The Man Who Didn't Fly

by Margot Bennett

  “Where?”

  “I’ve rather forgotten the names of the pubs. I was at a loss most of the time. Harry would point out a character and say: Would you like to know what he brought down the ladder last night? And I would say, No, really no. Then we’d talk to the ladder-man, and all I could think of saying would be: Have you been stealing anything interesting recently? So I had to shut up and have another beer instead. Harry mixed in and I couldn’t. My analysis is that they liked him because he was—innocent. He wasn’t the kind of man who could possibly have been a policeman.”

  Murray stopped and looked at the others anxiously. “Am I giving you some kind of idea?” he asked.

  “Go on, please,” Inspector Lewis said.

  “He wasn’t wasting his time,” Murray said defensively. “He picked up a lot of good stories. There was a girl, I think she was called Lily, who was staggering about with a case full of stolen watches; police whistles and burglar alarms going off like foghorns, and she stopped a policeman and told him her husband had thrown her out and could he direct her to a hostel, and he held up the traffic and took her across the road and saw her on to the right bus. Amusing, don’t you think?”

  “Very.”

  “Then there were a couple of sinister characters Harry told me had once been the reigning cracksmen of England. Go anywhere, steal anything. About two years ago they made a mammoth haul. Was there something called the Sackford Diamonds?” He looked up enquiringly.

  Lewis nodded. “In June, two years ago.”

  “Anyway, three of them planned that, three of them carried it out, and two of them were still in the house when the third man cleared off with the lot. They’ve been looking for him ever since. He’s well known to a lot of the boys. They say he had exquisite manners, perhaps not in those very words. And every night at closing time one of the other two brings out a photograph and pushes it under your nose. Or so Harry said. It was never pushed under mine. They offer a reward for information about him, just like the police. The point of the story is they’ve never stolen anything since. They can’t work alone, and they don’t trust each other or anyone else either. Their lives are ruined, Harry said.”

  “I suppose you can’t exactly remember their names either?”

  “I was never introduced,” Murray said firmly. “I’d better come to the point. After a few nights, Harry turned up and said: ‘The boys don’t like you. They think you look like a plainclothes man.’ I was pretty shaken, as anyone might be.”

  He looked appealingly at the inspector, who stared back with enormous detachment, as though he was studying him through plate glass.

  “Actually, I’d already suspected I was being a social failure. I didn’t much fancy having my face smashed in with a bicycle chain. So I dropped out.”

  “But Harry went on?”

  “Yes. I didn’t see him again for a couple of weeks, then he told me, in strict confidence, and I’m quite aware I’m betraying him, I feel like a louse, that he’d been asked to go out on a job with the boys. He said What if he was caught? He could do better than the ballad of Reading Gaol anyway. It was one of those railway mailbag things, but he wouldn’t tell me what or when. I was very unhappy about the whole thing.”

  “You were unhappy,” the inspector repeated with a different inflexion. “But you did nothing?”

  “I didn’t know the train—or even the date. I didn’t know who the boys were. I could have rung Scotland Yard and said someone’s thinking of robbing a mail train, soon. They’d know that already. Somebody’s always thinking of robbing a mail train.”

  “You could have reported the activities of your friend Harry.”

  “That would have been going a bit far, wouldn’t it?”

  “So you’re not opposed to robbery if it’s conducted by your friends?”

  “I knew this interview wasn’t going to turn out well,” Murray said. “But you can put away the thumb-screws. I haven’t connived at any crime. I knew Harry well enough to know he could never finish anything. He didn’t take part in any robbery. He missed the train.”

  “Intentionally?”

  “It was just the way he was. He was a man who was always rushing into situations and then drifting away from them. He wasn’t reliable, in any way. I don’t know if he meant to miss the train. But he did. Then something happened.”

  “Yes?”

  “The robbery was a flop. Someone informed. There were to be four men in it as well as Harry. And three of them were caught.”

  “And Harry missed the train?” Lewis commented. “This would be about five weeks ago?”

  Murray nodded. “About that. I saw Harry the next day. He said his failure to catch the train might be misinterpreted. He said he didn’t want to be François Villon anymore, and crooks were tedious company. He said he was afraid they might be tedious enough to put him in a sack and drop him over London Bridge. He said all he wanted was a quiet place where he could write.”

  “But not Reading Gaol?” Sergeant Young said.

  “No.”

  “Why have you come here with this story, Mr Murray?”

  “Naturally, when I heard about this disappearing passenger, I assumed Harry had had a mortal interview with one of the boys.”

  “Do you think he informed against them?”

  “Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you, not me? I couldn’t tell you what Harry would do. He was an odd sort of man, but very likeable, in his odd sort of way,” Murray said sadly. “May I go now?”

  “Just one or two questions, if you’ve no objections?”

  They asked him a great many questions, but at the end of it they were no wiser, and they let him go.

  When he had gone they opened the windows to let the tobacco-smoke out, and then sent for the files on the train mailbag attempt, and on the Sackford Diamond robbery.

  “I hope this Harry is the man who missed that plane,” Lewis said. “I’d like to meet him.”

  Investigation (4)

  Moira Ferguson sat watching the Wades being interviewed again. Her manner suggested that she was present as a judge, not as a witness. The Wades behaved more like inexpert conspirators. In the four days since the crash of the plane they had lived in a state of shock interrupted by perpetual questioning; now they were so bewildered by their own evasions that they left a little of the truth behind in each abandoned position.

  Charles Wade sat now gazing in mournful appeal at his two daughters, begging them silently for permission to say more than he had said. Hester gave him a quick glance of warning, then closed her eyes. Prudence scowled at the police, then quickly substituted an icy smile. She was sixteen, and her greatest fear was that they might think her unsophisticated.

  Inspector Lewis, looking peculiarly solemn and incorruptible, like a judge at an agricultural show, examined all their faces. Sergeant Young looked around the room, a shabby room in worn chintz, a room with a view across a valley where the morning shadows lay like folds of drapery. He glanced at the roses that sprawled from a blue vase.

  “I’m sorry,” Hester said. “They’re dying. I’ve had no time to change the water.” She looked quickly away from the roses, as though the sight of them caused her pain.

  “So there’s nothing you can tell me about Morgan Price. Nothing at all, except that he was about forty and had no bad habits. In fact, Mr Wade, from what you’ve told me, I’d say he had no habits at all,” Inspector Lewis said carefully.

  “He always thought he was ill when he wasn’t,” Prudence said in a kind of explosion.

  “So he came here for his health?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure,” Hester said, frowning at Prudence.

  “But he lived with you as a paying guest?”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Charles Wade said, glad of the opportunity to answer a simple question.

  “How did he come to live
here? And when?”

  “About a year ago. We put an advertisement in a paper,” Hester said shortly.

  “What did it say?”

  “It’s not easy to be sure now. Something like Quiet house in quiet Cotswolds. Room for paying guest. Suit artist, writer, country-lover.”

  “And which was Morgan Price?”

  “He wasn’t an artist or a writer anyway,” Prudence said promptly.

  “So he must have been a country-lover,” the inspector suggested.

  Moira gave a little twitching laugh.

  “Would you describe him as a country-lover?” Inspector Lewis persisted.

  “He sometimes went for walks,” Hester said.

  “But mostly he stayed in the house,” Prudence added.

  “Why did you want a writer or an artist or a country-lover?”

  “A strange taste is not necessarily criminal,” Hester muttered.

  “Do you have any other paying guests?”

  “No. Let me save you a few questions. We are rather poor. We found we had a spare room, and hoped to make a little money easily. Morgan paid his rent regularly, by cash,” Hester said with some spirit.

  “Did he have many friends?”

  “No. I think he was shy,” Hester said.

  “I don’t think he was shy,” Prudence said.

  “What do you think he was?”

  “I can’t explain.” Prudence wriggled in an unsophisticated manner. “But when we were talking he was always listening to something else, not the conversation, so that people stopped listening to what they were saying and everyone got jumpy.”

  “Had he no profession, no business, no occupation?”

  “Not when he was here.”

  “Did you think he was a strange guest, Mr Wade?”

  Wade looked round for help. “I don’t think so. People have independent means, sometimes. I still know some people who have, and some of them are shy.”

  “And what seems strange afterwards didn’t seem strange at the time,” Hester added quickly.

  “Can you tell me anything about his general behaviour?”

  “He liked doing chess problems or at least he didn’t,” Prudence said. “He would set the pieces up and stare at them then knock the board away and go to the window and look out. That was the way he read books too, for about five minutes at a stretch. He was always sitting down and getting up again. And he and Harry…” She looked at Hester, then let the sentence die.

  “And he what?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Inspector Lewis looked at his fingernails, and Sergeant Young looked at the inspector. They appeared to communicate, for Sergeant Young drew a line in his notebook and turned the page.

  “Now, what about Maurice Reid?” the inspector said. “I’m told he was a friend of the family. Is that so?”

  “Yes,” said Hester, almost whispering. “A friend.”

  “How long had you known him?”

  “About nine months.”

  “And you’d seen a lot of him?”

  “He took a cottage to be near them,” Moira said contemptuously. “Joe never liked him.”

  “He was here the night before the plane left, Mr Wade?”

  “Yes, yes. That’s true. Hester, do you mind, could we have some coffee?”

  The inspector was kind enough to ignore this wistful suggestion.

  “How did you spend this—this last evening?”

  “He had dinner here, but I went to a dance,” Prudence said casually.

  “Then…” Wade began. He looked in appeal at Hester.

  “Then we listened to music,” Hester said quickly. “Records. Bach. Do you like music, Inspector?” she asked wildly.

  “I’m tone-deaf,” the inspector said.

  “I do,” said Sergeant Young unexpectedly. He smiled at Hester. “Do you play, Miss Wade?”

  “I play the violin,” she said, looking at him for the first time, and appearing to be surprised that he should seem so like other human beings.

  “I was once going to be a professional pianist. But I wasn’t good enough. So I joined the police force.” He looked cautiously at his superior, who smiled just enough to show that the sergeant was to be allowed rope to inspire confidence.

  “What kind of man was Maurice Reid, Miss Wade?” Lewis asked more amiably.

  “He seemed reliable and kind. He had a square, brown face. I think he had travelled a lot. He wasn’t young—between thirty-five and forty, I suppose. He always seemed healthy, and almost aggressively clean.” She looked gravely at the two detectives, who were brushed, scrubbed, shaved, creased, and shining, as if they had been preparing for inspection by Royalty. “He had a flat in London. Down here he had a tiny week-end cottage, and lived alone in it.” She looked coldly at Moira. “To be near them, the third person plural, one supposes.”

  “What was his occupation?”

  “Something in the city, wasn’t it, Father?” she said, trying to control the trembling of his hands with a look.

  “So he had money?”

  “Not real money,” Moira Ferguson intervened again.

  Lewis turned to her. “It was your husband who chartered the plane?”

  “You know it was. I’ve said so, often enough. He had to go to Ireland on business. He chartered it for himself and his associates, who in the end couldn’t come. That’s why these others flew with him—if they did. He was trying to fill up the seats. And I’ll tell you now that he had an occupation. He was a company director, and his special interest was the Constellation Circuit—cinemas, you know. He at least was respected by everyone,” she said in a flat voice.

  “I’m sorry to ask these questions now.”

  She ignored the apology, and sat as still as if she had been drugged.

  “Then there’s Harry Walters,” the inspector said.

  “Harry?” Moira repeated with hatred. “He stayed with us. But there’s nothing I can tell you. He’s Hester’s concern.”

  Hester stared at the floor.

  “He was a poet,” Prudence volunteered.

  “A poet,” the inspector repeated, apparently surprised. “Do you know anything about poetry, Sergeant?”

  “A little, sir.”

  “I thought so.” The inspector shut his lips and sank back in his chair.

  “Did you like his poetry?” Sergeant Young asked Prudence carefully.

  “I thought it was pretty feeble,” she said. “I like good poetry. Browning and people like that.”

  “I don’t care for Browning much. Did you like his poetry, Miss Wade?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you, Mrs Ferguson?”

  “I’m no judge,” she said, looking away. “My husband didn’t like Harry.”

  Lewis sat up again. “Did he ever read you his poems, Miss Wade?”

  “Read? Not exactly. No, he didn’t read his poems to me.”

  “But he sometimes quoted lines?”

  Sergeant Young turned away, like a specialist whose evidence was no longer required.

  “I’m anxious to help,” Hester said in a low voice. “But I don’t see the point of those questions.”

  “I’m trying to form an idea of all those four men. They were all known to you. Did you know Harry Walters well?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Did anyone here know him well?” He looked directly at Moira Ferguson.

  “I did,” Prudence said. “He was always coming here for meals. And he used to play Donegal Poker. With Morgan.”

  The inspector looked at the sergeant for help. “I’ve never heard of it, sir.”

  “So Harry Walters and Morgan Price were friends?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Is there anything that Harry Walters was, exactly?”
>
  “Nothing that could be described in a few words. People aren’t classified, like racing cars,” Hester said in agitation.

  “Take as many words as you like.”

  Hester looked desperate, and her father spoke quickly, trying to shield her from the heavy artillery, like a loyal native with a bow and arrow.

  “How can we answer these questions? What can one decently say of the dead? Harry was cheerful, entertaining, kind. He was helpful, even generous, sometimes,” he protested.

  Inspector Lewis nodded incredulously, and turned to Hester again. “He sounds an ideal character,” he said, on a note of suggestion.

  “I know how I’d describe him,” Prudence muttered. “Oh, I’m sorry, Hester.”

  “Please say what you think, Prudence,” her elder sister said contemptuously. “Inspector Lewis wants information.”

  “I won’t say a word,” Prudence said, beginning to sob. “I promise you I won’t, Hester.”

  “This is worse than words,” Hester said.

  Moira laughed, implying that she could say a great deal about Harry, if she chose.

  “Tell us what you want to know,” Hester said.

  “I’ll try to explain, Miss Wade. One of these four men, all intimate friends of your family—and all known to you, Mrs Ferguson—had such powerful reasons for wanting to disappear that he took the course of pretending to die on that plane. Shall we say that he missed the plane, heard of the crash, and discovered almost instantly—the same day, if he listened to the news bulletin—that no one knew which three of the passengers had travelled? He took the chance of pretending to be one of them, and of disappearing for good. There must have been something very strange in this man’s private life to make him do this. You’re in a position to know something of the private lives of all these men. In the public interest, I’d like to hear what you know.”

  “Oh, the public interest,” Prudence muttered scornfully.

  “There are other points,” Inspector Lewis said mildly. “There’s Mrs Ferguson, here. She doesn’t know if her husband is dead or alive. Some of the others might have been married—might even have fathers, or sisters, who are doing a bit of worrying now.” He stopped, and gave them a minute to let their confusion deepen.