Dictator's Way

by E. R. Punshon

  “Oh, all right,” he said then; “tell him I’ll be down in a minute. Ask him if he’ll have some breakfast. You might do another couple of kippers if you don’t mind.”

  “They’re big ones, Mr. Owen, two to the pound pretty near,” the landlady remonstrated.

  “That’s fine,” said Bobby, and with a note of passion in his voice, he added: “I do so hate a starveling kipper.”

  CHAPTER 13

  FRESH SUSPICIONS

  Nevertheless the kippers, in spite of their size and succulence, were not a success. For one thing, the Hon. Chas. Waveny had a kind of sub-conscious impression that kippers for breakfast were slightly vulgar, proletarian indeed, if not almost Bolshevik in tendency. For him kippers were associated with three o’clock in the morning refreshment after fashionable dances, at £5 5s. a ticket, in aid of some charity no one had ever heard of, and a general belief that ‘La Vie de Bohème’ had been plumbed to its depths. Even more important was the fact that he had no appetite at all, and indeed his breakfast consisted entirely of coffee and cigarettes.

  “It’s this murder,” he explained, “what have I got to do with it? I tell you I don’t like it, if you know what I mean. Police chaps calling at the flats and asking questions – at the garage, too. I don’t want to make a fuss... I thought I’d come along and see you first. But I want it stopped.”

  “That’s all right,” said Bobby easily. “We’ll stop it fast enough as soon as we’ve got to know anything you can tell us – why you talked to me the way you did, and why you were interested in Judson’s parties, and all that. My boss was trying to get in touch with you all yesterday. Where were you, by the way? No one seemed to know.”

  “Had to go and see Aunt Tilly,” Waveny explained, “up Bedford way. She’s dying.”

  “Dear me,” said Bobby sympathetically.

  “Been dying for the last ten years,” said Waveny with some bitterness, “and will be for the next twenty most likely. But she comes through with a cheque now and then, and every so often I have to rush off to hear her last wishes. Or there would be a new will jolly quick.”

  “I see,” said Bobby. “How about trotting along to the Yard with me?”

  “I don’t see what for,” Waveny grumbled. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

  Bobby wondered. There was a kind of unease, a restlessness in Waveny’s manner that might be caused by the not unnatural disinclination many people would feel at the prospect of being in any way concerned in a sensational murder case or that might have some other cause altogether.

  “Well, old man,” Bobby said slowly, “you know you did seem interested in the place, and then a murder happens there the same afternoon, so you can’t wonder if our people are a bit curious, especially when they know you had been talking about giving the murdered man a good thrashing. Yes, I know,” he added, as Waveny tried to interrupt, “a thrashing’s one thing and murder’s another.”

  “It’s a girl,” Waveny explained, “he was getting fresh about her.” He paused, blushed slightly, looked embarrassed. “She’s a girl... well, if you know what I mean –”

  “I don’t,” said Bobby.

  “Well, she’s... well, she’s a girl.”

  “So you said before,” observed Bobby, devoting himself to his kipper. “Lots of ’em.”

  “Not like her,” said Waveny with unexpected decision. “Her people lost all their coin and now she’s running a hat shop in the West End, just behind Piccadilly. Sort of thing lots of the best people do, you know.”

  Bobby made no answer but the kipper suffered badly. An Honourable now, he thought bitterly, and not only an Honourable, but one who had as well a wealthy aunt on her death-bed. It was, Bobby considered, hardly fair. Peter Albert was bad enough with his yacht, his ready smile, his frank, engaging manner, and now here was Waveny with a title in the background and his periodically dying aunt. Of course, Aunt Tilly – otherwise as Bobby knew, the Dowager Duchess of Blegborough – might go on living for years, but anyhow she ‘came through’ with cheques at apparently not infrequent intervals. Bobby found himself wondering if a detective-sergeant of the C.I.D. had any chance of wangling a job in the police- force of, say, the Fiji Isles.

  Waveny continued:

  “You see, a chap like me, family name, all that – well, he’s got to be careful, hasn’t he?”

  “He has,” said Bobby grimly, “especially if there’s a discipline board hanging around.”

  “Oh, that’s different,” declared Waveny, “I mean – well, all this Bolshevism about, chaps like us have got to look out. That’s not all. There’s aunt.”

  “The dying one?”

  “Yes. She’s always on at me about getting married and if I did and she thought it all O.K. – well, very likely there would be a sort of settlement, if you see what I mean.”

  “I do,” said Bobby.

  “Only she’s a bit starchy, old-fashioned, all that sort of thing. If there was any hint of a scandal or any gossip about her – if you see what I mean?”

  “About your aunt?”

  “Good lord, no. About any girl I got engaged to. Put the hat on any chance of any coin or any settlement either.”

  “Well, that seems your private look-out,” remarked Bobby. “Our people won’t be interested. All they’ll want to know is why you came to see me, and why you seemed interested in The Manor the day before a man got murdered there.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Waveny protested. “I told Olive she ought to cut ’em. I told her they weren’t fit for any decent girl to go to. I asked her to stop it. I put it to her as plainly as I could. After all, chaps like me, we can’t think only of ourselves. There’s a tradition.”

  “So there is,” agreed Bobby, suspending his operations on the kipper to regard his companion with a certain awe. “A tradition. As you say. What did Miss Olive say?”

  “There’s no need to go into that,” said Waveny with some dignity.

  “Well, what happened next?”

  “I determined to take a firm line,” declared Waveny, as it were suddenly thrusting that nose of his into prominence. “I told her she might laugh but she would see.”

  “She laughed, then?” murmured Bobby.

  “Girls are always giggling,” Waveny pointed out. “At nothing. She didn’t understand how serious it was. I decided to arrange for the police to raid the next party Judson gave.”

  “Oh, did you?” said Bobby. “Really?”

  “That’s why I came to see you,” continued Waveny. “I was in a position to tell you exactly what went on, as I had been there.”

  “As Mr. Judson’s guest?” murmured Bobby.

  Waveny nodded, apparently without noticing the slight stress Bobby laid on the last word.

  “Roulette,” he said. “High play, too. Poker. Chemin de Fer. Films, too. Hot, very hot.” He paused, smiled, even giggled. “Of course,” he explained, “if there had only been men there –”

  “We must protect our women,” Bobby agreed.

  “That’s right,” said Waveny, brightening up a little, for hitherto even he had been aware of a certain lack of sympathy in Bobby’s manner. “So what I thought was I would take you round, show you the place, tell you all about what went on so you could make your arrangements, and let you know next time. Then you could raid ’em. I would take care Miss Farrar wasn’t there, and when she knew what I had saved her from – you see what I mean?”

  “I think I get the idea,” Bobby said. “Did you think that all out by yourself?”

  Waveny nodded, not without complacence.

  “Didn’t strike you, I suppose,” Bobby asked, “that it was a private party in a private house? Anyhow, we needn’t go into that. You can tell ’em all about it at Headquarters. They mightn’t believe me but they’ll have to when it’s you telling them. You made rather a point of not taking me to The Manor that afternoon. Any special reason? ”

  “I had an idea Judson might be there.”

  “Why
did you think that?” Bobby asked sharply. “Oh, it was something he said at the club the night before. We were playing bridge and someone wanted to make an appointment with him and he said, sorry, he couldn’t, he was engaged, had to see a man out Epping way.”

  “Where did you go after leaving me that afternoon?”

  “I thought I would run down and see how Aunt Tilly was – she appreciates it if you pop in and say you’ve been feeling anxious.”

  “Rather sudden, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, when I got back to my place –”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, there had been some bounder writing, some lawyer fellow. Wanted a hundred in twenty-four hours. Talked about one of those beastly writ things. I thought Aunt Tilly –”

  “Did she?”

  “Well, as it happened, I didn’t need. She don’t like it if you touch her openly, she likes to think it’s a surprise. A chap I hadn’t seen for months – Monty Evans – dropped in. He’s owed me a hundred since the Derby last year and he just walked in and clapped it down on the table – notes, too, not a cheque. He said he was cleaning up before he went abroad.”

  “Bit of luck,” said Bobby. “You went on to Aunt Tilly all the same?”

  “Well, I had rung up to say I was coming, so I couldn’t very well cry off. Besides, I knew she would be pleased if I went to see her and never even dropped a hint about being hard up.”

  Bobby questioned him somewhat closely about times, but Waveny was very vague. According to his story he was on the way to his aunt’s from about half-past three till he arrived at his destination in time for dinner. He hadn’t hurried. He hadn’t met anyone he knew. He had stopped once for a drink at a pub he passed, but he wasn’t sure which pub or where; it was quite plain that no alibi could be established by his story. He could quite well have spent half an hour or so at The Manor about the time the murder had taken place. There was no evidence to prove that was so, but the possibility was one that had to be considered. The story of the demand for the immediate payment of a hundred pounds under threat of legal proceedings and of the opportune appearance of a debtor to repay exactly that amount, seemed a little odd, too. Suppose that necessary hundred pounds – the necessity for repayment more urgent than Waveny had allowed to appear – suppose it had come from no convenient debtor appearing in the very nick of time, but from some quite other source?

  Suppose Waveny’s knowledge of Judson’s errand at The Manor had included knowledge that Judson intended to pay over to Macklin that exact sum of a hundred pounds, and suppose it had seemed to Waveny a good opportunity to secure the amount he needed – that possibly again he needed very badly? He might have known his aunt would give him nothing. He was a young man, powerfully built. Macklin was an older and a smaller man.

  Then again there was the admitted fact that Waveny had used threats against Macklin. Jealousy, theft, murder, did they all run together?

  Well, if the thoughts of his superiors at the Yard ran on the same lines, it would be for them to decide what steps to take. Thankful was Bobby indeed that the responsibility did not lie with him. In this drama he felt that all the personalities touched him too closely. Even for Waveny, though Bobby considered him a kind of museum piece, he felt a friendliness born of the football field and the taste of a muddy boot in the mouth, and between Clarence and himself, too, was the blood bond of bleeding noses and of blackened eyes.

  Breakfast was over now, and Waveny, though with obvious reluctance, agreed to accompany Bobby to the Yard.

  “Don’t see what for,” he grumbled. “I’ve told you the whole thing. Hang it all, if you mean to marry a girl, it’s up to you to see she doesn’t get mixed up with that sort of thing. Aunt Tilly –”

  He paused. He evidently felt that to mention Aunt Tilly was enough.

  “You intend to marry Miss Farrar, then?” Bobby asked.

  Waveny nodded, and somehow once again his nose came into prominence so that that small round mouth and chin of his were utterly eclipsed.

  “Does Miss Farrar know?” Bobby inquired.

  “If you ask me,” said Waveny profoundly, “a girl always knows.”

  Bobby agreed, and during most of the journey to Scotland Yard was very silent. Arrived at Headquarters, he handed over Waveny to the tender mercies of Superintendent Ulyett, while Bobby himself was instructed to write out a full report of his nocturnal interview with Clarence.

  When he had handed it in he was told to stand by for a time, and was then informed that Superintendent Ulyett, having finished with Waveny, had gone in person to conduct a further examination of Macklin’s flat, and that Bobby was to report to him there.

  “I expect he wants you to see if you can get on the trail of this Clarence bird,” explained Inspector Ferris who gave Bobby these orders. “Looks to me as if it was him all right. He’s offered five hundred to do a bloke in and a bloke gets done in – cause and effect, I say.”

  Bobby never disagreed with what inspectors said and made his way to the address given him. Ulyett, busy in the flat itself, one on the ground floor of a fairly large building, sent out word that Sergeant Owen was to stand by, and Bobby accordingly stood by, a duty in which like all other C.I.D. men, he was much experienced. The porter of the flats was, naturally enough, very excited and interested, since it is not every day a murder case impinges on the somewhat dull routine of a porter’s life. So he was very ready to talk, and Bobby equally ready to listen, since he knew truth is as often to be found in casual chatter, as at the bottom of a well. He knew also that the humble and the lowly, sergeants, for instance, are often told more than large, imposing, and somewhat terrifying dignitaries like Superintendent Ulyett, so he was quite willing to encourage the porter to talk as much as he liked.

  Reward soon came.

  “One of our tenants won’t be putting on mourning,” the porter told him presently. “Mr. Yates, I mean. I’ve seen Mr. Yates looking at Mr. Macklin as if he wouldn’t have minded putting a bullet in him himself. He’s said as much to me once or twice when he was a bit lit up.”

  “Oh,” said Bobby, though without showing too much interest. “Bad feeling between them, was there? What was the trouble? Wireless?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. Mr. Macklin’s flat’s this one, on the ground floor. Mr. Yates lodges with tenants on the third – of course, rightly speaking, tenants aren’t allowed to take lodgers, but you can’t stop ’em having friends on a visit, and it’s no affair of the office how long the visit lasts or if any coin passes. Nothing we can say, even though we knows. Funny thing is, it was through Mr. Yates as Mr. Macklin come here.”

  “That was before they quarrelled perhaps?”

  “It wasn’t exactly a quarrel. Mr. Macklin was always friendly, and so was Mr. Yates to his face, had to be. They was in the same office, and Mr. Macklin got the job Mr. Yates thought ought to have been his. Seems Mr. Macklin turned up sudden from foreign parts and got took on. Mr. Macklin was looking for a place to live, so Mr. Yates told him about there being to-lets here, and Mr. Macklin came along to have a look and took one. Quite changed Mr. Yates was though when Mr. Macklin got the post he thought he ought to have had by rights – Mr. Yates, I mean. Seemed as if all the life went out of him. Used to go about muttering to himself and I’ve seen him look at Mr. Macklin very queer like.”

  Bobby decided it would be best to report all this to the Superintendent for him to deal with as he thought best. Ulyett might not like it if Bobby went on with questioning that looked as if it would turn out to be of first-class importance.

  “Anyone else here on bad terms with Mr. Macklin or specially friendly with him?” he asked.

  “No, very quiet gentleman, Mr. Macklin – but the biggest ’phone bill I ever saw. I noticed it lying on his table once when I was in there and the bell ringing constant, like a bookie’s almost.”

  “I suppose he wasn’t anything in that line?”

  “Lor’, no,” answered the porter, laughing at the idea. He added tha
t he didn’t suppose many of the other tenants knew Mr. Macklin even by sight. There was one gentleman who had seemed interested in him and had thought at first he must have met him somewhere. But that was eighteen months ago and the gentleman wasn’t often there. He was a sailor, a mate on a coasting steamer, and only came when his boat happened to be calling at London. He lent his flat to friends though, sometimes. Foreign gentlemen he met abroad very often.

  Bobby said nothing but he wondered how it was a mate on a coasting steamer met people abroad, and, still more, he wondered that a mate on a coasting steamer should be able to afford to keep for occasional use even a small London flat.

  CHAPTER 14

  SUSPECTS A TO G

  As a result of his report of the information imparted to him by the chatty porter at the flats, Bobby was relieved of the task to which he had been previously assigned, of searching for the vanished Clarence, and was instructed instead to continue to perform his familiar duty of ‘standing by’.

  It is a restful occupation but Bobby was very tired of it when at last the tedium was relieved first by an order to draw as best he could from memory a sketch of Peter Albert and then, this completed and delivered to the waiting messenger, a summons, after yet another long wait, to Superintendent Ulyett’s room.

  He found that high official somewhat shamefacedly slipping his boots off.

  “Haven’t sat down since I got up,’’ he explained, “breakfast on the hop and no lunch unless you call a glass of beer lunch, standing up, too. I suppose you’ve been knocking the billiard balls about all day, lucky young devil.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby meekly, though in point of fact he had not been near the billiard room, but a wise sergeant always begins conversation with a Superintendent by saying: ‘Yes, sir.’

  From among the pile of papers on his desk, Ulyett produced Bobby’s sketch, scowled at it, examined it closely, held it upside down, shook his head, might indeed have been an art critic inspecting the work of a not yet established artist.

  “Give me a photo, every time,” he said finally.