Calamity in Kent, A British Library Crime Classic

by John Rowland

  “Do you know of anyone who was threatening him, of any sort of danger in which he might be?”

  She looked surprised. “Did you find threatening letters?” she asked.

  “Well,” I said, “not exactly threatening letters, but letters which suggested he might be running into trouble of some sort. You know nothing of that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that seems to be that for the moment,” I said. “I shall be able to find you here at any time if anything else occurs to me?”

  She nodded gravely, and I hared off to the police station. It was clear that I had to get hold of friend Shelley at the earliest possible moment.

  Chapter VIII

  In Which I Give Information…

  and Collect Some

  Shelley seemed pleased enough to see me. I was, as a matter of fact, more than a little surprised to find him at the police station. I had expected to find him with his nose glued to some elusive trail. But he was sitting at a perfectly ordinary desk in a perfectly ordinary room, which the Kentish police had put at his disposal. Spread before him on the desk were a mass of papers. I couldn’t for the life of me think what they were, since this case had been on only for a few hours, and I didn’t think that much information could yet have been assembled—not in manuscript form, anyway. And somehow I didn’t think that Shelley was the sort of man to put on an act, to pile up the papers in order to impress any visitor who might call on him.

  “Hullo, Jimmy!” he said cheerfully, sweeping the papers together into a folder and tying it up with a long piece of white tape.

  “Good-morning again, Inspector,” I replied. It was, indeed, now only about a couple of hours since I had first been dragged, so to speak, into the case, though it seemed to me to be about two weeks, judging by all that had happened.

  “Any news?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good lad! I knew that I could depend on you, though what the good Inspector Beech and his comrades would say if they knew what I was doing, in letting you come into the case, heaven knows!” Shelley looked almost ruefully worried at this, but I was pretty sure that he was not really perturbed about it. The man from Scotland Yard had handled enough cases in his time to be sure as to what he could or could not do. Yet, at the same time, I knew that he would have little hesitation in completely chucking me overboard if he felt that I was being indiscreet or not handling the matter just as he wanted me to do. Shelley, in fact, was a tough guy in his own peculiar way, though he would have instantly disclaimed the title if anyone had accused him of deserving it.

  Still, I was glad to think that I had been able to do something to help; it would stand me in good stead for getting extra information for my paper. So I produced the two letters—or rather, the letter and the postcard which had seemed to me to be worth while in Tilsley’s room.

  “What do you think of these, Inspector?” I said, and chucked them across the table. He picked them up and studied them intently for a full minute, in complete silence.

  “Interesting,” he said.

  “Does it mean that you have learned anything new from them, Inspector?” I asked.

  “Yes…and no,” he replied somewhat cryptically.

  “Am I allowed to ask what that means?” I enquired.

  “You are,” Shelley said, and paused.

  I waited for the revelation, but it did not seem to be forthcoming. Shelley sat back and puffed at his pipe, as if the clouds of rather rank smoke gave him some inspiration; but it seemed as if I might have to wait for a long time. I thought that it was time I gave him a mental prod of some sort.

  “Well?” I said.

  “I’ve managed to get hold of some genuine information about our friend Tilsley,” Shelley said. “I think that it may give us some sort of lead as to the reason for his murder.”

  “Yes?” This sounded really interesting, and I awaited the new information.

  “We believe he was engaged in some sort of transactions over black market petrol,” Shelley explained. “He was tied up with a garage in London—near Kennington Oval—which was the centre of a racket for bleaching red petrol—specially coloured, for use in commercial vehicles, you know—and then selling it to ordinary motorists. It was a clever scheme, and it seems to have been run on quite a big scale. I don’t know all the details yet; but our people in London are ferreting out all the stuff that they can get. I think that we’ve done pretty well to get what we have in a matter of two or three hours. But it seems that the Yard were already on his track, assisted by the enforcement staff of the Ministry of Fuel and Power. They knew that there was a big leakage of petrol in that district, and they were suspicious of this garage, which Tilsley had a big interest in. The whole thing ties up, and it may well be, as I said, that there was a connection of this black-market petrol with Tilsley’s murder. I’m pretty hopeful that we shall be able to get the real tie-up worked out in a matter of a day or two. You see, I have told the folk in London who have been investigating the matter to pull in the garage men, and see if they can throw any light on what was going on.”

  This was quite a long speech for Shelley. I saw that he was excited. He did not normally reveal his emotions, but there was an under-current which I knew to be the sure signal of his pleasure at what was going on.

  “How much of this can I publish?” I asked. That was what really interested me most at the moment. All these revelations were, of course, valuable, but at the same time I knew that they would not be of much use to me if I was not allowed to wire them to my paper.

  “None, at the moment,” Shelley replied. Then he thought for a moment, and added: “At least, you can hint at some sort of black-market transactions in the background of the case. But don’t mention Kennington, and don’t mention petrol. We don’t want to give these gentry any sort of hint, until they are all safely in our hands. In any case the petrol business may not be all that is involved.”

  “I see.” I considered this. It was, I suppose, good enough, though, indeed, I had already thought of the black market business as a general explanation.

  “But what about the locked gates?” I asked.

  “What about them?” he said.

  “Any explanation?”

  “Of how the body got there during the night?” Shelley enquired.

  “Yes.”

  “No explanation at all as yet,” the detective agreed somewhat ruefully. “Though I have hopes that the duplicate key in the Council Offices may give us some sort of clue as to what happened.”

  I thought this over. It did not seem to me to be very satisfactory, and I said as much. Shelley, of course, saw the weakness in the case as well as I did.

  “The actual mechanism of the murder,” he explained, “does not matter at the moment, though, of course, we shall have to do something about it before we manage to bring the case to court. Any good barrister could drive a horse and cart through the case, if we don’t get some sort of explanation of how the body got there, the doors being still locked.”

  This was so obvious that I thought it didn’t require any kind of explanation from me. Then I suddenly remembered something that I had completely forgotten.

  “Inspector!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, Jimmy.”

  “Have you come across, in the case, a man called Doctor Cyrus Watford?”

  Shelley shook his head emphatically. “Never heard of him,” he said. “Why do you think he has something to do with the murder?”

  “I don’t know why on earth I didn’t tell you before,” I said, “but he butted in while I was guarding the body, before you arrived.” And I went on to tell him about the interlude, when Doctor Watford had told me something about the man Tilsley.

  Shelley looked thoughtful. “You say that he said he was a Doctor, and that he had to go and look after his patients?” he said.

  “
That’s right,” I said. “Actually I got the impression that he was in a bit of a hurry to get away. Personally, I was of the opinion that this had little to do with his patients. I got a distinct feeling that he was really anxious to get clear before the police arrived. I can’t give you any genuine reason for this, but, at the same time, I think it was true enough.”

  Shelley considered what I had said; then he pressed a button on the desk. A bell rang outside. A policeman came in.

  “Bring me a local telephone directory, please,” Shelley said.

  The policeman went out, and in a few moments came back with a slim red volume.

  Shelley turned its pages rapidly. “Walton, Watson,” he muttered. “No, Jimmy, there is no Watford here. Of course, he might be doing a locum’s job, for one of the local doctors, but I doubt it. Still, that is pretty easily settled.” He picked up the telephone.

  “Put me through to Doctor Gordon, the police surgeon,” he said.

  In a moment I heard a murmur at the other end of the line. “Doctor Gordon?” Shelley asked. “I want to get in touch with a Doctor Watford, whom I’m told is practising in Broadgate. He is not in the telephone directory. I thought that he might be either a new man, or a man doing a locum’s job for someone here, during the holiday season, you see.”

  There was a pause, and then Shelley turned to me: “You did say the man’s name was Watford, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Cyrus Watford.”

  “Cyrus Watford was the name,” Shelley said, and paused. Then: “Well, thanks very much, Doctor,” he added, and hung up the receiver.

  “Well?” I asked. “Any verdict?”

  “Doctor Cyrus Watford, whoever and whatever he is, is not a doctor in Broadgate,” Shelley said. “Gordon has never heard of him.”

  “Then who is he?” I asked.

  “That is something that I could bear to know,” Shelley said grimly. “I’ll have your description of him again, Jimmy, if I may. And make it as exact as you can, please.”

  I thought deeply before I replied. This was an unexpected development indeed. I hadn’t thought that the Doctor was anything but what he had pretended to be.

  “And oldish man—sixty or so,” I said. “Tall, fat, red-faced. The sort of fellow that you would think of as the typical retired colonel.”

  “I see. I think that I get the general impression,” Shelley commented.

  “His face was wrinkled, but not in any elderly way, if you know what I mean,” I went on. “In fact, he was a chap that I would have thought of as a man who was always laughing. He fairly radiated good-humour.”

  “That’s a good point,” Shelley said. “Bless you, for the journalist’s eye, Jimmy. Few witnesses would have given us that point. If we hadn’t had your observation, we shouldn’t have known that—and, while you can’t put that on a poster, it is the sort of thing that we can tell some of our people, and it will give them something to get on with, give them a hint of the sort of man to look for.”

  “You think that Cyrus Watford is of some importance in the case?” I asked.

  “Pretty sure, I should think.”

  “Can I mention him in my reports?”

  Shelley duly considered this. “Don’t see any real reason why not,” he said. “After all, he will be posted on the boards outside every police-station in the country from tomorrow morning onwards, if we do not succeed in pulling him in today. It’s pretty certain that he is a man who knows something about the case. The fact that he told you he knew Tilsley, and that he said Tilsley was a bad hat, is a good indication that he was tied up with the case somehow. Though why he was indiscreet enough as to reveal that to you is something that we shall never know. I expect that he was so taken by surprise at seeing you there that he was somehow startled into revealing something that he would not have normally said.”

  “And what now?” I asked.

  “What now?”

  “Yes; what would you like me to do? After all, we are to some extent sharing this thing,” I explained. “And it may well be that there is something else that I could do, which would be more or less outside your control. Then I could do a bit more investigation, and refer back to you this evening. I’ve already got enough to be able to phone my paper a fairly exciting story for tomorrow morning’s issue.”

  Shelley thought for about half a minute before he answered. It was clear enough that he took our partnership quite seriously. I was glad about that. I knew that by keeping in with him I was likely to be well away with the paper. And to keep in with The Daily Wire was essential for me financially. I knew that my bank manager would take a poor view of any suggestion from me that he should extend my overdraft—and it was only by an extension of an overdraft that I should be able to eat, if I did not soon earn some money. And I am one of these queer people who find eating necessary.

  “I think,” Shelley said at last, “that the best thing you can do, if you don’t mind going back to London for a few hours, is to have a look at our friend Tilsley’s London background. Our people have made a few enquiries at his London address; but they have done very little in the way of delving into things. You see, if you play the poor innocent newspaper man, and see if you can get hold of anything, it might be helpful. You’ve got hold of something at the Charrington Hotel. Of course, our people would have got it before long, but if this woman whom you met had cut up rusty, it might have taken a bit longer than it took you to get the necessary information. Now, of course, we shall do a search which will be in many ways more expert than yours was—but I’ve no doubt that the two documents which you got were the important ones.”

  I thought that this was a great compliment, and said as much. Shelley grinned cheerfully. “I didn’t ask for your help in this business without considering it, you know, Jimmy,” he said. “Anyhow, off you go to London, with my blessing. There’s a decent train at eleven-thirty, I think. It’s got a dining-car, and it’s due in at one forty-five. That should suit you.”

  Chapter IX

  In Which I Go Back to London

  Actually, I was none too pleased at the assignment Shelley had suggested as possible for me. It seemed to me that it was leading away from the centre of affairs. Yet, at the same time, it was obviously wise on my part to keep well in with Scotland Yard. I knew which side my bread was buttered, and I knew that any chance I might have of scooping my rivals in Fleet Street was really dependent on my getting hold of some genuine information, as a result of my friendship with Shelley.

  Yet I knew that it would never do to let my editor know that I was leaving Broadgate and going back to London, even though it might be only for a few hours. Mike Jones, I knew, would take the line that anything in London could easily be handled by one of his regular staff, and would not justify the payment of space rates for material, which he could get easily by sending a man on a weekly wage around to collect it.

  That this would be unreasonable of Mike was, of course, true enough. But people are not as reasonable as they should be. I thought that I should be able to get hold of something useful from Thackeray Court. But just what that information would be I could not guess.

  Anyhow, I had plenty of food for thought as I sat back in the corner of an extremely comfortable third-class compartment of a fast train en route for Victoria. True, I paid four shillings and sixpence for a lunch which was eatable, though small in bulk. And I treated myself to a bottle of Bass, carefully preserving the bill for these comestibles, since I thought that, later on, I would put in an expense account, and I saw no reason why I should personally pay for things which I should not have bought had I not been working on this case.

  Outside Victoria Station I hailed a taxi. “Do you know Thackeray Court?” I asked the driver.

  He scratched his head. “Can’t say I do, guv’nor,” he said slowly. “Would it be one of them big blocks of flats out Hammersmith way?”


  “I shouldn’t think so,” I said. “I think it’s either Earl’s Court or Kensington.”

  He slapped his knee with a resounding thwack. “I know!” he exclaimed. “Get in, guv’nor. It’s a block not far from Gloucester Road station. I know it.”

  So we swung up towards Hyde Park Corner, and then down the long sweep of Knightsbridge. I felt a certain warmth of excitement about my heart. Forgotten now was my old worry that I might be missing something by coming back to London from Broadgate. I thought that I was actually getting near the heart of the whole business. After all, was it not likely that Tilsley’s London home would contain something more, in the way of direct indications of whatever black market racket he was involved in, than his purely temporary lodging in Kent had done? Shelley had thought that it was a scheme for dealing in petrol off the ration, and it might be that I should be able to get hold of something which would definitely connect the man with the garage in Kennington that Shelley had indicated as the centre of the business.

  The fact that the police had been here before me did not worry me at all. The eye of the journalist, after all, is a bit different from the eye of the policeman. There might well be things which the police had either overlooked, or had not thought of sufficient importance to be investigated; and those things, with the special knowledge of the case which was now mine, might seem to me to be of genuine value. That, at any rate, was what I was hoping for as I drove along the streets of South Kensington, with their tall, dignified early Victorian houses.

  The taxi drew to a standstill. The driver fairly beamed with self-congratulations. “There you are, guv’nor,” he said. “That’s the place.” He indicated a tall block of flats, built in that combination of brick and roughcast typical of building in the ’thirties.

  “Thank you,” I said, and paid him off. I drew a deep breath. This was perhaps the first really important moment in the case. On what happened in the next few minutes might well depend my future relationship with Shelley—and, by implication, the future of my job with The Daily Wire. I was in no position to ignore the financial implications of the whole affair. It was highly important to me to re-establish myself in the crazy world of Fleet Street journalism, and to do that I had to get every scrap of exclusive information that was available in this place.