Somebody at the Door

by Raymond Postgate

  “Nothing that I can remember happened during the journey, except that one of the workmen, who had been talking rather loudly and sillily, read those notices aloud. He got up to read the one that I mentioned and leaned over between me and Mr. Grayling, without any apology. I rebuked him for a rather gross comment and his behaviour was more seemly for the rest of the journey.

  “Everyone got out at Croxburn except the two workmen, and the lady with the small girl. I think Mr. Grayling must have gone out of the station very quickly, for I could not see him when I looked round.”

  “Thank you very much, sir. That has been very clear. I won’t trouble you any more for the minute.” Inspector Holly saluted and turned on his way to the police station.

  7

  Later in the day he summarised his results to the Superintendent.

  “Until we know the facts of his death we can’t go very far. This is all I’ve got—

  “On his way home from Croxburn Station he may have met somebody or may not. It was a pitch-black night; and the black-out was made for crime.

  “If he met anyone in the streets of London, we shan’t know it either. But we do know who was with him in the carriage, and could possibly have followed him home. We can’t rule out of the question someone having lurked waiting for him at Croxburn Station; inquiries merely show that no one was noticed there. These are the people who were in the carriage, anyway.”

  Holly summarised the Vicar’s description, and went on:

  “Supposing there has been any funny business, had any of these people a grudge? Well, sir, it’s early to say. £124 in notes, anyway, is as good a motive as a grudge. But for what it is, here’s all I know.”

  “The Vicar clearly did not like Grayling. He tells me he had something on him and expected shortly to expose a first-rate scandal and drive him from public life and possibly get him quodded. Not a motive for murder. Might have been, the other way round. Nor do I think that the Vicar wants £124 very badly. If things become serious, though, we might have to inspect his banking account.”

  The Superintendent shook his head.

  “I’ve found nothing about the two workmen or the woman and girl. But after all they didn’t get off here. Nor do I know who was the alleged Home Guard. But there is an H.G. parade to-morrow, and Major Ramsay has agreed to make an announcement and ask the man who travelled down with Grayling to report to us.

  “Evetts or Everitt I haven’t traced yet. It shouldn’t be difficult, if he was an acquaintance of Grayling’s. He may have been a fellow-employee, in which case he would know about the money.

  “About the fair young man, Rolandson, I do know something. The Graylings’ maid, Alice Williams, indicated to me that if Mrs. Grayling had done any sleeping-out, Mr. Rolandson was the boy friend. There had been rows between the Graylings about him. I’ll get more when Mrs. Buttlin comes back.

  “The German, too, is a possible line. Refugees are a Home Office matter, and Inspector Atkins deals with them. But I remember him telling me about one, who sounds very like this man, whom Grayling was making a dead set at. I can’t remember the name, but Atkins will when he comes in. Grayling had written both to us and to the Home Secretary charging the man with being a spy, possessing a bicycle and a radio, and passing himself off falsely as a refugee, using the name of someone the Nazis had, in fact, killed. We didn’t pay much attention, because Grayling had recently become very violent about such things and talked rather wildly. But I seem to remember Atkins spoke as if an arrest wasn’t unlikely.

  “That’s all I have. What shall I do next?”

  The Superintendent spread out his hands like a Jewish stallkeeper. “What can I say? You know as well as I do. Follow up all these people, and pray that the doctors make their minds up soon. You know where most of them could be found. You could ring up the deceased’s firm about the young man Evetts or whatever his name is.”

  Chapter II

  * * *

  * SNUFFLY GIRL

  A WORKMAN *

  * A MOTHER

  A WORKMAN *

  * HUGH ROLANDSON

  THE VICAR *

  * A GERMAN

  H. J. GRAYLING X

  * A HOME GUARD

  C. J. F. EVETTS *

  * * *

  1

  “What are you going to do about it?” snivelled Ann Darling (“Ann Darling!” and to think he had once made lover-like play with the words.) It was the sixth time, at least, that she had said it; and for the sixth time Charlie Evetts answered sourly: “I don’t know.”

  What on earth had induced him to sleep with her at all? he wondered. She had thick legs, she was dull and had little to say for herself, and she couldn’t be called pretty. She had a youthful bloom and cheerfulness which enabled her to get by—not at the moment, though, with a reddened nose and weepy eyes. A miserable lump of wet clay. Not the least chance of pretending that the baby wouldn’t be his, either, with a girl with a face like that. What made me do it? he thought, looking at her venomously. Rebound after Veronica, I suppose.

  He cast his mind back to the evening responsible. He reflected, as George Moore did with more elegance in Hail and Farewell, that you could always remember anything but the ultimate act of pleasure. You could keep a pretty vivid picture of a golden head looking down, while its owner peeled a long silk stocking off a white thigh. But after all, what you came for wasn’t that. And you never could recall what what you did come for was like. You just remembered the extras. Precious little of the extras he had had with clumsy Ann. Fumbling in the dark on the beach behind a breakwater. The most expensive and the least worth while.

  Now if it had been Veronica. Damn her for walking out on him. He’d have married her, he would really, if she’d wanted it. He’d never thought that of any other girl. With her you almost could remember. A series of erotic and highly valued pictures began to unroll in his mind, until Ann’s snuffles recalled him. What a time to be thinking of that. He never thought about anything else, they used to say at school. Damn right, too. But what else was there worth thinking about? Well, it had got him in the bloody pit now, all right.

  “I tell you I don’t know, Ann. I’m trying to think,” he answered to a half-heard whine.

  He made an effort to consider his circumstances. Charles James Fox Evetts, aged 24, second assistant in the Chemistry and Drugs at Messrs. Barrow and Furness, wholesale. Wages, £4 4s. 0d. Resources, £18 in the Post Office savings bank. Some bits of furniture in his room, but nothing of value. His landlady was perfectly indifferent to any “goings-on”; he could, as he had discovered, behave like a tomcat with his girls so long as he didn’t make the same noises as a tomcat. Once he and Elmer Evans— He sharply pulled his wandering thoughts back. His landlady’s complaisance would most certainly not extend to an illegitimate birth in her house.

  “You could marry me,” said an ignoble and choking voice.

  He looked at her exasperatedly.

  “I didn’t think you would,” said Ann, even more meekly. He felt a spasm of pity; she was so abject, and it wasn’t her fault more than his. Perhaps he could borrow off his father, living in Runcorn on a pension. Not very likely. Maybe the old man would be good for £10; well, he had £18 and could surely get £2 more somewhere. Thirty pounds.

  “Look, Ann,” he said, kindly as he could; “I’ll try to borrow something off father. I don’t know, but I may be able to raise as much as thirty quid. Then we could get a doctor who—”

  She jumped off the hassock on which she was sitting, with a squeal. “I won’t,” she said. “You know what happened to Jessie. I won’t. You can die with those operations. Dirty black doctors. I won’t have them touch me. Ever.”

  She walked to the door, anger and fear contending in her face. “Make up your mind to it, Charlie,” she said. “You work in that chemist’s department. You can get me something to bring it on, and you’ve got to do it. If you don’t, I’ll … I’ll go round to your General Manager and tell him. And I’ll face father
, and he’ll get an order against you. So make up your mind to it. Get that stuff, and get it by Saturday.”

  She faced him for a minute with the trembling ferocity of a cornered rabbit; and then darted out of the door, slamming it behind her.

  2

  Next morning at work was not an easy morning. Harry Kelvin, who shared a desk with him, noticed and commented on his strained look. All the morning he was seeing with his mind’s eye the inside of the great stockroom and the exact shelf and carton where there was a stock of ergo-apiol. It would be possible to steal two of the small bottles without immediate detection. He had to go in at regular intervals and dish out stock. There were two of them always on it, in addition to the man who came with the requisition. Generally, Harry went in with him; they both worked at the same time. The man called out what he wanted off the requisition, and they fetched each item in turn. Then they both checked over the amounts with the man, signed his copy of the list, and he went off. It would be easy to slip two ergo-apiol bottles into his pocket when fetching something nearby. Well, fairly easy.

  But some day it was bound to be found out. Grayling, the disagreeable assistant cashier, frequently carried out extra checks on the stock out of sheer spite and the hope of catching someone out. So Charlie believed anyway; and if he didn’t there would still be the routine check in a month’s time. And there’d be a bloody awful row about it. No ergot preparations were allowed to go out without a doctor’s order. It would be just as safe as trying to pinch one of the poisons. Pretty easy to pin on him, too; there were very few people who had access to the stockroom.

  And when it was found out, he’d be fired. For him to be fired, that wasn’t like a miner or a railwayman losing his job. Easy come and easy go, that sort of common job. Besides, they had their union behind them, and everyone knew—Charlie thought—how unions tyrannized. They pushed back that sort of tough into a job though he might be hopelessly unfit for it. It was only decently educated and superior types like himself who always got the dirty end of the stick. If a chemist’s assistant got fired for knocking off an abortion medicine, he wouldn’t get another job. Not ever, not with any firm; washout; complete washout.

  But what was he going to do?

  He cursed under his breath; and cursing was almost no relief at all.

  About twelve he got out of his seat without a word and walked straight into the stockroom. He had no very clear idea of what he would do; he stood for a moment staring towards the carton in the corner. As he did so, steps sounded behind him; he turned to see the grey and suspicious face of the assistant cashier.

  “What are you doing here, Evetts?” Grayling said.

  “Nothing in particular. Do you want anything, Grayling?” The reply was a double offence, both in its matter and in the omission of the word “Mr.” before “Grayling.” Grayling held that his juniors should treat him with respect. He drew his lips back in a mirthless grin; but all he said was: “I shall have to check over stock again soon.”

  “Any other time when you’ve got no work to do suits me,” replied Charlie with polite insolence. But he went back to his desk subdued. Was that old sod going to dog his steps? Another snag he hadn’t thought of. And this was Thursday. Ann would split on him on Saturday if he didn’t get the stuff. She would too; obstinate little cow.

  To-morrow was his last chance.

  During the night, in which he didn’t sleep much, he decided to take that last chance.

  After all, he reasoned, there was a chance he might get away unnoticed. And if he didn’t, well, there was a way out, a rather desperate way. He’d send in his resignation and walk into the Army.

  He was reserved because of his occupation now, and there was nothing that he wished less, in late 1941, than to be messed about in the Army and probably sent out to Libya to be killed. He supposed Hitler had got to be stopped, but that was other people’s affair. Not for Charlie. But still, if the worst came to the worst, he could do what other people had done. Then he’d become a volunteer who threw up a safe job to defend his country. He’d probably be able to get a job in a chemist’s department after the war. Not Barrow and Furness, of course, but somewhere. The idea, of course, would be not to wait till he was found out, but to enlist as soon as things looked fishy. As long as he got out before a definite accusation was made, the firm might be as suspicious as hell, but it wouldn’t dare say anything. Not against a returned hero after the war. But no amount of reasoning could make it a pleasant prospect. Even the thought of a uniform, whose absence had been recorded aloud by one or two young ladies, was little consolation. He tried to envisage himself on embarkation leave; it was only reasonable to suppose that even the most difficult would refuse nothing to a gallant fellow who might never return. Suppose he had seven days; could he spend each night victoriously with a different companion? He tried to thumb over, his address book in his mind; but for once he found himself listless. Trouble was too near.

  3

  He began to make the build-up right away. Friday morning he said to Harry Kelvin: “You know, Harry, fellows like you and me ought to be in the Army. There’s no excuse, really.” Harry gasped at him, as if he had gone mad; Charlie abandoned the line hastily.

  Friday afternoon he did the trick, while making up a consignment for Deptford branch. Clumsily and nervously—he was almost sure Harry noticed something. And he didn’t, in his haste, get ergo-apiol; he got another ergot preparation next to it.

  But he had got two bottles, anyhow; and the consignment had been checked and taken away. No one, not even Harry, had said anything.

  Next morning he passed the bottles to Ann, with a word of warning which she disregarded. She took the full contents of both bottles that night.

  4

  He heard nothing from Ann on Sunday; nor on Monday, nor on Tuesday, nor Wednesday morning. Wednesday midday he and Harry Kelvin were in the gents’ lavatory, and Kelvin was smoothing down his hair with a brush he had just dipped in the handbasin. He had black shiny hair, very natty, and kept it carefully in order. He was watching Charlie carefully—that is, he was not looking at him direct but watching his image in the mirror. He said:

  “You knew Ann Darling, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I know her,” said Charlie, on guard.

  “Heard about her?”

  “Heard what?”

  “She’s dead. She had a miss on Sunday, and told nobody. She bled so they couldn’t save her. Elmer told me—”

  The room swayed round Charlie and he had to grip the marble side of the basin. His face was yellow, and greasy with sweat. Harry stopped in the middle of a remark about you never could tell with the quiet ones, and stared. After a second or two he walked out of the lavatory, silent and thoughtful.

  5

  Harry Kelvin thought to some purpose. A quick young man with his way to make had to be right on the job, at the right minute, never miss a chance; and he was a quick young man with his way to make. He attached himself to the bigger man when they left the office. Charlie didn’t want him—never had liked the slick little fellow with his fast moving eyes—but he couldn’t do anything about it.

  “I been in the stockroom,” said Harry. His grammar was worse than Charlie’s, because his education had been worse. But, as he always said, he knew enough to get around.

  Charlie said nothing. Nothing to say, anyway.

  “You done it, didn you? “continued Harry, still in the tone of one carrying on a quite idle conversation. “Knocked her up, and then pinched the stuff from store to bring on a miss. Well, I’ll be damned. J’expect to get away with it?”

  Charlie muttered an exhortation to mind his own affairs.

  Harry did not wish to do so. “I suppose you might get away with it, arter all. There’s not anyone but me knows you took that ergot. Not yet anyway. Did you know it’d do her in?”

  This was too much. “How the hell did I know she’d take too much? I told her to be careful. It’s not my fault,” protested Charlie.

&nb
sp; “Ah, that’s what they all say. Fat lot of good it’ll do you when they find out the stuff’s gone, and what it’s gone for too. They must find it out, too. At least, I suppose that is a way out.” Harry feigned hesitation and thought.

  “How?” Charlie turned a haggard look on him.

  “You did do it then. I thought you did. Now you just told me. I thought you was up to something on Friday, but I couldn’t quite see you.” Harry seemed satisfied about something; and so he might well be. Every career has to have a beginning; a man may rise to be a Capone or a Himmler when he only begins by blackmailing a clerk. But he must start well; even his first efforts should show the master-hand. And it had been a master’s stroke to get the subject to admit the necessary fact himself. Later on, maybe, Harry would learn to operate on a probability, but for a green hand it was far better to work on a certainty. Now it was a clear canter home. He went on, still in a careless tone:

  “Well, the way I’d figure it is this. Suppose I didn say anything, and you got out the copy of the Deptford order. Put a piece of carbon over it and alter the order of 23 bottles there to 25. You can do it easy if you’re neat. There’ll be no check on that for three months or six. Then when they do find the Deptford stock’s not right, it’ll look much more as if the faking had been done on the top sheet, the one they’ve got down there, and the two bottles been knocked off on the way there or down there. It’s easier to fake a top sheet; so people think, anyway. And both you and I will remember there was 25; no fault of ours if we were fooled into passing out two more’n we should. That’s the way I’d do it.”

  For the first time in his life, and the last time, Charlie looked at the shiny young man with respect and the beginning of liking. “Gor,” he said, “you’ve got a brain, Harry. That’s the way to do it. Will you? Will you?”