Sunset Over Soho (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “You’ll know why when you’ve done it,” said Mrs. Bradley. The experiment had a surprising result for Pirberry.

  “He says he knows them, ma’am. He says they came several times to the house by the river during the old man’s life-time. He says he always thought they were his sons. How on earth did you tumble to it, ma’am?”

  “You’ll know when I’ve finished the story; perhaps before then. But that is not all, Inspector. Take those stabbing affairs in Little Newport Street. El Piojo, poor, stupid fellow, really did take the blow intended for David. And, in the case of the captain, I think we shall find his brother, Don Juan, stabbed him, just as he said.”

  “And the attack on you, ma’am?”

  “Don Juan, again, I imagine. That is purely surmise. I didn’t see him. The wretched little Italian was obviously innocent. I knew I’d tripped up the wrong man.”

  “Then what do you think Mr. Harben was up to, those months he reckoned he went to the Canary Islands?”

  “I think he was taken on board a tug by the brothers, and may have been cast adrift off the Spanish coast. There is no doubt that the captain and Don Juan are really seamen, and the others form part of their crew. The captain and Don Juan may be the old man’s sons, but I think they are Leda’s brothers. They are if the Bible and book of poems were hers. I think they knew that their sister had made an unhappy marriage. In addition, they may have thought they would gain by the old man’s death. I think they came to England (before the war, you see) and stayed at the old man’s house. If that is so, they are almost as suspect as Harben. Leda went out, possibly, and must have come back to find her husband dead. She went to Harben, certain, I suppose, that he had done the deed. He must often have wished the old man dead, of course.

  “I don’t see how you think they were brothers, ma’am, nor how the lady comes to be their sister.”

  “The mate’s name was Juan Hueza. The name on the books was Inez Hueza, as I told you. The captain said Don Juan was his sister’s husband’s brother-in-law. Work that out.”

  “Ah,” said Pirberry. “Well, wouldn’t she have suspected her brothers, sooner than Mr. Harben?”

  “Most likely she believed they’d gone to sea again. They’d have let her understand that if they’d planned the murder.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Muddy Beer

  The Cat’s Whisker was, at any rate, a starting-point, and a significant one, at that, Mrs. Bradley thought. Next morning she went to Leicester Square by Tube, and commenced a survey of the district. At the police station in Charing Cross Road she almost knocked into an acquaintance of hers who was coming down the steps. They greeted one another warmly.

  “And what are you doing so far from your home, Mr. Pirberry?” enquired Mrs. Bradley.

  Detective-Inspector Pirberry, of the Criminal Investigation Department, shrewdly replied:

  “About the same as you, ma’am, I shouldn’t wonder. Sir Beresford tipped me off about this Mr. Harben who’s missing from your house. Besides, we got a tip to keep an eye on the Cat’s Whisker. I presume you know where that is, ma’am? Although that’s not its real name?”

  “I know well enough,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “It’s very curious, I must say. Very curious indeed.”

  “How so, ma’am, if I may ask?”

  Mrs. Bradley aptly quoted the parrot as they walked towards the Strand. The Detective-Inspector was on his way back to New Scotland Yard, and she had her own reasons for wishing to view the river from the nearest point to St. Giles’-in-the-Fields.

  They parted at the riverside end of Craven Street, Pirberry to go westward along the Embankment, Mrs. Bradley to cross the road and stand for some time by Charing Cross Pier before she began to walk down-river. She passed the obelisk of Cleopatra’s Needle, crossed the road again, this time to walk up Norfolk Street, crossed the Strand, and so, by way of Bow Street and across Long Acre, went to Endell Street. Coming thence into Broad Street she was struck by a slight coincidence. Broad Street was hard by St. Giles’ High Street, just as, in Oxford City, St. Giles’ and Broad Street were near neighbours. She did not imagine that the connection would help her to find Harben, but she filed the fact in her mind for future reference, and took her way from Broad Street into Maidenhead Close with the intention of going into New Oxford Street for a taxi to take her back to Kensington.

  Half-way along one side of Maidenhead Close, however, she came upon what, at first sight, seemed an extraordinary building. She was so much fascinated by its appearance that she stopped to look at it.

  The building was certainly unique and she had to traverse two sides of a square in order to appreciate all it had (from the outside, at least) to show.

  At some time during the mid-nineteenth century a Baptist chapel of impressive dimensions and in the neo-Ruskin style of Byzantine architecture had been erected in this most cosmopolitan district of London, out of money subscribed by a pious publican. As time went on, the trustees of the chapel had felt the need for a church parlour, a recreation room for their young men, another for trustees’ meetings, a larger room for chapel teas, rooms in which week-day Bible classes could be held—in short, the trustees found the need for another whole building in addition to the place of worship.

  Unfortunately, extra ground was unobtainable by the time the plan was fully formulated, but a happy compromise had been achieved by the addition to the existing building of an upper floor with a separate entrance and a staircase. A lift had been installed at a still later date, and Mrs. Bradley’s first view had been of the back door of these premises. There was nothing very much to suggest a church or chapel in what she saw. It was not until she had walked round to the front that she could discover the true function of the building.

  She returned to Maidenhead Close, and, watched by a couple of slatternly women who had appeared from an alley which opened out of the opposite side of the thoroughfare, she looked again at the small doorway which opened on to a flight of stone steps leading up by the side of the lift-shaft. Another set of steps led down to some subterranean cavern below the level of the street. There was another entrance—or, rather, exit, she discovered—near the main entrance to the chapel. This was closed. Further along Maidenhead Close itself there was a flight of very narrow outside steps which led to a very small opening in the wall. It seemed as though these outside steps must lead to a furnace-room or a coal store, for there was coal dust all the way up them. They were made secure by an iron railing, were not only narrow but shallow, and exercised upon her the strange fascination which flights of steps have for children, stray cats, and some painters.

  She looked for some time at the building before resuming her walk, and, on the way home, amused herself by making plans in her notebook of the original structure and then made the additions to it.

  “You got to know it better later on, ma’am,” Pirberry suggested. She agreed, and added:

  “Curious I should have noticed it at all.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s very historic round there, ma’am.”

  “It will, at all events, take its place in the annals of crime,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  Curiously enough, she was involved, through the agency of some relatives by marriage who lived on the outskirts of a town called Willington near the ancient city of Winborough, in a series of murders which took place during those first autumn months of the war. As it seemed likely that her niece might be involved (although only as a witness at the trial) she felt she could not disregard her family obligations, the more so as there seemed no clue to Harben’s disappearance. So she was obliged to leave, for a time, in the hands of the police, the curious affair she was investigating, and devote her talents to the interests of her relatives.

  By the end of the year, however, she was free of Willington, and was able to exercise her time once again as she chose. Her choice was to address herself afresh to the problem of Harben’s disappearance.

  Her cook, a temperamental Frenchman, had been bitten twice
by the monkey, and the parrot now confined itself to the expression, “Muddy beer!” This it was wont to repeat at five-second intervals when in the mood for conversation, and the household were becoming tired of it. Mrs. Bradley reminded it of its previous, more extensive vocabulary, but with no success whatsoever.

  One evening in the following March, about a week before Harben got home from his curious little Odyssey, she was called into consultation by the War Office which required the services of a psychiatrist for some special work.

  Sighing (for she disliked commissions of this sort, which were usually rather uninteresting and not, in her opinion, particularly useful), Mrs. Bradley answered the letter, sent it, with other letters, to the post, and had just settled down to talk to the parrot, which had been brought into the study by her orders, when the telephone rang.

  “Traced that empty cistern. Remember it, ma’am?” said Detective-Inspector Pirberry’s voice, speaking cheerfully. “Came from another house in Chiswick. All quite local, you see.”

  “Does it help us?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  “Too soon to tell. There are some pretty good prints, of course, but there’s very little chance the top ones will turn out to be those of the previous owners. We’re on their trail now. At least, the locals are. Don’t suppose they’ll have much trouble finding them, that’s one thing. Probably evacuated when the war began.”

  He rang off. Mrs. Bradley went back to the fireside and the parrot.

  “Otamys,” she said, giving it a lump of sugar. “Otamys, old boy, old boy.”

  The parrot cocked his head at her, but did not repeat the sentence.

  “Not Cripplegate,” she continued. “Not Cripplegate. Not Cripplegate.”

  The parrot cocked his head again. She tried him with the name of the public house, but again he did not respond.

  “Muddy beer!” said Mrs. Bradley sadly. He did perk up at this, and said it for her half a dozen times in succession. They were friendly now. He never attacked her fingers, nor danced on his perch, nor swayed himself to and fro when she approached. She decided upon an experiment. Fetching a green baize cloth, she put it over the cage, carried the cage to a neighbouring taxi rank, got into a cab, and directed the driver to go to the Tube Station at Leicester Square.

  Here she got out, and, having walked, by way of the Charing Cross Road, as far as the Cat’s Whisker, she went inside with the parrot, left the baize on the cage, placed the cage on one of the tables, and then went up to the counter.

  The Cat’s Whisker was well disguised as a reputable tavern. It had, of course, another name besides the sobriquet bestowed on it by its habituees and the police. She went unremarked by the customers, except for a civil exchange of dignified greetings. The barman, a grey-headed man of sixty, was swabbing down the bar counter, and said cheerily:

  “Evening, ma! And what’s yours?”

  “Rum,” said Mrs. Bradley, mentioning the first drink which came into her head.

  She did not uncover the parrot’s cage that night, although she noticed the interested glances cast at it by some of the customers. These were of all kinds, and, for the most part, were men. There were merchant seamen, some naval ratings, soldiers, and Royal Air Force, but most of the “regulars” were civilians and of all nationalities—naturalized, she supposed.

  The place was orderly and quiet, but a great many surreptitious conferences seemed to take place at the bar, and the place was divided, it seemed to her, very sharply into regular customers and casuals. The latter did not seem to stay long. The atmosphere, although cordial up to a point, was never friendly towards them, and none of them seemed inclined to prolong his stay. Most, from what she could overhear, proposed to seek somewhere livelier, but the real reason for their departure, whether they knew it or not, was that there was something discouraging in the air, as though those who knew the place and had, in a sense, the freedom of it, were holding back until the unwanted casuals were gone.

  Mrs. Bradley held her ground longer than most, and would have stayed longer still, but that she did not want to become an object of annoyance or suspicion. She had a second double rum, which she made to last as long as ever she could—it was, to say the least, a very fine rum she was drinking—and then she left.

  She went twice a week, after that, and began to be regarded as little as though she were part of the furnishings. The barman, in fact, became her admirer, and would give her the straight tip about what he had deduced was her trade.

  “Evening, ma! Same as usual?”

  “Good evening, Bartlemas. Same as usual, please. And how’s the market?”

  “Better for you today, ma. Best prices for piano-accordions, babies’ prams, pictures painted on rough glass, and the usual rude books.”

  “Thank you, Bartlemas. That ought to suit me nicely.”

  “And if you should get a few fur coats, ma, just you hang on to ’em like glue. Don’t you let none of them Yid fanciers go doing you down. Fur coats is going to nicey-pricey about the third year of the war. You stick the moth-balls in ’em, ma, and pack ’em in lavender. Be able to retire on ’em, you will.”

  “Thank you, Bartlemas,” said Mrs. Bradley gratefully.

  It had become the barman’s firm conviction that anybody as respectable as Mrs. Bradley must be a receiver of stolen goods, and one in a fair way of business, and as to be labelled criminal, in some form or another, at the Cat’s Whisker was a passport to favour, Mrs. Bradley had never denied the soft impeachment of being a female fence. Besides, in her view, it was preferable to be thought a receiver than to be suspected of some of the vicious occupations which flourished (and had done for three hundred years) between the purlieus of Charing Cross Road and the environs of Drury Lane.

  “Nice bird you got there,” went on the barman, polishing tumblers but sparing an eye for the parrot and its brightly gilded cage. She always took it with her and sometimes took the green baize cloth off.

  “Yes. Let’s drink its health,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Have one on me. No, make it a double. I’ve done pretty well today.” The barman said he was glad of that, and added, “Can’t say the same meself. Now take my boy. Only out of Pentonville Saturday, and goes and joins the Army today. Silly fellow, I says. Miss all his chances, he will. Why, if we get a bit of bombing over here”—he lowered his voice—“there’ll be pickings to have for the picking up, so to say. And all these evacuated people! And Specials in place of the Regulars! Why, it’s throwing his money down a drain, to go off and join the Army now!”

  Just as he finished this Jeremiad, two customers came in. They were dark-faced men in reefer jackets and merchant seamen’s caps, and one wore ear-rings. Slapping down money on the counter, this one said:

  “Double Scotch twice. Where’s the soda?”

  “Where do you think it is?” asked Bartlemas, mildly. “Where would you expect it to be? Right at your elbow, ain’t it?”

  “None of your lip,” said the man. Mrs. Bradley had never seen the two before. The man took the drinks over to a table next but one to that occupied by Mrs. Bradley’s parrot. His companion joined him, and, putting their heads close together, the two began to talk in low tones as they sipped their drinks. The parrot, suddenly bored by its drab surroundings, bit the wires of the cage with some ferocity, scrabbled its claws on the perch, and suddenly shouted:

  “Muddy beer! Muddy beer, by cripes!”

  The effect of this on the whisky-drinking couple was remarkable. The man with the ear-rings gave such a start that his elbow caught his companion’s glass and it would have gone over but for the jugglery of its owner, who fielded it in a flash and carried it to his lips before its precious contents could suffer any fate but the one he had decreed for them. He swallowed, coughed, and got up.

  “That bird!” said the other, who had already risen to his feet and was pointing at the cage. “How come you got a bird what says ‘Muddy beer’?”

  “How come you get rubbering why the lady’s boid says ‘Muddy beer,’ yo
u big sap?” enquired his companion, morosely. “Come on! Step on it!” At this, they left the bar, the smaller man retaining sufficient presence of mind to swipe the contents of his comrade’s glass before running to join him in the doorway.

  “Well! Well!” said Mrs. Bradley, when the swing door had closed behind them. “Peculiar people!”

  “You said it,” said the barman, nodding.

  “Not Cripplegate, not Cripplegate, not Cripplegate, old boy, old boy, old boy!” shrieked the parrot, which seemed to have recovered its form and the whole of its répertoire in a night.

  Mrs. Bradley put the green baize over it. She remained in the bar for an hour and a half, and then made her way home by taxi, having left the parrot with Bartlemas “in trust,” as she solemnly informed him, and her hat, rather less ostentatiously, under one of the tables.

  Bartlemas, who was accustomed to queer presents and queerer clients, accepted the parrot without demur.

  “Though if he turns out unlucky and drives custom away, like what he done tonight, I’ll wring his neck,” he said. “But I reckon he’ll be an attraction.” Mrs. Bradley said she hoped that this would prove to be the case, and, disregarding Sherlock Holmes’ advice about cabs, took the first taxi that came up and returned to Kensington. From her house she telephoned Detective-Inspector Pirberry, and gave him a painstaking description of the two men who had left the Cat’s Whisker so hastily.

  “There are more ways of starting a hare than are put down in Police Regulations, ma’am,” said Pirberry, laughing.

  “The same applies to wild geese,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Tomorrow I try St. Giles’ High Street again, and re-read the tablets in the church. If I see our two sailors on my way, I’ll let you know.”

  “Just as you say, ma’am. But no doubt we shall pull them in.”

  He did pull them in. Mrs. Bradley received a telephone call in the morning to request her to come to Vine Street and identify them.

  “So you was just a nark, lady,” said the man with the Cockney accent and the ear-rings.