“Do you know him, Ma’am?”
“I’ve met him.” She considered and presently glanced to where Mr. Campion stood in the shadow. “I don’t want to convey more than I mean,” she began, indicating that while he probably knew what she was talking about the police might not. “I have nothing against the man, and Mrs. Tassie is very fond of him, but if I had not known he was there then I think I should have put a coat over my dressing-gown and gone across in the rain to warn her. I do go in sometimes at night in case she’s lonely, but since he was there I didn’t see why I should bother.”
It was to Mr. Campion’s credit that he did understand.
“Perhaps he takes up a great deal of your friend’s time and thought?” he ventured.
“The woman thinks as much of him as if he were her own.” The pleasant voice invited them to marvel. “And as far as I can see he’s very seldom there and only gives her a lot of worry. I grant you he has a pleasant way with him and is a little more sophisticated than she thinks he is, silly idiot … She’s the salt of the earth. No one is too much trouble for her. No intellect, but a long-suffering heart …” Miss Rich broke off, leaving the sentence in the air. “Anyhow,” she said suddenly, “she’s the only person I’ve ever met who could put up with me! She’s very fond of me. She buys and lends me the most horrible magazine every week. I pretend to read it to please her.”
Luke cleared his throat. “At what time did Hawker arrive at Number Seven, Ma’am? Did you happen to notice?”
“I did. I was listening to the symphony concert. It must have been about half-past ten. He came up the road on foot, which is unusual. As a rule he has a large smelly car which he leaves about in front of other people’s houses. He walked straight into the porch and did not come out again so he has a key. I often suspected it. He was moving round the rooms after that until they came in.”
“How …? Oh, you saw the lights go on and off, I suppose.”
“Of course. He went everywhere except the spare bedroom. He spent quite a time in the office. The telephone is in there. And he was also in the kitchen for a time. That’s round the back …”
Luke interrupted her. “Round the back,” he echoed pointedly.
She laughed. She seemed delighted. “Bend down again and look,” she said. “Can you see that lump like the back of a goose standing up against the sky? Over the studio where Polly Tassie keeps her husband’s collection of monstrosities. You can? Well, when the kitchen light goes on in Number Seven it shines on that tree. It shows up far better in the summer than in the winter, but I can usually see it. I’m not often wrong. It was on for three or four minutes just before you came. Someone was heating a nightcap, perhaps. It’s rather warm for a hot bottle. Is there anything else you want to know?”
“Er … no, Ma’am.” The Superintendent sounded both respectful and distant. “That’ll do very nicely for the time being. Shall we find you in this room if we should need you again?”
“Oh yes, I shall be here, awake. I don’t sleep very much.” She sounded as if she were sorry for herself and found the emotion contemptuous. “Walk past the window and beckon and I’ll come to the door. Don’t ring. You’ll wake the house and no one will thank you. I shall sit here and watch what you do. Goodnight to you,” she continued, looking at Campion again. “If Mrs. Tassie should need anybody beside her niece, her as-good-as-adopted son, her burglar and the police force, perhaps you would let me know. I could go over, I suppose. Not that I should be of the slightest use.”
“Now that’s a type of woman I can’t stand,” said Luke as the three men walked away through the rain together towards the peeling stucco porch of an empty house about thirty yards down the street. “I can just see myself being comforted by her. ‘Don’t think of your trouble, think of me, morning noon and night’. ”
“Just a nut,” said Sergeant Picot, speaking for the first time during the incident. “They’re not scarce. She produced what was wanted though, didn’t she? There the suspect is, all ready to pack up and take home. Shall I walk up to the front door nice and fatherly? We couldn’t lose ’im. We’ve got the whole place surrounded.”
“Sorry, George. We’re to take no risk. Those are orders.” Luke shook himself to scatter the drops from his coat and perched on the parapet which spanned the sides of the square portico guarding the drop to the area beneath. “We wait and pick him up as he comes out in the decent and orderly manner best calculated to take the so-and-so by surprise.”
Picot sniffed and nodded.
“Because he’s suspected of being the man in the Church Row shooting, I suppose, sir? Is there any suggestion that he’s up to mischief here now?”
Luke moved uneasily. “The idea is that he thinks he’s safe here,” he said. “While he keeps that conviction it’s not very likely he’s going to do any harm to the two women we know are with him.”
Picot looked towards the silent house and back again.
“I thought it was said he had prepared an alibi for this trip,” he muttered. “What does he want with an alibi if he’s up to no harm? I don’t feel comfortable about this. What’s he doing in there?”
Luke leant back against the tall door column so that his face was in shadow.
“I think he’s parking something he doesn’t want to keep on him. The gun, even. It would be in line with his method. This is the place he regards as his bolt hole. He keeps the best side of his character here, perhaps.”
“What about the old lady? Is she in it with him?”
“’Course she is.” Luke sounded weary. “I don’t suppose she knows it yet. She’s just fond of him. I’ve seen her sort so often I could tell you exactly what’s coming to her. If you want to be certain that that chap’s crimes are going to be paid for to the final farthing in terms of human agony, you can start celebrating now.”
Picot said nothing for a minute and then he laughed briefly.
“It’s funny how people do seem to pay up for one another,” he remarked. “I wonder if one could compute it scientifically, if it would work out square. Those old women can never lie intelligently, can they? They fluff it and every word they speak puts the bloke in it deeper and deeper. That must add to the damage.” His anxiety returned. “When you say parking evidence, you don’t think he could be in there destroying it, do you, sir?”
Luke stretched himself. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so. I hope not. We must not have any more killings tonight. My worry is that ruddy boy Waterfield. If he hadn’t gone in I’d be perfectly easy. He was in the porch five minutes according to Miss Rich. What was he doing there?”
Mr. Campion coughed. “To my eternal shame, I did not wait to see,” he said frankly. “I’d just been to the hospital and picked up a description of him from the constable who had seen him with the girl in the morning. It was obviously Waterfield and I was drifting back to you with the information when suddenly I saw the fellow striding down Edge Street. I followed him and saw him turn into Number Seven. I had no way of telling that Hawker was there, of course, and I had no reason to suppose that Waterfield would stay very long. I had no authority myself, so I doubled back to the nearest ’phone box and called Tailor Street.”
“Ah,” said Luke, “did he knock and get no answer, or did someone come to the door and send him away? Miss Rich couldn’t tell me. Yet something decided him to climb the wall.”
“I don’t see how anyone can tell what’s happening without taking a dekko,” said Picot. “I tell you what, sir. Let me nip round to the street behind this one and get into the garden. I can probably see something through the windows, if it’s only where the lights are in the house.”
“All right.” Luke gave way unwillingly. “If you can find the boy in the grounds bring him out, if you can do it quietly. But frighten Hawker and we’ve had it.”
“I won’t frighten him!” Picot drew his narrow coat round his hips and turned up his collar. “I’d have to shout to make myself heard against this perishing rain.�
��
He plunged out into the downpour and disappeared in the direction of Edge Street. Luke waited for a while. The road gave every appearance of being empty. All the houses were dark and the police discreetly out of sight. Finally he sighed and grinned towards the shadow which was Mr. Campion.
“I hope you’re comfortable, captain. This may take all night.”
The thin man hunched his shoulders. “I was thinking how amazingly like any other big game hunt it is, except that here one is spared any guilty feeling about being secretly on the side of the animal,” he remarked. “There’s something reptilian about this particular quarry of yours, Charles. Tortuous, dexterous, and very near the ground. Contrary to my usual reaction, I rather hope this chap will hang.”
Luke grunted. “Hang! Everybody talks to me about hanging,” he exploded. “How am I going to charge him, that’s what’s worrying me.”
There was silence while Mr. Campion stared out at the drowned faces of the houses opposite.
“How very extraordinary,” he said at last. “I hadn’t noticed it. Nothing quite jells, does it?”
“Exactly.” Luke made it a growl. “Every lead I pull out is as thin as a bit of cotton. There are hundreds of strings, but nothing that promises to plait up into a rope. The man is careful and he’s tidy, just like I prophesied this morning.”
“What will you do? Take him in and question him and hope for the best?”
“It’s all I can do.” The Superintendent kicked the stucco with his heel. “Anything may turn up at any moment. The lab boys may be lucky. The drinking club girl may come across with some trinket which can be traced. The bullet in the lawyer may match those in the Church Row shooting. We may get positive identification of the waxworks in the ’bus from all five witnesses. But so far every clue relates to a different crime, and whereas we might try to prove method we might also come an unholy cropper doing it. He’ll have a slap-up defence, remember.”
“Who will see to that? The newspapers?”
“Or the old lady.”
“Dear me.” Mr. Campion was apt to use the term when shaken. “He could get clean away.”
“Over my dead body.” Luke spoke grimly. “We’ve had one little break and Donne has stayed at Tailor Street to investigate it. The commissionaire in the vestibule at the solicitor’s office turns out to have been employed in his youth as a spotter at the Casino at Le Moulin. All gambling houses have these chaps, who are specially trained to remember a face whatever disguise its owner adopts, so that banned gamblers may be slung out without trouble. If by chance he took a good look at the delivery man he will be able to pick him out at an identity parade. That could be enough to convict, all other things being equal. But the old boy would have to be very sound in the box.”
“Suppose you get the gun?”
“That would do it. That’s why I’m sitting so quiet. If Hawker doesn’t get wind we’re after him he may keep it on him. If he smells a rat he’ll ditch it first thing. There are a lot of ifs, too many.”
Mr. Campion considered. “Very often this kind of criminal is betrayed,” he ventured.
“I don’t see who could do it.” Luke indicated that the thought had been in his mind. “I am very much afraid that he’s that rare bloke who is not dependent on any one or fond of anyone. You can’t be betrayed by someone you’ve never trusted.”
“What about an enemy?”
Luke stood up. “There’s just a chance, but only if it’s someone he’s never suspected, and I should say he’s a character who suspects everyone. Hullo, see who this is?”
He took a step forward as Chief Inspector Donne stepped swiftly out of the rain into the porch. They could not see his face.
“Did he come across?” Luke’s voice was husky.
“The commissionaire? Oh yes, he thinks he’d know the vanman again.” Donne sounded surprisingly casual. “He’s very old and quaggly, though, poor chap. I don’t think he’ll live till the trial. This has been a terrific shock to him. I’ve sent him home with his daughter and told her to put him to bed. But don’t worry, Super, we’ve got Hawker. He’s in the bag once we get our hands on him.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Luke was suspicious. “Something turned up?”
“Yes.” Donne emitted a long breath. “The damnedest thing. I’d just finished with the old man and was feeling pretty doubtful about developments when a message came through from the sub-station in Siddon Street. The proprietor of a small restaurant just across the road from the Royal Albert Music Hall had brought in the dead solicitor’s wallet which had been left on a table in his shop by a customer who just got up and walked away after taking all the money and a couple of letters out of it. The rest was intact.”
“Phillipson’s wallet? I don’t believe it.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s not credible.” Donne had forgotten all his affectations and was a plain policeman, very nearly incoherent with excitement. “But his name and address were all over it. That’s how we got it so soon.”
“Can anyone there remember the customer?”
“Oh, it’s Hawker all right. The waitress and her mother who minds the urns say they could swear to him. They noticed him particularly because he put on some sort of act. They say he was frightened by a letter he read. After he went out two young working chaps, who were facing him in the eatery, spoke about him. They are regular customers. They’d know him too. He gave himself away completely and utterly. He must have had a brainstorm.”
Luke began to laugh softly in the moist darkness.
“There you are, Campion,” he said. “Who betrayed him? Friend or enemy?”
“The only man he didn’t suspect, at any rate,” said Mr. Campion.
Chapter 21
TETHER’S END
UP IN THE gay room which looked so homely with the old woman sleeping heavily in her chair, Gerry went on with his preparations. He was in a state of mind which was new to him. The suppressed excitement of the morning had left him quiet and intelligent at first but now a fresh change had taken place and he had become clumsy, his body feeling heavy and unwilling to obey, as in a nightmare.
Although convinced that he had all the time in the world, he was trying to hurry but was finding it very difficult. The black shadows under his skin had intensified. His clothes hung upon his stiffening muscles and there was a sweat on his forehead like a mould. He kept his eyes away from Polly now, turning his head like a sulking child whenever he passed her.
Yet so far all had gone fairly well. With both door and window sealed, the little chamber was already growing airless and the fire was burning blue and very low. In an hour, perhaps less, he would let the flame die and then the gas, insidious and lethal, could pour out into the room.
He looked down at the stove for a moment and then crossed to the door and turned to survey the scene. The little adjustments he had made to the original scheme to meet the new circumstances were satisfactory enough. The chair drawn up on the opposite side of the hearth to Polly’s own looked as if it had always been there, and he had put an occasional table beside it to hold the second beaker. He felt sure he had nothing to fear. With reasonable luck the tragedy must appear the most natural of accidents. An old woman and her unsuspecting visitor chatting over the fire, unaware that the door had swung shut behind them. Any coroner’s jury, after hearing of the gas official’s warning, would bring in misadventure, adding the usual rider drawing public attention to the dangers of imperfect ventilation, and another accident in the home would make a half day’s wonder in the press.
Gerry opened the door and stood listening at the foot of the stairs leading to the upper floor. The house was quite quiet in its cage of hissing rain. He hesitated and his thought was quite apparent as he glanced over his shoulder towards the room where the soft cushion he had chosen lay ready on the table. Upstairs the girl was doubtless in her first deep sleep.
He made a movement, paused, glanced down at his hands, and appeared to change his mind. It w
as clear that he found the improvised plan, which had been made necessary by the accident of Annabelle’s visit, difficult or perhaps even distasteful, and he was reluctant to implement it until the last moment.
At length he went back to the room, set his own empty glass and Polly’s beaker on the tray ready to take down, resumed his raincoat and strapped the belt tightly round his ribs as he liked to wear it.
Just before he took up the tray he felt in his pockets and missed the gun. Incredulous astonishment appeared in his eyes, but cleared at once as he glanced over at Polly and smiled with the same half-amused exasperation with which he had watched her on that other rainy night when she had stood in his path and he had sent a taxi to take her out of his way.
He found the weapon at once. He knew exactly where it would be. He opened the glass cupboard, lifted the lid of the tureen and took it out, together with the handful of assorted documents under it. Polly was a creature of habit and this was the place where she always hid the things she did not want to lose but was yet a little ashamed of keeping. He had seen her slip the trifles there a hundred times.
The yield on this occasion was much as he had thought it might be and included a wad of raffle tickets for a working man’s club draw, bought at the door, a treatise on vitamins to restore energy from the packaging of a patent medicine, and a current driving licence renewed every year although she did not own a car and had not driven since she came south.
He put them back, his mouth twisting suddenly out of control. He remembered her so vividly. Then, thrusting the gun back in his pocket, he took up the tray and went swiftly down to the kitchen.
The room welcomed him with its warmth and faint smells of food and ironing, and he took his time washing the glass, polishing it, and when he set it back in the cupboard he held it with the cloth. He rinsed the beaker very thoroughly indeed and made it dirty again immediately with some dregs of milk which he found in the saucepan on the draining board. And that too he held and wiped with the cloth when he replaced it on the tray to take upstairs again.
Hide My Eyes Page 21
