Murder by Matchlight

by E. C. R. Lorac

  The two went upstairs to the hall again where Mrs. Maloney was awaiting them.

  “Finished,’ave you? Glad to hear it. I shan’t say nothing. Least said’s soonest mended.” She looked at Macdonald knowingly. “Lucky they was all out, wasn’t it? Mr. and Mrs. R., they’ve got a matinee job as you knows: Miss Grey ditto. Rosie Willing’s always out on Saturday as you could guess—and Mr. Carringford was rung up by the police and they told him to go to the first-class booking office. You’re thorough, I’ll say that for you.”

  Macdonald laughed. “So are you, Mrs. Maloney. You ought to join the C.I.D.”

  She chuckled—a cheery wheezy sound: “Sez you. I’m not so young as I was though you mightn’t believe it. Some people looks older than their years—and some looks younger. Well, it’s been nice to see you—though it’s not everyone might agree.”

  “Priceless old girl,” said the sergeant as they left the house, “no spots on her, either! Bright as they make them.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Yes. She’s uncommonly shrewd. Now we’ll see about that identification parade and see who spots who.”

  “A sort of double event,” said the sergeant, and Macdonald nodded.

  “That’s the idea,” he said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  i

  MACDONALD had timed his identification parade for 5.45, that hour being reasonably convenient for all parties concerned. “Quite a circus you’ve got here, Jock,” murmured one of his fellow inspectors and Macdonald felt that the comment was cogent. All the tenants of 5 Belfort Grove had been summoned to attend; Miss Rosie Willing, smiling and interested, looking quite remarkably young, stood beside Miss Odette Grey—the latter a platinum blonde of tonsorial perfection with an expression of calm disdain on her most efficiently painted face. Miss Grey wore a fur swagger coat over her brief petunia coloured house frock and she had an expensive posy of orchids pinned to her shoulder. Close to these two ladies stood Mr. and Mrs. Rameses, he with an expression of stolid indifference on his dark melancholy face, while his ‘Lady-bird’ was suitably all of a twitter. Just behind them was Mr. Carringford, looking very much out of place among his theatrical fellow tenants. In addition were a few odd ‘supers’ who had been collected to mingle with the principals in the indentity parade. In another room Bruce Mallaig and Stanley Claydon looked furtively at one another, both wondering who were the other men with them in the room.

  Both groups of people were given similar instructions in their different rooms: the Belfort Grove collection was asked to study the men who would file past them in order that they could say if any of them had ever been seen in or near Number 5A. The group in which Mallaig and Claydon found themselves were told to study the people they would see in the other room and to say if they had ever seen them before. The doors were then opened and the Mallaig-Claydon group walked into the other room and filed very slowly past the Belfort Grove tenants.

  Macdonald watched both groups, his eyes travelling over the various faces, studying them with an interest which never failed him when dealing with human beings. None of the Belfort Grove tenants showed any particular interest in the other group: Miss Grey maintained her pose of disdainful indifference, hardly bothering to study the tardy little procession: Miss Willing, alert and smiling, looked back and forth along the line, shrewd and entertained but showing no sign of recognition. Mr. Rameses stood stolidly and unblinkingly, looking at each face with the same immutable melancholy calm. Mrs. Rameses broke the silence with a twitter to the effect that the leading man (actually a plain-clothes policeman) resembled an acrobat she’d seen in Rio. Mr. Carringford, after studying the various types before him, began to look amused, as though the situation struck him as vaguely comic. Bruce Mallaig was evidently intent on doing his duty: he studied the whole group carefully and eventually halted in front of Mr. Rameses and looked at him with frowning intentness. The latter stared back in his stolid unblinking way and then quite suddenly winked. Macdonald was watching and he saw the flick of the heavy eyelid over the dark eye. A voice which appeared to issue from Mallaig’s mouth squeaked “Daddy . . . my Daddy . . .” and Mrs. Rameses tittered. “Don’t you do it, Birdie,” she admonished, while Bruce Mallaig jumped and looked over his shoulder for the speaker with the squeaky voice. Stanley Claydon tittered—a nervous sound which ended in a cough, and then the group of men filed back again into the other room.

  Macdonald had Mallaig and Claydon brought to him seperately. Mallaig said immediately: “The only one who could have been the chap I saw in the matchlight was the dark bloke who winked—but I can’t be sure. I wouldn’t swear to him, but he was somehow like that other one. If I saw him again in the same conditions—just in the glow of light from a single match, I could judge better. Who on earth said Daddy?”

  “The dark bloke you were looking at. He’s a ventriloquist,” said Macdonald, “likewise a conjurer and juggler with a circus training.”

  “Good Lord! When I first set eyes on him I thought he was a parson minus the dog-collar . . . he ‘might be anything—but a circus would be my last guess. Come to think of it, we must have looked a pretty fair circus altogether while we stood there gazing at one another. We were a good mixed lot . . I wish I could be sure of that bloke’s face.”

  “Don’t worry too much about it. It’s much wiser to say that you can’t be certain than to give a positive or negative answer if there’s any doubt in your mind at all.”

  Macdonald did not spend long on Claydon. He had had him brought to the ‘parade’ more in order for him to be looked at by the Belfort Grove contingent than for any other reason. Claydon, sniffing and asthmatical, said “I don’t know any of them—they looked a rum lot to me. The only one I’ve ever seen before was the white-haired bloke—leastways, I think I’ve seen him. It was a long time ago, when I was a nipper just before I left school. Sort of lecturer he was, came and talked to us about pacificism and that. League of Nations. Fat lot of good it did. Funny how much older he looks: suppose it’s his white hair. He had black hair then and was quite a young chap.”

  Macdonald laughed. “Well, that’s an odd coincidence, but it doesn’t seem to have much connection with the present case. I wonder if he recognised you.”

  “Likely, ain’t it? I was only fourteen then. 1930 it was, the year I left school.”

  “What school were you at?”

  “Euston Street: I wanted to go on to the Secondary School, but I couldn’t get a free-place. Always this ruddy asthma. Kippers me whatever I do.”

  Macdonald sent Claydon away, still grumbling to himself, and then interviewed the Belfort Grove contingent. Miss Grey was positively, if acidly, negative.

  “I have never set eyes on any one of them, Inspector, and I should be so glad if you could let me go immediately. Our show starts again at 6.30.”

  “Off you go then. Sorry you were troubled, as the exchange ladies say,” replied Macdonald, and Miss Grey switched on a professional smile as she replied:

  “Don’t mention it—and thanks ever so for seeing me first.”

  Next came Rosie Willing. “Nothing doing. Never seen any of them at our abode of bliss. Sorry. O.K. then, and ta ta!”

  Mr. and Mrs. Rameses followed on her heels, and Mr. Rameses proceeded to give a remarkable demonstration of his own powers of observation.

  “One, a fellow in shoddy tweeds and a rubberless mack. Fair hair, grey green eyes, false teeth and large feet—probably a C.I.D. man, bored stiff with the whole show. Two, a fellow with asthma and a cold in his nose and a face like a poor potato. Nervy and all hett-up. Three, another police bloke, brown hair, brown eyes, and a wart on his chin: very sure of himself. Four, a chap who goes to a decent tailor, reddish hair, short-sighted, ultra-conscientious, probably a first-class Civil Servant. Five, a funny little twirp, five foot nothing, left eye green, right eye blue, probably a cleaner on the premises brought in to oblige. That’s the lot—don’t know any of them, never seen any of them before to my knowledge. Number four fancied he
recognised me. Maybe he did. I’ve been on view twice daily since before he was born. All I can say is, I don’t know him.”

  The deep voice ceased abruptly and Mrs. Rameses gave voice. “Isn’t he a marvel, Inspector? Fancy remembering all that. Beats me how he does it. I remember one day wewere in Glasgow——”

  “Cut it out, Ladybird,” boomed Mr. Rameses. “This chap’s only interested in one thing—have you ever seen any of those blokes at Number 5A or hanging around the neighbourhood ? Make it snappy—we’ve not got all the time in the world to spare.”

  “I’ve never seen any of them, anywhere, unless that man with the false teeth—the first one—was the same as that acrobat you quarrelled with in Rio . . .”

  “Well, he wasn’t. Take it from me,” said Mr. Rameses. “Satisfied, Inspector? She’ll go on talking till morning if you give her the chance . . . Right. Good-evening.”

  Carringford was the final witness. He walked in slowly, like a tired man, his white head looking very venerable and his aspect schoolmasterish in comparison with the previous witnesses.

  “Well, Chief Inspector, I suppose that as a responsible citizen I’ve no grounds for complaint, but you’ve taken a pretty large slice of my time to-day. I don’t mind trying to be useful, but that business at Paddington Station was sheer rank waste of time. I don’t know what opinion you have of the amiable member of your department who kept me walking in circles round the booking-hall—but if I ever met an optimistic incompetent that was he.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Carringford. If it’s any comfort to you, your time hasn’t been wasted. Elimination is one of the most important elements in detection. You gave me a very important piece of evidence to-day and I had to try to follow it up. It was just bad luck that this identity parade business had to follow right on top of the Paddington episode.”

  “Provided I’m being useful I’m not complaining,” said Carringford, “but a man of my age does feel an outsize in fools when he’s asked to walk round a station looking for a man who had lunch there some hours previously and who’s probably in Bristol or Cardiff by this time. I’m quite willing to squander my time when you’re in charge Chief Inspector, for you’re a man of common sense—a very uncommon quality, not shared, apparently, by your robust colleague at Paddington. Now about this identity parade of yours. I can’t say with any conviction that I recognised any of the participants. The only one whose face seemed familiar to me was the second man who entered—a weedy pallid youth who had a filthy cold.”

  “Have you any idea where you’ve seen him before?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t be sure. I’m only giving you an impression—and I may be quite wrong, but I believe I’ve seen him hanging about at the corner of Belfort Grove—near the pub in Belfort Place. I always go out for my lunch and I generally pass that corner about mid-day. There are several loungers—chronics, I call them. I have an idea I may have seen him there.”

  “It’s a bit odd,” said Macdonald. “The fellow you mention thought he recognised you—but he didn’t mention a pub.”

  “Ah—but the fact that he knew my face indicates that I may have been right in saying that I thought I recognised him. Where did he say he’d seen me?’’

  “He said that you once lectured to him concerning pacifism and the League of Nations while he was still at school—in 1930.”

  Carringford laughed. “Good Lord! What an idea. I wasn’t in England in 1930. I was in the West Indies. I was born there and I went back for a visit—so I think that that was one of those long shots which went very much astray.”

  “I’m interested to hear you were born in the West Indies,” said Macdonald. “I’ve got some friends in Jamaica. We must have a yarn sometime.”

  “Delighted—but it’s a long time since I lived there. I came to England in 1890, when I was a kid of six——”

  “Are you really sixty years of age? No one would believe that.”

  “It depends. Some days I look ninety—and feel it.” He got up from his place, adding “Forgive me if I was irascible over that futile business at Paddington. I find instability grows on me with age. You must often get exasperated with your job, but I envy you your serenity—I often say it’s a mistake to be born in the tropics—we’re all over irritable. Well—if there’s any way I can be of service, command me, but not, for the love of Mike, to loiter in Paddington Station!”

  After Carringford had left, Inspector Jenkins came into Macdonald’s room. Jenkins was a stout rubicund fellow of fifty-five. Detecting was in his very bones and Macdonald considered Jenkins one of the most shrewd and able of his colleagues, despite the big man’s air of simple good humour. A number of crooks had reason to regret the fact that they had assumed that Jenkins was a fool: nothing pleased him better than to give that impression. “The bigger ass they think me the more confident they become,” said Jenkins, “and it’s when a criminal feels confident that he gets careless.” It was Jenkins who had occupied Mr. Carringford at Paddington Station that afternoon, and the inspector sounded almost contrite when he described their activities to Macdonald.

  ’“Poor old chap,” he said—and it was to Carringford he referred. “Not too good on his feet and he got tired. I was sorry for him, I was really. I got hold of the young fellow who waits in the snack bar—very nice lot of people in that place. Of course they didn’t remember any of the chaps who’d been in that morning—how could they, with the crowd they get here—but the waiter—name of Jackson—came along to the booking office with me, and he recognised Carringford. Said he’d noticed what beautiful white hair he’d got. That was quite good for a start, and then Jackson said he did seem to remember a heavily built dark chap who was in conversation with Carringford. Jackson had an idea one of the other waiters might know him, and this last chap said ‘Oh, you mean that commercial who talks such a lot. I believe he lives at Reading—at least he travels by the Reading trains.’ Well, that was worth following up. There are a lot of trains which stop at Reading and I’m afraid Mr. Carringford got rather fed up. We did our best—but I never expected any luck straight away. I kept on explaining that it was patience we needed. Why, I’ve worked Paddington Station for days in some cases.”

  “I know you have,” said Macdonald, “but you can’t expect Mr. Carringford to display the same enthusiasm. I’m afraid if we ask him to go to Paddington again he’ll refuse point blank. Did he talk to you at all?”

  “Oh yes. He was very friendly to start with. It wasn’t till his feet got tired that he got terse. He talked a bit about Ward. That evening Ward was killed Carringford dined with a friend at Canuto’s—man named Hardwell, lives in Bentinck Street. Hardwell’s what they call a connoisseur—expert on antique furniture and china. Carringford’s very well informed on that line—period stuff. He’s an intelligent man. I quite enjoyed the bit of chat we had.”

  “I can’t say he did. Mr. Carringford felt he was wasting time for nothing. However, I had a nice peaceful time at number five Belfort Grove. Mr. Rameses possesses a bike—a very fine machine made for a trick rider.”

  “Does he, by jove. Pity we can’t tell Carringford that—he wouldn’t have minded that station business so much if he’d known how helpful he was being by just keeping out of the house. I believe he suffers from corns. I’d have liked to have given him a bit of advice about footwear. You never get corns if . . .”

  “I know, Jenkins, I know. All very well for you to talk, but aching feet spoil a man’s temper. Now I’m going along to Wardour Street. The Flamingo Film Company have promised me a private show of the station scene in ‘The Night’s Work.’ Would you like to come and see if you recognise poor Johnny Ward?”

  “Now that’s just the sort of job I like,” said Jenkins. “Sit still and just use your eyes. No walking. Thanks, Chief. I’ll come with pleasure. A private view’s the very thing I should enjoy.”

  ii

  The studio in which Macdonald and Jenkins were given a “run through” of the section of film Macdonal
d had asked to see was very different from the vast cinemas in which films are usually seen. The studio was just long enough to enable a limited number of people to see the screen at a sufficient distance to get a good view. To Macdonald’s mind there was something almost eerie in the fact of watching a film portraying a crowd of people waiting to meet the boat train at Charing Cross and himself watching for the appearance of a man whose body was lying in a mortuary. The star players in the foreground of the picture were arguing with passionate emphasis, and all around and behind them was a moving throng—rich men and poor men, guards, porters, inspectors; fur-coated women and well-dressed men, paper boys, buffet boys, couriers, chauffeurs—all the crowd of pre-war travelling days. Then suddenly, at the side of the screen, a man turned and faced the onlookers for a few seconds—a man with a dark whimsical face and a charming smile. He collided with a stout woman carrying a heavy suit-case and his expression and gesture of apology were curiously real. He drew back and stood on one side waiting, his face expressing an amused interest as he looked at the moving throng surging forward from the train—and then the scene flashed off and the white screen was left blank. “O.K. ?” inquired a bored voice. “That’s the only station scene in that picture.”

  “Thanks. That’s all I want for the moment,” replied Macdonald. He and Jenkins left the studio and went to interview one of the management staff. “We’ve spotted the man we’re interested in,” said Macdonald. “He was one of the crowd at the barrier—not a speaking part. Would there be any records of those employed for crowd parts in the studio where the picture was made?”

  The reply was not encouraging: “You never can tell with these crowd scenes. The agents send along a job lot and a few odd ones may come in from nowhere in particular. That’s an old film—I doubt if any records would have been kept of the supers. Tell you what—I’ll put through an inquiry for you. Maybe we can find someone who was in that scene. If we can, we’ll run through it for you again and see if we can get the guy located. Is he wanted?”