by John Rowland
“I’ve got your address, Bender, haven’t I?” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, there’ll probably be further questions to ask of you later on,” Shelley remarked. I thought that Bender winced, as if he did not look forward with any eagerness to the new bout of questioning. Still he said nothing, but took his dismissal with comparative scepticism.
I always remember that walk out to Cecile Road as one of the few pleasant interludes in what was becoming almost a nightmare adventure. The sun was mounting in the sky; the sea stretched below us, blue and clear; the white-flecked waves shimmered in the sun. Out on the horizon a steamship moved lazily along, its smoke trailing behind it.
But this was only an interlude. Soon my mind was to be recalled to the matter on hand. Cecile Road was a long and straggling thorough-fare, lined on either side with sizable houses of the modern villa type. It was clearly a place which had grown up after the First World War. The houses were pleasant enough places, and I could envisage their inhabitants as living somewhat self-centred lives, their whole interests concentrated on their gardens and their golf. Yet somehow tragedy had struck incongruously in this pleasant street. There is, I always think, something a trifle odd when a murder occurs among ordinary people. We are accustomed to murder in high places. When a Mussolini or a Gandhi dies it seems to be such a mighty tragedy that it appears almost ordinary—or, at any rate, something which might be anticipated. It is when tragedy appears in the lives of people more or less ordinary in their everyday attitude that it seems queer and incongruous.
Still, there was number 77 Cecile Road. It was a house just like the others in the road. Its front garden looked attractive enough. There was a small lawn, surrounded with a border in which white carnations rioted. Tall lupins stood at the back, and various other flowers—purple, blue and red—which I did not know were interspersed between those which I recognised.
Shelley did not seem to be noticing these horticultural details. He was, however, studying the house. Then he came towards me: “Remember, Jimmy, you have no official standing. So keep quiet and just listen. Let me do all the talking here,” he said in what was not much more than a whisper.
I nodded. I was too conscious of my luck in being here at all to want to butt in on what I knew was Shelley’s job of cross-examination of whoever might be found in the house.
The detective strode up the concrete path that led from the little wooden gate to the front door. On the doorstep he hesitated for a moment, and then pressed firmly the bell-push in the middle of the door.
There was a breathless pause. Again I was conscious of the underlying drama of the case. Then the door opened, and a rather nervous looking little maid, her hair unkempt and her apron awry, peered out at us.
“Good morning,” said Shelley politely. I was interested to study his technique in this situation—one in which I had never previously observed him in.
“Good morning, sir,” she said, with an odd little bob of a bow.
“Is Mr. Margerison in?” Shelley asked.
“Will you please wait a moment? I’ll find out,” the maid said, and disappeared into the interior of the house.
Then we had another wait. I thought that the life of a detective was not unlike that of a soldier in wartime—sudden spurts of activity, interspersed with long periods of comparative boredom. Still, soon the maid came back.
“Will you come in, sir?” she said. “Mr. Montrose will see you.”
We had no time to ask ourselves who on earth Mr. Montrose might be. We were ushered into a pleasant little sitting-room, where we were left by the maid.
“Mr. Montrose will be with you very soon, sir, if you’ll kindly wait here,” she said.
She went out, shutting the door quietly behind her. Shelley and I looked at each other with a mutual grin. This was, somehow, a completely unexpected reception. We had anticipated a weeping widow or even a cheerful son; but to meet with a maid and a man whose name, even, we had never previously heard was so completely against all our anticipations that I think we were absolutely taken by surprise.
In a few moments, however, before we had time to overcome our first surprise, the door opened again. There entered a tall, distinguished-looking man, with glasses and a moustache in what used to be called the military style. He held out his hand.
“I’m afraid I don’t know you gentlemen,” he said. “But we must introduce ourselves. My name is Montrose, and my friend Margerison, for whom you are asking, lives here with me. He is, however, out at the moment, and I thought that perhaps I could do something to help, since we have been involved in various business deals together, and I presume that it is some business matter that you have come here about.”
This was all said in a friendly tone, and Shelley took the outstretched hand.
“My name is Shelley,” the detective said, “and this is my friend Mr. London.”
Montrose solemnly shook us both by the hand. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, gentlemen,” he said. “And now, perhaps, you will be so kind as to let me know what I can do for you.”
“Can you tell us when you last saw Mr. Margerison?” Shelley asked, and I could see that the detective was aware that this was rather a ticklish situation, which had to be handled with some care.
Montrose thought carefully. Then he said: “Well, I saw him at tea yesterday. I didn’t see him at dinner, since I was dining out myself last night. I came home late, and went straight to bed, so I didn’t see him then. Yes; teatime yesterday was the last time I saw him—say, five o’clock. But what is the meaning of this question? I trust that nothing untoward has happened to Margerison?” The rather precise, old-fashioned diction suited the general appearance and attitude of Montrose.
“I’m afraid I have rather a shock for you, Mr. Montrose,” Shelley said slowly.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Well, go on, man! I’m not a child; I have enough willpower, I hope, to be able to stand whatever it is that you have to say to me.”
“I’ll ask one more question first, if I may,” said Shelley.
“Go on.”
“In your business deals with Margerison did you ever come across a man called Tilsley?”
“Yes.”
“You know that Tilsley was murdered yesterday?”
“I saw something about it in the paper this morning. Shocking business!” exclaimed Montrose with a mournful shake of the head. “But what has that to do with Margerison—or myself, for that matter?”
“I don’t know that it has anything to do with you, sir,” Shelley said. “But it might have a good deal to do with Mr. Margerison. You see, Mr. Margerison is dead.”
I’d have sworn that the look that crossed Montrose’s face was one of mingled amazement and consternation.
“Dead!” he almost shouted.
“Yes.”
“But I didn’t even know that he was ill,” Montrose said.
“He was not. I am an officer from Scotland Yard,” Shelley explained, “and I have been given the job of investigating his death. I don’t think that there is any doubt about it, Mr. Montrose—your friend Margerison was murdered, probably by the same hand as that which murdered Tilsley.”
“But this is terrible,” murmured Montrose. “I can’t think what can be the explanation. I should have said that Margerison hadn’t an enemy in the world, unless…” His voice faded away into a tone of indecision and doubt.
“Unless what, sir?” Shelley was now the sleuth, his nose well on the scent.
“Unless it had some connexion with what he told me about the death of John Tilsley.”
This was just the sort of thing that Shelley was after, I could see. Anyhow, it looked as if it might lead somewhere.
“What did he tell you?” Shelley asked.
“He told me that he had seen the li
ft, just after the body of Tilsley had been found. He said that this was going to be a terrific problem for the police to solve. And he added that he thought he had solved the problem.”
Shelley thought this over for a moment. Then he said: “You mean, he thought he understood how it was that a body could get in the lift, although the gates were still locked, and the locks had, to all appearances, not been in any way tampered with?”
“I presume that is what he meant,” Montrose said.
“He didn’t go into any details?”
“No. I asked him, naturally, what he meant; but he said that it was only a sort of hypothesis, though he was sure that it was correct. He said, however, that he was going to see if he could do something to prove it. And, when he had got some proof, he was going to the police with it. But, until that proof was available, he thought that it was as well to say nothing at all about it.”
“I see.” This, once more, was something that took a little digesting, I could see. Naturally enough, it agreed with what we had decided were the facts of the two murders. It meant that Margerison had discovered something about the death of Tilsley, and that he had proposed to do something in the way of investigation on his own. It was then only necessary to assume that the murderer had obtained some knowledge of Margerison’s suspicions, when it would obviously become necessary for Margerison to be eliminated. Such a reading of the course of events was what now became clear enough. But the trouble was, of course, that it gave us no sort of idea of the identity of the murderer. I suppose that it was too much to hope that such information might be forthcoming at this stage; I had, however, had an idea that there might have been a short cut at this point.
Not so, Shelley. With his long experience of crime investigation, the man from Scotland Yard had learned that there are very rarely short cuts in the work of a detective.
“There is one other matter, Mr. Montrose,” he said.
“Yes?”
“You said that you had known something about Tilsley in connection with your business deals with Margerison?”
“Quite so.”
“Could you give me any idea, in confidence, what those business deals were concerned with? I don’t, at this stage, want anything in the way of detail. But it would be helpful to know just what sort of deals they were—I mean, if they were deals in any sort of raw materials, say.”
Montrose looked a trifle dubious at this request. It seemed that he did not know if it was altogether wise to reveal anything of what had been going on. Then he drew in a deep breath, and I realised that we were going to get a little more of the background of the mystery.
“I don’t know that I should really reveal this,” he said, “since a good deal of it was really shared between Margerison and myself. But Margerison is dead, and there can be, I suppose, little harm now in telling you about it. I don’t mind admitting, however, that I feel some doubt about telling it, even now.”
“It is your duty to tell it, sir,” Shelley said sternly. “You may well be helping to bring a murderer to justice if you let me know exactly what happened.”
“That’s true,” Montrose said. “Well, Margerison was engaged in the metal market. He worked as a buyer for a firm dealing largely in the precious metals—particularly gold and platinum.”
“Quite so.” Not by so much as the blink of an eyelid did Shelley reveal that he felt any surprise at this, though the information was, of course, totally unexpected.
“Some of the precious metals are rather difficult to get hold of in any quantity, and it so happened that Tilsley had some unexpected sources of supply. His prices were high, but he could let us have quantities of gold and platinum when it was not easy to buy them on the open market.”
“How long had this been going on?” Shelley asked.
“Two or three years, I should think,” Montrose said. “I had been involved in it only for about eighteen months or so.”
“And, if I may ask, sir, what was your function in it? Where, if I may put it so, did you come in?”
“I was merely a sleeping partner. My interest in the thing was purely financial. I had known Margerison for years, and he came to me a year or eighteen months ago, pointed out that he had this unexpected source of supply of these metals, and then said that he was a little short of capital. He suggested that I should back him, and that, as a result, there would be a good return for any fluid capital which I might have available. It so happened that I had between two and three thousand pounds available—the nationalisation of coal had thrown some of my investments back to me, so to speak—and I lent it to him.”
“Results satisfactory, sir?” asked Shelley with a smile.
“Oh, quite; the return was more than one could possibly have got in the normal course of investment. Naturally, there were occasions when I felt doubtful, and I’m wondering at this moment just how I stand. I’m not at all sure where the cash is now, in view of poor Margerison’s death.”
“It had to be fluid capital, I think you said, sir?” Shelley remarked.
“Yes. You see, Tilsley always insisted on being paid in notes. He would not take a cheque. That is the only point that made me a trifle dubious about the whole thing. I wondered if there was some infringement of the law somewhere. One always feels suspicious, I think, of the man who wants to be paid in cash for the sort of thing that would normally be paid for by a cheque. And this is particularly true of things like precious metals, where a comparatively small bulk of the material may well be worth some hundreds of pounds.”
This was reasonable enough. I was quite favourably impressed by this man Montrose, and I thought that Shelley was equally so. Indeed, the fellow appeared to radiate simple honesty—one of the few among the many people we had met in this case who did not seem to have anything to hide, and who seemed to be in every way open and above board.
Shelley had little more to say to him, and in a few minutes we were strolling down the road once more. Shelley turned to me with some interest, I thought.
“Well, what’s your opinion, Jimmy?” he said.
“My opinion?” I repeated.
“Yes; your opinion of our friend Montrose.”
“Seems sensible enough, and straightforward enough, too,” I said.
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Shelley said. “But there’s one very odd thing, you know.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Well, I can’t see any straightforward connection between a man who deals in spare parts for cars and a man who deals in gold and platinum. And yet it seems that our Mr. Tilsley was both of those, rolled into one. It’s odd.” Shelley relapsed into a thoughtful silence.
“Unless they were both stolen,” I said.
“Yes, but that, somehow, doesn’t ring quite true,” said Shelley. “A thief, like other crooks, tends to be in a way a specialist. I don’t mean to say that he wouldn’t steal anything stealable; but there is nothing in common between motor parts and precious metals. They wouldn’t be handled by means of the same technique, if you know what I mean. Still, that’s one of life’s little oddities, and no doubt it will be settled at a later stage in the case. If we knew the solution of that puzzle just now we might, I think, be somewhere near the solution of the whole affair—of the murder, I mean. Still, we don’t know it, Jimmy, and we shall just have to go on plugging away until we do. I only hope that we shan’t take too long over the job, or there may be some even more nasty consequences.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Our friend the murderer has already dealt with two victims,” Shelley said in solemn tones. “In other words, he has put his head pretty effectively into the noose if we are able to lay our hands on him.”
“True enough,” I agreed.
“And if he thinks that another murder will make him safe, then you can bet your boots that murder will be committed,” Shelley said.
“So you’d better look out, Jimmy!”
There was a grin on Shelley’s face as he said this, and a tone of gentle bantering in his voice. But when I thought of the banner headlines in The Daily Wire, and the fact that my name was going to appear each day as the well-known criminologist who was investigating the affair, I felt more than a trifle uncomfortable.
Chapter XVI
In Which I Talk to the Liftman
It seemed, for the moment, as if we had come to a dead end in our investigations. I knew that to get any really fresh information I should have to await the collation of the material that Shelley was getting from Scotland Yard. Only thus could I hope to get hold of new stuff.
But now that I was fairly launched on my career as a special investigator for the Press I could not bear the thought of inaction. Only a couple of days before I had been a convalescent, lazing away a few weeks on the Kentish coast. But thought of returning to that status now seemed to me to be hopeless. I had been plunged into such exciting events that to get back to the old routine of meals under the eagle eye of Mrs. Cecil, walks on the promenade, and an occasional decorous bathe seemed to me to be the most completely feeble way of getting on with life. I wanted to feel myself involved in uncovering facts, revealing unexpected connections between the people in the case, and finding out what I could do.
And Shelley’s warning had some influence on me as well. I had no intention of giving any murderer a sitting target. But it was true enough that I was in some danger, especially if the murderer thought that I might be revealing something of what he was doing. The sooner the man was caught the sooner I should be safe. Thus my professional interest was reinforced by the personal interest of my own safety.
Yet I did not see what more I could do. Shelley had not suggested anything further that I could carry out in the way of investigations—and I knew that I had now established myself well enough in his confidence to be asked to do anything which I could. It was thus clear enough that there was nothing that he considered could usefully be given to me to do at the moment. Yet, as I’ve said, I was not content. I wanted to do something, even though I wasn’t sure what it was.
