you who showed her over the flat, was it, sir? Not your clerk? ”

  “No, no. I showed her over myself. That is how I came to recognise her photograph.”

  Moresby produced a copy of the photograph in question. “Just take a look at this. It’s clearer of course than the newspaper reproduction. Does that help you to recognise her any better, or not? ”

  Mr. Pringle studied the photograph. “Yes, this is her. Undoubtedly. Quite undoubtedly. I remember her quite well, because I thought at the time what a pleasant-looking, quiet girl she was, so different from the type one sees about everywhere nowadays. Dear me, yes, one hardly knows what our young women are coming to. Yes, a good likeness. Undoubtedly that is her. Undoubtedly”

  “You’d swear to that, sir?”

  “Without hesitation,” said Mr. Pringle manfully.

  “Did she give any references?”

  “No; she said she would prefer to pay for the month in advance. She paid for the full four-and-a-half weeks.”

  “In cash, or by cheque?”

  “In cash. We shouldn’t have given a receipt the same day if it had been by cheque.”

  “And you, of course, imagined that she stayed there the whole month?”

  “I imagined so, no doubt; though of course it was no business of mine whether she stayed or not, so long as she had paid the rent.”

  “It didn’t make you at all suspicious when she never returned the keys at the end of the month?”

  “But the keys were returned. I verified that before I left my office this morning. They were returned by post, on the 1st of September.”

  “Oh!” Once again Moresby was impressed by Mr. Wargrave’s attention to detail. “I suppose it’s too much to ask if you kept, or even noticed the post-mark of the envelope?”

  “Too much, chief inspector, yes, too much. Undoubtedly too much. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, sir, one could hardly have expected it. There was no letter of course with the keys? ”

  “I asked my clerk that very question. He said he thought there was a piece of paper with the words ‘ Keys of top floor, 40, Elfrida Road, returned herewith,’ or something like that scribbled on it, but he couldn’t say for certain. In any case the paper wasn’t kept.”

  “No, of course not. But you never recognised the name, Mary Waterhouse, when you saw it in the papers? ”

  “Dear me, dear me,” clucked Mr. Pringle, “I should have mentioned that. That was not the same name that she gave us, chief inspector. No, no. We have her down in our books as Miss Marjorie West. Quite different, you see.”

  “But the same initials,” said Moresby with satisfaction.

  “That settles it: it’s the same girl. Funny how they change their names but keep to the same initials. Suit-cases and handkerchiefs, I suppose. Let me see, now. Forty, Elfrida Road, Kennington. Is that right? And she had the top floor. Is there anyone else living in the house?”

  “Oh, certainly. Both the first and the second floors are occupied, and the landlord and his wife live in the basement; that is, to the best of my recollection.”

  “Then I hope your recollection is correct, sir,” said Moresby jovially, as he rose. “Well, I don’t think there’s anything more to ask you. I have your address if anything crops up. Good morning, sir, and I’m very much obliged to you for coming forward with this information.”

  Mr. Pringle was beamingly ejected.

  Moresby sat down at his desk again and, with difficulty restraining the carol which was hovering on his lips, rang for Inspector Fox.

  “The first bit of real information received we’ve had on the case yet,” he glowed, when he had explained what had happened. “And a nice, soft job for you out of it. Take the girl’s photo, and Wargrave’s, go down to Kennington, and find out if any of the other people in the house recognise either of them. Then try the shops round, and all that. You know. And see if you can find out how long she was there, and the date she was seen last.”

  Fox nodded. “Yes, we might be able to establish the date of death on this. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Left alone, Moresby began to write out an account of his interview with Pringle for the dossier, while it was fresh in his mind. It constituted, as he had said to Fox, the first really important information that had come to hand; and its consequences might be very large indeed.

  He finished his report, sent it down to be typed, and leaned back in his chair.

  It was almost impossible that Fox should have no luck this time. Moresby knew those tall houses converted into flats, where the landlord lives in the basement. There is very little that escapes the observation of those landlords and their wives. And when one of their floors is let to a single young woman, of attractive appearance, their vigilance is multiplied a hundred-fold. Jealous of their converted house’s good name, zealous to smell out wrong where no wrong may be, these landlord
s are the self-elected vigilance committee of half middle-class London. No French concierge even can be fiercer in well-doing or more unwearied in nosiness.

  Moresby pulled the telephone directory towards him, ruffled its pages and found the number of Pringle, house-agent, Kennington. He asked for it.

  Mr. Pringle, they told him with evident importance, was not yet back; he had gone out on urgent business, and . . .

  “Yes, yes,” said Moresby. “This is Chief Inspector Moresby speaking, from Scotland Yard. I’ve just seen Mr. Pringle. Is that his clerk? ”

  “Mr. Pringle’s chief clerk is speaking,” came the answer, in tones that spoke of a swelling bosom.

  “Good. You know what Mr. Pringle has been seeing me about? Very well. I want to speak to the person who handed over the keys of 40, Elfrida Road to Miss Marjorie West on the 1st August last year.”

  “I did so myself, sir.”

  “You did, eh? Good. Can you remember her?”

  “Very faintly. The photograph Mr. Pringle showed me in the Daily Courier certainly touched a chord in my memory, sir. Yes, I think I may say I have a distinct recollection of her now.”

  Moresby smiled as his imagination brought up the picture of the self-important little person at the other end of the line. “Good. By the way, what’s your name, Mr. . . .?”

  “Worksop, sir. Alfred Worksop.”

  “Well, Mr. Worksop, I want you to throw your mind back and see if you can remember what time of day it was when Miss West called for the keys. Can you? ”

  In the pause that followed Mr. Worksop could almost be heard hurling his mind back, to say nothing of the thud with which it landed.

  “I may be wrong, sir, but I have a distinct impression that it was before lunch. Quite a distinct impression. But as to the exact time—no, I really can’t tell you.”

  “Never mind. Before lunch is an important thing. What makes you think it was before lunch? ”

  “Well, sir, I seem to have an idea that I was about to offer to go round to Elfrida Road with Miss West—pardon! Miss Waterhouse, I should say—when something intervened to prevent me; and I fancy it may have been lunch.”