My Name is Michael Sibley

by John Bingham

  “This is Michael Sibley. Is that Mr. Herbert Day? I don’t know if you remember me. I met you one evening with John Prosset many years ago.”

  There was a short pause. Then, “Yes. I remember you. Well?”

  “How are you keeping?”

  “All right,” said Day in his muffled kind of voice.

  “I would like to see you for a few minutes if you can spare the time.”

  There was another pause. Then Day said, “All right. When?”

  “Now. I can be with you in about a quarter of an hour.”

  “All right, then. I’ll expect you. Don’t make it later. I’ve got to go out.”

  I took a taxi through the City to Middlesex Street and paid it off at Prosset’s former office. This proved to be on the third floor of a tall, smoke-begrimed building occupied by a number of different firms. In the narrow, dirty entrance a dilapidated board showed the name of Prosset and Day, Ltd. I went up the uncarpeted stairs. On the first floor one of the doors was open; two men in shirtsleeves, cigarettes hanging from their lips, were engaged in moving some cardboard boxes from a large stack occupying three-quarters of the room. On the second floor, behind doors badly in need of a new coat of paint, a Mr. Mackintosh, credit bookmaker, carried on his business. The premises of Prosset and Day looked no smarter. The little landing was littered with dust, a scrap or two of paper, and two or three cigarette ends; it was covered with a square of brown linoleum, rotting and torn round the edges. On one of the badly fitting doors was a piece of cardboard on which, written in ink, was the word “Inquiries.”

  I went in, and on the other side of the door at once found myself in what I took to be the main office, if you could call it such. It was a small room, the bare boards of which were partly covered with a rectangle of cheap carpet. The walls had once been yellow, but were now blotchy and dirty. In winter the room appeared to be heated by a small gas fire.

  There was a communicating door which led to what seemed to be a larger room, and through the doorway I caught sight of piles of wooden boxes, cardboard cartons, paper packages, bales of cloth, and other material. Under the little window in the office were two tables and chairs, face to face, apparently used as desks. Merchandise from the adjoining room had overflowed into the office, and here too were a few cardboard cartons, stacked against the walls or thrown carelessly into a corner.

  One of the desks had doubtless been occupied by Prosset. It seemed strange that he had chosen to come to this dump from the cleanliness and order and assured future of a great bank. But then perhaps he had not realized it would be like this. Perhaps he thought, listening to Herbert Day’s proposal, that they would take a smart office in the West End, all chromium plate and thick carpeting and smart secretaries; probably that is what Prosset, the optimistic fellow, would have visualized.

  I had a swift mental picture of him leaving old Buckley’s house to play for the college: immaculately dressed in white rugger shorts, red and black jersey, black blazer with the school crest on the pocket, white silk scarf, and the black, red and gold tasselled cap of the First Fifteen on his head. Whatever I felt about him on other occasions I had been glad to walk up to the rugger field with him then, linked arm in arm after the college custom: Prosset, David and I. People envied David and me on those occasions.

  Herbert Day looked up from his desk. He rose to his feet. He seemed to have changed little since I last saw him, except that he looked a little seedier, a little dustier. He still wore a black pinstripe suit and suede shoes, and when he took his cigarette from his mouth I noticed how his fingers were stained dark yellow with nicotine.

  I noticed something else, too, something that sent the blood rushing to my head with excitement, and set the pulse throbbing in my throat so forcibly that I could hardly speak.

  It was the smell in the office.

  The same half-pungent, half-sweet smell of Day’s Cyprus cigarettes, the smell that had finally made me sick at the party with Prosset, Margaret Dawson, and the others; the smell which I had caught, so faintly that I did not recognize it, at Prosset’s cottage while I was awaiting his return.

  “What can I do for you?” Day stood in front of the gas fire, leaning on the mantelpiece.

  “I suppose you can guess why I’ve called.”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “It’s about Prosset’s death,” I said.

  He ran his tongue over his lips with the quick little snake-like movement I remembered.

  “Oh, yes. What about it?” he said. As if realizing he ought to say something more, he added, “It was a bad business. Very bad business.”

  “The police have been in touch with me about it, of course. I suppose they have been here, too?”

  “Naturally.”

  “They asked me whether I could suggest any line of inquiry.”

  “And could you?”

  “Nothing very firm. But I have been thinking about something. Perhaps you can help me.”

  “And what have you been thinking?”

  “I remembered a foreigner—I think Prosset said his name was Max—whom he met in a pub in Chelsea; and that he had mentioned one or two people near Ockleton who he said were interested in the import side of your business. I suppose you told the police about them? I wondered if it were possible that Prosset had fallen out with one or other of these people.”

  Day took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, and lit another one without offering me one. He said nothing.

  “I’ll be frank with you,” I went on. “For reasons which I won’t take up your time with, I have been rather closely questioned by the police. Perhaps more closely than most people in this matter.”

  Day walked over to the window and looked through the grimy little pane.

  “There is no import side to this business,” he said flatly.

  I stared at him. I could not believe I had heard correctly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I say. We don’t touch foreign stuff. There is no import side to this business.”

  For a moment I felt a return of the old panic I had experienced during my trip to Palesby. Then it was gone. The implications of his attitude were beginning to take shape in my mind when I heard him add, “Such being the case, I have rather naturally not been able to help the police in that connection.”

  “Do you mean to say you have never heard of Max, or of anybody with whom Prosset was friendly at Ockleton?”

  Day turned from the window.

  “I have heard of nobody called Max. John Prosset may well have had friends near Ockleton. Why not, indeed? I have no idea who they are. It is possible, too,” he continued, beginning to walk up and down the room, “that he may have engaged in some sort of import business. I know nothing of it.”

  “But damn it, you were his partner.”

  “That does not preclude Mr. Prosset from having had some other sideline, of which I knew nothing. Does it?” He stopped and looked at me.

  “Possibly not. But—”

  “There is no but about it. I don’t mind telling you that the books of this firm have been examined by the police for reasons best known to themselves. They found no mention of import goods, of course. Is there any other way in which I can help you?”

  “You must have noticed that things had looked up for him lately. He bought a better car, rented a cottage. Do you know why?”

  “The personal, financial affairs of Mr. Prosset were hardly my concern, Mr. Sibley.”

  Now, the normal man faced with such questions about imports would have shown bewilderment: if he had already been questioned by the police on the subject, he might well have mentioned it; if he did not know anything about such imports he would have said how puzzling it all was, and how surprised he was that Prosset had not confided in him. He would have been prepared to discuss the subject at some length, to offer theories or explanations of his own.

  I knew from Day’s cold, formal answers that he was lying.

  I felt sure now
that there was something in my theory; that there had, in fact, been an illicit side to the business, that it probably took the form of smuggling—“importing”—and that something had gone wrong inside the organization.

  I walked to the door. I had yet to play my strongest card.

  “Is that all you will say, then?”

  “Unless there is anything else you want.”

  “There is no other point of importance. Prosset wasn’t lying to me. He did do import business.”

  Day was back again at the window, his back half turned to me. He made no movement. He went on staring out of the grimy pane at a blank wall opposite. He repeated in the same snuffly voice, “There is no import side to this business.”

  “What were you doing at Ockleton on the Saturday before Prosset was killed? Have you told the police you were there?”

  Herbert Day turned round slowly and stared at me.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard. You were in the house shortly before I arrived, and you left behind you the smell of those Cyprus cigarettes you smoke.”

  He looked at me for ten seconds without replying. Then he passed his tongue over his lips and turned back to the window.

  “Unfortunately, Mr. Prosset had a habit of borrowing cigarettes off me.”

  “Prosset hated your cigarettes. He often told me so.”

  “Unfortunately,” repeated Herbert Day in a dull, monotonous tone, “Prosset had a habit of borrowing cigarettes off me.”

  Even a rogue can have a twinge of conscience if he thinks another person may suffer for his crime. Possibly Herbert Day, gazing out of the dirty window, was steeling himself to continue to act ruthlessly and thus to save himself. I was hardly in a position to point an accusing finger. It was only a matter of degree. During my period of panic, I had been willing to abandon my position, my income, even poor little Kate, if I could have attained the physical security of the office boy I had seen crossing the street in Palesby. I had been willing to push anybody back into the water provided only that Michael Sibley could climb on to the raft. When a man is in peril, the danger can bring out the best or the worst. It is a toss up which it will be, and nobody can prophesy for certain how the coin would fall in his own particular case.

  I did not know if I was still being followed.

  After the happy results which had rewarded the police on the evening they had found my knuckleduster, I thought they would certainly feel sufficiently encouraged to continue with it. I therefore assumed that I was. But it did not worry me.

  I knew they had not followed me to Palesby, and for the rest it simply did not matter. Once or twice I glanced round, or paused and looked into shop windows in a rather amateurish attempt to see if anybody was on the job; but I had no success. It is probably different in the country, or even in the suburbs, but in the busy thoroughfares of central London it is almost hopeless trying to spot a shadower. I could not see anybody who looked conspicuously like a detective, but for all I knew they might have put a woman on the job. After a while, I simply got used to the idea, and hardly gave the matter a thought.

  At 6:30 I telephoned Kate and arranged to meet her at the Criterion for dinner, and at 7:15 I saw her coming into the lounge.

  A drizzle of rain had begun to fall, and she was wearing her pale, almost white mackintosh over a simple red dress. She wore no hat and walked in with her usual long, boyish gait; she was carrying a short, dark blue umbrella under one arm, and with one hand her bag, while the other hand was in her mackintosh pocket. Her fair hair fell straight down from her face and only curled a little at the point where it touched her shoulders. She adjusted her spectacles with one hand and began to glance diffidently about the lounge. I felt a wrench at the heart when I thought of what she might have to go through if this case took an unfortunate turn. But I was glad I had gone to the Yard that day. I was pretty well in the open now, resolved to take things as they came, to fight back as and when necessary. I was going to let them come at me with what ammunition they had, but unless they faked some evidence, which I was certain they wouldn’t do, I felt that all in all there was little further they could go. They had enough against me to make them highly suspicious, but not enough to bring a charge. I felt sure they couldn’t bring a charge against me, and I was more than hopeful that they would switch their attentions to Herbert Day.

  “Hello, darling,” I said, and kissed her. We sat down and she looked at me, her wide, generous mouth parted in a smile. She said it was ages since she had seen me.

  “Two evenings and three days,” I answered, and beckoned a waiter for some drinks.

  “What were you doing up in Palesby?” she asked.

  I had decided how to deal with this question. There was going to be no more subterfuge between Kate and me. We drank three cocktails while I told her the story of my association with Cynthia in Palesby; and of the “understanding” I had had with her until I met Kate again, and of what Cynthia knew of my true feelings for Prosset. The acid test came when I had to describe the story of Prosset and myself, for I knew in what a curious light that story showed me. I knew that if she could understand the strange effect the man had had on me she could understand anything.

  We were sitting side by side on a couch against the wall, and when I had finished I said, “Well, that’s all. It’s quite enough, isn’t it, Kate?”

  I sat unhappily staring at the opposite side of the room. As I have indicated before, I am not a fluent talker, and it had sounded a horrible, sordid little story.

  She put her hand on my knee and I knew by the gentle pressure that I need not have worried about Kate.

  “Poor old Mike. You have been through a time, haven’t you?”

  “Will you forgive me?” I said, though I could hardly get the words out.

  “I was a mug once, too, Mike. So it only makes it even. But you’re a fool, you know.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Promise me you’ll always tell me your worries in future?”

  “I promise. You’ll get them all in future. The whole lot. Poor Katie!”

  “Well, start now.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Tell me exactly what you feel, darling, about this case. How bad is it? How good is it?” I turned round and faced her. I could see the shadow of anxiety in her eyes. I put it to her fairly and squarely.

  “They know I disliked Prosset, and that I disliked him making advances to you, and that I had a knuckleduster, and that I was with him the day before he was killed. They think you may have been with Prosset the evening when, in fact, you were; and that I may have quarrelled with him about you. There are grounds for suspicion, but with your evidence that I was with you around midnight when he was killed, they would not dare bring a charge. There are several things they think, you see, but which they can’t prove. How fortunate that you never told them about that evening with Prosset. If they brought a charge, any counsel would knock the bottom out of it in five minutes. Why, it wouldn’t get beyond the Magistrate’s Court. It wouldn’t even get to the Assizes.”

  She asked me how they came to think she was with Prosset, and why they thought Prosset and I had quarrelled. I had promised to keep nothing from her. This was the first test: I told her about the diary which Prosset kept. She sat upright. When I looked at her I saw that her face was pale; it looked strained and rigid, the skin stretched taut over the cheekbones.

  “I see,” she said.

  “He recorded your visit, giving your name simply as ‘K.’ I told the Inspector there were thousands of people in London whose names begin with K. Has he tackled you about it?”

  “Not yet,” she replied briefly.

  “He will.”

  “I’ll go on denying I was there. He can’t prove anything.”

  So that she should know everything, I even told her about the suit I had given away.

  “Are you afraid, Mike?”

  I looked into her eyes for a moment. I saw no reason why I sho
uld conceal anything any more.

  “Well, I was, Katie. I was scared stiff. But I’m not now. They know most things. I don’t think they’ll do anything now. There’s no real motive which they can definitely prove.”

  “Is that truly what you think?”

  “I promise you that is what I truly think.”

  She remained thoughtful for a few moments, playing with the cocktail stick in her glass. At length she said, “Supposing they find some more evidence?”

  “They won’t. They can’t. They’ll have to make what they can with what they’ve got. They’ve been on the wrong trail, and now they’ll have to try another line. But it’s a bit late.”

  “Mike, who do you really think did it? Have you any ideas at all?”

  I told her of my smuggling theory, of the Cyprus cigarettes, and of my visit to Herbert Day and his strange, laconic attitude. It is doubtful if she was listening.

  Suddenly she said, “Mike, I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you, darling. Not now. I’ve been so lonely all these years, Mike. There seemed to be nothing in the future for me at all. And then you came into my life, and it was like suddenly lighting a fire in a cold room which had not been lived in for a long time.”

  “Nothing will happen to me, sweetheart.” But a voice in my brain seemed to be whispering: What if it did? How do you know nothing will happen? And a second voice was whispering: Don’t be a fool. If they were going to do any thing, they would have done it by now, and you wouldn’t be here. You’d be in Brixton.

  “If they were going to do anything they’d have done it by now,” I said aloud, “and I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in Brixton.”

  “Mike, don’t say that, even in joking.”

  “All right, I won’t say it, even in joking.”

  Dinner passed quickly enough. Both Kate and I regained our good spirits. It seemed she had found in Chelsea a furnished flat which would fall vacant in early September. She had found it some weeks before, she said, but had been unwilling to talk about it because, first, it was so modern, so light, so cheap, that beside it all other flats seemed dull and expensive; and, second, because not until now was she certain that it would be available. We arranged to visit it together the following Saturday, and if I found it as wonderful as she did we would take it forthwith.