The Monday Theory

by Douglas Clark

  “Want me to go in and ask?”

  Green shook his head. “I’d rather ask one of the students.”

  “I see. Don’t want either the night man or the day man who’s on now to know you’re enquiring, is that it?”

  “Something of the sort.” Green turned to look along the pavement. “You can buy me a cup of tea, lad.”

  “I get it. In the café.”

  “Can’t see where else you’d get tea round here but in the caff.”

  “No, I meant . . .”

  “I know what you meant. Come on.”

  They bore their cups of tea to one of the little tables and sought the permission of the two occupants to join them. It caused no surprise as the little café held no more than a dozen tables and none was totally free.

  Green helped himself to sugar and stirred the tea noisily. Then he took out his cigarettes and offered them around the table. The two students, surprised by such generosity, stopped their close chat to refuse the offer and immediately became entangled in Green’s conversational net.

  “Don’t smoke, then? Very wise. Don’t mind if I light up though, do you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Ta! Not everybody’s so ready to let you these days without sniffing or making some remark.”

  “Well, it’s not to everybody’s taste.”

  “P’raps not.” Green sighed. “Things change too much and too quickly for my liking. Still, what’s the difference? Oh, by the way, you couldn’t tell me the name of that janitor who’s on nights at Gladstone Hall, could you? I caught a glimpse of him the other night and I thought I recognized him. Reminded me of a chap called Standish I used to know in the old days. Jim Standish? Or was it Jack? Anyhow perhaps you know who he is?”

  One student replied: “I honestly don’t know his name. I only came into Hall a week or two ago—at the beginning of this term—and I’ve had no reason to speak to him.”

  “Nor me,” said the other. “But I’ve heard chaps refer to him as Ticky. I don’t know whether your long lost friend . . .?”

  Green shook his head. “Can’t be Standish,” he said. “If he’s called Ticky, his name will be Wright. Ticky Wright.”

  The first student said: “Now how do you know that?”

  “Old army custom,” replied Green. “Dusty Miller, Chalky White, Ticky Wright.”

  “Why Ticky?”

  “Because if you get a sum right at school, you get a tick from the teacher.”

  The two students laughed and got to their feet. When the two Yard men were alone, Green said: “We want some students who have been in the Hall for longer than a week or two.”

  “Why?”

  “I want somebody who knows this Wright character.”

  “Why?”

  “I want a lever.”

  “You might not get one.”

  “Now don’t start that,” said Green. “There’ll be something. There always is. The trouble is finding it.”

  Berger looked round the café. At last he said: “There’s a couple over there. They’re pretty thick from the looks of things . . .”

  “Thick?”

  “Not stupid. Close friends. Look at them.”

  The male and female were conversing with heads close together.

  “Go on, lad.”

  “They haven’t got that far in the two weeks since term started. They look as if they’d known each other for a good long time.”

  Green grimaced. “They get that far, as you call it, in a couple of hours these days. But you reckon they’ve been around for some time, do you?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  Green lumbered heavily to his feet. “We’ll try ’em. Can’t do any harm.”

  The two youngsters looked up after Green and Berger had been towering over them for a few seconds.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Green, “but I wonder if you could tell me when Ticky Wright, the night porter in Gladstone Hall, comes on duty?”

  “Ticky you call him?” asked the male student scathingly.

  “That’s his name, isn’t it?”

  “Not to me it isn’t.”

  Green sat down. “You sound a bit umpty-like. What’s up?”

  “He’s a friend of yours, is he?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice,” said Berger. “In fact we’ve never met him. That’s why we want to know when he’ll be on.”

  “My advice to you, then,” said the boy, “is to keep your hands on your wallets.”

  “Kevin!” protested the girl.

  “Why not tell us?” urged Green.

  “You call him Ticky,” said the girl. “Kevin calls him Nicky.”

  Green grinned. “I think I get it love. He’s a bit light-fingered, is he?”

  “We have no proof that he is.”

  “But a moral certainty,” grumbled Kevin angrily.

  “Come on,” urged Green again. “What’s this character been up to?”

  “Books,” said the girl. “Or so Kevin says.”

  “Books?”

  “Look,” said Kevin, “every student in that Hall carries scads of books around. Expensive books. People are always putting them down—in the common room, in refec, in the foyer. It’s one of those things. You forget them and buzz off up to your room or go out for the evening. Next morning you remember them and go to where you’ve left them and they’re gone.”

  “Keep going, lad.”

  “Rumour has it,” said the girl, “that Nicky Wright collects them and then sells them to a second-hand bookshop.”

  “Second-hand? Ten pence a time, touch.”

  “No. These expensive textbooks fetch pounds untold, even second-hand, if they’re in good condition and recent editions.”

  “I get it,” said Green. “Name on the fly-leaf blacked-out and nobody knows whose it was.”

  “That’s right. Kevin lost a brand-new book he’d just bought last week. It cost £27.”

  “I left it on a coffee table in the common room,” said Kevin. “The number of characters in Hall who could use that book is mighty small. About six or seven of us. I asked them all if they’d got it.”

  “None had, and you believed them?”

  “Right. So I went to the janitor’s cubicle where lost property is supposed to be deposited.”

  “And?”

  “Nicky Wright said it hadn’t been handed in.”

  “And you accused him of scooping it up and getting a bomb for it in the bookshop.”

  “More or less.”

  “What did he say?”

  “What do you think? It’s well-known that books disappear mysteriously and most people reckon Wright does it. But there are several hundreds of us in residence.”

  “He pointed that out, did he?”

  “And how.”

  “He also threatened to call the police,” said the girl. “In view of that Kevin couldn’t go on, because he’d got no hard evidence. But we all know he was right.”

  Green straightened up. “Don’t worry, love. We are the police.” He turned to Berger. “Show them your card, Sergeant.”

  As Berger drew out his identity wallet, the girl said, “Oh, my God. You’ve tricked us. He did call you in.”

  “No, love, he didn’t. He daren’t. So don’t you worry. We want a word with your Mister Nicky Wright about a totally different business, but after that we’ll put a flea in his ear about those books and then I don’t think any more will disappear.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to get mine back,” said Kevin.

  “Unlikely, son, but if you’ll give Sergeant Berger the title and the address of the shop, we’ll have a bash. Oh, and give him your name, too, just in case we find your property.”

  While Kevin and Berger were conversing, Green said to the girl, “Wright doesn’t come on until six o’clock. I don’t want to hang around here till then. You don’t happen to know where I could find him now, do you?”

  “Well, I know he lives in Hall. There a
re staff quarters at the top, but whether he’ll be there now . . .”

  “He should be just getting up I’d have thought,” said Green. “Nearly four o’clock.”

  “I’ve seen him going out to the pub for a drink sometimes at half-past five. Then he gets back for six.”

  “Could be a regular habit, I suppose. If so, it means he should be getting up to eat. Anyway, we’ll give it a try. At the top of the building, you said?”

  “Take the lift right up as far as you can go.”

  With these instructions to follow, it was easy enough to find the janitor’s flat occupied by Wright. The name—as in every case throughout the building—was on the door. A fire bucket and an extinguisher stood on one side of the frame, and on the other a notice board carrying lists of staff duties and the like. Green glanced at it cursorily while Berger pressed the bell.

  “His name,” grunted Green, “is Laurence Wright. Sounds like tin-pan alley in the twenties.”

  The door opened.

  “Mrs Wright?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Mr Wright in?”

  “He’s having his tea.”

  “Fine,” said Green. “We can talk to him across the table.”

  “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “We’re police officers, love. Show the lady your authority, Sergeant.”

  “What do you want him for?”

  “Don’t worry, love, we don’t want him. We have to ask a few questions about comings and goings in the foyer down below.”

  She let them in and led them to the small kitchen where Wright was sitting at a red melamine-topped table, eating sausage and mash and reading the sports pages of a tabloid.

  “It’s the police to see you. Has it to do with the one who came the other night?”

  “How do I know?” Wright looked at Green. “Whatever it’s about, I’ve got nothing to tell you.”

  “Can I go?” asked Mrs Wright. “I have to get to the shops.” She went on to explain. “You see I do twenty bedrooms, two bathrooms and one kitchen every day. Then I come back here and by the time I’ve had a bite to eat and a sit down it’s time to get his tea. It’s all I can do to get out to buy my bits and pieces.”

  “You go off, love,” said Green. “Your old man will still be here when you get back.”

  “I’ll be on duty by then,” grumbled Wright.

  His wife merely said: “I’ll get off then,” and left the kitchen. Green drew up the chair opposite the janitor. “We’ll talk while you go on chomping. It’s about a week last Monday night and Tuesday morning early.”

  “What about it?”

  “I want to know when Professor Carvell went out and when he came in again.”

  Wright speared an overcooked sausage and hacked a piece off the end. “You don’t expect me to remember one night from another that far back.”

  “I do,” asserted Green. He picked up a bottle of tomato ketchup from the table and offered it to Wright. “You’re out of sauce, mate. Have another dollop. Mixed with that spud of yours it’ll look like murder on the Alps.”

  Wright took the bottle.

  “I’m waiting,” said Green.

  “Then you’ll be here a long time.”

  Green turned to Berger. “What was the name of that shop that sells second-hand text books?”

  Wright looked up. “Now what’re you on about?”

  Green leaned forwards across the table to emphasize his words. “I’ll give you about fifteen seconds in which to refresh your memory. After that I’ll institute an enquiry into the nicking of books left lying about and how they come to end up in second-hand bookshops.”

  “You’ve got nothing on me,” blustered Wright.

  “Ah, but I have, chum. You see, mate, it’s part of your duty to go round late at night to see all the communal rooms are safe, no fag ends burning and such.”

  “So what?”

  “Well now, we have witnesses to prove that they were the last to leave the male common room one night—after a late night bridge session. When they went upstairs, the front doors were already locked and nobody could get in without you letting them in. But when one of them came down very early in the morning to get his books—somewhere about half-past five, he says, because he couldn’t sleep—his books had gone, but the front doors were still locked. So who had taken them?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Who would have the opportunity to take them with you on watch?”

  No reply.

  “Come on chum, you’re guilty either of dereliction of duty or of nicking the books. Either way you could be in the fertilizer with a good chance of losing this nice little pad.” Green sat back. “However, we can soon prove it. A few words at the bookshop and then dusting a few books for prints and the case will be over. You’ll be out on your neck. So now, before we go any further with this particular complaint, I’ll ask you again. A week last Monday night, what time did Carvell go out?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “What time did he go out?”

  “About seven,” mumbled Wright.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I allus make a note of when the tutorial staff go out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they get phone calls, don’t they? And visitors. We don’t do it for the kids. Not for them. And I looked it up after that other chap called.”

  “Detective Chief Superintendent Masters?”

  “If he’s the big bastard, yes.”

  “Watch it,” warned Berger.

  “And you make a note of when they come in, too?”

  “Yes. For the same reasons.”

  “And what time did he get in?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Not early the next morning?”

  “Not while I was on he didn’t.”

  “When do you finish?”

  “Six.”

  “Twelve hour shift?”

  “On nights it is. Six to ten an’ two to six on days. The assistant housekeeper looks out between ten an’ two ordinary days. Weekend’s different.”

  “Right. How was the professor dressed when he went out?”

  “Natty, as usual. Carrying a case.”

  “What sort of case?”

  “Leather attaché case. He’s always got it.”

  “How often did he stay out all night?”

  “Now and then.”

  “How often?”

  “He hasn’t been living in all that long.”

  “How often?”

  “Twice before.”

  “That’s better. Now, you just keep your mouth shut about this, or I’ll remember those missing books. As I shall if I hear any more have gone missing, or anything else round here.”

  “Careless little brats, they are,” said Wright bitterly. “All living on the state and . . .”

  “Existing on pittances out of which they have to buy expensive books,” grated Green, “and providing you with a cushy job at the same time. Don’t knock ’em, mate. They’re not only your present, but your future, too.” Green got to his feet. “Now, cough back those zeppelins in the clouds before they congeal any more. And remember what I’ve said.”

  *

  Masters and Green spent the best part of an hour together at the Yard, comparing notes before setting out for Masters’ cottage.

  “Made any decisions about things yet, George?” asked Green as they set out to walk the few hundred yards together.

  “No. I’d value your advice, Bill. You know everything. How would you proceed?”

  “The keystone’s missing,” grumbled Green.

  “There’s a lot of circumstance.”

  “Which you don’t like.”

  “Not normally, no.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I asked for your advice.”

  “Right. What options are open to you? To pull in Carvell on circumstantial evidence or to hold off until you’ve got one materia
l fact to bring against him. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “We’re seeing him tonight, we hope. It could mean we get the evidence we want. In that case you’d have him.”

  “If not?”

  “You’re back where you were.”

  “And so?”

  “Give it a day or two. You’re not finished yet.”

  “I am, unless the search party from Chichester finds the stuff I need and, quite honestly, Bill, I can’t see them being successful. Oh, I know there are things to do. We’ve got to search Rhoda Carvell’s flat and so on, but I’m not optimistic about getting anything there.”

  “No. I’m not either.”

  They walked the rest of the way in silence.

  It was as they were having a pre-dinner drink that Wanda asked: “How are you getting on with the case, darling?”

  “So, so, my poppet.”

  Doris said in amazement: “You mean you’re not getting anywhere? Bill, that can’t be true, can it? Not with George?”

  “He’s doing well enough,” replied her husband.

  “That sounds as if he’s not making much progress.”

  “He’s got a long way.”

  “But?” queried Wanda.

  “He needs a bit of luck,” said Green.

  “I don’t think I really understand.”

  “Your old man knows who did it, when, where and how.”

  “So what is the difficulty?”

  “He hasn’t got one solid fact to help him plonk it on chummy’s doorstep. That’s the difficulty.”

  “But surely you’ll find what you need,” asserted Wanda.

  “George says he’s not sanguine, which in my book means it’s not bloody likely.”

  “Bill!” Doris sounded scandalized.

  “I’m right. If George says it’s unlikely, you’d expect most people to say it’s impossible.”

  “I suppose so.” Doris turned to Masters. “You really are stuck, are you?”

  Masters grinned. “We know what we want, and that is to find certain objects taken from Rhoda Carvell’s house. But we can’t find them, and they could be anywhere between Climping and London, in a ditch, a rubbish bin, a bottle bank, a stream bed . . . in fact, anywhere. We have a squad of men looking for them in the area of the house, but they haven’t been found. Nor, I suspect, are they likely to be. But they will constitute, in my opinion, the material evidence we need. We are swamped in circumstantial evidence, but I mistrust that when it is not supported by a single hard fact.”