Murder Underground (British Library Crime Classics)

by Mavis Doriel Hay

  “What do they seem to think about the business?”

  “Nothing very definite. But I’ve been thinking about you quite often; it must be beastly for you.”

  Basil grunted.

  “You know the police came up on Friday night and interviewed us all? Then this morning they had a thorough hunt through Pongle’s room—I think they looked around a bit on Friday too—and then locked it all up.”

  “Damn!” exclaimed Basil. They had reached the pond now and stood by its edge, wondering on which part of the Heath to seek seclusion.

  “Is that Tuppy again?” asked Betty, and she jerked at the unfortunate animal’s collar.

  Basil did not answer her.

  “Towards Ken Wood,” she suggested. “There are lots of seats down under the trees.”

  They slithered down the steep slope from the road and wandered about in the darkness until they found a fallen tree, some little way from the path along which close-coupled pairs occasionally passed. Here they settled themselves, Betty pulling the fur collar of her coat more closely around her neck. She tied Tuppy’s cord to a branch and the dog sat uneasily on the cold ground, whining occasionally.

  “Now, tell me as quickly as possible,” Betty instructed Basil. “I ought to be back at the Frump-hole in time for dinner, if I’m not to arouse a lot of curiosity. What about the film, to begin with?”

  “Have you told anyone that we saw that particular film?”

  “I expect so,” declared Betty cheerfully. “Why not?”

  “Who?” demanded Basil.

  “I certainly told Cissie a lot about it. I’m not sure about anyone else, but I may have mentioned it to someone in the office. Whatever does it matter?”

  “You haven’t told Beryl?”

  “Beryl? No; I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Well, if you do see her, keep off the subject if you can. Though I suppose that if Cissie knows, it will be all over the place before long.”

  “If it hadn’t been for all the to-do about the murder, which has been the main subject of conversation since yesterday evening, I should probably have told lots of other people. But suppose Beryl happens to ask me if I’ve seen that film—which isn’t likely just now—what am I to say? Look here, Basil, you simply must tell me more. Why is this so vital? I don’t mind telling a few lies for you, or keeping a secret for you, but I can’t do it intelligently if you don’t tell me more about it. And I suppose you realize that it would be hopeless to tell Cissie not to pass the information on. Ten to one she won’t say anything about it, because her mind is now full of other things, but you can’t be sure, and to suggest to her that there’s some mystery about it would just put her in a state of bubbling excitement.”

  “I’m going to tell you more if you’ll just give me a chance.” Basil edged closer to Betty along the log and stretched out one arm behind her. “It’s all to do with Friday evening. The police came to see me—naturally, I suppose, to ask when I’d last seen Aunt Phemia and so on—and they asked me where I’d been all day; they seem to have asked everyone that. Well, that morning I had been up to Golder’s Green to see Peter Kutuzov, who’s to do a portrait of Beryl. When I came back in the afternoon I had some business to attend to that I don’t want to tell anyone about—at present. After that it was too late to go home to dinner and so I got a meal before going back to my rooms, and I bought a paper and read about Aunt Phemia’s murder. That was a nasty knock. Whatever you may feel about your relations, you don’t like to hear of them being strangled with a dog-leash; it gave me a sort of sick feeling. I got home feeling pretty done in, and there I found Beryl waiting to see me, and a detective came along soon after.”

  “Poor old Basil!” Betty murmured sympathetically.

  “I told the police where I’d been all day, and to fill in the gap—the private business—after I got back from Golder’s Green, I added a visit to the New Vic. to see The Constant Nymph. I thought of that because I had just been there and could give more details if they wanted them. I had to tell Beryl the same in case she should happen to hear what I had told the police. But apparently I’d said something to her, days ago, about my plan to go with you to the New Vic. on Thursday, and she seemed surprised that I should go again the next day. So I gave her the impression that we didn’t go to see that film after all on Thursday. Now do you see?”

  Betty gasped. “What a muddle! Basil, how exactly like you! Why must you always make such complications? And it all seems so needless. Wouldn’t it be simpler to tell Beryl that you had some private affairs that took up your time that evening?”

  “You’re so good at thinking these things out, but it’s too late. You see—’s a matter of fact, I’ve told her two different things already, and I don’t want to tell her a third story. The truth is, I don’t want to bother her more than I can help. It would have been plane sailing if only Beryl hadn’t remembered that I went to that film with you on Thursday.”

  “Now I come to think of it, I did tell Cissie not to blurt it out all over the Frump-hole that I had been with you, because I didn’t want Pongle to know. Cissie understood about that and she probably has kept it to herself. But I do think you’ve made rather an unnecessary mess of the story, Basil. A pity you’re such a hopeless ass! But the police can’t care in the least about what you were doing on Friday evening—why not tell them the truth?”

  “I told you, I don’t want to tell anyone—just at the moment. I promise you, Betty, I’ll tell you the whole story some day. But, as you say, the police won’t bother about what I was doing on Friday evening, and the story I told them sounds quite plausible so they’ll just accept it—they have accepted it, of course.”

  “Well, I’m glad that’s all,” said Betty. “When you came to the door of the Frump-hole and were so mysterious I thought there was something really awful!”

  “Oh, there’s worse to come!” Basil announced. “But there’s not much time. You’ve got to get back to dinner and I have to get down to King’s Cross to meet my people—they’re arriving from Yorkshire at eight-five; had a telegram this morning. Betty, I want you to do something for me that is desperately important and rather difficult, I’m afraid.”

  He pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “This is something of Aunt Phemia’s; it’s valuable and it must be put back among her things. ’S a matter of fact it’s a pearl necklace, a family heirloom, worth quite a lot. No, I didn’t steal it; she gave it to me herself—not gave it for keeps but handed it to me, but it ought to have been back among her things and I must get it back somehow. Betty”—Basil’s arm was round her and his hand gripped her arm—“do help me over this! You must! I can trust you, I know. I’ll explain it all to you later. But it would be damned difficult to explain if the pearls were missing when they go through her things. You’ve got to believe me that it’s nothing really discreditable, and trust me to explain it all to you when there’s time. You know, don’t you, that if it were anything really bad I wouldn’t be getting you mixed up in it? Say you’ll do this for me.”

  Betty had put out her hand when Basil first held out the envelope to her, and then had withdrawn it as if she were afraid to touch what seemed so dangerous and fraught with mystery. She drew a deep breath and turned her head away from his, which was bent forward, his eyes eagerly scanning her face in the gloom. There was silence for a few minutes.

  “You know I’ll do anything I can for you, Basil—though I can’t think why I should—but I simply don’t see how this can be done. Is all this scheming absolutely necessary? Why must you be such a noodle?”

  “There’s no other way that I can see. Betty——”

  “I’ll take them, Basil, and I’ll do my best,” said Betty decisively. “As I told you, the police have already searched her room; I think they were looking for a will, and Mrs. Bliss says they found it beneath her underclothes. Pongle’s, I mean.”

  “Yes, but you know how she hid her things all over the place. There must be lots of crannies they ha
ven’t searched yet,” put in Basil, speaking quickly and anxiously.

  “But how do I know which crannies they have searched?”

  “If Mrs. Bliss was there you can pump her.”

  “Perhaps, but that’s not the worst. They’ve locked up her room again and taken the key. I don’t see that there’s a hope of getting in.”

  “You must watch for a chance. If that’s utterly impossible, could you hide them somewhere else in the house where she might have stowed them away? Did she only hide things in her own room? Remember, I’m supposed to have handed them back to her when I went to see her some time—last Wednesday, when I had tea with her, I suppose. Couldn’t she have put them ... Oh, I don’t know. You’re much better than I am, Betty, at thinking things out; you’ll get an idea! And another thing, let me know somehow, secretly, when you have disposed of them and how. As soon as you can. They may be missed and someone may ask me about them.”

  “I can ring you up, I suppose?”

  “Yes—but be careful—Waddletoes can listen in downstairs to the calls she puts through to my room. Writing would be safer, but to-morrow’s Sunday and I want to know soon. You’ll find how best to let me know, but remember I shall have to be up and away from my rooms early to-morrow; I’m lunching with the Sanders—my people are staying there; and I suppose I’ll have to be with them most of the day. That’s why I was so desperately anxious to get hold of you now. I hadn’t a chance all day till this evening.”

  Betty put the envelope in her handbag. “That’s safest,” she said. “I always carry it about with me. I must fly or I shall be late. We can walk as far as the station together. Come on, Tuppy. Why ever am I so nice to you, Basil?”

  Basil offered no suggestion. They made their way back to the Spaniards Road and hurried along it. A bus, and a grey Alvis two-seater creeping along behind it, overtook them.

  “There go Beryl and Gerry—did you see?” cried Betty. “They might give us a lift. Look, the bus is holding them up!”

  “No; better not. They brought me up to Hampstead this evening and I don’t want to bother them again. We’ve got time.”

  Basil felt that he would have to meet Beryl again, and his parents as well, only too soon. He was not ready to do any more explaining at the moment.

  “I wish you could have explained things more to me,” said Betty as they went on down the hill. “But of course there isn’t time now. When shall I see you again?”

  “To-morrow’s hopeless, so far as I can see, but I’ll ring up if there’s a chance.”

  As Betty hurried along to the Frampton, with Tuppy dragging wretchedly in her wake, she was musing: “Now where did Pongle hide things? In the drawing-room, perhaps? I wonder. Would she entrust anything to old Slowgo? But then he’d have to know; that wouldn’t do. Oh, come on, Tuppy. I suppose you couldn’t swallow them?”

  The miserable terrier had probably never had a less enjoyable outing.

  CHAPTER NINE

  BASIL THINKS OF GLOVES

  BASIL leapt off a tram and ran into King’s Cross station at the moment when the train which he was meeting was steaming up beside the platform. He realized that if he could have overcome his repugnance to the underground he would have arrived in better time. “But Mother’ll be fussing about her luggage,” he thought, “and her bag and her scarf and her rug and the rest of it. They’ll hardly get to the gate before I do.”

  He was right. When he arrived rather breathless at the gate where tickets were collected, he saw his mother and father approaching it from the other side. James Pongleton was a tall spare man with white hair and an iron-grey beard clipped to a neat point. Austere in expression, he closely resembled his dead sister and was utterly unlike his son Basil. It was evidently from his mother that Basil inherited his good looks as well as his impulsiveness and his vague mental processes. Susan Pongleton’s once bright colouring was faded and her figure was definitely plump, but on seeing her one thought at once, “What a pretty girl she must have been!” She always dressed as fluffily as fashion would permit, favouring lace and soft materials.

  At the gate Mrs. Pongleton had to hand a large shopping bag crammed with magazines and papers to her husband, already burdened with two rugs and two umbrellas, so that she might search in her purse for her ticket. Having found this at last in her pocket, where she had put it so that it would be handy, and having passed through the gate, she rushed at Basil and embraced him effusively, to his embarrassment. He tried to curtail the greeting by mumbling, “Must hurry to get a taxi, y’know—we’re in everyone’s way—come on.”

  He took an assortment of impedimenta from his parents and led the way out of the station.

  “What a terrible thing this is, Basil,” his mother murmured as she scuttled along beside him. “Really dreadful! There’s never been anything of the kind in the family before; it’s so—so—demeaning!”

  “I don’t suppose it’s the sort of thing that becomes a family habit,” said Basil unfeelingly. But his mother did not notice, being occupied with keeping an eye on the porter whom she suspected of evil intentions towards her suitcase.

  “All well at Steyton?” Basil asked his father.

  “Couldn’t have been called away at a worse time,” Mr. Pongleton replied gruffly. “This our taxi? That contraption of yours will climb a hill, I suppose?” he enquired of the driver.

  Mr. Pongleton’s ideas about motor-cars had been formed some thirty years earlier, and the elderly limousine driven by a promoted coachman, in which he was accustomed to proceed sedately along the less hilly roads around his home, had done little to develop them. The flabbergasted taxi-man decided that the old gent didn’t know any better, and looked to Basil for instructions.

  “Beverley House, Haverstock Hill,” Basil directed him, when the suitcases had been stowed away, after several re—arrangements, to his mother’s satisfaction.

  “There now, James!” exclaimed Mrs. Pongleton, sinking back in her seat. “Did I pack your pyjamas? I’ve been so flustered and we had to come away in such a hurry——”

  “Don’t worry, Mother,” Basil urged. “I can get a pair of mine for Father if you have forgotten them. How are the dogs?” he enquired, hoping to stave off conversation about his aunt’s murder.

  “Floss has the sweetest puppies,” his mother told him. “And that reminds me of poor Phemia’s dog. Who is looking after him?”

  “Tuppy’s quite happy at the Frampton. People take him for walks,” Basil explained.

  “What’s the truth of this unfortunate affair?” Basil’s father asked him abruptly.

  “Wish I knew. It’s the most awful tangle,” said Basil.

  But Mr. and Mrs. Pongleton had not been confused by the various clues and counter-clues and inconsistencies which were bothering everyone else. Both assumed that Bob Thurlow was the murderer, and Mr. Pongleton, who had gleaned the story of the burglary and the brooch from the papers, was inclined to the “told you so” attitude.

  “Many and many a time I have warned poor Phemia not to poke her finger into other people’s pies, but she would do it, and now see what it has come to! She should have let well alone.”

  “But, James,” protested Mrs. Pongleton, who had not been over-fond of her sister-in-law but felt that her husband’s remarks were a little unseemly, “Phemia saw that the brooch was stolen property and had to do something. It’s all very terrible and I can only hope it will soon be over. It seems clear enough to me, but if there’s not enough evidence why haven’t the police found any fingerprints? I understand that there are always fingerprints.”

  “Perhaps too many on a public staircase,” Basil suggested.

  He peered out of the window of the taxi, which was carrying them up Haverstock Hill. In doing so he put his hand on the window-ledge and then glanced at the smudges made by his own fingers, and others before them, on the polished wood.

  Basil managed to get away soon after dinner. He walked down the hill, still feeling a repugnance towards the under
ground. Although he had been restless all through dinner, with anxiety to get back to his own rooms, now he was reluctant to return to the vigilance of “Duck’s-feet”—or his purple-suited colleague. Alternately he dawdled and hurried, but in Chalk Farm Road he seemed to decide that haste was more important than the postponement of his return, and he sprinted to catch a 24 bus which came round the corner.

  In Tavistock Square he saw no one, but without waiting to investigate its darkness very carefully he let himself quietly into the house, and after a hasty look round, satisfied that no one was about, he made for the telephone which stood on a table at the far end of the narrow hall.

  “That the Frampton? That you, Nellie? Can I speak to Miss Watson? Quick! Right.”

  He had thought it would be safer to use the telephone here rather than the extension in his own room, for if he did the latter he could not tell whether Mrs. Waddilove might be listening in. But as he sat on the table, holding the ’phone to his ear, a door opposite to him opened and disclosed Mrs. Waddilove waist-deep, as it were, in the basement. She banged an enamelled tin jug, a book, and a basket of silver down on the floor, hoisted herself up the last few stairs, shut the door and locked it. Still burdened with a hot-water bottle, she stooped down slowly, with grunts, and picked up the other baggage. Basil inwardly cursed himself for that “Quick!” and hoped it would take a long time to fetch Betty, yet he imagined that through the telephone he could hear a series of thuds which marked her precipitous descent of the stairs. Why hadn’t he gone to a public telephone-box? Just his insane reluctance to part with cash—even tuppence—when he might get something on credit.