So whatever the reason was for his destroying his nails, it certainly wasn’t because of the adhesion of fresh paint particles. The paint hadn’t been applied until nearly forty-eight hours after Estelle Mitchell’s death. Probably tar from the rim of the barrel he’d hidden the remains in. And as Dixon had said, as long as the nails were gone anyway, what good was that.
I went back to him in the flat, spread my hands dejectedly. And then suddenly, in the very act of giving up hope like that, a way occurred to me. It comes to you as unexpectedly as that, sometimes. I looked at him narrowly, said, “Can you tell me offhand what color the walls of that closet were before they were repainted?”
“Hell no,” he admitted. “When did I ever go in there?”
“See, and you live right here in the house. I couldn’t have either, until I scraped below the top layer just now. I’m going to try to get him on that! It’s just a trick, but it’s about all we have left now.”
He looked at me puzzled.
“It was still beige the night it happened. Gus, the janitor, wasn’t allowed to do it over until after the cops were through with it. But if this guy didn’t go in there with her that night, he’s not supposed to know that.”
I was at the phone. He looked worried when he heard me say, “Headquarters.” I said, “Not you this time, Dixon.” When I got through to Hiller, I just said, “Will you meet me at the Mitchell place? I’ve got something I want you to hear.” I left Dixon in the apartment, told him to lie low, not put on any lights. “Stay here now, will you? When I come back maybe I’ll have good news for you.”
Outside the Mitchell door I had to talk like a trooper to get Hiller to cooperate with me—even as a test. His mind was already made up and he wasn’t unmaking it, not for any murderer’s ex-roommate. “I don’t ask you to open your mouth and say a word. All I ask you to do is not contradict what you hear me say, act as though it were official. And just listen to what he says. You’re sure he wasn’t allowed in that closet anytime during the following day, while you men were working on it?”
“No one was.”
“That’s all I want you to remember.” I rang the bell, Tremholt came to the door, and the dick and I went in together. I was shaking all over—inside where it couldn’t be detected. It was such a threadlike little thing to hang anything on. Hiller just looked inscrutable. Tremholt looked calm and self-possessed. His nails were starting to grow out again, I noticed, proving that that had been an emergency removal, he wasn’t a chronic biter.
The thing to do was to get him rattled, so he’d lose his head for a minute, wouldn’t be able to think quickly enough. I built up to it carefully, increasing the tempo as I went along. My insinuations became broader every minute, until they’d crossed the line, become outright accusations. “Sure it was you, we’ve all known that all along!” I was scared stiff Hiller would butt in, contradict me. He kept to the agreement, sat there impassive. He was just the audience.
“Yeah, I know you were supposed to be in your room here all evening. What does that amount to? Your room’s down near the front door, Mrs. Mitchell’s is all the way at the back of the hall. You have your own latchkey, you could have slipped in and out unnoticed a dozen times over between the time she first saw you come in at eight and the time she knocked to tell you she was getting worried about the girl not returning!”
I figured he was ripe enough now. Outwardly he was still imperturbable. But he was idly shredding a paper-folder of matches, and that was a giveaway. I gave him the punch-line. “And why did you feel you had to clip or file down your fingernails to the quick?” I didn’t give him time to shock-absorb that one. “I’ll tell you why, Hiller! Because he got pale-blue paint under his nails, from the incinerator closet where he dragged her—!”
He was still calm, derisive—outwardly, anyway. “Listen to that, will you? That’s a good one. The incinerator closet wasn’t even light-blue in the first place, it was tan, so how could I—”
I quit talking, I didn’t have to talk any more.
All Hiller said, very softly, almost purringly, was: “You weren’t suppose to know that, baby-boy,” and he started to get up from the chair he’d been in until now.
* * *
—
It was nearly dawn by the time I got back for Dixon. “Come on,” I said, “I’ve got to bring you down to Headquarters with me.”
The old fright came back again, that had done him so much damage.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of any more,” I insisted. “The thing’s unraveling beautifully. They’ve had Tremholt down there with them for hours, and he’s getting in deeper by the minute. His alibi wasn’t worth a damn, you know, once they gave it a really good shaking. I promised to produce you, and you’re coming with me. You can’t be cleared by proxy, you know.” And on the way down there I couldn’t resist remarking, “He may have had you darn near framed, but it wasn’t him alone, don’t forget.”
“Who else was in it with him?” he asked, wide-eyed.
“You yourself. I never saw a guy help to frame himself like you did.”
* * *
—
I don’t live with Dixon any more. I’ve moved out since. It’s hard to explain just why. He didn’t kill her. He did try to kill me, but it isn’t that either.
I run into him now and then, and we’re on the best of terms, but we never prolong the encounters, we’re never completely at ease. There’s a self-consciousness between us. You don’t want to be reminded of a murder every time you look at a guy.
The Lodger
MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES
THE STORY
Original publication: McClure’s Magazine, January 1911
A PROLIFIC AUTHOR of historical, romantic, and crime fiction and plays, Marie Belloc Adelaide Lowndes (1868–1947) based most of her work on historical events. Although highly successful across several genres, only her short story “The Lodger,” and the 1913 novel that it inspired, are widely read today. Based on the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888, they are an accurate illustration of the area in which the crimes were committed, as well as an excellent portrayal of the fear and paranoia that infected London’s population as the police seemed helpless to stop the carnage.
In Lowndes’s classic suspense tale, Mr. Sleuth, a gentle man and a gentleman, takes rooms in Mr. and Mrs. Bunting’s lodging house. Mrs. Bunting becomes more and more terrified of him as the series of brutal Ripper murders continues to horrify London, fearing that Red Jack may be the strange lodger in her house.
THE FILM
Title: The Lodger, 1944
Studio: Twentieth Century-Fox
Director: John Brahm
Screenwriter: Barré Lyndon
Producer: Robert Bassler
THE CAST
• Merle Oberon (Kitty Langley)
• George Sanders (Inspector John Warwick)
• Laird Cregar (Mr. Slade)
• Cedrick Hardwicke (Robert Bonting)
• Sara Allgood (Ellen Bonting)
A remake of The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, the famous 1927 silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this suspenseful classic has such obvious similarities to its predecessor as plot and setting, though it has an ending entirely different from the earlier motion picture. Its cinematography leans so heavily on the Hitchcock version that many people have the impression that he directed the sound film as well. Dark and atmospherically brooding, cast with actors that Hitchcock had frequently used in other films, it seemed to need only Hitch’s famous cameo appearance to make it a full-fledged Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Although the leading credits went to Merle Oberon and George Sanders, the film belongs to Laird Cregar, the quiet giant in the titular role. He is such a frightening presence, and his actions point to his guilt so clearly, one can only wonder why more of the film’
s characters could not identify him immediately as Jack the Ripper, the man brutally murdering the prostitutes for whom he had an outspoken hatred.
Cregar, incidentally, at six feet, three inches in height, easily weighed three hundred pounds. Sensitive about his weight, he began a severe diet and underwent surgery in an attempt to become thinner. Things went badly and he died around thirty, appearing in only one film after The Lodger.
The cast of the Hitchcock-directed silent film included Marie Ault (the landlady), Arthur Chesney (the landlord), June Tripp (a model), Malcolm Keen (Joe, a policeman), and Ivor Novello (the lodger). Eliot Stannard wrote the screenplay for the Gainsborough Pictures release.
The Lowndes story also served as the inspiration for the largely forgotten 1932 first sound version, also titled The Lodger, directed by Maurice Elvey, that again starred Ivor Novello (the lodger, named Michael Angeloff). It was released in an abridged version in the United States in 1935 with the understated title The Phantom Fiend; it fared just as poorly as the English version.
An evidently endless inspiration to filmmakers, “The Lodger” surfaced in 1953 with the title Man in the Attic, directed by Hugo Fragonese with a screenplay by Robert Presnell Jr. and Barré Lyndon; it starred Jack Palance as the menacing lodger, Slade.
Most recently, David Ondaatje wrote and directed a film titled The Lodger (2009) starring Alfred Molina (the detective) and Simon Baker (the lodger) that drew its inspiration from the Lowndes story but added so many disparate elements (a neurotic landlady, an even more neurotic policeman, not to mention a setting in West Hollywood) that it would have been difficult to recognize had it lacked its iconic title.
THE LODGER
Marie Belloc Lowndes
“THERE HE IS AT LAST, and I’m glad of it, Ellen. ’Tain’t a night you would wish a dog to be out in.”
Mr. Bunting’s voice was full of unmistakable relief. He was close to the fire, sitting back in a deep leather armchair—a clean-shaven, dapper man, still in outward appearance what he had been so long, and now no longer was—a self-respecting butler.
“You needn’t feel so nervous about him; Mr. Sleuth can look out for himself, all right.” Mrs. Bunting spoke in a dry, rather tart tone. She was less emotional, better balanced, than was her husband. On her the marks of past servitude were less apparent, but they were there all the same—especially in her neat black stuff dress and scrupulously clean, plain collar and cuffs. Mrs. Bunting, as a single woman, had been for long years what is known as a useful maid.
“I can’t think why he wants to go out in such weather. He did it in last week’s fog, too,” Bunting went on complainingly.
“Well, it’s none of your business—now, is it?”
“No; that’s true enough. Still, ’twould be a very bad thing for us if anything happened to him. This lodger’s the first bit of luck we’ve had for a very long time.”
Mrs. Bunting made no answer to this remark. It was too obviously true to be worth answering. Also she was listening—following in imagination her lodger’s quick, singularly quiet—“stealthy,” she called it to herself—progress through the dark, fog-filled hall and up the staircase.
“It isn’t safe for decent folk to be out in such weather—not unless they have something to do that won’t wait till tomorrow.” Bunting had at last turned round. He was now looking straight into his wife’s narrow, colorless face; he was an obstinate man, and liked to prove himself right. “I read you out the accidents in Lloyd’s yesterday—shocking, they were, and all brought about by the fog! And then, that ’orrid monster at his work again—”
“Monster?” repeated Mrs. Bunting absently. She was trying to hear the lodger’s footsteps overhead; but her husband went on as if there had been no interruption:
“It wouldn’t be very pleasant to run up against such a party as that in the fog, eh?”
“What stuff you do talk!” she said sharply; and then she got up suddenly. Her husband’s remark had disturbed her. She hated to think of such things as the terrible series of murders that were just then horrifying and exciting the nether world of London. Though she enjoyed pathos and sentiment—Mrs. Bunting would listen with mild amusement to the details of a breach-of-promise action—she shrank from stories of either immorality or physical violence.
Mrs. Bunting got up from the straight-backed chair on which she had been sitting. It would soon be time for supper.
She moved about the sitting-room, flecking off an imperceptible touch of dust here, straightening a piece of furniture there.
Bunting looked around once or twice. He would have liked to ask Ellen to leave off fidgeting, but he was mild and fond of peace, so he refrained. However, she soon gave over what irritated him of her own accord. But even then Mrs. Bunting did not at once go down to the cold kitchen, where everything was in readiness for her simple cooking. Instead, she opened the door leading into the bedroom behind, and there, closing the door quietly, stepped back into the darkness and stood motionless, listening.
At first she heard nothing, but gradually there came the sound of someone moving about in the room just overhead; try as she might, however, it was impossible for her to guess what her lodger was doing. At last she heard him open the door leading out to the landing. That meant that he would spend the rest of the evening in the rather cheerless room above the drawing-room floor—oddly enough, he liked sitting there best, though the only warmth obtainable was from a gas-stove fed by a shilling-in-the-slot arrangement.
It was indeed true that Mr. Sleuth had brought the Buntings luck, for at the time he had taken their rooms it had been touch and go with them.
After having each separately led the sheltered, impersonal, and, above all, the financially easy existence that is the compensation life offers to those men and women who deliberately take upon themselves the yoke of domestic service, these two, butler and useful maid, had suddenly, in middle age, determined to join their fortunes and savings.
Bunting was a widower; he had one pretty daughter, a girl of seventeen, who now lived, as had been the case ever since the death of her mother, with a prosperous aunt. His second wife had been reared in the Foundling Hospital, but she had gradually worked her way up into the higher ranks of the servant class and as a useful maid she had saved quite a tidy sum of money.
Unluckily, misfortune had dogged Mr. and Mrs. Bunting from the very first. The seaside place where they had begun by taking a lodging-house became the scene of an epidemic. Then had followed a business experiment which had proved disastrous. But before going back into service, either together or separately, they had made up their minds to make one last effort, and, with the little money that remained to them, they had taken over the lease of a small house in the Marylebone Road.
Bunting, whose appearance was very good, had retained a connection with old employers and their friends, so he occasionally got a good job as waiter. During this last month his jobs had perceptibly increased in number and in profit; Mrs. Bunting was not superstitious, but it seemed that in this matter, as in everything else, Mr. Sleuth, their new lodger, had brought them luck.
As she stood there, still listening intently in the darkness of the bedroom, she told herself, not for the first time, what Mr. Sleuth’s departure would mean to her and Bunting. It would almost certainly mean ruin.
Luckily, the lodger seemed entirely pleased both with the rooms and with his landlady. There was really no reason why he should ever leave such nice lodgings. Mrs. Bunting shook off her vague sense of apprehension and unease. She turned round, took a step forward, and, feeling for the handle of the door giving into the passage, she opened it, and went down with light, firm steps into the kitchen.
She lit the gas and put a frying-pan on the stove, and then once more her mind reverted, as if in spite of herself, to her lodger, and there came back to Mrs. Bunting, very vividly, the memory of all that had happened the day Mr. Sleuth
had taken her rooms.
The date of this excellent lodger’s coming had been the twenty-ninth of December, and the time late afternoon. She and Bunting had been sitting, gloomily enough, over their small banked-up fire. They had dined in the middle of the day—he on a couple of sausages, she on a little cold ham. They were utterly out of heart, each trying to pluck up courage to tell the other that it was no use trying any more. The two had also had a little tiff on that dreary afternoon. A newspaper-seller had come yelling down the Marylebone Road, shouting out, “ ’Orrible murder in Whitechapel!” and just because Bunting had an old uncle living in the East End he had gone and bought a paper, and at a time, too, when every penny, nay, every half-penny, had its full value! Mrs. Bunting remembered the circumstances because that murder in Whitechapel had been the first of these terrible crimes—there had been four since—which she would never allow Bunting to discuss in her presence, and yet which had of late begun to interest curiously, uncomfortably, even her refined mind.
But, to return to the lodger. It was then, on that dreary afternoon, that suddenly there had come to the front door a tremulous, uncertain double knock.
Bunting ought to have got up, but he had gone on reading the paper; and so Mrs. Bunting, with the woman’s greater courage, had gone out into the passage, turned up the gas, and opened the door to see who it could be. She remembered, as if it were yesterday instead of nigh on a month ago, Mr. Sleuth’s peculiar appearance. Tall, dark, lanky, an old-fashioned top hat concealing his high bald forehead, he had stood there, an odd figure of a man, blinking at her.
“I believe—is it not a fact that you let lodgings?” he had asked in a hesitating, whistling voice, a voice that she had known in a moment to be that of an educated man—of a gentleman. As he had stepped into the hall, she had noticed that in his right hand he held a narrow bag—a quite new bag of strong brown leather.
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 53
