Rather a Common Sort of Crime

by Joyce Porter

  Reluctantly and still protesting weakly, Miss Jones eventually harkened to her master’s voice and went off to the phone. It was five minutes before she came back.

  ‘Well?’

  Miss Jones sat down nervously at the table. ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow morning, dear,’ she whispered, ‘in the Athenaeum. He’ll be waiting for you just inside the swing doors.’

  ‘In the Athenaeum? What’s wrong with the police station?’

  ‘I don’t know, dear, and in the circumstances I didn’t like to ask him. It was all most embarrassing.’

  ‘Well, it strikes me as jolly rum,’ growled the Hon. Con. ‘I hope you haven’t gone and mucked this up, Bones.’

  ‘I did exactly what you said, dear, except for saying that my name was Shuttleworth. That I couldn’t bring myself to do. I told them I wanted to speak to Sergeant Fenner on a confidential matter and, when they put me through to him, I just said that I had some important information for him and that I preferred not to give my name. He seemed to understand and suggested meeting at the Athenaeum and I agreed. It doesn’t make any difference, does it, dear?’

  ‘I wouldn’t care to be in your shoes, Bones, if it does!’ said the Hon. Con darkly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  At ten o’clock precisely the Hon. Con passed through the swing doors of the Totterbridge Athenaeum and caught Sergeant Fenner nicely as he was pretending not to have seen her.

  She treated him to a wild haloo. ‘Morning, Sergeant!’

  Sergeant Fenner managed an exasperated little smile before turning to glance anxiously in the direction of the door. ‘Good morning, Miss.’

  ‘Want a word with you!’ boomed the Hon. Con.

  Sergeant Fenner fought with his better nature to maintain the politeness that was expected of him. ‘Well, not just now, if you don’t mind. As a matter of fact,’ he took another quick look at the swing doors, ‘I’m waiting for a – er – a client.’ The Hon. Con’s cheery face showed no sign of receding. Sergeant Fenner tried again. ‘A snout, actually.’ It was clearly all Greek to the Hon. Con. ‘A police informant,’ explained Sergeant Fenner, getting desperate. ‘They’re rather shy birds and they don’t like witnesses so, if you wouldn’t mind just moving off and pretending you don’t know me …’

  The Hon. Con thought it was screamingly funny though Sergeant Fenner showed some reluctance to see the joke, even when he’d had it explained to him at least three times.

  ‘Wondered why you made the assignation here,’ guffawed the Hon. Con. ‘ Was beginning to think you’d mistaken old Bones for some illicit popsie you were keeping tucked up your sleeve!’ She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Jolly embarrassing if I’d found you waiting for me with a bunch of red roses and a box of chocolates, eh?’

  How about a bunch of fives, thought Sergeant Fenner bitterly, and a box round your great fat ears? ‘I’ll give you five minutes,’ he said grudgingly, recognizing that it was a fair cop. ‘We can go into the small card room. There won’t be anybody using it at this time in the morning. I suppose it’s about that blasted Burberry boy?’

  The Hon. Con withheld her fire until she’d got Sergeant Fenner fixed in her sights across the green baize of a bridge table. At that distance even she could see that he wasn’t in the sunniest of moods. She tried to jolly him out of it. ‘Cheer up, Sergeant! Worse things happened during the war!’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  This surly response made the Hon. Con decide that she’d better let Sergeant Fenner stew where he was, down in the dumps. Some people just didn’t appreciate what you were trying to do for them. ‘I’ve made a good deal of progress in the Rodney Burberry murder case,’ she announced briskly.

  Sergeant Fenner sat up with a jerk. ‘You never let me have those files back I lent you,’ he said accusingly. ‘They’re police property and you did promise, you know.’

  ‘Oh, stuff!’ snorted the Hon. Con. ‘Here I am all ready to give you the name of Rodney’s murderer and all you can do is fuss on about a lot of mouldy old papers.’

  Sergeant Fenner was unrepentant. ‘Rodney Burberry committed suicide. Don’t let’s start talking about murderers until we’ve got it established that it was murder. Where’s your evidence?’

  ‘Evidence? Well, I haven’t exactly got …’

  ‘I thought so! No evidence.’ Sergeant Fenner made as if to get to his feet but the Hon. Con pinned him back with a deft shove of the card table.

  ‘Come on, Sergeant!’ she wheedled. ‘Give us a chance. I’ve got lots of information – cross my heart!’

  ‘There’s one born every minute,’ said Sergeant Fenner wearily. He rubbed his stomach where the edge of the table had caught him. ‘All right, I’ll give you ten minutes and not a second more.’

  It was not all sheer big-heartedness. Sergeant Fenner was beginning to think that it mightn’t be a bad idea to find out exactly what the Hon. Con had been getting up to. Forewarned is forearmed. There were some very wild rumours circulating in the town and he’d sleep easier at nights if he knew for sure that they were all gross and malicious exaggerations.

  The Hon. Con made haste to marshal her thoughts and resolved that she wouldn’t risk boring the pants off Sergeant Fenner by dragging in the rather large red herring she had pursued from the Kama Sutra. ‘Ever heard of one Smith?’ she asked, plumbing for the dramatic approach.

  Sergeant Fenner frowned and thought. ‘Oh, the man who gave Burberry a job when he came out of Borstal? Well, what about him?’

  The Hon. Con got cold feet. Maybe it would be better not to name Mr Smith as the murderer straight off. She would just give Sergeant Fenner the bare facts and let him draw the only possible conclusion for himself. She felt rather pleased with this idea. It showed a nice touch of subtlety. ‘Didn’t you think he was rather a stinking kettle of fish?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Sergeant!’ she chided him good-humouredly. ‘You can’t fool me! His behaviour must have aroused your suspicions.’

  Sergeant Fenner was going to make her sweat this out by herself. ‘It didn’t.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Hon. Con.

  ‘Well, if that’s all you have to say …’

  ‘Here, hold your horses!’ protested the Hon. Con. ‘Ten minutes you promised me.’

  Sergeant Fenner consulted his watch. ‘You’ve got nine left.’

  The Hon. Con broke into a gabble. ‘I only got on to this Smith chappie yesterday, when I was making enquiries into Rodney’s background. I was hoping that Smith, as the lad’s employer, might be able to help me. However, when I tried to contact him, do you know what I found?’

  ‘No. Apart from the fact that you probably didn’t find him at all. He left Totterbridge the week after Burberry killed himself.’

  The Hon. Con’s face fell. ‘ You knew that?’

  ‘Of course we knew it. I told you right at the very beginning, Miss, that we don’t overlook much, even in an open-and-shut case like this. Now, I may have got a few details wrong, not’ – he glared at the Hon. Con – ‘having the files handy to refresh my memory, but I imagine you discovered something like this. James Selby Smith came to Totterbridge to go into the question of opening a new branch here for his firm of estate agents. He was a pretty decent sort of fellow so, when he found that he’d need a temporary office boy, he decided to see if he could give some unfortunate lad a helping hand. The work wasn’t skilled or arduous in any way – didn’t amount to much more than manning the office when Mr Smith was out, actually – so he went along to the probation people to see if they’d got anybody who’d do. Rodney Burberry was the best of the bunch they sent along. He seemed very anxious to get the job and, at first, Mr Smith had high hopes of him. After a week or so, though, he seemed to become very depressed – moody and withdrawn was the way Mr Smith described it – and Mr Smith got a bit worried about him. Well, eventually Mr Smith’s time in Totterbridge started drawing to an end. He’d decided that it wasn’t really a very
suitable place for his firm after all and he put in a recommendation to that effect to his head office. At the same time, of course, he had to tell Burberry that there wouldn’t be a job for him any more but he promised to give the lad a good reference. Well, apparently Burberry didn’t take the news too well. It seems he’d been counting on getting a permanent job with these estate agents when they opened the new branch. Now they weren’t going to, and his hopes were rather dashed.

  ‘Mr Smith broke the bad news to Burberry on the Thursday afternoon, a few hours in fact before he killed himself in the Kama Sutra. When he didn’t show up for work on the Friday, Mr Smith wasn’t all that surprised. He just thought that Burberry had got fed up and simply packed the job in. Naturally enough, really, he didn’t bother making any enquiries and it wasn’t until we called round there on the Saturday morning and broke the news that he knew what had happened. He was a bit upset and inclined to blame himself, but I soon talked him out of that. I told him straight that, in my opinion, he’d done the dickens of a sight more for Burberry than most and he’d no need at all to go around reproaching himself.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Hon. Con, ‘so it was you who went round to Cross Street on the saturday morning?’

  ‘It was. Me and Detective-Constable Petty. Just a routine call. We took a statement from Mr Smith. He’d nothing much to tell us, of course, but this bit about Burberry losing his job did support the idea of suicide.’

  ‘Did this Smith man give you his permanent address?’ asked the Hon. Con suspiciously.

  ‘He did. Somewhere in Liverpool, if I remember. And he gave us the name and address of the estate agents. Didn’t you see the statement on the files?’

  ‘Er – yes,’ said the Hon. Con, not caring to admit that she’d concentrated exclusively on the juicier bits. ‘ I checked the address that he left at the Martyr’s Head, though, and it’s false.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘What about the addresses he gave you. Did you check them?’

  Sergeant Fenner frowned. ‘No, there was no reason to.’

  ‘There blooming well is now!’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Smith’s highly suspicious behaviour!’

  Sergeant Fenner groaned. ‘We’re not back on that again, are we?’

  ‘Well, what about how he cleared off the minute Rodney was dead?’

  ‘But he didn’t clear off the minute Rodney was dead! He stayed on in Totterbridge for several days. Until after the inquest, in fact. I told him he needn’t bother as it was most unlikely that he would be called to give evidence, but he said he’d sooner stay on for a day or so than have to come all the way back again if the coroner did want him. I’m afraid I still don’t see what you’re getting at, Miss Morrison-Burke. Mr Smith seems to me to have behaved very responsibly. I wish’ – he politely avoided looking directly at the Hon. Con – ‘we could say the same about all the members of the public with whom we come in contact.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t doubt it!’ retorted the Hon. Con tartly. ‘You’d like everybody to sit back quiet as mice while you say black is white – I can see that. Well’ – she tossed her head imperiously – ‘you’re not going to brainwash me!’

  ‘No, Miss,’ said Sergeant Fenner.

  ‘Smith is a murderer and you’ve jolly well got to help me to find him and bring him to book. No, Sergeant, it’s my turn now! I didn’t butt in when you were talking, did I? Now, just examine the facts. He comes to Totterbridge and asks specially for a lad of dubious character to work for him. As soon as the boy’s dead, he clears off, leaving a false address behind him. Nobody knows a damned thing about him. Why, we don’t even know if Smith’s his real name. Good grief, murderers have gone to the gallows on a heck of a lot less evidence than that!’

  ‘Not,’ put in Sergeant Fenner mildly, ‘in any police force I have ever been connected with. However, may one ask if Smith had any motive for killing young Burberry?’

  ‘He certainly did!’ The Hon. Con’s unspoken suspicions now hardened under pressure into a dead certainty. ‘Sex!’

  Sergeant Fenner wilted.

  ‘Smith is one of those,’ declared the Hon. Con gruffly. ‘ He comes to Totterbridge with this cock and bull story about looking for business premises just so that he can have a plausible cover story for hiring a presentable young lad as office boy. Naturally he doesn’t want a decent, clean living youngster who’d object to his filthy advances. He wants a lad with a criminal record, on the supposition that he won’t prove quite so fussy. Oh, Smith was a cunning devil, all right – and there’s no need to raise your eyebrows in that supercilious manner either, Sergeant! The Sunday papers are full of things like this.’

  ‘Burberry was hardly an innocent child, Miss. He was a grown – if young – man.’

  The Hon. Con accepted the suggestion and, rather skilfully she thought, adapted it to her argument. ‘ That’s probably just where things started going wrong. Smith finds that his revolting overtures are repulsed and he realizes that he’s going to have big trouble on his hands. Maybe Rodney was even trying to blackmail him. That often happens in these cases, you know.’

  ‘So Smith murders Burberry to keep his mouth shut?’

  ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face!’ The Hon. Con beamed approvingly at Sergeant Fenner. ‘Thought you’d begin to see it my way once you’d had it explained to you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The method, Miss. How did he do it?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t actually got round to the minor details yet, of course. That’s why we’ve got to bring Smith in and grill him.’

  ‘Have your researches proved, by any chance, that Burberry didn’t buy both the whisky and the poison himself?’

  ‘No,’ admitted the Hon. Con, ‘not exactly. But there are a few suspicious circumstances there, too. Did you know, for example, that Rodney had bought not one but several bottles of whisky in the week or so before he died? How do you explain that, eh?’

  ‘Maybe he liked the taste.’

  ‘There’s no need to be flippant, Sergeant,’ said the Hon. Con sternly. ‘And what about that Kil’mkwik rat poison stuff? Did you know that an unknown man phoned up the chemist and asked him if he stocked Kil’mkwik a few days before Rodney called in the shop and bought the fatal dose?’

  Sergeant Fenner looked at his watch again. The Hon. Con had had eleven minutes and she wasn’t going to get one second more. Sergeant Fenner was neither a vindictive nor a religious man but he sincerely hoped that Rodney Burberry was rotting in hell at the moment. The boy had caused nothing but trouble when he was alive and he was causing nothing but trouble now he was dead. To be fair, though – and Sergeant Fenner eyed the Hon. Con in a. most unfriendly way – you couldn’t blame it all on the lousy little slob.

  ‘Here,’ objected the Hon. Con, ‘I haven’t finished yet!’ Sergeant Fenner continued to rise to his feet. ‘ I’m a very busy man, Miss.’

  ‘But you’ve got to find Smith!’

  ‘Contrary to what most people think, Miss, the police are not a missing persons’ bureau. If Mr Smith did indeed give an incorrect address at the Martyr’s Head and to us, he may have had good and sufficient reasons for doing so – reasons which are none of our concern. In my opinion Rodney Burberry killed himself and nothing you’ve told me so far has induced me to change that opinion. I still can’t see what you’ve got against Mr Smith. I’m afraid that perhaps your lack of experience in these matters is tending to lead you astray. Even in the most straightforward, open and shut cases that we have to investigate, there are always a few inexplicable details, a few points which just don’t seem to fit in to the overall picture. We, the police, get used to this and we learn to ignore them.’

  ‘More’s the pity!’ growled the Hon. Con. ‘ That’s probably why you never solve half the blooming crimes that get committed!’

  ‘Possibly, Miss,’ agreed Sergeant Fenner with a forgiving smile. ‘On the other hand, it may be because so much o
f our time is wasted by misguided people who think they could do our job better than we can.’

  ‘You can cut out the kid glove stuff, Sergeant!’ snapped the Hon. Con on whom, for once, the reproach was not lost. ‘ Just give it to me straight. Are you or are you not going to help me find Smith?’

  ‘We are not, Miss. In the circumstances which you have just outlined to me, it would be completely unjustifiable on any grounds whatsoever.’

  ‘All right!’ said the Hon. Con defiantly. ‘Well, I shall just have to find him myself, shan’t I?’

  ‘What you do, Miss, is of course your own affair but I must warn you that, if you go around accusing Mr Smith of murder, you may find yourself in serious and expensive trouble. In a suit for slander you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.’

  ‘Oh, stuff!’ said the Hon Con.

  For a long time after Sergeant Fenner had taken his somewhat cool departure, she sat on in the little card room and brooded. Lack of cooperation – it was the story of her life! Why could she never get people to see things from her point of view? It was a tragedy really, when you came to think about it – especially when she was always right.

  The Hon. Con got more and more disheartened. She even considered chucking her hand in and letting Rodney Burberry rot undisturbed in his suicide’s grave. Before long, however, the old fighting spirit of the Morrison-Burkes reasserted itself. They had frequently gone down but never without a struggle.

  So, all right – who did the Hon. Con know who would assist her in smoking out the elusive Smith? The police wouldn’t help and, in a matter of this nature, even the loyal Bones would be no more use than a broken weed.

  But, of course! What a ninny the Hon. Con was not to have thought of him before! If there was anybody in Totterbridge who could do it, he was the one. As was usual with the Hon. Con, action succeeded cogitation with alarming speed. She jumped up from her seat at the card-table and belted back into the entrance hall. It was deserted except for an underling desultorily polishing one of the brass spittoons. The Hon. Con approached him at the charge.