Cynthia Manson (ed)

by Merry Murder

  He turned to the warden.

  “That pair. Can I have a word with them somewhere private?”

  “Who? Ron Sharp and Sally Biggs? Two of our very nicest—”

  The two were within earshot. They exchanged a look of amusement instantly damped by the sergeant, who ordered them briefly to follow him. In the warden’s office, with the door shut, he said to Sally, “Where did you get that brooch you’re wearing?”

  The girl flushed. Ron said angrily, “I give it ’er. So what?”

  “So where did you come by it?”

  Ron hesitated. He didn’t want to let himself down in Sally’s eyes. He wanted her to think he’d bought it specially for her. He said, aggressively, “That’s my business.”

  “I don’t think so.” Turning to Sally, the sergeant said, “Would you mind letting me have a look at it, miss?”

  The girl was becoming frightened. Surely Ron hadn’t done anything silly? He was looking upset. Perhaps—

  “All right,” she said, undoing the brooch and handing it over. “Poor eyesight, I suppose.”

  It was feeble defiance, and the sergeant ignored it. He said, “I’ll have to ask you two to come down to the station. I’m not an expert, but we shall have to know a great deal more about this article, and Inspector Brooks will be particularly interested to know where it came from.”

  Ron remaining obstinately silent in spite of Sally’s entreaty, the two found themselves presently sitting opposite Inspector Brooks, with the brooch lying on a piece of white paper before them.

  “This brooch,” said the inspector sternly, “is one piece of jewelry listed as missing from the flat of a Mrs. Fairlands, who was robbed and murdered on Christmas Eve or early Christmas Day.”

  “Never!” whispered Sally, aghast.

  Ron said nothing. He was not a stupid boy, and he realized at once that he must now speak, whatever Sally thought of him. Also that he had a good case if he didn’t say too much. So, after careful thought, he told Brooks exactly how and when he had come by the brooch and advised him to check this with his father and mother. The old lady’s son had stuck the tree out by the dustbins, his mother had said, and her daughter had told his father he could have it to take home.

  Inspector Brooks found the tale too fantastic to be untrue. Taking the brooch and the two subdued youngsters with him, he went to Ron’s home, where more surprises awaited him. After listening to Mr. Sharp’s account of the Christmas tree, which exactly tallied with Ron’s, he went into the next room where the younger children were playing and Mrs. Sharp was placidly watching television.

  “Which of you two found the brooch?” Brooks asked. The little girl was persuaded to agree that she had done so.

  “But I got these,” the boy said. He dived into his pocket and dragged out the pearl necklace and the diamond bracelet.

  “ ’Struth!” said the inspector, overcome. “She must’ve been balmy.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” Sally broke in. “She was nice. She give us two and a tanner.”

  “She what?”

  Sally explained the carol singing expedition. They had been up four roads in that part, she said, and only two nicker the lot.

  “Mostly it was nil,” she said. “Then there was some give a bob and this old gentleman and the woman with ’im ten bob each. We packed it in after that.”

  “This means you actually went to Mrs. Fairlands’ house?” Brooks said sternly to Ron.

  “With the others—yes.”

  “Did you go inside?”

  “No.”

  “No.” Sally supported him. “She come out.”

  “Was she wearing the brooch?”

  “No,” said Ron.

  “Not when she come out, she wasn’t,” Sally corrected him.

  Ron kicked her ankle gently. The inspector noticed this.

  “When did you see it?” he asked Sally.

  “When she looked through the window at us. We shone the torch on ’er. It didn’t ’alf shine.”

  “But you didn’t recognize it when Ron gave it to you?”

  “Why should I? I never saw it close. It was pinned on ’er dress at the neck. I didn’t think of it till you said.”

  Brooks nodded. This seemed fair enough. He turned to face Ron.

  “So you went back alone later to get it? Right?”

  “I never! It’s a damned lie!” the boy cried fiercely.

  Mr. Sharp took a step forward. His wife bundled the younger children out of the room. Sally began to cry.

  “ ’Oo are you accusing?” Mr. Sharp said heavily. “You ’eard ’ow I come by the tree. My mates was there. The things was on it. I got witnesses. If Ron did that job, would ’e leave the only things worth ’aving? It says in the paper nothing of value, don’t it?”

  Brooks realized the force of this argument, however badly put. He’d been carried away a little. Unusual for him; he was surprised at himself. But the murder had been a particularly revolting one, and until these jewels turned up, he’d had no idea where to look. Carol singers. It might be a line and then again it mightn’t.

  He took careful statements from Ron, Sally, Ron’s father, and the two younger children. He took the other pieces of jewelry and the Christmas tree. Carol singers. Mrs. Fairlands had opened the door to Ron’s lot, having taken off her brooch if the story was true. Having hidden it very cleverly. He and his men had missed it completely. A Christmas tree decorated with flashy bits and pieces as usual. Standing back against a wall. They’d ignored it. Seen nothing but tinsel and glitter for weeks past. Of course they hadn’t noticed it. The real thief or thieves hadn’t noticed it, either.

  Back at the station he locked away the jewels, labeled, in the safe and rang up Hugh Evans. He did not tell him where the pieces had been found.

  Afterwards he had to deal with some of the hooligans who had now been charged with breaking, entering, willful damage, and making an affray. He wished he could pin Mrs. Fairlands’ murder on their ringleader, a most degenerate and evil youth. Unfortunately, the whole gang had been in trouble in the West End that night; most of them had spent what remained of it in Bow Street police station. So they were out. But routine investigations now had a definite aim. To collect a list of all those who had sung carols at the house in Mrs. Fairlands’ road on Christmas Eve, to question the singers about the times they had appeared there and about the houses they had visited.

  It was not easy. Carol singers came from many social groups and often traveled far from their own homes. The youth clubs in the district were helpful; so were the various student bodies and hostels in the neighborhood. Brooks’s manor was wide and very variously populated. In four days he had made no headway at all.

  A radio message went out, appealing to carol singers to report at the police station if they were near Mrs. Fairlands’ house at any time on Christmas Eve. The press took up the quest, dwelling on the pathetic aspects of the old woman’s tragic death at a time of traditional peace on earth and good will towards men. All right-minded citizens must want to help the law over this revolting crime.

  But the citizens maintained their attitude of apathy or caution.

  Except for one, a freelance journalist, Tom Meadows, who had an easy manner with young people because he liked them. He became interested because the case seemed to involve young people. It was just up his street. So he went first to the Sharp family, gained their complete confidence, and had a long talk with Ron.

  The boy was willing to help. After he had got over his indignation with the law for daring to suspect him, he had had sense enough to see how this had been inevitable. His anger was directed more truly at the unknown thugs responsible. He remembered Mrs. Fairlands with respect and pity. He was ready to do anything Tom Meadows suggested.

  The journalist was convinced that the criminal or criminals must be local, with local knowledge. It was unlikely they would wander from house to house, taking a chance on finding one that might be profitable. It was far more likely that they kn
ew already that Mrs. Fairlands lived alone, would be quite alone over Christmas and therefore defenseless. But their information had been incomplete. They had not known how little money she kept at the flat. No one had known this except her family. Or had they?

  Meadows, patient and amiable, worked his way from the Sharps to the postman, the milkman, and through the latter to the daily.

  “Well, of course I mentioned ’er being alone for the ’oliday. I told that detective so. In the way of conversation, I told ’im. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Why indeed? But who did you tell, exactly?”

  “I disremember. Anyone, I suppose. If we was comparing. I’m on me own now meself, but I go up to me brother’s at the ’olidays.”

  “Where would that be?”

  “Notting ’ill way.’E’s on the railway. Paddington.”

  Bit by bit Meadows extracted a list of her friends and relations, those with whom she had talked most often during the week before Christmas. Among her various nephews and nieces was a girl who went to the same comprehensive school as Ron and his girlfriend Sally.

  Ron listened to the assignment Meadows gave him.

  “Sally won’t like it,” he said candidly.

  “Bring her into it, then. Pretend it’s all your own idea.”

  Ron grinned.

  “Shirl won’t like that,” he said.

  Tom Meadows laughed.

  “Fix it any way you like,” he said. “But I think this girl Shirley was with a group and did go to sing carols for Mrs. Fairlands. I know she isn’t on the official list, so she hasn’t reported it. I want to know why.”

  “I’m not shopping anymore,” Ron said warily.

  “I’m not asking you to. I don’t imagine Shirley or her friends did Mrs. Fairlands. But it’s just possible she knows or saw something and is afraid to speak up for fear of reprisals.”

  “Cor!” said Ron. It was like a page of his favorite magazine working out in real life. He confided in Sally, and they went to work.

  The upshot was interesting. Shirley did have something to say, and she said it to Tom Meadows in her own home with her disapproving mother sitting beside her.

  “I never did like the idea of Shirl going out after dark, begging at house doors. That’s all it really is, isn’t it? My children have very good pocket money. They’ve nothing to complain of.”

  “I’m sure they haven’t,” Meadows said mildly. “But there’s a lot more to carol singing than asking for money. Isn’t there, Shirley?”

  “I’ll say,” the girl answered. “Mum don’t understand.”

  “You can’t stop her,” the mother complained. “Self-willed. Stubborn. I don’t know, I’m sure. Out after dark. My dad’d ’ve taken his belt to me for less.”

  “There were four of us,” Shirley protested. “It wasn’t late. Not above seven or eight.”

  The time was right, Meadows noted, if she was speaking of her visit to Mrs. Fairlands’ road. She was. Encouraged to describe everything, she agreed that her group was working towards the house especially to entertain the old lady who was going to be alone for Christmas. She’d got that from her aunt, who worked for Mrs. Fairlands. They began at the far end of the road on the same side as the old lady. When they were about six houses away, they saw another group go up to it or to one near it. Then they were singing themselves. The next time she looked round, she saw one child running away up the road. She did not know where he had come from. She did not see the others.

  “You did not see them go on?”

  “No. They weren’t in the road then, but they might have gone right on while we were singing. There’s a turning off, isn’t there?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “Well, we went up to Mrs. Fairlands’ and rang the bell. I thought I’d tell her she knew my aunt and we’d come special.”

  “Yes. What happened?”

  “Nothing. At least—”

  “Go on. Don’t be frightened.”

  Shirley’s face had gone very pale.

  “There were men’s voices inside. Arguing like. Nasty. We scarpered.”

  Tom Meadows nodded gravely.

  “That would be upsetting. Men’s voices? Or big boys?”

  “Could be either, couldn’t it? Well, perhaps more like sixth form boys, at that.”

  “You thought it was boys, didn’t you? Boys from your school.”

  Shirley was silent.

  “You thought they’d know and have it in for you if you told. Didn’t you? I won’t let you down, Shirley. Didn’t you?”

  She whispered, “Yes,” and added, “Some of our boys got knives. I seen them.”

  Meadows went to Inspector Brooks. He explained how Ron had helped him to get in touch with Shirley and the result of that interview. The inspector, who had worked as a routine matter on all Mrs. Fairlands’ contacts with the outer world, was too interested to feel annoyed at the other’s success.

  “Men’s voices?” Brooks said incredulously.

  “Most probably older lads,” Meadows answered. “She agreed that was what frightened her group. They might have looked out and recognized them as they ran away.”

  “There’d been no attempt at intimidations?”

  “They’re not all that stupid.”

  “No.”

  Brooks considered.

  “This mustn’t break in the papers yet, you understand?”

  “Perfectly. But I shall stay around.”

  Inspector Brooks nodded, and Tom went away. Brooks took his sergeant and drove to Mrs. Fairlands’ house. They still had the key of the flat, and they still had the house under observation.

  The new information was disturbing, Brooks felt. Men’s voices, raised in anger. Against poor Mrs. Fairlands, of course. But there were no adult fingerprints in the flat except those of the old lady herself and of her daily. Gloves had been worn, then. A professional job. But no signs whatever of breaking and entering. Therefore, Mrs. Fairlands had let them in. Why? She had peeped out at Ron’s lot, to check who they were, obviously. She had not done so for Shirley’s. Because she was in the power of the “men” whose voices had driven this other group away in terror.

  But there had been two distinct small footprints in the dust of the outer hall and a palmprint on the outer door had been small, childsize.

  Perhaps the child that Shirley had seen running down the road had been a decoy. The whole group she had noticed at Mrs. Fairlands’ door might have been employed for that purpose and the men or older boys were lurking at the corner of the house, to pounce when the door opened. Possible, but not very likely. Far too risky, even on a dark evening. Shirley could not have seen distinctly. The street lamps were at longish intervals in that road. But there were always a few passersby. Even on Christmas Eve no professional group of villains would take such a risk.

  Standing in the cold drawing room, now covered with a grey film of dust, Inspector Brooks decided to make another careful search for clues. He had missed the jewels. Though he felt justified in making it, his mistake was a distinct blot on his copybook. It was up to him now to retrieve his reputation. He sent the sergeant to take another look at the bedroom, with particular attention to the dressing table. He himself began to go over the drawing room with the greatest possible care.

  Shirley’s evidence suggested there had been more than one thief. The girl had said “voices.” That meant at least two, which probably accounted for the fact, apart from her age, that neither Mrs. Fairlands nor her clothes gave any indication of a struggle. She had been overpowered immediately, it seemed. She had not been strong enough or agile enough to tear, scratch, pull off any fragment from her attackers’ clothes or persons. There had been no trace of any useful material under her fingernails or elsewhere.

  Brooks began methodically with the chair to which Mrs. Fairlands had been bound and worked his way outwards from that center. After the furniture, the carpet and curtains. After that the walls.

  Near the door, opposite the fireplace, h
e found on the wall—two feet, three inches up from the floor—a small, round, brownish, greasy smear. He had not seen it before. In artificial light, he checked, it was nearly invisible. On this morning, with the first sunshine of the New Year coming into the room, the little patch was entirely obvious, slightly shiny where the light from the window caught it.

  Inspector Brooks took a wooden spatula from his case of aids and carefully scraped off the substance into a small plastic box, sniffing at it as he did so.

  “May I, too?” asked Tom Meadows behind him.

  The inspector wheeled round with an angry exclamation.

  “How did you get in?” he asked.

  “Told the copper in your car I wanted to speak to you.”

  “What about?”

  “Well, about how you were getting on, really,” Tom said disarmingly. “I see you are. Please let me have one sniff.”

  Inspector Brooks was annoyed, both by the intrusion and the fact that he had not heard it, being so concentrated on his work. So he closed his box, shut it into his black bag, and called to the sergeant in the next room.

  Meadows got down on his knees, leaned towards the wall, and sniffed. It was faint, since most of it had been scraped off, but he knew the smell. His freelancing had not been confined to journalism.

  He was getting to his feet as the sergeant joined Inspector Brooks. The sergeant raised his eyebrows at the interloper.

  “You can’t keep the press’s noses out of anything,” said Brooks morosely.

  The other two grinned. It was very apt.

  “I’m just off,” Tom said. “Good luck with your specimen, inspector. I know where to go now. So will you.”

  “Come back!” called Brooks. The young man was a menace. He would have to be controlled.

  But Meadows was away, striding down the road until he was out of sight of the police car, then running to the nearest tube station where he knew he would find the latest newspaper editions. He bought one, opened it at the entertainments column, and read down the list.