The Mermaid in the Basement

by Gilbert, Morris

  Matthew was wondering how to approach the man, and finally he said, “Can’t you go back to your family?”

  “No, I’ve got just enough pride to keep me from doing that.”

  “Pride’s a cold thing to sleep with.”

  “What are you doing, Inspector, starting a society for reformed burglars? You want something. I can tell that.What is it?”

  “The night you robbed the Sanderson house, you kept a good watch on the street?”

  “Of course I did. I was a bad stockbroker, but I’m a good burglar.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “I saw everything.” Simmons straightened up. “This is about that actress that was murdered, isn’t it? She was killed the night I was burgling the Sanderson house. I remember it now. That’s what this is all about.”

  “Yes, that’s right, Jack.”

  “Rumour was you got your man. Clive Newton. A pretty high-flying young fellow, I hear. You looking for more evidence on him?”

  “I want to know if you saw anybody entering the house of the murdered woman.”

  “What if I did?”

  Grant suddenly leaned forward, and there was an intensity in his gaze. “I’d like to help you, Jack. I’d like for you to get out of this business.”

  Simmons studied the detective. “This is not your style, Inspector. Have you got religion or something?”

  “No, but I’ve got an interest in the case. If you could help me, I think I could help you.”

  Simmons nodded and said, “All right. I saw a man who went into the house. He came in a carriage. I went to the window and watched. He got out and went up to the house, and somebody let him in.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was a tall man. Had his hat on, of course, so I couldn’t see much of his face, but I know he was big. Bigger than you, I think.”

  “Didn’t you see his face at all?”

  “Just a glimpse. It was dark, you know, and the gaslight doesn’t throw off a lot of light.”

  “Have you ever seen young Newton?”

  “The fellow that was supposed to have killed her? No.”

  “He’s no more than five nine or so, a trim young fellow.”

  “Then he weren’t the man I saw. The man I saw was big and tall, at least six feet. I did get a glimpse of his face. I didn’t know him, though.”

  “Do you think you could identify him if you saw him?”

  Simmons chewed on his lower lip. “It would be hard, Inspector. I’ve got a good memory for faces. I can tell you who it’s not more than I can tell you who it is. I mean to say that I would know that a certain man wasn’t the one I saw, but I’m not sure I could identify the man himself.”

  “Would you be willing to look at some people?”

  “Can’t do much looking from this cell.”

  “If I can talk to the judge and get you a suspended sentence on the grounds that you are working with Scotland Yard, would you help me?”

  Simmons had an intelligent-looking face, sensitive in a way. Finally he whispered as if speaking to himself, “Is there such a thing as a second chance, Inspector?”

  “I never thought so, but maybe there is, Jack.Will you help me?”

  “Yes.”

  Grant had left the jail and, not knowing what else to do, gone to talk to the judge. The judge liked him a great deal, and actually Simmons was smalltime. He listened as Grant spoke, and then agreed to give him a suspended sentence. “If he gets in trouble again, I’ll hold you responsible.”

  “I think there’s a chance he won’t,” Grant had replied.

  Now he walked the streets for a time, wondering what to do with this information. Finally it grew late in the evening, and on a whim he went to the theatre. He watched the play, and after it was over, he waited until Dylan Tremayne came out.

  “Hello, Tremayne.”

  Dylan stopped and said, “Well, hello, Inspector Grant. Come to arrest me, have you now?”

  “No, but I do need to talk to you.”

  “Well, I haven’t had anything to eat.Why don’t we get something?”

  “All right.”

  The two went to a small restaurant and sat at a table off to one side. Dylan ordered his meal, but Grant was not hungry and took a beer. “What did you think of the play?”

  “I don’t go to many plays, and I didn’t really understand that one, but I hated to see that fellow Hamlet wind up dead. He made some mistakes, didn’t he?”

  “We all do,” Dylan said easily.“What is it you want from me, Inspector? I’m curious.”

  “I found a witness, Tremayne.He saw a man going into Kate Fairfield’s apartment—it could have been the murderer.”

  Dylan instantly straightened up. “Who told you this?”

  “He’s a burglar. He was in a house across the street. He saw this man at Fairfield’s.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, I went to the judge and got him off with a suspended sentence.”

  Dylan stared at the policeman. “I don’t understand, Inspector. Your job is to find proof.You seem to be trying to find something that will help young Newton.”

  Grant did not speak of his own feelings to anyone, and he was silent for a long time. Finally he said,“I—I met young Newton’s sister at the jail, the one called Dora. I feel sorry for her.”

  “It’s a good thing to feel like that about people. She’s a fine girl, very sweet and tender. I think, Inspector, you ought to tell her how you feel.”

  Grant was startled. “How I feel! What are you talking about?”

  “Obviously you feel something for Dora Newton.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  “You remember that line from the play where the man said, ‘This above all: to thine own self be true’? I think you need to do that, Inspector.”

  “I can’t do it,” Grant said heavily. “I’m a policeman. She’s quality, you know that. That kind looks on policemen as if they were grubby tradesmen.”

  “Dora won’t feel that way. It will help her to know that you’re on her brother’s side.”

  Grant shook his head. “I don’t know what’s got into me. Everyone says I’m a hard man, and I am.” Then he said abruptly, “I’ll have to report all this about Simmons. I suppose Superintendent Winters will think I’ve gone around the bend.”

  “Do you have to tell him?”

  “It’s my duty.” At that moment Grant looked to Dylan like a man with a heavy burden. “I don’t have much, Tremayne, but I’ve got my honour and my job.”

  “Well, that’s a lot.Many fellows don’t have that.”

  Grant rose and left the room, his shoulders bowed. He didn’t look back, and Dylan thought, There’s a man who’s miserable!

  He left wondering what Jack Simmons could mean to Clive Newton’s fight for life.

  SEVENTEEN

  Serafina wearily leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She had slept little after Dylan had come to tell her about Simmons, the thief who had seen a man going into Kate’s apartment the night of the murder. The two of them had gone to Sir Leo’s immediately.He had been cautious and had forced them to agree to let him handle this new development.

  All the next morning, Serafina had tried to put Simmons out of her thoughts. She had been struggling to break the cypher but had made no progress whatsoever. As a scientist, she had been involved in experiments that involved more failure than success, but never before, in any of these, had the life of her brother been at stake. Restlessly she rose and began pacing the floor of the laboratory. Her mind went back to the interview with Sir Leo the previous day. She had sought him out and tried to win from him some kind of promise that would offer some hope, but though he tried to be encouraging, she read in his face the story that his words tried to deny. As she was preparing to leave, he had said heavily, “My dear viscountess, I wish I could be more hopeful, but I must say that if your brother is to be saved, it will take a miracle from God.�
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  Serafina moved to the window, Sir Leo’s final remark echoing through her mind. It was just the kind of thing that she had been trained not to believe in, and she stubbornly resisted accepting Sir Leo’s dictum. By firm purpose, by sheer will and intelligence, she would find some way to help her brother!

  May had come two days earlier. Ordinarily, when she looked out the window, she took pleasure in the fruit trees that decorated the garden and the ground with their lovely white and pink blossoms. But today they brought no pleasure to Serafina. She leaned forward on the window, and watched as Dylan and David played together.David was in the swing, and Dylan was swinging him mightily. She could hear his voice saying, “There you are, old man. Don’t fall out now.”

  “I won’t, Dylan. Higher! Higher!”

  The sight of her son raised two opposing thoughts. One was pleasure that Dylan had brought out some things in David that had been lacking. Serafina knew that David admired Dylan, for the man had filled an empty place in him. On the other hand, as always, she was uneasy. She knew that David would grow into an adolescent and then a young man, and she thought of Charles and how attractive he had been—and how terribly their marriage had been marred by some traits that she had never shared with anyone else. She knew that David felt his lack of a father keenly, and at times when she had been courted by men, she had been tempted to remarry. But marriage loomed before her like a dark presence or a monster under a bridge, and she had given up on that idea. Now she watched David and Dylan leave the swings and pick up their fishing poles and head down for the pond. She was concerned about the future, about what would happen when Dylan left. How would David take that? She watched restlessly until the two reached the pond, then she turned back, went to her desk, and sat down. Wearily she opened the diary, pulled a sheet of paper from a drawer, and began struggling again to solve the mystery of Kate Fairfield’s diary.

  “I caught him, Mr. Dylan! Look, he’s a big one!”

  Dylan had been standing beside David, not so much fishing as watching the young boy. David had become very significant in Dylan Tremayne’s life. He had little enough to do with babies or young people, and it had been a revelation to see how young David’s mind worked. He knew the boy was bright and had an imagination that had been held back by Serafina and her father, who both seemed to be anxious about such things.

  “Well now, that’s a good fisherman, you are. Let me take him off.”

  “Let me do it, Mr. Dylan.”

  “All right, then. I’ll hold him, and you take the hook out.”

  Dylan watched as David struggled to remove the hook, thinking, He always likes to do things for himself. He’s got a fierce independence, David has.

  Finally the fish was removed from the hook, and Dylan opened the top of a bucket and tossed the fish in with the others that had been caught. “That makes six,” he said.“Don’t you think that’s about enough?”

  David did not answer. The sunlight touched his fair hair, and as he turned toward Dylan, he asked, “Did you ever go fishing when you were little?”

  “To tell the truth, I didn’t do much of that.”

  “Why not, Mr. Dylan?”

  “Because I didn’t have anyone to take me.My father was a miner, and when I was very small, he worked very hard. In the free time he had, he had to do things around the house. A few times I went with other boys.”

  “Were your parents good to you?”

  “Why, bless you, boy, yes, of course they were,” he said, turning to look out over the pond, which was still as a mirror. There was no breeze for a moment, and he saw a fish break the water, making concentric circles, small ripples that continued until they reached the shore.“I lost my parents when I was just a little older than you.”

  “That was hard, wasn’t it?”

  “Very hard.”

  “Who took care of you?”

  “I had an uncle. I went to live with him.”

  “Was he good to you?”

  Dylan always tried to be honest with David, but in this case the truth would be too sordid. He remembered how abusive his uncle had been and how he had worked young Dylan until he could barely stand and had beaten him for the slightest transgression. “He was no worse than some, I suppose,” he said carefully.

  David stood for a moment, his eyes fixed on Dylan’s face. He had that quality of watching and regarding, observing in ways that were far beyond his years. “I’m sorry you didn’t have anyone to take you fishing, Mr. Dylan.”

  “Why, that’s all right, old man. It’s all right. I’ve got me a fine fishing partner now, haven’t I?”

  The remark pleased David. “Yes,” he said. “Can we cook these fish and eat them?”

  “I don’t know if the cook would let us do that.”

  “She will if Mum tells her to.”

  The two turned and headed toward the house, Dylan carrying the bucket, and David carrying his pole. As they approached the house, Serafina came out. “Well, did you two fishermen catch anything?”

  “Mum, we caught six! I caught four myself, and I caught the biggest one.”

  “Is that right? Let me see them.”

  David eagerly displayed the fish in the bucket and said,“Mum, I want to cook these fish myself.Will you tell cook to let us?”

  “Why, she’d be glad to do it for you, David.”

  “No, I caught them, and I want to cook them and eat them.”

  “Well, can I have a bite if you do?”

  “Yes! Come on. Let’s go do it now.”

  David ran on ahead, and Dylan picked up the bucket. He started for the house beside Serafina, and she said, “I’m worried, Dylan.”

  “About Clive?”

  “It’s that blasted code, the cypher. I’ve tried almost everything I know, but I can’t crack it. I can’t interpret it. I’ve been thinking about going to an expert somewhere.”

  “I didn’t know there were experts in that.”

  “Yes, I’m sure there are. There are experts in almost everything now.”

  “Well, I’ll be leaving after lunch to go search for that man with a hook.”He hesitated, then said, “I ran into a sad thing.A young girl named Callie and her brother, Paco . . .” He told the story of the children and of the mother who was so sick, and made little of his own part of it.

  “She needs to see a doctor, Dylan. I’ll be glad to pay for it.”

  “Oh, I took a doctor by, and he gave her some medicine. I’m hoping she’ll be better, but I was looking at Paco. He’s a fine-looking boy, and his sister, Callie, too. Her full name is Calandra Montevado. Her mother’s full-blooded Spanish, I think. She’s a beautiful child, well, not a child really. You know that age between twelve and thirteen, when a young girl turns into a young woman.” He thought deeply for a moment and said, “That’s no place for her.”

  Serafina had come to expect this from Dylan. She knew he had a compassion for weak, frail things, be they persons or animals, and she found it pleasing. “I’ll give you some money, and you can use it to help them if you’d like, Dylan.”

  “They need so much. Clothes, food, medicine. Thank you, Viscountess, that’s kind of you.”

  The two reached the kitchen and found David already explaining to Nessa, the cook, about the plan. “. . . So we’re going to cook the fish, me and Mr. Dylan, ourselves.”

  Nessa looked up at Serafina, and Serafina winked and nodded. “Well, that is fine, Master David, just fine! I’ll tell you what. I’ll get all the pots and pans you’ll need and all the spices, and if you need a bit of advice now and then, I’ll be right here.”

  “Thank you, Nessa,” David said, his face shining, and turning, he said, “Come on, Dylan.”

  “Mr. Dylan,” Serafina said.

  “Oh, that’s all right when we’re alone. He can put a Mr. on me if we’re ever in company together. Come on now. Let’s see how these fish are going to be turned into something good to eat.”

  Dylan, David, and Serafina sat down at the table in t
he kitchen. David had been so excited about cooking the fish that he had been almost unmanageable. Serafina had whispered once to Dylan, “He’s so excited. It’s good of you to do this.”

  “My pleasure, it is. He’s a fine boy, Viscountess.”

  The fish had been fried in fat and was now on a platter. Nessa had gotten permission to make a salad, but David was interested only in the fish. “This is the big one. I know I caught him. Here,Mum, you can have half of it.”

  “Why, that’s very generous of you, Son,” Serafina said. She took the portion of fish and warned, “You be careful now. You pick the bones out.”

  “I will,Mum.”

  Nessa had fixed hot bread, and as they ate, David suddenly said, “Mum, Mr. Dylan didn’t have anybody to take him fishing when he was little.”

  “Is that right, Dylan?”

  “Well, you know I lost my parents when I was very young. I went into the coal mine. After a shift in one of those places, a boy’s too tired to do much but sleep. Anyway,” he said, “God’s given me a good fishing partner now.” He reached over and pinched David’s ear.

  David said, “Ouch,” but grinned at the gesture.

  They ate the fish, and afterward Nessa said, “I baked a plum pudding.

  Would you care for a little of that?”

  “I would,” David said at once.

  “You’re going to pop,” Serafina warned, “but I guess a little bit won’t hurt.”

  Dylan, as he was accustomed to do, gave a brief prayer of thanks just for the pudding. “Thank you, Lord, for this good, fine pudding. I doubt the angels have anything better.”

  David tasted the plum pudding, but it was too hot. He blew on the spoon and asked, “Did you ever see an angel, Mr. Dylan?”

  “Not that I know of, but I may have.”He leaned forward and whispered in a confidential tone, “You know angels come to this earth in disguise.”

  “They do?”