The Lately Deceased

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Attack her?’

  ‘Well, not seriously, I suppose. I’ve seen him smack her face, and once he pushed her so hard that she went staggering across the room and fell into the fireplace. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Nice people!’ said Meredith dryly. ‘But there is a world of difference between a man smacking his wife’s face and stabbing her through the heart with a stiletto or whatever the weapon was. From your knowledge of Moore, would you say that he was a potential killer?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. Not to the extent of sticking a knife in someone. That’s the only weak link in my hypothesis. I would have thought that it takes guts to kill someone, and Moore hasn’t the guts of a louse. I can’t imagine him killing anybody, but I think he killed Margaret, all the same. I suppose there must be instances on record of silly little men being driven to murder.’

  ‘A great many. A weak man goaded beyond endurance is liable to go to any extreme.’

  ‘Well, there you are, Superintendent. You asked for my opinion and I’ve given it to you. It’s up to you to find the proof. In a way, I hope you don’t succeed. Maybe it sounds funny coming from the bereaved husband, but I wouldn’t want to feel that I had been responsible for getting any poor devil hanged or a life sentence. And that includes Moore. He must have had a pretty miserable life with Pearl and I suppose I have contributed as much as anyone to his misery. I can’t like the fellow, but I’d stop short of hanging him or shutting him up for life, or whatever it is you do to murderers these days.’

  ‘I’m sure it does you great credit,’ Meredith said without the ghost of a smile. ‘And now, if there’s nothing further you have to add, I don’t think we need detain you longer. Good morning, Mr Walker. You’ll be hearing further from us in due course.’

  After he had gone, the three policemen sat silent for some seconds. Then Stammers asked: ‘Do you think there’s anything in this Moore theory, Super?’

  ‘There could be,’ Meredith replied doubtfully. ‘Anyway, it’ll bear looking into.’

  ‘That business of the will seems to let Walker out,’ Stammers said. ‘Surely no man’s going to commit murder if he’s got to wait fifteen years before he touches the jackpot.’

  ‘Why not?’ Meredith asked flatly. ‘With half a million in the kitty, Walker had every incentive to speed up the happy day. I think we’ll have another word with that solicitor and get him to tell us in basic English if the conditions of the will are quite as watertight as Walker would have us believe.’

  As he spoke, Inspector Grey came into the room, unwrapping himself from a thick scarf and the inevitable camel-hair coat. He was followed by a cadet bearing a tray of police station tea, the colour of the River Thames at Wapping.

  ‘Filthy morning again,’ observed Syd cheerfully. ‘I saw Walker trotting down the stairs as I came in – he looked quite happy. Did you get him to confess?’

  Meredith scowled and buried his face in a mug of tea.

  ‘You just missed the solution to the whole case,’ said Stammers, with a grin. ‘Walker burst the case wide open for us!’

  ‘Tell me more, mate.’

  ‘He says it was Moore – the husband Moore. Did it out of hate and general bloody-mindedness. The big laugh is that he meant to clobber Pearl Moore, but his aim was bad in the dark!’

  Syd Grey looked surprised and thoughtful. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve just heard the same tale myself.’

  The other three policemen stared at him through the rising steam from their teacups.

  ‘Why, where have you been?’

  ‘Down to ‘J’ Division to see if I could get a lead on Prince. The boys at Hackney didn’t know him by that name, but I took with me that photo that the news boys took outside the station when we were taking statements on Friday morning. They knew him right away. He was mixed up in some dirty stuff about ten years ago, black market before that, fraudulent trading, the lot, but no convictions. It was his pals who always seemed to catch the rap. He called himself Gerry Leopold then.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He’s been cited in a couple of divorce cases, so they tell me, but he seems to have laid off most of his illegal fiddles since he left the East End to come over here. The last they heard of him was in some allegation of indecent assault by a girl at a party some four years ago, but apparently she dropped the charge after a few days.’

  ‘Sounds a nice chap! What else did you find out?’

  ‘Well, I thought I’d have a word with this customer on his own ground, so I rang up his home in Canonbury. He wasn’t in but they gave me his business address. I went along on the off-chance. He’s got a place just off the Clerkenwell Road, a warehouse with an office in the front, full of theatrical props and other junk. Could well be a front for some crooked game or other. I found him in his office and fair put the wind up him!’

  ‘It’s the bit about Colin Moore I want to hear,’ Meredith reminded him.

  ‘Yes, well I tackled him about the false name and then mentioned the indecent assault. He turned to jelly at that and properly went to pieces on me!’

  He grinned at the memory and the other two officers visualised Syd putting the fear of God into the unlovable mind of Leo Prince.

  ‘I ground him down a bit finer, until I think he thought that I’d come to slap a murder charge on him there and then! It was then that he came across with this story about the Moores. He told me that on the night of the party Pearl and her husband had had a flaming row in the kitchen. Prince says he was just going in and heard them slanging each other, so he stood by the door and listened – sounds just his mark.’

  Syd grinned at the memory of his interview with Leo.

  ‘She was spitting venom at Colin and he was calling her several varieties of whore. Then they got down to threats; she saying she’d like to kill him and he replying he’d like to kill her. A proper little domestic tiff it sounded, though you can’t tell how much embroidery Prince put on it. Then he said that, later in the party, he was sitting near Colin Moore and saw him looking daggers at his wife who was cavorting with Walker, as usual. Colin was pretty drunk by now and when Pearl passed by he said something to her. Prince didn’t catch the words, but she replied by catching him on the shin with her winkle-pickers.‘

  Meredith looked thoughtful as he digested Grey’s story. ‘So Prince is saying that if there was a murder, it was more likely to be “Moore versus Moore”? Funny that he should pick on the same story as Walker.’

  ‘It could even turn out to be the true one,’ said Saunders. ‘Someone else may come up with it yet.’

  ‘Let’s see if these Leigh people pitch the same yarn. They’re due here in a few minutes. Meanwhile, Masters, ring up this man Moore and get him over here this afternoon. Let’s see what he thinks about this idea of him meaning to kill his wife,’ said Old Nick.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Barbara and Webster Leigh arrived as scheduled. Barbara was a heavily built woman, attractive though overweight. She was about thirty-eight or nine with hair of a false, but subdued, auburn. She was well made-up and wore a stylish dark dress under her fur coat, as a concession to mourning. Webster looked as he usually did, a rather ferrety man, a perpetual hangover creasing his leathery face into a painful smile as he greeted the superintendent.

  ‘Good morning! I don’t know how we can help you, but we’ll sure do our best, of course.’

  He had a thick voice, with a heavy Canadian accent. As he sat down, he fiddled nervously with his rather garish tie.

  ‘I haven’t slept since Friday, Captain,’ said his wife.

  Masters and Grey exchanged winks at her interpretation of Old Nick’s rank, and Barbara Leigh went on in her pleasant Transatlantic drawl.

  ‘We’ve racked our brains, since you saw us here last time, but nothing seems to have any bearing on poor Margaret’s death. I’m worried out of my mind with it all.’

  She seemed already on the verge of tears.

  ‘Have you heard the terms of th
e will?’ asked Meredith, determined to inject some down-to-earth subject to stop the weeping.

  ‘Yes, Superintendent, we have,’ answered Webster. ‘We have known all along, of course, that Margaret meant to leave us some token of her affection. She always told us so, but we had no idea that she was going to be quite so big-hearted.’

  Masters thought that, with an estate worth half a million, they were probably highly disappointed but, in the present circumstances, felt that it would be imprudent to advertise their feelings.

  ‘Now, can either of you tell me whether Mrs Walker had any particular relationship with anyone at the party, outside the actual events of the evening? For instance, I understand she spent a lot of time with Mr Myers. How well did she know him?’

  Webster considered this and said he had no idea. Barbara tried to be more helpful than her husband.

  ‘We really don’t know much about her London friends. I think they were very few. We’ve been down in Oxford with her for most of the time and the majority of her acquaintances are all horse and country life people, if you know what I mean.’

  Meredith tried another approach.

  ‘I’ve asked you before, I know, but perhaps you’ve had time to think about it further. Can you help us by saying where your cousin was at any particular time on the night of the party?’

  ‘I saw Margaret leaving the room for the first silly game with that man Myers,’ said the wife. ‘I thought she was a little drunk, she was giggling and very talkative – most unlike her.’

  ‘Did you see her again, after the first game had started?’

  Barbara turned to her dyspeptic-looking husband.

  ‘Well, Webster and I were talking about it last night,’ she began. ‘I was telling him that a young man and I were in the passage, following Mr Myers and Margaret as they were leaving the lounge. I recall following them up the stairs. I knew it was Myers because he wheezed so dreadfully and I heard Margaret giggle.’

  Encouraged by his wife’s solo, Webster picked up the thread.

  ‘Later in the game I was in one of the upper rooms, when a man fell over me in the dark. I’m pretty sure it was Colin Moore, the one with the very pretty wife that Gordon goes about with. I’m pretty sure it was him because he landed right on the top of me on the floor and nearly broke my back. He was as tight as a tick and kept hollering for his wife.’

  ‘Did he actually call her by name?’

  ‘No, I can’t say he did.’

  ‘Then how do you know it was his wife he was calling for?’

  ‘Because he kept repeating, ‘Has anyone seen that little tart of a wife of mine?’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure it was Moore?’

  ‘Dead sure!’

  ‘Wasn’t there a lot of noise and confusion going on at the same time?’

  ‘Yes, I guess so. It was that sort of party.’

  ‘So you couldn’t be absolutely sure of who it was in the dark? Did you recognise his voice, for instance?’

  ‘Well, I knew his voice, but not his name. I didn’t get that, till later on. Earlier in the party, I had seen him sitting with a couple of girls and having a shouting match with another dame. I knew she was Pearl, but I didn’t know he was her husband.’

  ‘Did you meet Mrs Moore in the course of these games?’

  ‘No. I wish I had. Gordon’s certainly got a doll there.’ There was a gleam in his eye as he said this and his wife threw him a withering look.

  ‘Was there anyone else that you recognised apart from Mr Moore?’

  ‘That man Prince,’ answered Barbara without hesitation. ‘He was in the middle room upstairs during the first game.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘No, nobody that I remember.’

  ‘Nor me. I was a bit squiffy, anyway,’ added Webster apologetically.

  Clearly they had run out of ideas and, after a few more unproductive questions, they left.

  ‘Now then, Masters,’ said Meredith. ‘You’ve been over to the hospital, what goes on with this Myers man?’

  ‘He was still out cold, sir, not a twitch from him. All the hospital could tell me was that he was slightly better today, if not being dead can be called better. They expected him to snuff it last night.’

  ‘No more information as to the actual accident?’

  ‘All they know is that he was found at the bottom of the steps.’

  Meredith sighed. ‘Ah well, if he’s as much help as the rest of the witnesses, he may as well stay in a coma.

  Stammers looked pensive.

  ‘No chance of any connection between this business and the murder, I suppose?’

  ‘That’s what I’m wondering,’ Meredith said. ‘Though we’ve no evidence to go on. After all, witnesses get involved in accidents the same as anyone else!’

  ‘True enough,’ Stammers replied. ‘All the same, someone might have given him a push; perhaps he knew something and they wanted to shut him up.‘

  ‘Oh, come off it!’ laughed Grey. ‘You’ve been watching too many television programmes.’

  Stammers shrugged and turned to Masters. ‘Let’s have the full details of this accident,’ he said.

  ‘It was the milkman who first saw him, not a copper as we were told at first,’ Masters said. ‘He spotted him lying at the bottom of some area steps. The gate at the top was tied open. The milkman fetched the chap on the beat and they got an ambulance for him. No one in the neighbourhood heard any disturbance and there’s no witness of any sort. We found the taxi man who took Myers home; he says Myers was sleepy but he didn’t think he was drunk. He asked to be taken to Upper Street. Perhaps he wanted to walk the last part of the way home to sober up before getting into bed. I reckon that cuts out any possibility of funny business, as no one would know where he was unless they actually followed his taxi from Great Beachy Street.’

  Meredith cut across Masters’ monologue with a peremptory question: ‘Did you get hold of Colin Moore? Is he coming in this afternoon?’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘I rang several times, but there was no reply.’

  ‘I expect he’s out on another pub crawl,’ Meredith grunted. ‘Keep ringing. If you get him, tell him to be here at eleven tomorrow morning. I’ve got to see the AC at ten, so I’ll come straight over after that. Keep Moore on ice until I get here.’

  They all left for their homes with the prospect of at least half a Sunday with their feet up over their own mantelpieces.

  At ten o’clock the following morning, Masters sat at the telephone in the main office of the police station, exasperated and worried.

  ‘Try again, Maisie, there’s a good girl! Have another go at Hampstead and then at Holborn, please.’

  The switchboard girl promised to ring him back and he put the phone down again. As he did so, the station officer, a portly man, old enough to be Masters’ father, said sarcastically: ‘I hope you don’t mind me using my own phone, Tony?’

  ‘Sorry, Ted; I’ve got a lot on my plate this morning. Old Nick wants a witness in this murder job to be here by eleven. So far I’ve not been able to raise even a smell of him.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s skipped it, chum?’

  ‘More likely lying drunk in some bar.’

  ‘Tried the local hospitals?’

  ‘Huh! We’ve got one witness lying unconscious in the Whittington already, so don’t wish another on us. No, I expect he’s sleeping it off somewhere. He went missing the last time we wanted him and turned up blotto right in a PC’s arms.’

  The telephone rang and the older man answered it. ‘For you, Tony; it’s Maisie.’

  Masters took the instrument and his face creased into annoyance as he listened.

  ‘Thanks, girl. You’ll just have to keep trying. I’m afraid. Super’s orders.’

  When Meredith arrived shortly afterwards, he wasn’t pleased at the failure to get hold of Colin Moore. ‘You’ve tried everywhere he’s likely to be found?’

  ‘Yes, sir, home and office umpteen times, an
d several of his friends. Tried Walker and some others, but not a trace of him.’

  ‘Hardly call Walker a friend of his, I should think,’ the Super said with a rare grin.

  ‘What about his wife?’ asked Stammers. ‘Have you tried her?’

  Masters smiled wryly. He was remembering the scorching he’d got when he rang her earlier that morning.

  ‘Tried her! She didn’t know and cared less!’

  ‘Where was she when you spoke to her?’ queried Meredith.

  ‘At a hotel in Belgravia. She left the address with us when she came back from Paris. She says she’s not been back to the flat in Hampstead since the bust-up after the party.’

  ‘There certainly seems to be some truth in this story of a bust-up between them that night, but that’s a long way from sticking a murder charge on someone,’ said Meredith, scratching his bristly chin with a forefinger. ‘I don’t like this. Either he’s run out on us, or he’s incapably drunk somewhere. I warned him to hold himself ready for questioning. He’s getting a bloody nuisance! We’d better go around to his flat in Hampstead and try to raise him there.’

  Grey looked up at him. ‘Do you want me to come too, sir? I’m way behind on the routine stuff. I’d rather stay here.’

  ‘Of course – I’ll take Masters. Stammers, you needn’t tag along either, but I’d like you to come with me to see this lawyer chap this afternoon. Half-past two in Theobald’s Road.’

  Masters drove with the superintendent in silence to Chalk Farm and up Haverstock Hill. They reached the heights of Hampstead, and Masters said, ‘It’s off Westheath Road, sir, called Littleton Close, a cul-de-sac, according to the map.’ The black Wolseley turned into a side road and the driver looked up at the numbers as they drove slowly past.

  ‘There you are, number eighteen, the end one,’ pointed Masters. It was a large old house of Victorian red brick, which had been divided by some miracle of architecture into three flats. The Moores lived in 18B, the entrance to which was up a new flight of concrete steps at the side of the house, leading to a porch at first-floor level. The lower flat used the original front door at ground level. How the occupants of 18C, the attic apartment, gained access remained a mystery.