Murder Underground

by Mavis Doriel Hay

  “This is desperately important. What you have to say and what Nellie has to say fit together in the most marvellous way, and we can’t wait a moment. Take these biscuits—you can munch them on the way.”

  No one asked whether Nellie had had any supper. In a few minutes the three were hurrying down the hill towards the police-station, leaving Mrs. Bliss in a state of bewilderment, her self-assurance shattered by Betty’s explanation, fired at her like a round of cartridges: “Nellie has to go immediately to the police-station with Cissie and me, to interview Inspector Caird. It’s urgent. They had better have some supper when they get back. Don’t say anything to the others!”

  “Well, really now, who’d think I’m mistress here?” Mrs. Bliss lamented to herself. “And my poor nerves.”

  Chapter XXI

  “Some Valuable Information”

  Mrs. Daymer and Gerry stepped out of a taxi outside Hampstead police-station at a quarter to eight. They were startled by the warm welcome—with an undercurrent of surprise in it— which they received.

  “I want to speak to Inspector Caird as soon as possible,” Mrs. Daymer announced importantly to the constable. “I have some valuable information to give in connection with the Pongleton case.”

  “I never thought a policeman would be so glad to see me,” Gerry remarked, when Constable Potts had gone to inform the inspector of their arrival. On his way the constable met a colleague to whom he remarked that Mr. Plasher and Mrs. Daymer were here, “cool as you like”, and Mrs. Daymer was offering “some valuable information”.

  “If you ask me,” Constable Waterton replied, “everyone comes telling us far too much in this case. We might get on a great deal better without all this vall-you-bull hinformation.”

  Basil was sitting in Inspector Caird’s office, struggling to explain “the pearls business” without involving Beryl in any way, and exonerating Betty as far as possible, and leaving Mamie out of it altogether, and not admitting that he had been on the stairs on Friday morning. The truth oozed from him in reluctant driblets.

  Constable Potts entered with the news that both Mrs. Daymer and Mr. Plasher had reported themselves. Basil did not hear exactly what was said, but he gathered that someone wanted to see the inspector.

  “Look here, Inspector,” he suggested. “Let me sit by myself and write this story down. I can spew it out better that way.”

  Inspector Caird considered the suggestion. It might not be a bad idea.

  “But don’t leave anything out,” he admonished Basil sternly. “I know a good deal more than you think, and I’m less easily fooled than you imagine.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Basil agreed. He was conducted to another room and there provided with paper and left in charge of Constable Waterton, who sat stolidly looking at nothing with an air of not having been introduced to Basil. The constable had an unfinished look without his helmet, and yet was somehow more alarming, and Basil did not find his presence conducive to literary facility.

  The inspector had said he would see Gerry first, but when he turned at the sound of his door opening again he saw Mrs. Daymer. Constable Potts had been quite unable to cope with her without using force, and he had no authority to do that. He hoped, however, that the inspector might order her immediate arrest.

  Inspector Caird, recovering from his annoyance, looked at her feet. His hopes wilted. Mrs. Daymer’s unvarying devotion to Trutoze footwear—wide and rounded and peculiarly inelegant—for once stood her in good stead.

  “Good evening, Inspector,” she greeted him cordially. “I must plead guilty”—the inspector started and Constable Potts involuntarily prepared himself to whip out his handcuffs—“to kidnapping Mr. Plasher, but we have been carrying out a little enquiry of which we will now report the results.”

  She seated herself squarely in the chair just vacated by Basil, with her feet—those exasperatingly innocent feet—planted widely apart, and began her story.

  “Thirty years ago,” announced Mrs. Daymer brightly, “a young man of obscure origin, living in Coventry, strangled his landlady’s dog with its own leash.”

  “Really, Mrs. Daymer,” the inspector protested, “we are very busy at this moment, and unless your information is relevant to the Pongleton case I must ask you to tell your story later, or to someone else. I am dealing with very urgent matters.”

  “You will hardly be able to grasp the relevance of my story unless I begin at the beginning,” Mrs. Daymer informed him scathingly. She looked for confirmation to Gerry, who had followed her in and was seated beside her.

  “I admit it all sounds batty, Inspector,” he said uneasily, “but there is a connection, I promise you.”

  Mrs. Daymer proceeded with her narrative and got through it with some difficulty, overwhelming the inspector’s protests again and again and forcing him to admit that at least she had done her job thoroughly, and that he could obtain confirmation from the two women, Mrs. Maud Birtle and her sister, Dollie Smithers, whose addresses she supplied.

  Inspector Caird regarded her quizzically. He could hardly doubt that she and Gerry had spent their time in Coventry as she described. He wished he could doubt it; he wished he could believe that she had been engaged in some nefarious occupation for which he might order her arrest. If he could really establish a connection between Joseph Slocomb, the late Miss Pongleton’s valued friend, and Jonah Sokam who strangled a dog and embezzled young women’s savings in Coventry some thirty years ago, it might be useful, though it wasn’t exactly evidence. But was Mrs. Daymer giving away an accomplice or had she really made a discovery?

  He sent for a constable and instructed him to ring up Scotland Yard with a request for information about Joseph Slocomb, or Jonah Sokam, formerly of Coventry, especially with regard to shady financial dealings. He turned again to Mrs. Daymer.

  “You realize that it is a serious matter to accuse anyone—even by implication—of murder, without a shred of real evidence?”

  “I make no accusation,” replied Mrs. Daymer with dignity. “I merely report facts which have come to my notice. The rest seems to me to be the business of the police, and I will leave you to deal with it. Good evening!”

  Mrs. Daymer rose and stalked out of the room. Inspector Caird sniffed the air suspiciously and resettled himself in his chair.

  “Hope you don’t think I put the woman up to it, Inspector. I was as wax in her hands. Dunno what to make of the affair, but I can tell you I’ve been feeling like a blithering idiot, trailing after her round Coventry all day.”

  “I can sympathize with you, Mr. Plasher,” said Inspector Caird gravely. He proceeded to question Gerry, who was engagingly confidential and did not seem to be concealing anything. The conspiracy theory was not working out very well.

  Meanwhile Betty had arrived at the police-station with Cissie and Nellie, all out of breath. The constable who met the three of them at the door groaned almost audibly.

  “We must see Inspector Caird immediately,” Betty told him imperatively. “These two ladies have some entirely new and valuable information.”

  “We’ll ’ave the ’ole of ’Ampstead ’ere with hinformation before the night is out,” the constable muttered as he stumped along the passage.

  In the room where Betty and her protégées were asked to wait sat Mrs. Daymer, exhaling a damp odour of the natural grease of the sheep.

  “You!” exclaimed Betty, in not very polite surprise. She had hoped to see Basil.

  Mrs. Daymer smiled at them grimly. “You have some valuable information, I heard you say. To avoid disappointment you had better accustom your mind at once to the idea that its value will not be clear to the police. I have been giving them some valuable information, but they have not received it in a very grateful spirit.”

  “What—” burst out Cissie.

  “I expect we’d better not ask,” said Betty sagely.

 
“I don’t think I’ll wait,” said Mrs. Daymer, rising. “Mr. Plasher is in with the inspector now. You will perhaps tell him from me that I have gone home, with a hope, unfounded on former experience, that I may get something to eat.”

  “You may get my supper!” suggested Cissie gloomily, as Mrs. Daymer stalked away.

  But Gerry was wondering hungrily in a room by himself why he was still not allowed to go home. The inspector couldn’t quite make up his mind to lose sight of him again, and he was meditating on some information he had extracted from Gerry to confirm his own memory. Yes, Slocomb was rather under middle height and of slim build; his feet were small; he wore a dark suit and overcoat and a bowler hat.

  The man who had been sent to test the time needed for what the inspector now believed were Mr. Slocomb’s movements on Friday morning came to report: “Half an hour, and a fair wait for one train. They run more frequent in the mornings, if that’s what you’re thinking of.”

  “Half an hour! And our friend had thirty-five minutes.”

  Constable Potts followed on the man’s heels to announce stolidly: “There’s three ladies from the Frampton, sir, to see you, with vall-you-bull hinformation. One of ’em’s Miss Watson.”

  “Three of ’em?” demanded the inspector incredulously. “How many ladies are left at the Frampton, Potts?”

  An unofficial grin upset the constable’s orderly countenance, but he deemed this to be a rhetorical question rather than a request for information.

  “I do want to see Miss Watson,” Inspector Caird admitted. “You can bring her in. Mr. Pongleton can remain with Constable Waterton until I send for him, but let me know if he asks to see me at any time. Mr. Plasher must also wait. Jones not here yet, I suppose?”

  “No, sir, but the car ought to be here with him soon, unless he’s not at home.”

  The telephone shrilly demanded the inspector’s attention.

  “Bring the ladies in as soon as I’ve finished with this call,” Inspector Caird instructed Constable Potts before he picked up the ear-piece to learn that Scotland Yard was calling him.

  “Jonah Sokam—yes; identical, I have reason to believe, with Joseph Slocomb of the Frampton Private Hotel and Slocomb’s Business Agency. You know Sokam?”

  Inspector Caird’s eyebrows rose higher and higher as he pencilled rapid notes.

  “No, I had nothing against Slocomb until half an hour ago; I have a good deal against him now. We’re just getting a warrant for his arrest for the Pongleton murder. Motive and opportunity; a few gaps in the chain of evidence, but I think we’re linking it up. You hadn’t a suspicion of any connection between Sokam and Slocomb, you mean? Oh, not at all”—the inspector became very modest—“quite an accident put us on the track—and the usual carelessness, over a detail here and there, by an unusually careful criminal. You’ll investigate that business agency immediately? But he’s an artful customer. You’ll probably find it all O.K. That’s the respectable side of his life. You’ll look into the Coventry business, of course? Got the addresses of those two women? Other connections in Coventry?—Ah! Large sums! I gather you’re quite pleased that we’ve identified him for you? Yes, I’ve evidence that he was after Miss Pongleton’s money while she was alive, got her to leave him a substantial legacy and probably hoped to get a good deal more out of her silly young nephew.”

  “Confound that Daymer woman!” he muttered as he replaced the receiver. “There’ll be no holding her! She was on the right track, and I don’t know how we should have hit upon the connection between Slocomb and his shady double if she hadn’t blundered on that evidence in Coventry. Odd that he should have worked under a name so like his own, but he may have thought that its very similarity was a shield!”

  Constable Potts entered with a report from the fingerprint expert. “Nothing on the pearls, sir; but the envelope had been opened, it seems, and sealed down again, very expert; but there is a print on the dokkyment inside—made, it seems, by whoever opened the envelope, with a damp finger. Not identified yet; doesn’t belong to the nephew; they’ll send a full report later.”

  “Good. I’m ready for the ladies now.”

  Inspector Caird reviewed the evidence in his mind. “I’d like a few more facts, but it seems to hang together pretty well,” he concluded.

  Chapter XXII

  Mr. Slocomb Is Surprised

  “Well, Miss Watson, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have this elucidated; if only you could have persuaded this young man a little earlier in the proceedings that it would have been better for him to come out into the open, it would have saved us a lot of trouble. Probably you both feel happier now that you have got it off your chests! I have sent men up to the Frampton to keep watch, and at all costs to prevent the escape of a certain gentleman, but I don’t think he has the wind up at all, so he’s not likely to try to bolt. Keep quiet when you get there and keep those others quiet too, if you can, and I hope to goodness Mrs. Daymer hasn’t been making a song about her little expedition! We shan’t be long. And remember, don’t tell any more tarradiddles!”

  Inspector Caird smiled at Betty and Basil in a fatherly way. He had admitted handsomely that Betty had extracted from Nellie and from Cissie vital information which he himself had failed to elicit. But he felt such a glow of human satisfaction at being able to restore a chastened young man, completely vindicated of criminal misdeeds, to the “nice little girl”, that he was not unduly downcast by these blows to his professional pride.

  As Basil walked arm in arm with Betty up to the Frampton, he told her those parts of the story which he had at last been induced to reveal to Inspector Caird.

  “You do understand, don’t you, Betty? I’m an utter worm. But I was desperately hard up when Aunt Phemia handed over those pearls to me, and it seemed a good idea to raise a bit of cash on them. I made sure that I’d get all that and more for my story, Pearls Before Swine. I called it that to make it a good omen, but it seems to have been a bad one, for the story was an utter dud. Never tamper with the omens!”

  “Nor with the heirlooms!” Betty added.

  “When I realized that Aunt Phemia was dead and those pearls sitting in the pawnshop, my one idea was to get them out. Mamie had helped me put ’em in—took me to the shop and all that—and I thought she’d help me get ’em out again, as she did. She’s a real good sort, Betty. You do understand, don’t you?”

  “What I can’t understand is why you should have gone to her—to that sort of girl—when you might have come to me. You know I would have helped you, Basil.”

  “But can’t you see, you wouldn’t know about pawnshops and I couldn’t ask you to lend me money? And I didn’t want to mix you up in the business!”

  Betty’s sudden laugh startled Cissie and Nellie, who were walking a little way ahead. She felt so absurdly happy that she simply couldn’t bother about Mamie just now. She was so thankful to have Basil safe that she could have swallowed half a dozen Mamies and still have laughed. A delirious kind of feeling, backed by a confidence, perhaps a rash one, that there would be no Mamies in the future.

  “There’s quite a lot I don’t understand, Basil dear, but I don’t think you’d better explain it now. I can’t take in any more.”

  “I don’t know when I’ve been in such an explaining mood,” Basil told her. “And I don’t know when I shall be again. Hadn’t I better go on with it?”

  “No, here’s Church Lane and there’s not time. I’ll come to supper with you to-morrow. Oh dear, this is going to be rather horrible.”

  Basil squeezed her hand. Nellie was dithering at the door of the Frampton. She was in a confused state of mind, especially as Cissie had been elaborating the situation as they walked up the hill; but she gathered that Mr. Slocomb, Mrs. Bliss’s most valued boarder, was deeply involved in some dirty work.

  “Reelly I don’t ’ardly like goin’ into the ’ouse where ’e is,” sh
e complained. “Gives me the shudders like, an’ ’oo’d’ve thought it?”

  Betty took her firmly by the arm. “Go straight into the kitchen, Nellie,” she commanded, “and get yourself some supper and don’t talk to cook or Mrs. Bliss. You can say you had to give some more information about the leash and you can’t tell them any more now. They’ll know soon enough.”

  “And Miss Fain’s supper?” Nellie enquired.

  “Golly!” wailed Cissie. “My middle’s caving in so that I can hardly stand upright.”

  “You must wait!” Betty declared. “And you too, Basil; if you missed your dinner it’s your own fault.”

  He was installed in one of the wicker chairs of the lounge hall, and Betty and Cissie entered the drawing-room.

  The scene struck them as curiously peaceful and normal. It was difficult to believe that something startling and horrible was about to happen.

  Mr. Slocomb sat in the chair that had been Miss Pongleton’s, with a crossword puzzle before him. Mrs. Daymer sat in the opposite chair with a strip of linen in her hands through which she jabbed a long embroidery needle ferociously, looking up now and then to shoot a suspicious glance at Mr. Slocomb. Mr. Blend was at his table in the far corner, happily pencilling the Evening News, and Mr. Grange sat meekly on the sofa near Mrs. Daymer, occasionally obeying her commands to reach the scissors or a skein of silk.

  Betty and Cissie took their seats on the sofa, disregarding Mrs. Daymer’s enquiring look.

  “Is your headache better, Miss Watson?” asked Mr. Grange solicitously.

  Betty jumped. Did she have a headache? Yes, of course, years ago at about six o’clock this evening. “Much better, thanks,” she told him.

  Mr. Blend got up and shuffled about the room, picking up a paper here and there and rattling the pages. In the course of his tiresome pottering and rustling he worked a devious way towards Mrs. Daymer.

  “Restless old fellow, aren’t I?” he mumbled aimiably. “Don’t seem able to settle this evening! Did you get all the local colour you wanted, Mrs. Daymer? Not much colour there—grey old place!”