Death Knocks Three Times

by Anthony Gilbert

  If he knew no other text in the Bible, the Inspector was well acquainted with the one about patience having her perfect work. Halted at one end he began inquiries at the other, and so, to the surprise of most of the protagonists, he netted his fish.

  19

  UP IN Maida Vale Mrs. Pringle was giving her pet lodger’s room a thorough doing when she was disturbed by the front doorbell. Two strange gentlemen stood on the doorstep. To one less experienced than John’s devoted landlady they might have seemed merely business gentlemen seeking accommodation, but Mrs. Pringle was not deceived for an instant. She knew they were police. She’d had police on her step once before when Mr. Pringle thoughtlessly got in the way of a heavy van.

  Her hand flew to her heart. “It’s not Mr. Sherren?” she faltered.

  “Mr. Sherren? Why should you think we want him?”

  “It wouldn’t be any good if you did, ‘cause he’s not here. Gone down to Brakemouth about his auntie. Poor old lady. Heart, it was. But what did you want with me,” she continued fiercely, “if nothing’s happened to him?”

  “Nothing’s happened to Mr. Sherren,” said the official, “but perhaps we may come in for a moment. I understand it was you who took the first message about Miss Bond’s death.”

  Mrs. Pringle began to feel a little more important. “Suppose I did?” she said truculently.

  “A telephone call and then a telegram. Is that right?”

  She couldn’t remember inviting them in but here they were standing in her hall. They seemed polite enough, she acknowledged grudgingly.

  “And when Mr. Sherren arrived, you told him at once, of course, Mrs. Pringle?”

  “Of course. And he said he must go back right away.”

  “Without even coming into the house?”

  “I believe he would have done so, but I said no sense him getting ill, too, and he came in and had a cup of tea and then he went up to change his coat …”

  “How many coats has he got?” inquired the second man as Mrs. Pringle paused for breath.

  “How many do you suppose he has eight years after the war? If you were thinking Mr. Sherren is in the black market—he wouldn’t think of it, of course, and it’s very expensive, I believe, and anyway I wouldn’t …”

  “Was there any special reason why he should change his coat?” the detective asked. “Did he say anything? Perhaps he’d torn the one he was wearing or there was a hole in the pocket …”

  “I always keep Mr. Sherren’s things nice,” said Mrs. Pringle, with dignity. “Not having a wife, you see, he needs someone to look after him. So when he’s out I just go through his things, a stitch here and a stitch there—saving nine you understand …”

  Mrs. Pringle went on explaining that she had mended a shirt that John had brought back and a little hole in his coat pocket and she’d hurried up and given the black coat a brush, seeing it was a funeral… .

  The first of the plain-clothes men metaphorically choked Mrs. Pringle and said they’d be obliged if she would show them his room.

  “Not without he’s in it,” returned Mrs. Pringle loftily.

  The man produced a warrant. Mrs. Pringle turned pale.

  Very reluctantly she took them upstairs. John had a fair-sized sitting room furnished with solid Victorian pieces, few of which matched, and a much smaller, darker room where he slept. Mrs. Pringle showed a tendency to linger on the threshold, but one of the detectives closed the door firmly and hung his hat over the keyhole. There was a large writing-table in the window and some bookshelves holding some modern verse, a few novels by acknowledged highbrows, and a shelf of solid-looking books dealing

  for the most part with famous trials. No detective stories, though; it was obvious that Mr. Sherren preferred fact to fiction. While they went through the rooms the two men talked quietly.

  “If these chaps knew how to keep their mouths shut,” said one, “they’d save themselves a lot of trouble. I suppose he thought he was safe saying he’d chucked the saccharine bottle away. He didn’t think of them checking up on that. Now, if he’d said he found it in his pocket on the way up to town and chucked it out of the window he’d have been all right.”

  “I suppose even John Sherren isn’t such a fool he’d expect an official to believe that.”

  After a prolonged search, however, the two men had to admit they’d found nothing incriminating at all. When Mrs. Pringle, unable to contain herself any longer, looked in to ask if they could do with a cup of tea, they asked her if her lodger ever took anything to make him sleep.

  She said with dignity: “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but this is a respectable house and no, nothing except aspirin.”

  They pushed her out again, saying they’d be down in a minute. It was a baffling case. You couldn’t get away from the fact that John Sherren had emptied some minute pellets into his aunt’s cup of tea and—this was a striking point—had carefully refrained from putting any pellets from the same bottle into his own cup. True, he said he had none left and in any case Miss Bond produced her tin of sugar just then, and he had helped himself from that. But there was no trace of the bottle itself either in the waste-paper basket in the hall or in the one in his bedroom. The younger of the two men, Romer by name, wandered over to the window where the bookcase stood. His eyes roamed casually over the titles. Suddenly he stiffened.

  “Jenks, look here. These books, trials … Remember that chap in the thirties who murdered a fellow for the sake of his insurance money—he was an agent of some company …”

  “Where’s the parallel here?” interrupted Jenks.

  “He was taken to jail and committed suicide by means of a little phial of some acid that he’d contrived to hide in the hem of his overcoat. And do you remember that old girl downstairs saying something about mending a little hole after Sherren got back?”

  /

  Jenks saw the drift and in a flash had hauled the overcoat from its place in the wardrobe and was eagerly examining it.

  “There’s been a little hole in the pocket recently mended,” he said excitedly. “The cotton’s a little brighter than the material of the lining.” His fingers strayed down to the hem and he began to feel carefully. “There’s something here,” he announced a moment later. “What we want is a razor blade.” He fished one out of his waistcoat pocket and began carefully cutting the stitches. Romer leaned closer. After a moment a tiny bottle containing a few minute white pellets came to light.

  “And if Mrs. Pringle or any one else tries to make out these are aspirin, let her swallow ‘em,” observed Romer grimly.

  In the lobby of Greenglades, Crook, who seemed prepared to do nothing all day, sat exchanging points of view with Marlowe.

  Miss Pettigrew entered the hotel in time to hear Marlowe ask blandly, “Do you know, Crook, if the police are any further on in their investigations?”

  Marlowe politely drew out a chair for Miss Pettigrew, who looked as though she’d like to kick it through the door, but since that clearly was out of the question she accepted it as ungraciously as she knew how.

  “What’s your view. Crook?” Marlowe persisted. “Foul play?”

  “Have they discovered the author of the anonymous letters?” inquired Miss Pettigrew briskly.

  “Do you imagine these letters link up with the murder, assuming it is a murder?” wondered Marlowe aloud.

  “Yes, Mr. Crook, do give us your view,” encouraged Miss Pettigrew.

  “The police don’t confide in me, you know, but since you ask me, I’d say that whoever wrote those letters was responsible for the old lady’s death, which don’t mean he or she dumped the stuff in the teacup. There’s more than one way of puttin’ out the other fellow’s light.”

  His audience was intelligent enough to grasp his meaning. “You mean, Miss Bond may have been driven to suicide, which makes X morally guilty but innocent in the eyes of the law.”

  “Innocent of murder,” acknowledged Crook. “Mind you, I don’t

 
say this is a case of suicide. I think it’s going to be a pot of real un-rationed prewar jam for everyone, excepting X, and even there I don’t know that the police are going to catch up.”

  “I never saw those letters,” said Marlowe. “Are they any clue to the writer? Any particular style?”

  “The only writer among us, so far as my information goes, is little Johnny-Head-In-Air,” said Crook. “Personally, I don’t know what his style is.” He looked across to Miss Pettigrew. “P’raps you’ve read his breath-takin’ romances,” he suggested.

  Miss Pettigrew tossed her head, looking more like an old brown mare than ever. “I may be independent, Mr. Crook, I may like to take my own way regardless of criticism, but I hope I am not so eccentric as to waste any time reading Mr. Sherren’s effusions.”

  “Pity about that,” said Crook blandly. “A bit of eccentricity might have helped us here. Might be able to recognize his style.”

  “There was nothing in any way individual about those letters,” Miss Pettigrew informed him in her sweeping fashion. “Set a thousand people to write anonymous messages in similar circumstances and they would produce almost identical results. A vague threat or two, your life is in danger, a hackneyed quotation to the same effect, a text on the this-night-is-thy-soul-required-of-thee lines, nothing characteristic at all. The only leading point we have is that the writer clearly knew Isabel pretty well, which argues that he or she stands or stood in some personal relationship to her. But then both Mr. Marlowe and myself knew her reasonably well, and we are neither of us, I believe, illiterate. We might, if that were the only test, either of us be responsible for this repellent correspondence.”

  Like an actor entering on cue, John Sherren pushed open the door of the hotel and walked in. He looked rather paler than usual, less polished, less carefully arrayed to meet the indifference of the world.

  “Any news?” he asked them, feeling a stab of apprehension at the sight of the trio seated so cosily in the lobby.

  “We were just agreeing it was anybody’s rope,” replied Crook cordially. “Now, just because it’s always as well to be ready for emergencies, you listen to the man who knows. Remember, if any of you three finds himself in the can, and, as I’ve just said, everything’s possible, even the police can make mistakes and you can

  tell them I said so—there’s one defense that’s foolproof, and only one. / don’t know, I wasn’t there and if I was I don’t remember. Go on saying that over and over to yourself till you start saying it in your sleep. The less most chaps in the witness stand remember, the better for them.”

  “Do you think the police really have one of us in mind?” John demanded. “Oh, but it’s absurd! Murder doesn’t happen.”

  In one’s own circle, he meant. Crook looked at him pityingly, but Miss Pettigrew got there first.

  “That is a remarkable observation to come from you, Mr. Sherren, considering the number of mysterious deaths there have been in your family during the past twelve months.”

  John looked outraged, but Crook said: “That’s what I mean. You need to be like the beasts in the Revelations who had eyes before and behind to keep up with the police when they get an idea into their heads.”

  “And have they?” asked John, trying to sound indifferent.

  The police answered his question for him within the hour. After a telephone conversation with their Metropolitan colleagues, the local authorities, in the shape of Inspector Hyde, to whom John had taken a marked dislike from the first, returned to Greenglades asking for Mr. Sherren. John went to meet the fellow, hoping he looked a lot more composed than he felt. A little later he left the hotel in the company of the Inspector and a police sergeant. They went by car and the sergeant was carrying the small brown suitcase John had brought down from London the day before.

  The author in him noted that, in spite of what they told you in detective stories, the accused man doesn’t always have to wear handcuffs.

  20

  IT IS improbable that John, for all his well meant efforts to please the public with a series of carefully executed novels over a period of years, had ever been half so popular as he was now. Public opinion is a queer thing, as Crook pointed out. While the chase is on, nothing’s bad enough for the criminal, but when the police have got him in their clutches, people start feeling sorry for the fellow. A very healthy reaction. I’d be sorry myself for any poor devil Hyde got his hands on. Of course, the stringency of British justice made it improper for any jury to remember that both his other elderly relatives had died in mysterious circumstances immediately following his visits to their homes, but just as you can’t hide a light under a bushel, so the entire police force was powerless to silence the press. The journalists, of course, exercised considerable discretion. They simply set down the facts. Readers will recall … and just in case they didn’t they recapitulated the odd circumstances. Barring a miracle, Crook confided to Miss Pettigrew, who seemed to have adopted him as her sole confidante, Sherren was in for it.

  “Is this the development you anticipated, Mr. Crook? I have been convinced all along you see a move further than the rest of us.”

  “It don’t surprise me. How about you, Miss P.?” “Surely the prosecution will have to show where he obtained the tablets. I understand his defense is that he knew nothing of them.” “Planted on him, in fact? Well, onus of proof is with him.” “Do you think there is any truth in his contention?” “Now, come. Miss P.” Crook laid a hand like a ham on the spinster’s thin, tweed-clad arm. “Throw dust in the eyes of that masterful Inspector Hyde, if you like, but remember, I’m dust-proof. I’m dead sure I know where those tablets came from, and your guess is as good as mine. Well, well, it’s been an interesting case. Don’t they say history repeats itself?”

  “They do,” agreed Miss Pettigrew. “But I must admit I do not see the application of that particular proverb in present circumstances, unless you mean that every criminal makes mistakes.”

  “Heaven help the police if he didn’t,” said Crook piously. “You know how it says in the Psalms something about the pit they have digged they have fallen in themselves? Of course, in Miss Bond’s case, she got shoved in, but if she hadn’t digged the hole she wouldn’t have got anything worse than a sprained ankle.”

  “Could you,” asked Miss Pettigrew very, very politely, “condescend to my level and tell me what you are talking about?”

  “If you like,” said Crook obligingly, “though I’m sure you could do as much for me and more also. Let’s start with Number One on the list—Miss Isabel Bond. Come to think of it, that was the only successful crime of the three, the other two bein’ boomerangs. It was successful, too, in the sense that the one responsible ‘ull never be brought to justice.”

  “Not man’s justice,” acceded Miss Pettigrew.

  “That’s what I was talkin’ about. Of course it’s too late now, but even if it hadn’t been she’d never have been where John Sherren is at this minute, waitin’ to hear himself ticked off for willful murder. But, you see, sugar—this is the point I’m tryin’ to make—it takes a real genius to get away with murder. Miss Bond thought she’d done it. And mind you, she wasn’t such an amateur as most. This was her second try.”

  “Second? I was not aware of that.”

  “No little bird whisper in your ear how the old Colonel died?”

  “Colonel Bond? Of heart failure.”

  “It’s like what I told you, history repeats itself. Yes, he died of heart failure at a mighty convenient time for Miss Bond. No one ever tell you the tale of the Colonel’s last romance?”

  “I fear you have forgotten my request that you would come down to my level,” Miss Pettigrew reminded him.

  “Well, then there’s every reason to suppose Miss Bond helped Daddy over the line to stop him marrying on his death-bed.”

  “That is a very dangerous assumption, Mr. Crook.”

  “All right. You tell me any other reason why she should hand over half her fortune to his nu
rse immediately after the funeral.”

  Not many people saw Miss Pettigrew at a disadvantage, but at that moment Crook joined their number. She looked at him, literally open-mouthed.

  “I feel sure you must be mistaken,” she said at last in an uncertain voice. “Clara has never given anything away in her whole life.”

  “There was a mistake, all right,” agreed Crook, “but it was Miss Bond’s, not mine. And, of course, the Colonel’s. If I win my guess, nursie wasn’t a dear little angel of mercy, but a tough go-getter who knew how to pull the wool over the eyes of doting old gentlemen.”

  “Blackmail! Dear me, and I never suspected it. Clara certainly knew how to consume her own smoke. That must have made quite a hole in her fortune.”

  You had to hand it to her, Crook acknowledged, she could take it on the chin.

  “It’s what I was saying,” he continued. “No one ever came into the open and accused Miss B. of murder, but someone knew and saw to it that she paid. Now again, no one’s come into court and said she pushed her sister over the balcony, but if someone didn’t know, they had a pretty shrewd notion, and decided she should pay again. Clear so far?”

  “Perfectly. And you know the identity of the person?”

  “Not so much choice, is there? Someone who cared for Miss Isabel. That cuts Marlowe right out, because he cared mostly for what she had. I’d lay all the cash this case is going to cost me he came down to see what he could get out of the old lady; that’s why I don’t think it was him wrote the anonymous letters. He’s not the sort of chap to waste time beating about the bush. If he wanted cash he’d come plump out and say so. As I dare say he had.”