by Bruce, Leo
“I don’t know how you look at it. I’ve heard things which are ‘blood-curdling’, as you call it, in what seem the most commonplace conversations. I heard one this morning. What’s more, you may as well know that the people I’m going to see today are only a beginning. We have Hoysden’s housekeeper yet, Alan Bourne’s sister Olivia Romary, his wife Anita and above all his son Charles described as ‘eighteen, spotty and opinionated’. Then there’s the young lover Keith and the somewhat older lover Sandy Rothsay. Can’t afford to skip any of those.”
“But suppose Drumbone’s right and Hoysden had only an illusion that he had killed someone? ”
“I don’t think it was an illusion.”
“You can’t be sure. And if it was the whole thing will be a frightful waste of time and we shall have spent days in this new town eating Olde Englisshe Fayre for nothing. I wish you’d taken that New Cross case. It sounded like a snorter.”
“Patience. Things have a way of developing when you least expect it.”
But the first sight of Mr Slugley, the hall-porter, or as he called himself the janitor, of the block of flats over Hoysden’s music shop, promised no development at all. He was a large torpid man who absently picked his teeth with a match and with liverish eyes watched the road while he was speaking instead of looking back at his interlocutor.
“Yers …” he said absently. “I was on duty that Sat’d’y. Why? ”
“I wondered whether you noticed anything,” said Carolus.
“Not to say notice, no, I can’t say I did. But what was there to notice? That’s what I’d like to know. I asked the police that. What was I expected to notice? I asked them.” Mr Slugley paused to yawn. “They said ‘anything unusual’. There was nothing unusual. Not that I saw, anyway.”
Carolus was too experienced a catechist to let it go at this.
“Was there much coming and going? ”
“There’s always coming and going. You have to get used to it. But that evening there was nothing out of the way. I’ve got to know most of them that comes, whether they live in the block or are just visitors, and so far as I could see there wasn’t one I hadn’t seen before.”
“Did you know any of them as visitors to Mr Hoysden? ”
“No. I can’t say I did. He hasn’t had a lot of visitors since his wife’s gone off and left him.”
“What time did he come in that evening? ”
“Now that I can’t tell you. Unless he slipped in when I wasn’t noticing it must have been before eight o’clock when I came on duty. I never saw him that evening at all. Nor did Mr White who was on before me, because the police asked him, too.”
There, it seemed, a dead end had been reached, and Priggley moved impatiently. But Carolus stood his ground. And sure enough, after another yawn, while his yellowish eyes were still dully directed to the street scene, Mr Slugley spoke again.
“There was only one could have been to Mr Hoysden’s flat. That was this schoolboy.”
Carolus knew better than to ask ‘which schoolboy?’ The identification, suggested as antecedent by ‘this’, would follow in due course.
“I didn’t think it worth mentioning to the police. To tell you the truth I’ve only just thought of it. It may be nothing to do with anything.”
“I should hardly think that.”
“It seemed rather funny at the time. See, there’s a room at the back where one of us sleeps at night. The company’s very particular about that. Must always be one of us on the premises. It’s just between the back entrance and the tradesmen’s lift. The back entrance is locked at night just before I go off duty at eleven. That night it can’t have been long after half-past ten when I could see there wasn’t much doing, so I thought I might as well lock up and go to my room at the back for a read of the paper. I’d just gone out there to find my keys and was having a look at the cricket when I heard the service lift on the move downwards from the first floor. I thought that’s funny at this time of night, but didn’t pay much attention till it stopped and someone got out and opened the back door which is on to the car park. I thought I might as well just see who it was so I put my paper down and had a look. He was half-way across the car park before I’d got the door open, but we keep a light on out there till eleven, and I could see it was a boy from the Grammar School. I know their cap, see? ”
“A big boy? ”
“Yers. Tall as what you are, I should say, with one arm in a sling.”
“Dark glasses? ”
“Yers, now you mention it I believe he had.”
“You did not know him? ”
“No. They all look the same to me. I couldn’t tell one from another.”
“Were any of them in the habit of coming here? ”
“Never see one in the place ”
“You would fix the time as soon aften ten-thirty? ”
“Between half-past ten and quarter to eleven, anyway.”
“You had no reason for thinking he came from Mr Hoysden’s flat? ”
“Yers, in a way. The lift came from the first floor and there are only six flats there. Gables and Killicks are both away on holiday. Old Mrs Benton-Culverly’s in bed by nine and her companion’s nearly as old as she is. You wouldn’t catch them having schoolboys in the flat at half-past ten—too mean, they are, apart from anything else. Don’t seem to know anyone’s here, even at Christmastime. I said to …”
“And the other two flats? ”
“Mrs Jacobs is seriously ill. They say she can’t be moved, even to hospital. She’s got nurses there all the time. One of them’s always wanting something. Then the last flat is a young couple. She’s just had a baby. It’s her first, and you know what that means.”
“No. I’m afraid I’ve no experience.”
Mr Slugley withdrew the match from the cavity he had been exploring in the third molar of the upper jaw.
“Then I’ll tell you what it means because I’ve got five. It means that they don’t think or talk of nothing else, nor have anyone near except to take a peep at it; it means you’re up half the night with it, and if you do happen to doze off your wife’s shaking you to ask if it isn’t time for baby to have something or other. It means … well, anyhow it means that you wouldn’t have no schoolboy in your flat at half-past ten at night unless he was one of the family, which he wasn’t, because they’ve only just come to live here from Newcastle and don’t know a soul in the place.”
“I see. So you think this mysterious schoolboy with his arm in a sling had been to see Mr Hoysden? ”
“Looks like it, doesn’t it? ”
“I suppose it does. Tell me, does the car park come under your supervision? ”
“Not as part of my work it doesn’t. I’ve got quite enough to do as it is. But I do take a look round it every now’n again. It so happens I’m interested in cars. Always have been.”
Carolus suppressed his surprise that Slugley was interested in anything and asked: “Did you happen to go out there during the evening? ”
“Yers. I did have a look once. Why? ”
“What time would that have been? ”
“Oh, I couldn’t say, not to the minute. It was after nine. I should say between nine and half-past.”
“All in order? ”
“Yers. Same as usual. Except there was one car I noticed particularly because it was a Mercedes. We don’t often get one of them.”
“You didn’t see its owner? ”
“No. But very likely he didn’t come in here at all. There’s the Fox and Hounds just across the way, and I’ve often seen them use our car park while they go in there. They’ve no business to, but I don’t say anything. I’ve got enough to do.”
“I’m very much obliged to you.” A ten-shilling note flickered for a moment and disappeared as though a conjuror’s success depended on its quick concealment. “Now can you tell me which tenants it was who told the police they had heard the shot? ”
“Yers. But I don’t know as it will be much use
to you. They’re both pretty shaky about it, though one’s all talk and the other don’t say much. The police went to every flat in the building where the people aren’t away, but these was the only two they got anything from. They’re both on the second floor funnily enough. No one on the same floor as Mr Hoysden heard anything at all. Still you can go. You might be able to make something of it. They’re the Nodges in number 21 and Hoskinses in 23. I don’t know whether any of them are in now but you can try.”
The lift in this block was even swifter than in Drumbone House, and Carolus felt like something being launched from the Woomera range. A little dizzily he sought number 21 and rang the bell.
A bright blonde woman in a yellow overall opened the door and looked like a huge canary.
“Is it about Downstairs? “she asked at once, “Because my husband says we don’t want any more reporters after that picture they published of him in an apron.”
“I’m not a reporter,” said Carolus. Then, deciding to chance it, added, “I’m acting for Lady Drumbone.”
“I don’t know what to say. What is it you want to know? ”
“Only about the shot,” said Carolus.
“I suppose you’d better come in, though there’s not much to tell, and I’ve got some friends coming to play bridge in a minute. We heard it quite distinctly, bang, like that. I said’ I believe that was a shot’, but my husband would have it it was was a car back-firing.”
“Did you notice the time? ”
“That’s what the police wanted to know. We’ve gone over it again and again and can’t be sure. But it wasn’t before half-past ten and not after eleven-fifteen. That’s all I can tell you. Of course I never dreamt at the time it was poor Mr Hoysden. Otherwise we should have gone down.”
“You knew him, then?”
“Just to say good-morning to. But we shouldn’t let that stand in the way in case of someone shooting himself. I noticed at the time it sounded sort of muffled as though it came from inside the building, but my husband said no, it was outside. So there you are.”
“You heard nothing more? ”
“Then, you mean? No. But it was a funny thing I must have dreamed about the shot because I woke up in the night and could have sworn I heard it. I can tell you what time that was because I turned the light on to take an aspirin and it was ten minutes to four. But my husband said I’d got shots on the brain—he hadn’t heard anything and wanted to get to sleep.”
“Thank you, Mrs Nodges. Do the police know about that second shot? ”
“Oh, I don’t suppose it was any more than me dreaming, really. I never mentioned it. My husband said, ‘Don’t, for goodness’ sake. People will think you’re not right in the head if you go on talking about shots.’ So this is the first time I’ve said anything. But it was funny, wasn’t it? ”
“Yes,” replied Carolus in time to stop Priggley saying ‘screamingly’.
“Then if you want to know any more you’d better go and see Mr Hoskins, though you’ll find he’s quiet. Very quiet, indeed. It’s as much as any of us can do to get a word out of him, though she talks for the two of them when she’s here. She’s away now and you’ll find him alone, if he’s in. My husband calls him the hermit crab.”
“Thank you once again.”
Carolus was relieved to find that preparations for her bridge party kept Mrs Nodges from following his movements and he rang the bell of 23 unobserved.
Mr Hoskins came himself to the door, a tall, thin man with a long, sad face. He seemed to realize the tactical advantages of silence in the face of an intruder, for he stood there without speaking and waited for Carolus to explain himself.
“Mr Hoskins? ”
The long, thin lips opened scarcely at all to emit an abridged North-country sound.
“Ay,” said Mr Hoskins.
“I’m investigating the matter of Richard Hoysden’s death, on behalf of Lady Drumbone. Could I have a few words with you? ”
“Ay,” said Mr Hoskins, but did not move from his stance in the doorway.
“I understand you heard the shot? ”
Hoskins showed no emotion.
“Ay,” he answered.
“What time would that have been? ”
Priggley whispered ‘Got him this time’ and waited. But Priggley was wrong. Mr Hoskins only shrugged his shoulders. As if resigned to playing Twenty Questions with a taciturn question-master, Carolus said “Would it have been after ten-thirty? ”
“Ay,” said Mr Hoskins, back on safe ground.
“Before eleven? ”
Mr Hoskins surprised them both with his loquacity.
“Couldn’t say.”
He showed no impatience to shut the door however, seeming resigned to such chatty interludes.
“Did you hear anything else that night? ”
Mr Hoskins shook his head.
“You are, perhaps, a heavy sleeper? ”
“Ay.”
“And you were alone that night? ”
“Ay.”
“You would have heard it if there had been another shot? ”
Carolus and Priggley waited breathlessly. They were rewarded by two syllables.
“There weren’t,” said Mr Hoskins.
“But if you sleep heavily and it was in the small hours? ”
“There weren’t,” repeated Mr Hoskins.
“Did you know Richard Hoysden? ”
“Ay.”
Carolus was about to say ‘intimately?’ when he realized the absurdity of the question to Mr Hoskins.
“See much of him? ”
This caused a hold-up. At last Mr Hoskins found a single word to explain what, for most of us, would necessitate a hundred at least.
“Music,” he said.
“Oh, you shared his interest in music and perhaps heard it together. Was there a particular programme that night? ”
“Ay. Beethoven’s Trio in E Minor,” said Mr Hoskins in an unprecedented burst of loquacity.
“And did you go down to Hoysden’s flat to listen? ”
Mr Hoskins shook his head.
“You did not see him at all that evening? ”
Again a slow head-shake.
“But you think he listened to a certain programme? ”
“Ay.”
“He had told you he intended to? ”
“Ay.”
Carolus decided to look up Saturday’s programmes to see the time of this one rather than become involved in further conversational exchanges with Mr Hoskins.
“I’m very much obliged to you,” he said, and found that unconsciously, as though talking to someone hard of hearing, his voice had grown louder and louder as he battled with the other’s monosyllables.
“I’m not deaf,” said Mr Hoskins.
Carolus did not trust himself to answer.
9
“No more today,” pleaded Priggley.
“Ay,” said Carolus, making for the stairs rather than the lift.
“Not the schoolboy? Not Alan Bourne’s home? ”
“Ay,” said Carolus relentlessly.
“It’s too much,” said Priggley. “I shall throw up.”
“Hang on while I telephone,” Carolus said when they were outside the building, for the new town of Maresfield had telephone booths like sentries at most street-corners.
He returned smiling.
“We’re invited to tea by Anita Bourne,” he said.
The family lived in one of the houses which the planners of the new town had left from the old, choosing, for preservation, a group of hideous Victorian villas. Mount Edgcumbe had bay windows, a conservatory, Portugal laurels, asphalt paths, geraniums, sun-blinds and ornamental trees which Carolus suspected of being laburnums. The door was opened by a middle-aged woman whose appearance and manner were somewhere between those of a servant and a member of the family.
She showed them into a room with so much chintz and displayed silver and smell of camphor that it could only be called ‘the drawing-ro
om’.
“Anita obviously means to make an entrance,” said Priggley.
This was an understatement. Mrs Bourne when she came in seemed to be awaiting a round of applause.
“Miss-ter Deene! “she cried.” I have been expecting you! When my husband told me you had taken up our tragedy, I said ‘Ah, now we shall know the truth about poor Richard.’ Any information I can give is yours, I need scarcely say.”
“Thank you. Is your son in? ”
“My son? Charles? I can scarcely imagine any connection which he, a mere schoolboy, might have with this, but of course if he can tell you anything he will. He is in, yes. But pray let me ring for tea.”
It was many years since Carolus had heard that Edwardian phrase and it recalled starched caps and aprons. The middle-aged person who had opened the door brought in a tray but said “Where will you have it? “in a most unmenial way.
Then Charles appeared—with his arm in a sling. He was, as Carolus had been warned, spotty, but seemed too nervous to be self-opinionated.
Carolus and Priggley were placed at some distance from Mrs Bourne, so would have to balance cups and plates on the arms of their chairs, for their hostess evidently meant to show that she knew how to do things. Charles was told to hand round their cups after ceremonious questions about sugar and ‘cream’ had been asked and answered.
Mrs Bourne was pretentiously dressed and had a carefully cultivated speaking voice; the sort of affected and languishing woman one expected to talk about things being U and Non-U.
“And now,” she said almost simperingly, “What are you going to ask me, Mr Deene? I am ready for the ordeal.”
Carolus turned to the schoolboy son who had his mouth full of cake.
“What’s the matter with your arm? “he asked, rather peremptorily.
Mrs Bourne answered for Charles, who looked rather confused.
“The silly boy fell off his bicycle,” she said. “Dr Stott says he is lucky not to have broken his wrist.”
“When did this happen?” Carolus looked straight at Charles.
“Last Friday,” he said sulkily.
“Only he did not tell me till Saturday morning. I sent him to Dr Stott at once and he dressed it.”
