George Exmouth clutched his hair. His face was very white and his eyes very wild, and his pale lips trembled like the lips of a frightened child. He said in a terrified whisper: ‘You don’t mean that Mr. Port…?’
‘Came the dawn!’ said Charlesworth to Sergeant Bedd.
But Mr. Port! ‘Why on earth should he want to kill Isabel Drew? He was in love with her: he was having an affair with her—or—or something, anyway,’ finished George uncertainly. Mr. Port was old, probably as old as fifty or even sixty: did old men have ‘affairs’ and if not what had there been between Mr. Port and Isabel Drew—who quite certainly did have affairs—anybody could tell that, just by looking at her: even anybody who was only seventeen and a half and had not as yet had any affairs.
‘Mr. Port was very anxious that the news of the “affair” such as it was, shouldn’t get back to his wife; and Isabel Drew was probably not beyond exerting a little pressure in the way of blackmail.’
‘Even so—why kill Earl Anderson?’
Charlesworth moved restlessly in his chair, a tortured thing of plastic and twisted steel. Why should old Port kill Anderson? It was tricky, that. ‘You yourself suggested a reason,’ he said. ‘To take his place in the pageant.’
‘Would Mr. Port kill a man just for that? A man he had nothing against?’
‘No,’ said Charlesworth. ‘I don’t think he would. And if he did, he would hardly chop off his head and send it haring about the countryside in a nasty messy parcel. Unless of course Anderson was in cahoots with Isabel Drew over the blackmail business.’
‘But Anderson himself was being blackmailed by Isabel.’
‘Yes,’ said Charlesworth. ‘And there’s still the business about Peppi Kirk—the notes and the adventure in the little dressing room, and the sending of the head. But there’s only one thing that those three had in common, Isabel and Anderson and Perpetua Kirk—and that was that business about the boy, Johnny Wise.’
‘And of course Mr. Port knew Johnny Wise in Malaya.’
Charlesworth picked up a pencil from Charity’s nightmare desk and started idly to doodle on a sheet of paper. ‘They all knew Johnny Wise in Malaya: Brian Bryan, Miss Betchley and Edgar Port. But just knowing a person is not sufficient reason for murdering on his account. People don’t do murder for their casual friends—not long-calculated, long-planned, savage, cold-blooded murder.’
‘It depends how casual their friends were,’ said Sergeant Bedd, perched on the edge of his chair as though it would cry out if he put his full weight on to its atrophied legs.
‘Well, they naturally all claim that Johnny Wise was quite a “casual”. Miss Betchley played tennis with him, Brian Bryan met him at parties, Mr. Port thought he was a charming lad, and Mrs. Port was so fond of him—indeed Mr. Port says that Johnny reminded Mrs. Port of their lost son. But none of them knew him well. And we can’t check anything. The records have gone up in the smoke of Japanese fires, friends and families are dead or dispersed: we’ve got to take their words for it.’
‘I never knew this Johnny Wise,’ said George carefully.
‘You would have been about nine years old when he died.’
George lost a shade more of his colour. He said rather quickly: ‘What about his family?’
‘His family consisted of a father and a mother and two or three brothers as far as we know. A chap of that name was killed by the Japanese during the early days of the invasion: but just who he was, we aren’t sure. Johnny had a twin that he was frightfully devoted to: and the classic thing would be that the murderer is his twin, come back to avenge his death. But there just is nobody in the cast who fits the role of the twin, so that’s out.’ He had doodled a little row of people who might conceivably be taken to represent the ‘cast’, and he now ticked them off lightly as he spoke. ‘Johnny was twenty-three or twenty-four when he died: he’d be about thirty now. And Mr. Port’s in his middle fifties, and Earl Anderson is or was in his middle forties, and you’re seventeen, and Brian Bryan’s thirty-nine.’
‘He says,’ said George, significantly.
‘No,’ said Charlesworth. ‘It’s not just “he says”. There’s a difference between just over thirty and just under forty—and Brian Bryan is just under forty. It’s in his walk and manner and his—his eye, and his hair and his teeth—he’s not a young young man. If it’s got to be the twin, it isn’t Brian Bryan—and there’s nobody else.’ He ticked off Brian Two-times with the rest of them—n.b.g.
So back to Mr. Port.
George had been, after all, trained to observation by a mother who made a fat living out of copying other people’s ideas. He sat and thought for a long time, his thin fingers rumpling his little-boy hair, and said at last: ‘It’s true that he—the Red Knight—did look rather small as he went off through the arch. Smaller than Anderson. One thought of it—if one thought of it at all—as the effect of—of pathos: one just thought how small and forlorn and rather pathetic he looked, staggering out of the place, away from all the dreadfulness: after all, he had known her for years—I mean, Earl Anderson had known her for years. And she did look terrible. I saw just a glimpse of her face when he lifted her up.’
‘Just a glimpse?’
‘Yes, his cloak sort of hid her. I still don’t see… I’m bewildered…’
Charlesworth could not be bothered clearing up matters for bewildered Master Exmouth. He got up abruptly off his chair, which let out a creak of relief; and began pacing the room. His fingers had twisted the paper he had been doodling on, into a little scroll and he pointed it challengingly at George as he walked. ‘Never mind how he did it: suppose for the moment that the part of the Red Knight was taken—was definitely taken—by Mr. Port. Can’t you remember anything, anything that would confirm this? He didn’t speak to you as you went round? He didn’t make any sort of movement or gesture that you would recognize? There wasn’t any—any distinguishing mark?’ How a man in a full suit of armour could exhibit distinguishing marks he could not quite see: but dash it all… And the knights had worn their visors up so as to see which way they were going: surely, surely George Exmouth sitting his horse slap opposite the fellow for at least sixty seconds must have recognized something about his face? Well, the bridge of his nose, then? His forehead then? His eyes?
His eyes. George Exmouth said slowly: ‘Yes. I could see their eyes. I saw Brian Bryan look over at me with a sort of alarm and astonishment when his horse began to buck about: and then I looked across at the Red Knight, because I didn’t know what on earth we ought to do. But Earl Anderson had blue eyes. And now that I think of it—now that I think of it—the eyes that looked back into mine that night—were brown.’
Just precisely what Mr. Charlesworth had wanted to know.
Perpetua lay on her bed in a woolly jersey and dark slacks: and with rugs, and her eiderdown over her, for all the summer sunshine could not get warm. She looked very frail, her face pale and thin under the mop of queer, thick golden hair; her eyes were clouded and her mouth held its old look of pain and defeat. Brian sat quietly beside her, holding her hand. ‘Don’t think of it, Peppi… Forget it, don’t go on brooding over it… He is dead now, Peppi, what does it matter if somebody plays ugly tricks with—with him? He does not know, he does not care, he is peaceful. Forget all about it, go now to sleep, I am here, I look after you…’ But now the telephone rang. He stretched out an arm for it. ‘Yes? Yes, I take it.’ After a moment, unobtrusively, he rang off, though he still held the receiver to his ear. ‘Sorry, I think you got the wrong number. This telegram is not for here.’ He held out his hand to her again and she took it in both her own and laid her cheek against it: and so at last went softly off to sleep. He sat looking down at her with pity and tenderness.
Inspector Cockrill was fated to attend not one full sitting of his conference. He was disturbed by a telephone call and went out grumpily to the little box in the hall outside the conference room. A high, clear voice said, out of the past: ‘Cockie, pet!—Is it really you?’
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p; ‘Who is that?’ said Cockie austerely.
But he knew. And even his grim old heart melted at that young voice. It said: ‘Do so many young women ring you up and call you “Cockie, pet”?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Most of them haven’t got the nerve. And only one that I know, has the nerve to track me down and ring me up at a police conference! That’s Francesca Hart. What do you want, you naughty little girl?’
‘Darling Cockie!’ said Fran.
‘Don’t “darling Cockie” me. What is it now?’
‘You ought to be grateful,’ said the other end of the telephone. ‘I saw that you were interested in this case, Cockie, and by the most fantastic coincidence, I think I know something about it. Because I was in a telephone box in Piccadilly Circus underground the other evening—Tuesday evening—and I heard somebody talking to that man who’s been found dead: Earl Anderson. I read about him in the papers this morning.’
‘You heard somebody talking to Anderson?’
‘Yes. It was after ten and I couldn’t get a taxi, and I was worried about not getting home because the baby wasn’t very well… You know I’ve got a baby now, Cockie?’
‘High time,’ said Cockie. ‘Well, so at ten o’clock you were in a call box at Piccadilly…?’
‘And I couldn’t get through. But, of course I knew there was someone at home, so I didn’t ring off but simply hung on and waited. And I could just hear what the person in the next box to me was saying: you can sometimes, if you’re not listening to anyone else. It was a man and he said: “Can I speak to Earl Anderson, please?” I noticed because it seemed such a funny way to put it: I mean, you’d call an Earl “Lord” or something like that, wouldn’t you? Or wouldn’t you?’
‘I’ve never called an Earl anything,’ said Cockie. ‘In this case it was a man’s name: or the name he acted under.’
‘Well, yes, of course I realized that after a bit. Anyway, then I’m afraid I decided to press button B. and start all over again, so I missed what was said next; but still no answer from home, so I began idly to listen again, and this time it was a long story about a marvellous chance and something about Micky Balcon. So then I’m afraid I listened all the more, because it did seem nice for somebody to be having a marvellous chance and being talked about by Michael Balcon…’
‘Why is it always Michael Balcon?’ said Cockie.
‘I most say it always is, isn’t it?’ said Francesca. ‘And they always call him “Micky”. Do you mean to say that Earl Anderson was just a down-and-out, and Michael Balcon hadn’t been talking about him at all?’
‘I don’t suppose Michael Balcon ever even heard of him.’
‘Well, this person said he had, he said that Micky Balcon simply adored Earl Anderson’s work, and he mentioned a lot of other names. But I’m afraid I missed a bit here, because I got fed up and asked “O” to try my number for me, and she did and I got through: but I did just hear the man say something about O.K. then, and they’d meet at half past eleven at the Golden Golliwog and he seemed to be giving directions and saying something about wearing a red carnation, as though perhaps Earl Anderson wouldn’t recognize him. But then I got through and Nanny had been in her bath all that time, and the baby was perfectly all right; and in some peculiar way I’d got through without ever pushing button A., so I got my tuppence back and went away. Considering the time they’d taken getting me through, Cockie, I think that was fair, don’t you?’
Cockie was not interested in the ethics of his girl-friends in swizzling the telephone company because their nannies took so long over their baths. ‘Where or what is the Golden Golliwog?’
‘A very nasty pub, darling, out on the Maidenhead road. Pseudo-Tudor without, red leather and chromium within, and Dancing in what was the barn and still ought to be.’
‘Oh. Now, Francesca—any sort or kind of description of this man?’
But this was too much to hope. The man had seemed rather sort of slouched down in the call-box and he had a soft hat on and, as far as she remembered, a mackintosh; but he kept his back turned to her.
‘You’re certain sure it was a man?’
‘He was dressed like a man,’ said Francesca, doubtfully. ‘But I couldn’t possibly say that it wasn’t a woman dressed up, if that’s what you mean. I hardly really noticed what he looked like—we were sort of back-to-back in our little boxes, and as he wasn’t even the Earl Anderson who was getting the Chance, I wasn’t so much interested in him. All that I can say is that I have a vague impression that he wore a soft hat and a mac, but so did practically every other man in Piccadilly that night: it was a bit drizzly, if you remember? Most men would have worn a mac’
Inspector Cockrill knew of one man who always wore a mac. ‘What was his voice like? You can tell me that… Any—any peculiarities?’
But his voice had been—just a man’s voice. Not a very old voice, not a particularly young voice, not high, not low, not squeaky, not apparently in any way disguised. And not ‘foreign’.
Cockrill rang up the Yard and told Inspector Charlesworth. ‘A middling sized man,’ said Charlesworth, excitedly. ‘Ordinary English voice. On the night Earl Anderson disappeared—luring him away on this excuse—a chap like Anderson will hare off anywhere for the smell of a job!—down towards the Maidenhead road. He waited for him there, I suppose: stopped the car on some pretext, got him to go up the side-turning, perhaps, and there blipped him on the head, strangled him and lugged him out on to the grass and chopped off his head. A smallish man: ordinary English voice. And from nine o’clock onwards that evening Edgar Port was in his hotel room—he says. No alibi.’ He snapped his fingers and gave the desk a little bonk! with his clenched hand. ‘We’ve got him!’ he said.
No use going back to the conference now. Cockie collected his hat, slapped it on to his head, and stumped out into the sunshine, his head thrust a little forward, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, very deep in thought. He stood himself an early lunch at the Maison Lyons and then walked on across the Park still thinking deeply: and came at last to the gate leading out into Bayswater Road. Miss Betchley was sitting on a bench near the gate. He changed direction and approached her without ceremony. ‘I was just coming along to see you.’
Susan Betchley put down her newspaper; her eyes were red-rimmed as though she had been having a quiet cry behind its pages. She said ungraciously: ‘Oh! Were you?’
Cockie sat down beside her, crossing his short legs. ‘I wanted to have a talk to you, my dear girl. I think you’re going to get yourself into a bit of a mess, if you’re not very careful.’
She folded the newspaper with inordinate care. She said again: ‘Oh,’ in that flat, uninterested voice. But she added: ‘In what way?’
Cockie rather liked Susan Betchley. She was a girl with ‘no nonsense about her’, as downright and uncompromising as a man. He said: ‘What is there between you and this fellow Brian Twice, or whatever it is they call him?’
She opened her brown eyes wide. ‘Between Brian Bryan and me?—nothing whatsoever!’
‘But—you’re protecting him in some way: you’re telling lies to protect him. Now, Scotland Yard is going to begin examining this young man’s actions very carefully, shortly: and I’m a little afraid that you’re going to get yourself into trouble.’
‘I thought you thought he was out of it? I thought you were encouraging all this—all this lovey-dovey with Perpetua Kirk?’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘So that’s the way the wind blows?’
‘The wind doesn’t blow any way,’ she said, angrily. ‘There isn’t any wind to blow.’
Cockie took out the inevitable cigarette papers and tobacco and, sitting on the slatted wooden bench beside her, began to concentrate on making himself a cigarette. He said flatly: ‘My dear girl—you’re in love with the fellow!’
He kept his eyes down: but he could see the big, brown hands clenched together between her knees, could see the short, unvarnished nails digging into the palms. She said at las
t: ‘What sort of a fool would I be, to be in love with Brian Bryan?’
‘It’s not always the most sensible thing in the world,’ said Cockie, ‘to fall in love.’
She disregarded him. ‘At my age! Well over thirty—to fall in love, to wallow like any callow schoolgirl in a drama of unrequited passion!’ She looked down at her hands, at her handsome unalluring legs and stubby, square feet. ‘As if any man could love me! Me—why, I’m like a man myself, heavy and ugly… He’d have to be a pansy!’ She rattled the newspaper, holding it up fanwise before her face, as two tears tumbled over and raced one another down her swarthy cheeks. ‘Look at me! Look at me! Even—even in agony, I’m just rather—rather grotesque, a figure of fun, sitting here weeping into The Times, over a pair of blue eyes that have never even looked my way: trying to turn a silly schoolgirl schwarm into a grande passion…’ She rubbed her cheeks with the back of her hands and pulled herself abruptly together. ‘Well—now I suppose I’ve given myself away, good and proper. But you can’t despise me more than I despise myself.’
He puffed at the completed cigarette. ‘I don’t despise you, my dear child. He’s a very attractive fellow, and when you come to my age, you’ll look upon your own age as just about ripe for a nice schoolgirl pash! What I’m concerned about is, that you’ll do yourself harm telling fibs on his behalf. The police are going to get very busy, very soon.’
‘I thought you were the police,’ she said sullenly.
‘Well, I am, and I’m not. Anyway, in this matter I’m speaking only for your own good. You’ll get yourself into a muddle, and not benefit him.’
‘I don’t even see why you should think I’m going out of my way to defend him.’
He looked at her from under his bushy eyebrows. ‘My dear Miss Betchley—I’ve been listening to witnesses giving evidence for something like forty years. I saw the way you looked across at Mr. Bryan when you said that you’d talked to him as he sat there on his horse; just before the pageant, you know, when Perpetua Kirk was being attacked outside. Now—that isn’t true, is it?’
Death of Jezebel Page 12
