Dictator's Way

by E. R. Punshon

  “You know Mr. Macklin was murdered and you realize I am a police-officer engaged on the investigation,” Bobby said formally. “You understand also that it is your duty to give all the information you can and that it may be of great value?”

  Mr. Troya protested that there was nothing he could say. The news was terrible. To him it had been a shock of the utmost. Horrible. One did not expect such things to happen to people one knew oneself – even though purely in business. Above all, not in England, so calm, so peaceful, above all with a police so admirable, so courteous, so obliging. The mere sight of an English policeman filled Mr. Troya with a sense of peace and complete security, and the odd thing was that he seemed quite sincere in saying this even though the presence of Detective-Sergeant Bobby Owen was very plainly inspiring in him sensations altogether different.

  In answer to further questions he considered Mr. Macklin to have been one of the most friendly and kindly of men. He could not conceive the possibility of Mr. Macklin’s having an enemy in the world. Admittedly he knew nothing of Mr. Macklin’s private life, but one could tell, could one not? A little hard in driving a bargain, no doubt, but that one had to expect, and the bargain once made, everything that was most desirable.

  All this came out in a torrent, a spate of words, every fresh question Bobby asked releasing a fresh outpouring, accompanied always by much gesticulation and appeals to different saints of whom Mr. Troya seemed to know as many as the mate of an American tramp knows swear words. Then Bobby fired a final question.

  “You haven’t explained what it was took you there yesterday afternoon?”

  “I wasn’t,” fairly screamed Mr. Troya. “Mother of God, why should I have been there? There was no reason, nothing to arrange, no supper, it was only for that I ever went, for the arrangements when Mr. Judson was expecting friends. It was for that alone I ever saw Mr. Macklin – may his soul rest in peace,” added Mr. Troya, and Bobby wondered if it was only a fancy that made him think this aspiration was one for which Mr. Troya did not consider there existed much solid ground.

  “Mr. Troya,” he said, “I remind you again – a man has been murdered and I am a police-officer trying to discover what happened. From information we have received, we believe you were on or near the spot when the murder took place.”

  “No, no,” said Mr. Troya faintly. “Oh, no.”

  “Our information is,” Bobby continued, “that you sat there for some time under a tree, that you smoked two cigars – the stumps are in our possession.”

  Mr. Troya flung up his hands with a groan of despair, evidently thinking, as Bobby had rather hoped he would, that the two cigar stumps were conclusive evidence. He moaned:

  “You were watching me then all the time?”

  “We are also informed,” Bobby continued, prudently ignoring this, “that you saw a lady in the grounds, that you spoke to her, that she resented your conduct –”

  “Mother of God, St. Luke, St. Joy, St. Christopher,” screamed Mr. Troya and now his forehead not so much perspired as overflowed, “you will not tell my wife?”

  “That entirely depends,” Bobby answered coldly, “on the course of the investigation. The more we know, the fewer questions we shall have to ask, the fewer people we shall have to see. Would you not prefer to tell us the whole truth?”

  “Very well,” sighed Mr. Troya, “I will try.”

  CHAPTER 10

  MR. TROYA’S STORY

  There was a silence, a long silence. Bobby waited. He had an air of being prepared to go on waiting, as if indeed he had no thought in all the world but to sit and wait. Mr. Troya began to feel a trifle easier in his mind. Just another stolid English policeman, he told himself. Well, was it for nothing that Etrurian subtlety was famous the world over?

  Mr. Troya spread out his hands.

  “I will tell you the whole truth,” he announced firmly.

  Bobby looked depressed. He knew that gambit. It was an almost infallible warning that a pack of lies was coming. But he said nothing, only looked more stolid than ever, and Mr. Troya continued fluently:

  “No one has any idea of the competition in the catering trades. It is terrific, unheard of, unparalleled. Our association will shortly approach the Government with a demand – it is not too strong a word – that no more restaurants shall be permitted –”

  “Mr. Troya,” interrupted Bobby, “I don’t want to hear about your business difficulties. I want to know why you were in the garden of The Manor at the time of the murder, and what happened while you were there.”

  “But I explain,” protested Mr. Troya, hurt and indignant, for what is the good of subtlety against an ox-like stolidity that will not even listen? “I heard that Mr. Judson had been complaining – oh, not at the quality of the food, the wine, the service, that would have been impossible – but at my, in fact, incredibly small charges. Perhaps it was only a story. But I thought it would be best to see Mr. Macklin. I heard he was visiting The Manor yesterday and that he was to meet there some representative or another of one of the coffee-stall establishments.”

  “Coffee-stalls?” repeated Bobby, surprised.

  “I call them coffee-stalls,” explained Mr. Troya severely. “What else are they, these wholesalers of the art of dining, so delicate, so individual, with their establishments at every street corner?”

  “Oh,” said Bobby enlightened. “Well, did you see Mr. Macklin?”

  Mr. Troya shook his head.

  “It was warm, it was sunny. I sat there in the shade. I smoked a cigar, another. I dozed. I was happy. There was no heat from the kitchen, no complaint from the clients, no quarrelling between the chefs and the waiters. In my mind I composed two new dishes. How was I to know that hidden agents of the police were watching my every movement, waiting to seize even the stumps of my cigars when I flung them away so heedlessly, poor innocent that I am?”

  He nearly wept here at the thought of how Etrurian simple faith had been so meanly taken advantage of.

  “Curious,” remarked Bobby, “that you did not see anything of Mr. Macklin.”

  Mr. Troya rose to his feet and made fresh appeals to numerous saints to witness he was telling the truth. Indeed he would probably have gone through the whole calendar and then started afresh had not Bobby stopped him.

  “It may be that I slept a little,” Mr. Troya admitted, “it may be that Mr. Macklin arrived while I reposed, it may be that he was already there. I repeat, I saw nothing of him. I saw nothing of anyone till I had given up hope and had decided to return home. Then I saw arrive a girl. Not pretty, plain, pale, thin – it breaks the heart how women now are thin. Why is it do they think that there exists a restaurant of the first order, such as the ‘Twin Wolves’? – ah, pardon,” for Bobby had made an impatient movement. “Nevertheless, it was a woman, and it was only natural, was it not? to suppose that she was one of the pretty ladies Mr. Judson entertains and that she had returned for some reason, perhaps in the hope of seeing again Mr. Judson, perhaps merely to meet Mr. Macklin, and that therefore since Mr. Judson was not there, and Mr. Macklin not visible, the opportunity was favourable for a friendly salute from one who is not yet perhaps – ah, pardon, yes, I keep to my story. She misunderstood. They often have that air. Well, as a rule, with a little persistence, one can remove that misunderstanding. But before there was time for that, there arrived literally from nowhere – literally, I repeat,” emphasized Mr. Troya who had chiefly learnt his English from a study of the popular Press – “a ruffian, a giant, an ogre, an animal of unbelievable size and stature. And then – by misfortune, in stepping backwards to defend myself, I slipped by the very edge of the lake.”

  “You mean he picked you up and chucked you in, head over heels?” interposed Bobby.

  “Sir,” said Mr. Troya with dignity, “you express it with a crudity and a vulgarity that I resent, but that I overlook.”

  “What happened next?” asked Bobby.

  “Nothing. It was enough,” answered Mr. Troya with still g
reater dignity.

  Bobby asked a few more questions. Mr. Troya protested that he had never even seen Mr. Judson. Of the nature of Mr. Judson’s parties, he knew nothing. There was talk, of course, among the staff, chatter about card playing, about the fabulous sums that changed hands, about the nature of the films shown, about this, that, and the other. But all of it only gossip, hearsay, inference. No member of the staff was allowed to be present when the films were being shown. The doors were locked, the windows were curtained and on the first floor, no one was permitted to go in or out. It was the same when cards were being played. Perhaps there was roulette also. No waiter was allowed in the room. One of the smaller adjoining rooms was fitted up as a bar, and any of Mr. Judson’s friends wanting a drink had to come there for it, and, if he wished, carry it himself into the room where the gambling was going on. All that of course made plenty of talk, but talk it remained. There was always a bully in attendance in case of trouble, but his services had never been required, except once or twice when smart young gentlemen had tried to gatecrash, under the impression perhaps that The Manor was some kind of night-club.

  “What happens then?” Bobby asked.

  “The bully, he is a boxing champion, a giant, he picks them up and throws them in the lake,” explained Mr. Troya, chuckling. “It is very funny that, my staff laugh and laugh when they tell me. Oh, very funny indeed.”

  Mr. Troya admitted that naturally the staff came in contact with the guests, but they did not know their names, though occasionally they recognized some well-known and outstanding personality, Major Cathay, for example, the Etrurian military attaché. As a rule the guests tended to be rather elderly than otherwise, middle-aged, anyhow. The younger element was very much in the minority. That is, as regarded the men. The lady guests were generally younger, even much younger.

  But that, Mr. Troya supposed, was nothing to do with the police?

  Bobby agreed that the police had nothing to do with questions of morality as such. Their duty was the preservation of public order – the keeping of the King’s peace as the old phrase runs.

  For the rest Mr. Troy a stuck to his story. He had seen, heard, known nothing except for the incident already recounted of the pale young woman and the brutal Goliath who in what did not concern him had interfered with what was – Mr. Troya must be permitted to say – a typical British lack of savoir faire. After that he returned home, explaining to his wife that he had got wet in helping to rescue a child fallen into the Thames from the steps opposite the Temple station.

  “All that I have told you,” he added anxiously, “it is all in complete confidence?”

  “Mr. Troya,” said Bobby, “everything that is told the police is in complete confidence but always in complete subordination to the interests of justice.”

  “The interests of humanity, of a husband, of the sanctity of the family, that is all nothing, I suppose?” said Mr. Troya with a kind of bitter resignation. “There is in the English official no sign, no trace, no scrap of human sympathy?”

  “None at all,” agreed Bobby cheerfully. “Well, Mr. Troya, I shall report of course your explanation of how you came to be present in the vicinity at the time of the murder.”

  “Mother of God,” protested Mr. Troya indignantly, “what a way to put it – is it my fault then if a murderer commits his crime while I am innocently near?”

  “It seems,” Bobby continued, “that you have nothing to tell us,” and was only just in time to check another torrent of appeals to all known saints. “If you do remember anything else or want to add anything to your statement or change it in any way, please don’t hesitate. You have only to ring us up any time, day or night.”

  “Why should you think I am likely to have forgotten anything?” Mr. Troya asked sulkily.

  “Oh,” Bobby explained, “we often find people’s memories improve wonderfully after they have had time to think things over. That is why a preliminary informal chat like this is so useful. I don’t know, of course, it doesn’t depend on me, but I think headquarters will probably want you to make a formal statement in writing. But they’ll let you know if they do.”

  Mr. Troya made no comment, but looked thoroughly uncomfortable and very frightened, which is what Bobby wanted, for he felt fairly certain that while the little man was probably telling the truth as far as it went, there was certainly very much more he could have told if he had wished.

  His story of having gone there on the mere chance of meeting Mr. Macklin sounded very thin, for instance. It might be true or it might be that his real object was to discover the identity of the rival caterer Mr. Macklin was supposed to be negotiating with. But there was no proof that any such person had been present, though inquiries could be made from likely firms, and by advertisement in the trade papers, to see if any confirmation could be obtained.

  Not that Bobby was much inclined to suspect Troya of being the actual murderer. He did not look much like a murderer somehow, though of course murderers seldom do, so individual, indeed unique, in cause and circumstance, is the crime of murder. But it was hard to imagine any motive, and hard, too, to imagine a murderer emphasizing his presence on the spot by making unwelcome advances to a strange girl. Only then of course that again might be an example of extreme subtlety.

  How often has not counsel for the defence declaimed:

  “Gentlemen of the jury, is it reasonable, is it even possible, to suppose that the accused or any man could have behaved –” as there was abundant proof the accused had in fact behaved.

  Bobby told himself that Troya must at present remain on the list of suspects, though not in a very prominent position.

  He was on his feet now, ready to depart, much to Mr. Troya’s very evident relief. But that is the moment it is often wise to choose for asking a final question, and Bobby said:

  “Oh, by the way, would you give me the name and address of the person who told you Macklin would be at The Manor yesterday?”

  “His name, yes, Jules, but I don’t know his address,” Troya answered with a readiness that might mean he was simply telling the truth or equally well that he had had his story already thought out. “He came to the ‘Twin Wolves’ to ask me for a job. I had no vacancy. He tried to persuade me. He said he had important connections in the trade – they all have. Certainly he had experience, he knew our ways. To prove he could be useful he told me about Mr. Macklin. I gave him a ten-shilling note and told him to come back in a week. I thought if his information was true, then it might be worth while to take him on. But if he was only bluffing, then I did not want him.”

  Bobby pressed for further particulars but got none. The description, a middle-aged man of average height, clean shaven, dark hair, dark complexion; colour of eyes, shape of nose, ears, not noticed; mouth like anyone else’s; was far too vague to be of any help, and yet Mr. Troya managed to give an impression of trying his best to remember.

  “I see so many people,” he sighed, “so many of them so much alike.”

  Nor could he say exactly when or where he had heard that Mr. Judson had been grumbling at the size of his bill. It was just an impression, a word here, a look there, most likely he would never have given it another thought but for the story Jules told of Macklin’s appointment.

  “It is unlucky,” said Bobby grimly, “that you can’t tell us more about this Jules, that you don’t know who rang you up to tell you of the murder, that you can’t say exactly when you heard Mr. Judson was not quite satisfied – it is all very unlucky indeed.”

  Mr. Troya agreed that it was, very unlucky indeed, no one felt that more than he did himself. But there it was.

  No good, Bobby decided, pressing him further. If he were telling the truth, there was nothing more to be learnt. If he were lying, then further questioning would only produce more lies, and make it more difficult for him to retract if presently he did decide to give the further information Bobby felt sure he was holding back. So Bobby thought it might be as well to drop a few genial remarks abo
ut the results of withholding information and the penalties attaching to those found guilty of having been ‘accessory after the fact*. They were remarks that, as Bobby observed with interest, threw Mr. Troya into a state of quivering terror, and such streaming perspiration it was a wonder anything soluble was left in his body. Nevertheless, for all that he seemed none the more inclined to add anything to his previous statements.

  Bobby thought it would be as well also to make a note of the description, vague as it was, Troya had given of the illusive ‘Jules Some of the trade employment agencies might know him. But then Bobby discovered he had not yet replaced the fountain-pen that had been the chief casualty of his encounter with Clarence. Mr. Troya offered to lend him his he produced from an inner pocket, and when Bobby got his own fingers stained with ink from it, offered profuse apologies.

  “It is in fact time,” he said, “that I got another, even though economy is certainly so necessary. The one I did buy for myself when this one began to leak, my wife uses now,” he added sadly.

  Bobby deduced from this, as well as from one or two remarks previously heard, that Madam Troya was very definitely the senior partner. A small point, and not of much interest, though hard lines on poor little Mr. Troya that he was not allowed another pen when his old one leaked and his new one had been apparently commandeered by his wife. Much more interesting, Bobby thought, to know why Troya, evidently very badly frightened, yet remained so obstinately silent? Was it perhaps that he was controlled by a greater, more immediate fear?

  There was no more to be said for the present, however, so Bobby took his leave, and almost as the front door closed behind him a big motor-car drew up in front of the house. From it there descended Mr. Judson. The recognition was mutual, and, on Mr. Judson’s part, unwelcome, or so Bobby thought.

  CHAPTER 11