Vintage Crime

by Martin Edwards

  “Yes?”

  “George said he would kill him.”

  “And the man with you in the Square—”

  “Yes. The man with me was Tony Hartman.”

  “When was this photograph taken?”

  “A week ago.”

  “It may have been destroyed by now. What makes you think you’re in any trouble?”

  “This came today.”

  Quarles read the letter she pushed across the desk. It said: ‘You and your friend make a lovely pair. A certain person would be interested. Send £20 in ones to James Johnson, c/o Charing Cross Road Post Office.’

  “Are you going to pay it?” Quarles asked.

  “Certainly not. That’s why I’ve come to you”.

  “All right,” Quarles said, although he thought it was far from all right. “But this will cost you money.”

  She wrinkled her nose distastefully. “As long as it is understood that I am buying it. You can go up to fifty pounds.”

  “That’s not very high.”

  “I have no intention of being blackmailed for a large sum of money, Mr. Quarles. I might go to seventy-five.”

  “Tell me what you can remember about the man who took the photograph.”

  “He was a small man, rather grubby, fair hair, brown suit, very fancy suede shoes, a bad squint in his left eye.”

  Quarles was glad that his own suede shoes were under the desk.

  “You’re very observant, Lady Riverside. Did you notice whether he was wearing a badge?”

  “A badge? No, I’m sure I should have noticed it. Is there anything else you want to know?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll report to you when I have some news.”

  “By telephone, please, between ten and eleven o’clock each morning. I shall answer the telephone then.”

  She did not extend her hand as she got up to go. Quarles watched her from his window as she crossed the Square, unhurried and unruffled, and waited for a taxi. Molly came in and stood beside him.

  “What was she like?”

  “An intelligent icicle. She says she’s being blackmailed.”

  “And is she?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  * * *

  Trafalgar Square is one of the three or four places in Central London (Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London are two of the others) where street photographers cluster, cameras ready, to snap gaping Americans, innocent Europeans and those up from the provinces to see the sights of London. Some of the photographers are licensed by the L.C.C. and wear badges to say so, but others operate independently and without permission.

  Quarles’s guess that the man he was after would prove to be an independent operator was proved correct. Two of the official photographers recognised Lady Riverside’s description as that of a man named Joe James, and one of them, who knew Quarles, was able to give him James’s address.

  “You want to be careful with Joe James, Mr. Quarles. What do you want him for?”

  “It might be blackmail. Would he be up to that?”

  “He’d be up to anything. He only uses this camera pitch as a come-on for mugs. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him.”

  The address Quarles had been given was in Fendy Street, near Paddington Station. Fendy Street proved to be a cul-de-sac of condemned, or at least eminently condemnable, Victorian houses. Children played in the gutters while their older brothers and sisters, drainpiped and lipsticked, lounged against the walls. The eyes that followed Quarles’s bulky figure as he walked down the street wearing his teddy-bear overcoat, carrying his loaded stick, were definitely hostile.

  The number that Quarles had been given was 22. There were five bells outside the house. Quarles pressed one. Nothing happened.

  A small greasy-haired girl in a soiled red frock, her face angelic beneath layers of dirt and dust, said, “They don’t work, mister. Who d’yer want?”

  “Joe James.”

  “He’ll be at the Black Horse round the corner. Least, he usually is, this time of day.”

  “Thank you.” She stared at him as though he were speaking an unknown language, and looked unbelievingly at the shilling he gave her.

  Saloon or Public, Quarles wondered, and pushed open the Saloon bar door. A couple of minutes later an unobtrusive man wearing a grey trilby hat and a threadbare grey suit, who had tailed Quarles from his office, followed him in.

  Quarles recognised Joe James immediately. The photographer leaned against the bar with a glass of beer in front of him. Quarles tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Mr. James?”

  The squint was very marked. “Who wants him?”

  “Or Mr. James Johnson, if you like that better.” Quarles added mildly, “It’s a mistake to use your own initials, or part of your real name, when you’re sending letters like that. Let’s talk, shall we?”

  Joe James was less shaken than Quarles had expected him to be. James led the way to a table in the corner. “Have you brought the money?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can get out. Who are you, anyway? How’d you find me?”

  “My name is Quarles. I’m a private detective, and I’ve got friends who know you. Blackmail is a serious offence.”

  “Don’t give me that. She’d never dare.”

  “Why not?”

  One eye looked at Quarles. The other stared fixedly at the door. “You don’t know much, do you? She’s sent a boy to do a man’s job.”

  “My client wants the negative of that photograph.”

  “She’s got a hope. When I spotted her photo in a picture paper the other day – at my dentist’s it was – I said to myself, Joe, boy, you’re fixed for life. Don’t kill the goose that’s going to lay the golden eggs, I said. A nice steady twenty pounds a month I reckon it’s worth. She can afford it, and that’s what she’s going to pay.”

  “It’s not worth it.”

  The squinting eye roved wildly. “Let her go to the police, then.”

  “Let me see a print of it.”

  “Look.” Joe James’s forefinger jabbed at Quarles’s chest. “You’re not seeing anything. She knows what picture I took, and she knows I’ve only got to send it to a certain party and she’d be—”

  “Yes?” Quarles said, as Joe James stopped suddenly. “What would happen?”

  The little man smacked down his glass on the table. His voice was low but intense. “I don’t believe you know what it’s all about. You just go back and tell her to pack up that money and send it like I said. And if you know what’s good for you, get out of here.”

  “I’m here to buy the negative. Thirty pounds for it.”

  “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Fifty.”

  “Not for sale.”

  “A hundred.”

  It was a cold day, but the little man’s brow was thick with sweat. He did not answer.

  “Five hundred pounds,” Quarles said softly. “Suppose I offered you five hundred pounds for the negative. Should I get it then, Joe?”

  “Get out.” Joe James’s hand moved downward. The empty glass he was holding broke on the table edge, and he raised the jagged fragment menacingly. Quarles brought up his walking stick and sent the fragment of glass flying. In the hubbub that ensued he left quietly. He did not notice the man in the grey trilby hat and the threadbare grey suit, who stayed on, nursing his half pint of bitter.

  * * *

  On the following morning, just after ten o’clock, Quarles picked up the telephone. The voice at the other end said, “Yes?”

  “Lady Riverside? This is Francis Quarles.”

  “Oh, yes.” The voice became one degree colder. “I won’t require your services any further, Mr. Quarles. If you send in your bill I will see that you receive a cheque.” />
  Whatever Quarles had expected, it was not this. “But my report—”

  “Is of no interest to me. The matter has been settled.” The line was disconnected. Quarles stared at the telephone.

  “I was listening,” Molly Player said when he went to the outer office. Not without malice she added, “Her ladyship doesn’t soil her hands with the lower orders more than is necessary. Where are you going?”

  Quarles’s face was dark with anger. “Back to Fendy Street.” He went out into a London which today was yellow with fog – a fog so palpable that a knife could slice it. The photographers were gone from the Square, buses crawled, even the pigeons were muted.

  When Quarles reached Fendy Street it was empty and silent. Even the teenagers and the children had disappeared. He went to the door of Number 22, ignored the bells, and plied the knocker heavily.

  The door was opened by the little girl to whom he had given the shilling. Her frock looked a little dirtier, her hair a little greasier, than they had done the day before.

  “Oh, it’s you. Joe James ain’t in.”

  Quarles looked at his watch. “It’s too early for the pub.”

  “That’s right. ’E ain’t out either. What I mean is, there’s his milk. ’E always takes it upstairs for his tea. What I mean is,” she said triumphantly, “’e ain’t ’ere.”

  “I’ll just take up the milk and make sure. He’s first floor, isn’t he?”

  “Second.” This time she accepted the shilling as a matter of course.

  Quarles took up the half pint of milk to the second floor and knocked. There was no reply. He turned the door handle, and the door opened.

  The room was full of fog. Joe James lay on the floor in his pyjamas, his tongue hanging out of a discoloured face. The cord pulled round his neck was so tight that it had cut into his skin.

  Quarles did not touch the body, but he examined the room. It was full of fog because the window had been left wide open. He crossed over to it, looked out and saw, to one side and below, the flat roof of an extension. It would have been easy enough for any moderately active man to climb up on to that roof and thence to this window.

  The room was in utter disorder, with the contents of drawers strewn on the floor and the bedding cut to ribbons. Empty gin and whisky bottles lined the walls. In one corner stood a metal filing cabinet, its drawers gaping.

  Quarles carefully went through the notes and photographs inside, and saw without surprise that at least half a dozen people would have had good reason for wanting Joe James dead. The little man had not confined his photography to the streets.

  But Quarles found no photograph or negative relating to Lady Riverside.

  The papers from the dead man’s wallet were scattered on the floor. Among them was a clipping from a newspaper five days old, headed EXPULSION OF IRON CURTAIN DIPLOMAT. CHARGE OF SPYING. The story went on to say that a particular Iron Curtain country had been notified that the British Government had information to the effect that Max Nafescu, a Third Secretary in the Embassy, had been engaged in espionage activities, and that his presence in this country was no longer acceptable. The Embassy had protested strongly, but Nafescu had been sent home. There was a photograph of him, smiling and looking engagingly boyish, and another photograph which showed him, coat collar up, boarding an aeroplane.

  Quarles read and reread this clipping, and then put it in his pocket.

  * * *

  It took him more than an hour to get back to Trafalgar Square in the fog. He telephoned Lady Riverside, and spoke to a manservant who asked his name, went away, and returned.

  “Lady Riverside is not at home.”

  “I think you’re mistaken. Tell her that it is in connection with a friend in—” and Quarles named the Iron Curtain country.

  “But, sir—”

  “Just tell her that. I’ll hold on.”

  It was just a minute later when he heard her icy voice. “Mr. Quarles? I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Joe James is dead.”

  “I have never heard the name.”

  “And I am talking about Max Nafescu.”

  There was a silence. Then she said, “What do you want?”

  “To see you. Today.”

  “It is inconvenient. I have a dinner party this evening.”

  “It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

  “Very well. Come here at seven o’clock.”

  The house was in Kensington Square, tall, narrow and elegant. He was shown into a first-floor drawing-room, which had French windows leading out to a balcony. Quarles walked over to these windows, parted the curtains, and stared out at the fog.

  When he turned she was standing in the doorway, and she had spoken his name. She wore a dark blue dress that reached the ground, and there was a blaze of diamonds at her throat. Her cheeks were flushed. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

  “Mr. Quarles, I owe you an apology. I should have explained to you this morning why I wanted no further investigation made. I was unnecessarily brusque. Forgive me.”

  He said nothing.

  “Last night I spoke to my husband. I told him about Tony Hartman, about the photograph. I told him that whatever had been between us was over. I had misjudged my husband. He forgave me, he understood. We could afford to laugh at this petty blackmailer. You see?”

  “It won’t do,” Quarles said. “You’re very good, but it won’t do. You’re not worried about Tony Hartman, and you haven’t told your husband anything. You’re worried about a charge of treason, Lady Riverside.”

  She walked across to the mantel and put her bare arm on it. “That is ridiculous.”

  “Let me tell you a story – the story of a beautiful woman who liked excitement, and was bored with her life. Somehow – at a party, a reception – she met a handsome young man, Third Secretary in an Embassy. Was there a love affair between them? Possibly, but it wasn’t important. The important thing was that her husband was in the Government, and she was in a position to pass on secrets. Perhaps at first she did it as a kind of lark, a kind of adventure. Later it became more than that.

  “They met in, of all places, Trafalgar Square. But after all, why not? It is crowded – the people are preoccupied with the birds, the fountains, each other. It was bad luck that a photographer took a snap of them together. But still, this wasn’t important – it became important only when the Third Secretary was accused of espionage, had to leave the country, and the photographer saw the story in the paper. And from then on the bad luck piled up.

  “The photographer saw a picture of her in a glossy magazine, and he remembered the two who had been so insistent that they didn’t want to be photographed. He realised that this photograph was worth a lot of money. By a further piece of bad luck, he was a petty blackmailer. So he wrote a blackmail note.

  “And what was our society hostess to do now? I can tell you what she did.” Quarles’s dark eyes were angry. She did not meet his gaze. “She went to a private detective and told him a cock-and-bull story which he partly believed. She wanted him to find the photographer, that was all. She told somebody at the Embassy, and they had the private detective followed. He found the photographer for them. Then they killed him, and searched for the negative.”

  “I didn’t want—” she began, and stopped. Then she said defiantly, “You have no proof.”

  “They didn’t find the negative, did they?”

  She stared. “You mean that you’ve found it?”

  “It is in a safe place.”

  “What do you want for it?” Her composure had broken at last. She came over and clutched at his coat. “How much?”

  “It is not for sale.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He disengaged her hands from his coat. “You can’t understand, can you, that s
ome things are not for sale?”

  “But-but what do you want?”

  “I shall deliver the negative to the proper place tomorrow morning. Unless circumstances make it unnecessary.”

  Her whole body seemed to sag for a moment, then she was all ice and iron again. “I think I understand now.”

  “Scandal is always undesirable. And I should say this: if anything happens to me, it will not help you.”

  In a low voice she said, “Nothing will happen. I’ve done with all that.”

  He left her staring into the looking glass over the mantel. He let himself out of the house and walked into the fog. His footsteps on the pavement were muffled, as though he were walking in cotton-wool.

  * * *

  On the next day the fog had lifted. A watery sun shone from a pale-blue sky. Molly had the paper ready for him when he entered the office.

  “Isn’t it terrible about Lady Riverside?” Quarles raised his eyebrows. “She went out for a walk last night – had a bad headache after a dinner party – and stepped right in front of a passing car. She was killed at once.”

  “It was the end she chose,” Quarles said. He told the story to Molly, who listened spellbound.

  “She was really selling secrets?”

  “Giving them away, I guess – just for the thrill of it. She was that sort of woman,” Quarles said.

  Molly bit one of her fingernails. “There’s one thing I don’t see. How did you get hold of the negative?”

  “I didn’t,” Quarles said. “There wasn’t any negative. I knew that when she first came here and told me that the photographer had clicked his camera just once. These street photographers never take a film on speculation that way – they simply click the camera once to stop you, then go into their sales talk, and if you want a photograph, then they really take one. James didn’t have a picture to sell – he was bluffing, as I found out when I offered him five hundred pounds for the negative. I was bluffing too – but I had more luck.

  “She was a beautiful woman,” he added, and sighed. “And intelligent too. But not quite intelligent enough.”