Black Eye (A Johnny Black Mystery)

by Neville Steed

  I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Daphne is lucky to have you, Dolly.’

  But my attempt at bucking up her spirits seemed to have exactly the opposite effect. She burst into floods of tears that even my handkerchief, considerably larger than her own, could hardly stem.

  *

  Bobby Briggs was lolling about in the hut he called an office, when I arrived, reading one of those thriller magazines with the most lurid and blood-drenched cover.

  ‘You should read these,’ he winked as he saw me. ‘Might give you some ideas.’

  ‘I need a few,’ I laughed, ‘but I don’t think they’ll give them to me, somehow.’

  He put down his penny dreadful, rummaged in a drawer of his desk and handed me a well-thumbed envelope.

  ‘They’re inside,’ he sniffed, ‘for what they’re worth. Don’t know why you want ’em, meself.’

  I peered under the flap. A few limp and oil-blackened strands stared back at me.

  ‘Nor do I, really,’ I smiled.

  ‘How’s it all going, Johnny? Think you’ll ever crack your first case?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’ll only know that when I have ... or haven’t.’

  He reached down and from a bottom drawer of his battered old desk, brought out a bottle of Johnny Walker.

  ‘Like a snifter, old son? Might cheer you up.’

  I didn’t turn it down. He poured a tot into an already dirty glass that stood on his desk then looked around for something for me. At last his fingers curled around what, to my amazement, looked like a small cut-glass vase.

  ‘This do, Johnny?’ his bulldog face beamed. ‘It should, you know. Got this out of an old Isotta-Fraschini, big as a hearse it was.’ He affected what he thought was a posh accent. ‘Fitted in the back of the division for a nosegay from his lordship’s ruddy gardens, don’t you know, old boy?’

  The vase duly filled up with golden liquid and was pushed my way.

  ‘Bottoms up and death to the Kaiser,’ he toasted.

  ‘You’re a bit out of date, Bobby, aren’t you? It’s Herr Hitler we’re supposed to be wary of now.’

  ‘Him,’ he sniffed. ‘He’s just a jumped up housepainter, isn’t he? Why, with his dainty little moustache, he couldn’t frighten a mouse. Now the Kaiser — he was more of a man. I mean, you had to take a bit of note of what he did ...’

  I sat down opposite him and for a moment, let the burn of the Johnny Walker take over. For I didn’t want to come on to my request too soon. Luckily, Briggs was in a bullish and talkative mood.

  ‘When I heard the crunch of your car coming in Johnny, I thought for a minute you were the police coming back.’

  ‘Coming back?’ I queried.

  ‘Yer. Been once today. Thought at first they may have come to give the old Frazer-Nash the once over again. But no, they wanted to sniff around the yard.’

  ‘What for? I smiled. ‘You been dealing in cars with a dodgy pedigree again?’

  ‘No,’ he sneered. ‘Gave that up ages ago. No, you must have heard about this con on the loose? The triple murderer who sawed through his cell bars.’ He guffawed. ‘Some bloody cake his missus must have baked him to hide the hacksaw. Anyway, they were sniffing around for him. Here about twenty minutes. Thought they’d never go. Bad for business, you know, having a ruddy police car hanging about so long outside the yard.’

  Good old Bobby. He had given me just the intro I needed.

  ‘That reminds me, old chap. Got a little favour to ask of you.’

  He downed some more Scotch, whilst he tried to divine from my expression how big this favour might turn out to be.

  ‘Yer, well, you’d better try me, hadn’t you?’ he smiled.

  ‘You haven’t got a half-presentable Wolseley in the yard, have you?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘What d’you mean by “half-presentable”?’

  ‘Well, not over two or three years old. Must be black and not under fourteen h.p. Oh, and it’s got to be a runner.’

  ‘What a pity. Got a snappy little Wolseley Ten out there. Only needs a tweak to the chassis and a couple of front wings —’

  ‘No. Must be fourteen or eighteen h.p. Don’t want to buy it. Just borrow one for a morning, that’s all.’

  He put his glass down and leaned forward, his canny eyes almost glowing with interest.

  ‘What are you up to, Johnny? Why do you want a car for a morning? And not just any old car, but a big black Wolseley?’

  I could see by his expression he was over half-way to guessing, so I came clean.

  ‘Don’t just want any big black Wolseley, either.’ I grinned. ‘I want you to fit it up with a few temporary little extras as well.’

  He chewed on his lip. ‘Now, let me guess what one or two of them might be, shall I? First on, I reckon you need a chrome bell. Then how about a sign front and back and a nice long radio aerial, whipping in the wind.’ He laughed. ‘Should have taken more notice of the one that called this morning, shouldn’t I?’

  I drained my delicate vase. The substitute for flowers buoyed my spirits beautifully.

  ‘You have the picture, Bobby. Now where can I find a Wolseley like that?’

  He sat back in his chair. It creaked ominously.

  ‘Let me see. I can mock up all the fittings, I think. May have to make do with a brass bell instead of chrome though. As for the car ... well, leave that with me for an hour or two. My wife’s uncle has got a’36 Fourteen. He might be persuaded to lend me it for a few bob. Then, if he won’t, there’s a farmer over Newton Abbot way I know who’s got a ’35 Eighteen. Only trouble is he sometimes puts sheep in the back. Still, I could always clean it up for the day. When is the day, by the way?’

  ‘Monday,’ I said. ‘Have it back by lunchtime.’

  He prodded his thick finger at me. ‘You’ve got to promise me first this ’ere car won’t come to no harm. Don’t want any wild chases or anything.’

  I crossed my heart. ‘All it’s going to do is drop someone at a house, then wait outside until he comes out again.’

  He chuckled to himself. ‘You’re a right one, Johnny boy, I’ll say that. You realise you’re risking the nick, impersonating a policeman.’

  ‘I’m not impersonating anybody,’ I said self-righteously.

  ‘Oh, aren’t you?’ he mumbled in disbelief, then pointed down to his penny dreadful magazine.

  ‘Well, you just be careful, old lad. In last month’s issue, a guy called Barry Blood got machine-gunned down in a street just for pretending to be a cop.’

  ‘Serves him right,’ I smiled, ‘for having such a silly bloody name.’

  Twelve

  Once I had left the scrapyard, I felt there was very little I could achieve on the Seagrave case until Monday came round. So, for once, I had a quiet evening, give or take Groucho, and then went to bed early with Dashiel Hammett’s The Glass Key, which I had bought a couple of years earlier and never got around to reading.

  Sunday morning dawned bright though breezy, which enticed me out into what passed for my garden. By lunchtime, I was quite pleased with the clearances I’d made and the ground I’d dug. Indeed, the plot was now assuming some form of order and set off the cottage to a little more advantage. It was about time.

  After lunch, I marshalled my thoughts for the morrow and wrote down a check list of questions I wanted asked. I had hardly put down my Conway-Stewart, when I heard a screech of brakes outside. It could only be one person and so it proved to be.

  Once I had got him inside and propped a Scotch in his hand, I asked him about the uniform.

  ‘Don’t worry, old boy,’ he laughed, slapping my back. ‘You didn’t think old PC would forget a PC’s uniform did you? It’s outside in the Bug.’

  ‘Are you sure it will fit?’

  ‘Course. Prissy thinks I’ve missed my vocation. I tried it on at Nathan’s to make sure you could get into it and I thought her eyes would pop.’ He laughed. ‘I reckon she’s got a hankering for fellows in uniform. If a war co
mes, Heaven forbid, I’ll have a job holding her, I wouldn’t be surprised. Think of the choice she’ll have then, with hundreds of thousands in khaki and two shades of blue.’

  ‘Well, thanks for coming down, PC. I appreciate it.’

  ‘Nothing to it. My ERA is all stripped down at the moment, so there was nothing to keep me in London. And Prissy has gone off this weekend with Mater and Pater to Monte Carlo for a couple of weeks.’

  He looked around the room. ‘Tracy not here?’

  ‘She will be,’ I replied. ‘She, too, has been with her folks. She’ll turn up any minute, I expect.’

  He sat down and spread his long legs out in front of him. ‘Now, old boy, bring me bang up to date on this old case of yours. After all, if I’m to be an inspector tomorrow, I should be pretty clued up, what! By the way, I’ve thought of a damned good name for myself, if you don’t object.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Eric Roger Ambleforth, Inspector from Plymouth Division. Get it, old boy? The initials — ERA help me remember who I am.’

  ‘Fine,’ I agreed, for Peter Courtenay’s memory was certainly not as sharp as his driving skills. Then I started ‘clueing him up’, as he would have it and by the time Tracy arrived, he was totally in the picture and pretty word perfect.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ Tracy asked, as she bounced in, all bright eyed and bushy tailed. ‘They have caught that convict. Thank the Lord for that.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘Friend of Daddy’s knows the governor of Princeton. News came through just before lunch. But they think he may have killed again before they caught him.’

  ‘Why don’t they know for certain, old girl?’ PC queried with a frown.

  ‘No body, apparently.’

  ‘Then what makes them suspect he’s done it again?’

  ‘I don’t know all the facts. But it seems he was wearing a jacket with a few blood stains on it when they picked him up just outside Widdecombe. The jacket had a wallet in it and the reasoning goes he may have killed someone for the money. He’s apparently a totally hardened and ruthless individual for whom murder is all in a day’s work.’

  ‘Hell, poor fellow,’ I remarked. ‘I mean the victim, not the convict. That is, if there is a victim. Maybe he only beat him up to get his jacket. Let’s hope so.’

  And that’s how we left it and gave the news no further thought. For the deed of the morrow seemed of far greater moment.

  *

  PC left around eleven and I persuaded Tracy to go about quarter of an hour later under the pretext that I needed all the sleep that I could get that night, so that I would be fresh for the morning. I hated seeing her leave, but I couldn’t go through another night with a towel and blanket curtain. It wasn’t fair on either of us.

  Precisely at eight thirty the next day, as arranged, I arrived at Briggs’ yard. There, gleaming black in the intermittent sun, stood a’36 Wolseley Fourteen saloon, with a ‘POLICE’ plate front and back and a chromium bell mounted on the front bumper.

  Bobby Briggs caught me inspecting the last mentioned.

  ‘Cost you extra, that will, Johnny. Took me two hours last night that did, because I couldn’t get a chromium bell.’

  ‘What have you done, then?’

  ‘Silver cigarette paper, old love. And not just from packets of ten or twenty. Big sheets from twenty fives and fifties. Stuck on by yours truly. Me better half thought I’d gone mad.’

  ‘What’s the damage?’ I asked.

  ‘Well then, let’s see. Fifteen bob to my wife’s uncle for the car, ten bob each police plate, four and six for the brass bell, pound for the aerial, ten bob for all the filling and thirty bob for all those cigarettes.’

  ‘Which you’ll smoke in no time,’ I smiled and proffered him a fiver and a ten shilling note. ‘Keep the change,’ I added.

  He guffawed. ‘’S only ruddy sixpence, you generous b — bloke. Now see you bring it back lunchtime and all in one piece. That car’s the apple of her uncle’s eye.’

  *

  By the time I had got back to the office and changed into my theatrical police constable’s uniform — it fitted and looked pretty well considering it had, no doubt, appeared in a thousand performances on other stages — PC had arrived, already dressed for the part. I was amazed how genuine he looked in a dowdy mac and trilby, and even his suit looked suitably non-descript. I asked him where he had got hold of it all, because I knew it could not possibly be his own.

  ‘One of the clerks on the estate, old thing. Same figure as mine. Greased his palm with a couple of the readies. Only too happy. Good sport.’

  I took him aside as we walked out to the Wolseley.

  ‘Now, remember PC, when you’re with Seagrave, it’s not how you look or what you ask that may give you away half so much as how you speak. Inspectors of county forces just don’t drop ‘eh whats’ and ‘old boys’ and ‘old things’ into every sentence, so just bear that in mind. And watch the accent. Act authoritatively, but always with that touch of humble civility public servants show — especially when they’re interviewing someone with more money than they’ve ever dreamed of.’

  He nodded sagely. ‘Tally-ho, old bean ... I mean, yes, I promise I will bear that in mind ... sir.’

  *

  Even though I had parked the car some distance from the imposing front door of Seagrave’s mansion, I felt distinctly nervous after PC had been shown inside by the housekeeper, despite my uniform, theatrical bushy eyebrows and Chester Conklin moustache.

  I tried to look bored and uninterested whilst at the same time keeping my eyes peeled for any untoward happenings around the house. To my horror, at one point, an aged gardener trundled round the car with his barrow and I lowered my eyes and stared at the dashboard with its big oval dial that held all the instruments.

  After quarter of an hour, I stalled to sweat in my thick, high-necked uniform and 1 dared to pull back the sliding roof which, of course, decided to stick in its runners. Some five minutes later, I could see from the sky that some pretty heavy showers were in the offing, so I endeavoured to close the cursed thing again, for the car’s owner would hardly appreciate its return with the interior as soggy as a baby’s nappy.

  But move back, it would not. Despite my using considerable force, I could not get enough leverage somehow from the driving seat to budge it. As the first few heavy drops of rain pearled on the bonnet, I realised I would have to get out to see if some sharp knocks on its top might get it to shift. It was whilst I was still hammering away at it in the rain, that I heard the motor-cycle.

  I only just got back in the car in time. While I sat there, trying to look nonchalant as the rain pit-patted onto my helmet, the bike swept up the drive from my rear to come to a stop directly outside the front door. From a surreptitious glance, it was clearly an Indian and I didn’t need to look again to know who was riding it.

  I held my breath as I heard the crunch of feet on the gravel. It seemed for a moment that they were coming nearer — maybe they did, for the sight of a copper sitting in a police car in the pouring rain with the roof open must have held a certain intrigue — but, to my relief, they eventually receded to be followed by a distant clang of a bell. I didn’t dare move until I heard the front door open and close again. Then I quickly got out and gave the leatherette-covered roof frame an almighty thump which, heaven be praised, shifted it along its runners sufficiently for me to finish closing it from inside. Briggs, wife’s uncle’s heart attack was thus thankfully postponed.

  That wasn’t necessarily true of mine, however: Tom Dawlish’s unexpected arrival worried me intensely. For whilst I was fairly certain PC wouldn’t make too much of a fool of himself in a one to one interview, one to two was a very different kettle of fish. Every second that now went by seemed like an eternity and I expected our little subterfuge to be violently exploded at any moment. I even toyed with the idea of starting up the car and keeping it running, in case we needed to make a quick getaw
ay, but decided — wisely — that running an engine for no apparent reason was quite as ridiculous as sitting in the rain with the sunshine roof open.

  I tapped the steering wheel nervously for a further ten minutes before I again heard the click of the front door. looking sideways through my chinstrap, I saw to my unbridled joy the lanky figure of PC being seen out by the housekeeper. And lo and behold, he was certainly taking my advice about humility to heart. He actually walked down the steps backwards, bowing his head to her slightly, until she finally closed the door on him.

  I got out of the car, went round and opened the passenger door for him.

  ‘Go all right?’ I hissed between my clenched teeth.

  ‘Hope so, sir,’ he smiled back, ‘but it was agony all the way.’

  ‘Tough, was he?’ I whispered, tucking the edge of his raincoat away from the door opening.

  ‘I’m not talking about him,’ he frowned. ‘I just have never realised how many rotten times I normally say “old boy’’, old boy.’

  *

  I was as good as my word; I waited for the full story until Tracy turned up at half past twelve. In the meantime, after I had dropped PC off at my cottage, I doffed the police plates and bell and drove the Wolseley back to Briggs.

  His only reaction, other than a look of immense relief, was, ‘Heard a car. But didn’t think it could be you, Johnny. No scream of brakes or rat, tat of gunfire.’

  I let it pass and thanked him and his wife’s uncle, profusely.

  ‘Any time, old lad.’ He pointed his stubby finger towards a huge black hearse at the back of his yard. ‘Got an old Daimler here that would pass for Queen Mary’s, if you took the coffin rails out. So, if next time, you want to pose as royalty ...’

  Bless him. It’s guys like Briggs that keep the old world spinning.

  Back at the cottage, Tracy had already arrived and was chomping at the bit for the latest. Once we were all armed with drinks, I got PC to put us in the full picture.

  ‘Well, I hope it worked, old bean. Did me best. Asked all the questions you wanted. Was suitably civil and servile, yet I think stern enough to show I meant business.’