The Rynox Mystery

by Philip MacDonald

  Mrs Edwards, her gin with its dash of pep clasped firmly in her right hand, sank back again upon her chair. She looked at her friend and momentary chairwoman, Mrs Welbee. Mrs Welbee was fumbling for coins in a well-worn but not too well-stocked purse.

  Behind the bar, the magnificently stout and rosy-cheeked Horace Bliss waited patiently.

  ‘Hups!’ said Mrs Edwards from her chair. ‘Very quiet tonight, hups, aren’t you, Mr Bliss hups? You’ll pardon me!’

  Bliss rubbed his hands together and rested them upon the beer-slopped counter. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Mrs Edwards. Never very busy this time of the evening. I’ve no doubt you’ll see a little company before long. Either some of the old faces or some new ones … That’s one thing about my trade, Mrs Edwards, one’s always seeing new faces and strange new characters.’

  ‘Personhups’ly,’ said Mrs Edwards from her chair, ‘I must say, Mr Bliss, that I prefers the old comhupsrades, if you know what I mean. I like to see the old hups faces.’

  ‘Well, well, Mrs Edwards, each man to his taste, as the French say.’

  ‘Them French,’ said Mrs Welbee doubtfully, ‘they’d say anythink! All the same, dear, I must say’s I could do with the sight of a fresh face in this ’ere bar. I comes in night after night and I get fair sick of the same old faces. Most of ’em puts me in mind—present comp’ny always excepted, dear—of one song of old Marie Lloyd’s. “One of the ruins that Cromwell knocked abaht a bit.” Ow, Gawd save us! Wot’s this?’

  ‘Hups!’ said Mrs Edwards.

  Mrs Welbee slid further along the oaken settle; leaned over to her friend. ‘That’s where Bliss gets all these French sayings. I’ll lay ’e’s no Englishman.’

  The newcomer was a tall and burly man. His left leg was stiff, and seemed to trail him as he walked. Dark glasses hid his eyes and always his head was out-thrust as if striving for better sight. Upon his head was a strange black hat, high and pointed. He had grey fierce moustaches and a little block of grey beard. His face seemed deeply tanned. As he walked, dragging the stiff leg behind him, up to the bar, he muttered ceaselessly to himself, and with each muttering came a flash of white teeth in the dark face.

  ‘Can’t say,’ said Mrs Welbee, ‘that I likes the looks of ’im!’

  ‘Nor me neither, dear.’

  The newcomer rapped upon the bar with a florin drawn from his pocket. ‘Brandy!’ he said in a queer, hoarse voice, and then when no server was immediately forthcoming, the word ‘Brandy!’ again. This time the word was shouted.

  Bliss came through the curtained alcove from the public bar. He looked with disapproval upon the author of this noise. He said:

  ‘Now, now! No shouting, if you please. I’m not a bird, I can’t be in two places at once. Now I am ’ere, p’r’aps you’ll tell me what I can get for you.’

  The stranger leaned both hands on the counter, palms downward. He bent over with his face out-thrust towards Bliss. He said with a low-controlled snarl: ‘You heard me! Brandy, I said!’

  Bliss’s rosy cheeks grew a shade paler. There was, he decided, something ‘uncommon nasty-seeming’ about this customer. Uncommon nasty-seeming. He turned to his shelf, took down from it a bottle of brandy and a glass. ‘And ’ow much brandy would you be wanting, sir?’ His tone was noticeably more civil.

  ‘Fill it up!’ said the hoarse voice.

  ‘I beg pardon?’ said Bliss.

  Once more that forward movement of the head. Once more the hissing, deliberate repetition:

  ‘Fill it up, I said!’

  Mr Bliss filled it up. He kept hold of the glass with his right hand. He said:

  ‘That’ll be five shillings.’

  The stranger plunged his hand into his trouser’s pocket; threw down upon the bar a handful of silver. Some of the coins rolled to fall near the feet of Mrs Edwards. Wheezing, she bent to pick them up. The stranger, his back to her, took no notice. He raised the glass of brandy, looked at the light through it, put it to his lips and with one twist of of his wrist sent the three-quarter tumblerful down his throat. Bliss watched him with goggle eyes.

  He set the glass down; he turned. Mrs Edwards was still grovelling. She had in her palm now two half-crowns, a shilling and a sixpence. There was more, it seemed, to come. The stranger made for the door. The inner edge of the shoe upon the foot of the injured leg hissed raspingly over the floor.

  Bliss came to life. Just as the stranger’s hand was on the door, Bliss realised what Mrs Edwards was doing.

  ‘Hi!’ called Bliss, ‘just a minute, sir!’ His tone was sharp and eager. It apparently had something in it which startled the stranger, who whipped round with an agility amazing in one of his condition—whipped round, at the same time flashing his right hand towards his hip pocket.

  ‘What’s that?’ It was more snarl than voice.

  ‘All right, sir. All right!’ Bliss backed away until a sharp crack on the back of his head told him that he had reached his limit and could back no further. ‘All right, sir!’ he said again, holding out a hand. ‘If you like to drop money about and then not claim it, that’s your funeral. And what’re you doing with your ’and in that pocket, anyway?’

  ‘Ha!’ The stranger laughed; a sound, as Mrs Edwards was to say later when describing this amazing event, ‘enough to freeze the hupsmarrow in a body’s bones.’

  The stranger laughed again, but he took his hand from that hip pocket. He turned his glance—that blank, black glance—upon the two women in the corner. Mrs Welbee clutched at Mrs Edwards. ‘Ow, my Gawd!’ said Mrs Welbee under her breath. ‘Ow, hups!’ said Mrs Edwards.

  ‘That money,’ said the stranger, in a soft wheezing voice, ‘you can keep it. If you drink with that money, the drink will probably choke you.’

  He swung back again to face the still staring, still petrified Bliss. He said: ‘You! Can you direct me—I am a stranger to London’—they noticed here for the second time what trouble he had with his r’s. He seemed to say them right down in his throat—‘can you direct me to William Pitt Street, Mayfair?’

  Bliss shook his head. ‘Don’t know the neighbour’ood. Don’t know the neighbour’ood. Don’t know the neighbour’ood.’

  ‘Parrot!’ said the stranger. Again the scraping noise as that lame leg trailed after him, and then a little eddying draught as with his going the swing-door swung once or twice backwards and forwards.

  Bliss stared at the door. ‘Well, I’m damned!’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Edwards, ‘may you say so!’

  3

  F. X. stood before the fire in Rickforth’s study. He shook his head. ‘No, Sam, no!’ he said. ‘I won’t come in. In the first place I haven’t changed, in the second place I don’t feel much like a party tonight.’

  ‘Oh, be a man, F. X.! Might just as well. Be a man!’

  ‘Sammie,’ said F. X. ‘The picture of you telling someone to be a man is almost more than I can bear. No, I’m going, old son. Just that little chat to straighten up the Carruthers-Blackstone matter was all I wanted. No, I won’t have another drink and no, no, no, I won’t come to your party.’

  ‘Shall I tell Jevons to get you a taxi?’

  ‘Sam, you can keep your taxi. I’m going to walk; a lovely night like this. No, I’m going to walk quietly home and when I get home I’m going to have my interview with Mr Marsh.’

  Rickforth looked puzzled. ‘Marsh?’ he said. ‘Marsh?—oh, isn’t he the fellow who’s always writing you letters and ringing you up and all that sort of thing? I got him on the ’phone the other day. Wouldn’t seem to take no for an answer.’

  F. X. nodded. ‘When you say nuisance, Sam, you understate the case. That fellow’s a swarm of locusts. He’s a public blight.’

  He began to move towards the door. Rickforth came with him. ‘What’s he after exactly?’ he said. ‘This man Marsh, I mean?’

  F. X. laughed; a laugh with, in it, perhaps a little less than his usual humour. He said:

  ‘What’s he after? Didn�
�t I ever tell you, Sam?’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Rickforth, ‘I remember. Yes, he’s the man that thinks he was the inventor of the Paramata recipe. Knew you in South America or something.’

  ‘That’s the boy!’ said F. X. ‘Still, he’s been pestering me for the last year now. I’m going to settle with him tonight.’

  Rickforth looked shocked. ‘You’re not going to pay him any money?’

  F. X. grinned. ‘Pay him hell! As a matter of fact, I’m going to offer him £25 or a kick out. I think he’ll take the twenty-five quid. He’s one of those hard cases with a soft-boiled inside. Well, I must push along, Sam. Good-night.’

  Rickforth saw him to the door. ‘Sure I can’t get you a taxi?’ he called after him on the steps.

  On the pavement F. X. paused. ‘Not on your life,’ he said. ‘I’m walking.’

  ‘Good-night, then!’ said Rickforth.

  ‘So long, Sam!’ said F. X., and raised his stick in salute.

  4

  Prout, sitting comfortably behind the Evening News in the library’s biggest chair, shot suddenly to his feet. A frown—an indignant frown—suddenly creased his usually expressionless face. What I mean, thought Prout, it’s all very well to knock; it’s all very well to ring …

  Before he had got half-way down the hall to answer this knocking and ringing, it came again, and if the first knocking and ringing had been excessive in their loudness, they had been as nothing to this second assault.

  Prout broke into a run. Really, he couldn’t have this! He put his fingers to the door-handle and remembered, as he did so, that this was probably Mr Marsh …

  If it was Mr Marsh, thought Prout, all he could say was that Mr Marsh was a very odd and a very nasty, dangerous-looking sort of customer. What with them dark spectacles and that little bit of beard and that funny black hat, to say nothing of the way that leg of his seemed to trail round after him as if it didn’t belong somehow … Well! …

  ‘Good-evening, sir!’ said Prout.

  ‘Marsh,’ said a harsh grating voice. ‘My name’s Marsh. Benedik in?’

  ‘Mr Benedik,’ said Prout, ‘is out, sir. For the moment only. Mr Benedik left word, sir, that if you was to come by any mischance before he got back that I was to ask you to step inside and make yourself comfortable while you were waiting. He will not, in any case, keep you waiting more than a very few minutes.’

  A sound which Prout could only liken to the growl of a dog was his reply. Prout led the way through the hall and then down the passage to the study. After him, trailing the lame leg with a little scraping sound upon the carpet, came the visitor. He still kept on his pointed black hat. Prout stood aside. The visitor passed in. To the visitor’s back Prout said:

  ‘Is there anything I could get you, sir? …’

  ‘All you can do for me,’ said the visitor without turning, ‘is to take yourself off out of it. It’s Benedik I want.’

  ‘If you would care, sir,’ said Prout with considerable dignity, ‘for a whisky and soda, you will find syphon, decanter and glasses on the table there.’

  The face of the visitor turned round to peer at him. The voice of the visitor said:

  ‘I may wear dark glasses but I’m not blind.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Prout, and withdrew. He shut the door.

  For a few minutes he dallied, awaiting his master’s return, and then, knowing his master and remembering his master’s instructions, he put on his cap, put pipe and tobacco into his pockets and set out for The Foxhound and its saloon bar. The front door of No. 4 William Pitt Street closed softly behind him.

  COMMENT THE FIFTH

  IT is to be hoped that Benedik will not allow himself to be unduly troubled by Marsh. At this very critical stage in Rynox’s affairs it is essential that the head of Rynox should keep only the business before his mind.

  Somehow RYNOX must weather the next six months.

  SEQUENCE THE SIXTH

  Friday, March 29th, 193— 10.30 p.m. to 12 midnight

  EVERY police constable carries a Big Four beard in his pocket. Some police constables, realising this, do nothing about it; others, realising this, do far too much. Neither class achieves the beard. Others neither miss opportunities nor try to make opportunities. They, of course, do not get the beard either, but they do at least go some way towards earning it.

  Of this kind, the not pushing but equally not backward type, was BL. 413, Ernest Henry Lawrence.

  Lawrence’s beat lay across Mayfair from India Court on the west to William Pitt Street on the east. At 10.20 p.m. exactly Lawrence was half-way between the two extremes of his beat. That is to say, he was in the centre of Shepherds’ Market. He had been on duty for an hour and during that hour nothing at all had happened. Lawrence was thinking to himself, now for a quiet night, and then Lawrence suddenly stiffened. He had heard sounds which he knew—he was a man of quick ear and ready intelligence—to be revolver shots. And not one revolver shot, but a fusillade of revolver shots …

  Lawrence began to run. Despite his uniform, which he had often thought must have been specially designed to prevent quick movement, he made very creditable pace. He had only memory to guide him, for after that outburst silence had fallen again upon the neighbourhood. He came out of Goss Street into William Pitt Street which runs across it at right-angles. At the junction he stopped. His ear and memory combined could tell him no more. But Lawrence was in luck. There came to his ear the sound of running feet. He wheeled round to face the runner. It was, perhaps fortunately for the runner, a man whom he knew. It was, in fact, Arthur Wiggin, the potman of The Foxhound.

  ‘Hi!’ said Arthur Wiggin as soon as he saw the uniform. ‘Hi!’ He came pelting up. He peered for a moment. ‘It’s you, Harry, is it! Thank God! Here, boy, there’s something for you. ’Ear that barrage just now?’

  Lawrence nodded. ‘I did. What d’ye know?’

  ‘Number four,’ said Arthur Wiggin. ‘Number four, boy! That’s where it come from. Up this way!’ They began to run side by side. As they ran:

  ‘See anything?’ asked Lawrence.

  ‘Nary a thing. Heard plenty, though! There you are, boy, that’s four. What you goin’ to do?’

  ‘Get in, you cuckoo! Here, you assist the Law! You go up to the front door and kick up hell’s delight until somebody answers. I’m going round the back.’

  Lawrence put his hand to the locked iron gate which leads down between Nos. 4 and 5 to the communal garden at the back; put his hand upon the gate and vaulted it—helmet, dragging coat, lumbering boots, and all. He knew the geography of these houses, did Lawrence. In a moment he had reached the back door of No. 4; had smashed his fist through the pantry window, unlatched it and was half-way in. As he scrambled, sucking at a bleeding fist, across the darkness of a scullery between the kitchen door and the pantry, he heard the beginnings of Arthur Wiggin’s assault at the front.

  Lawrence found switches and pressed them down. The basement was flooded with light. He tore up the basement stairs.

  ‘Hi!’ yelled Lawrence. ‘Hi! Anybody about? Hi, there!’

  Only the echoes of his own voice came back to him. The house was quiet; dead quiet. Lawrence went more slowly. He slipped out his truncheon, wrapping its thongs about his fingers in the proper style. He came out at the top of the servants’ stairs. ‘Hi!’ he yelled again.

  Once more, only echo.

  Lawrence did not smoke. He had therefore a keen nose. There came to his nostrils suddenly the acrid tang of gunpowder smoke. It was drifting towards him from the passage on his left. He switched on the passage light and run down the passage. There was one door at the end of the passage. It was shut but it was not locked. He opened the door, he went in, arm and truncheon above his head; one never knew …

  There was only one person in the room, and that a dead man. He lay with his body face downwards across the window sill of the one open window. The sill supported him just below his breastbone. His legs sagged hideously. His left arm was out o
f the window; his right hung down inside the room, in its tightly clenched fingers a revolver. There was a telephone upon the big writing table. Lawrence used it, reporting to his station. Having reported, he went back to the body. Without moving it he managed to see that this was Mr Benedik, whom quite well he knew by sight.

  ‘Tck!’ said Lawrence, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

  Mr Benedik had been shot through the head. The bullet had entered—it must have been fired at closeish range, thought Lawrence—just over the right eye. It had come out just behind the left ear.

  ‘Tck-tck!’ said Lawrence again. He went and stood by the writing table. He took off his helmet and laid it down. His eyes searched the room. They saw, in two of the walls, the marks of bullets—seven in all. The holes upon the eastern wall were much bigger than the holes upon the western wall. Lawrence’s eye left the bullet holes; travelled about the room. Suddenly they widened. On a chair drawn up in front of the fire, lay a man’s hat; a black hat of a peculiar shape; a soft black felt hat with a soft crown pinched up high into a point. Gingerly, using the brass fire-tongs to do it, Lawrence picked up the hat. Inside the brim in ink was written ‘B. Marsh.’ He put the hat back where he had found it; replaced the tongs.

  He went back to the body, knelt down and looked at the revolver so tightly clasped in the dead hand. He knew a little of firearms, enough to see that this was the gun which had made the smaller bullet holes.

  Lawrence spoke to himself. ‘Reg’lar jool,’ he said. ‘That’s what it was!’ He shook his head sadly as he climbed to his feet. F. X. had been, as he was with everybody, popular with Lawrence …

  END OF REEL ONE

  REEL TWO

  1

  (TELEGRAM from Petronella Rickforth to Anthony X. Benedik. Handed in at 1 a.m. Saturday, 30th March, 193—)

  BENEDIK HOTEL POMPADOUR BOULEVARD MARAT PARIS RETURN IMMEDIATELY GRAVE ACCIDENT F. X. TERRIBLE NEWS PLEASE COME PETER.