“All right,” said Paddy patiently. “I’ve got hold of that. I’m a sort of accountant myself, you know. Because your chief cashier was away you had access to the private ledgers. That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?”
Mr Britten took another pull at his whisky and nodded.
“That’s right,” he said, “I couldn’t help noticing things. I’ve been with the firm a long time. A very long time. That’s why I couldn’t help noticing–”
“Yes–?”
Mr Britten fumbled inside his tight coat and at last pulled out a wallet. At the third attempt he succeeded in extracting two slips of paper and laying them on the table.
Wondering what secrets he might see, Paddy got to his feet and peered over the little man’s shoulder. The result proved disappointing. The two slips were ordinary typed flimsies. Both contained, in three columns, a lot of six-figure numbers. Each column, he noticed, was headed with a different set of three letters.
“I can’t make head or tail of them I’m afraid,” Paddy reseated himself. “Are both papers the same?”
“No – they are not.” As he said this, in a most emphatic tone, Mr Britten leaned right forward across the table and added softly, “And that’s why I got the sack.”
“Good God – and is that why – today you–?” Paddy found he was running ahead of himself but fortunately his companion noticed nothing.
“Thirty-two years in the company. And then a month’s notice – and then, out. Today was my last day. I was hoping – I really was hoping they might reconsider it. I’m over fifty, you know. I shan’t find another job–” (It was all coming out now, with the whisky, and the relief of telling it). “There’s my little house, but that’s mortgaged, of course. And the interest due next month. I never saved much. No insurance, you know. There didn’t seem to be any need – I’d only myself to look after.”
It was an explanation – yes, it explained a lot. But what to do next? For a few shillings’ worth of drink he had surprised the little man’s secret. The question was, what to do now? One practical step suggested itself.
“Look here,” he said, “I’m damnably sorry. It was a filthy thing to happen – after all those years – and all over some trifling little slip. But may I say – whatever you decide to do – don’t use that thing in your pocket.”
There was a long silence. Then Mr Britten said weakly, “How did you know about it?”
“As a matter of fact I saw you in the train – you remember, when the train stopped outside the station.”
“Yes.”
“I saw your reflection in the glass window beside the line and I saw you – did you mean to do it?”
“Yes. Yes, I meant to do it.”
“Please,” said Paddy, “give it to me. Now – quickly. No one will notice.”
Mr Britten made a little move, then checked himself.
“It doesn’t solve anything really,” went on Paddy, “and besides, it’s rather like giving up before you’re beaten. It’s plain funk.”
He managed to invest the last word with all the unconscious contempt which is usually put into them by the strong, the healthy, the nerveless and the well-fed.
The reaction – or the whisky – had brought a hint of firmness into the little man’s voice and his weak mouth tightened into something like a line.
“All right,” he said, “take it if you like. Take it and – take it and throw it in the river.”
He slid the gun across the table. It was a woman’s weapon, of miniature calibre, with a mother-of-pearl handle. Paddy picked it up carefully, put on the safety catch, and dropped it into his coat pocket.
“Don’t worry about it any more,” he said. “I’ll get rid of it for you. And I think it’s time we had another drink.”
He picked up the glasses. They had been sitting in one of the quiet inglenooks which are such a pleasant feature of the smoking-room at the Pike and Eels. Paddy made his way through the connecting door into the saloon bar and pushed through the crowd and up to the serving counter.
The crush was greater now, the noise louder and the atmosphere warmer and thicker. It took him some time to attract the attention of the barmaid and when he looked at the clock he was surprised – even allowing for the well-known habits of public-house clocks – to see that the hands pointed to a quarter past nine.
A thought struck him. He parked his own beer and Mr Britten’s whisky under the watchful eye of the barmaid and went out into the front hall. There, as he remembered, between the overflowing umbrella stand and the giant pike in its dusty glass case, might be found a public telephone. And it occurred to him that he ought to let his mother know that he was going to be late.
This mission accomplished, he pushed his way back and collected his drinks. His plans for the rest of the evening were vague.
“If I can get the old boy as tight as a coot,” he thought, “then get him home – somehow – and put him to bed – well, by the morning the chances are he’ll have thought twice about it all. There’s nothing like the morning light for putting a different complexion on these things.”
When he reached the comparative calm of the smoking-room a surprise awaited him. Mr Britten had gone. Several plausible explanations presented themselves but when ten minutes had slipped by he began to get alarmed. I wonder if anyone saw the old bird go, he thought. At the next table, as he remembered, had been a rather part-worn middle-aged lady accompanied by two gentlemen friends: but this trio had also departed. In the far corner, the only other occupants of the room, sat a young man and a girl. It was obvious at a glance that they existed for each other and for each other alone. Fat lot of use asking them, he thought, in their present state they wouldn’t notice if their own feet were on fire.
He sat for another quarter of an hour, sipping at his beer; then tipped the double whisky gently down on top of it and made his way home. He took the short cut, across Staines footbridge and along the towing path. The river shone like black steel under the cold stars and Paddy shivered a little inside his overcoat.
However, as he stood on his front doorstep feeling for the latch key he was relieved to see a light from between the curtains of Mr Britten’s front window.
3
The following evening, having no engagement in town, Paddy caught an earlier train and was home by seven. He found his mother in her favourite chair in front of the fire, talking severely to a pleasant-looking middle-aged man whom she introduced as Divisional Detective Inspector Winterbourne.
“Heavens, Mother,” said Paddy, “what have you been up to?”
“It’s nothing to joke about,” said his mother, “it’s poor Mr Britten–”
“Poor Mr Britten, Mother?”
“Yes, he’s–”
“Excuse me, ma’am, just a matter of routine. But if you let me do the talking. Thank you. Now, sir, could you let me know when you saw Mr Britten last?”
“Certainly. It was last night at – let me see – about a quarter past nine.”
Mrs Yeatman-Carter started to say something but was quenched by a look from the Inspector.
“And where would that have been, sir?”
“At the Pike and Eels. I suppose the landlord told you.”
“The information,” said the Inspector carefully, “came from the barmaid.”
However, it seemed to Paddy that the atmosphere had become, somehow, a little less strained.
“I expect I’d better tell you the whole story,” he said. And as honestly as he could, he did so. But it is almost impossible to tell any story whole and it is very difficult not to omit important details, particularly when you have no idea that they are important.
At the end of it the Inspector said:
“Yes. I see. That does rather account for it. What did you do with the gun, by the way?”
“I did what I said I would. I threw it in the river on the way home.”
“And the ammunition?”
“There was no ammunition. Exce
pt what was in it – I suppose it was loaded.”
“You didn’t by any chance examine it to see?”
“No,” said Paddy, a little impatiently, “Why should I? I knew he’d no right to the thing and I’d no right to it and no use for it either. It seemed safest in the river.”
“Quite so, sir,” said the Inspector smoothly. “And I expect we should be happier if a lot more firearms which you young gentlemen of the forces brought home as souvenirs and such like were at the bottom of the Thames too. Nothing personal intended. I was just speaking generally.”
“Yes,” said Paddy. “Now do you mind telling me what it’s all about?”
“Well – yes, I can do that, sir. Seeing as you’ve been so very frank with me. But I’m not saying that all of it’s very pleasant hearing for a lady–”
Mrs Yeatman-Carter, in the face of this fairly broad hint, murmured something about an evening meal to see to and departed.
“We found Mr Britten in the river,” said the Inspector softly. “Down by the coal barges. Quite an accident that the body was seen at all. It seems that the buckle and belt of his coat must have caught in the mooring ropes as he went past – and that held him up.”
“Lord, I feel like kicking myself,” said Paddy. “I ought never to have let him out of my sight. And yet–” He thought of the river – as he had seen it the night before, black and secret and ice cold. “I suppose that suicide by drowning is a commonplace to you, Inspector?”
“Ah,” said the Inspector, “He wasn’t drowned, you know.”
“What!”
“Now, don’t misunderstand me, sir. I’m not trying to make up a mystery out of it. The Doctor who examined him says he died of shock. Shock from falling in the icy-cold water. I expect the whisky helped, too. It does happen that way, you know.”
“I didn’t,” said Paddy. “I’d no idea–”
“Lord love us, yes. It’s what you said – commonplace. Half the people who fall in the water – especially when it’s as cold as this – they don’t drown. I mean, their lungs aren’t full of water. Yes. It’s the shock that kills ’em.”
“Then if I hadn’t filled him up with whisky–”
“Now, now,” said the Inspector in his most fatherly voice – though his grey eyes were still hard – “you don’t want to go blaming yourself. You acted for the best, I’ve no doubt.”
“Epitaph,” said Paddy bitterly.
“And I’ve no doubt, sir, that he meant to do it. If it was the exceptional coldness of the night – or if it was a stomach full of whisky – which was the actual cause of decease – well, I can’t see that it signifies.”
“There was no suggestion” – Paddy felt a curious distaste for the question – “no suggestion of foul play?”
“None in the world, sir. As straightforward a case – now that we’ve had your story – as straightforward a case as I’ve ever heard. Here’s this chap – getting on in years – losing his job–”
“You’ve checked up on that, I take it.”
“Stalagmite Insurance Corporation. Third cashier. He’s made a lot of little mistakes. The last one wasn’t such a little one – it cost ’em some money. In fact – I expect I’m stepping out of line in telling you this; but seeing as how you’ve got well and truly mixed up in it – there was a hint of something more. Sharp practice. No prosecution of course. They don’t like trouble, these big businesses. Just a quiet ‘Don’t come Monday’.”
“I see – and your idea is that he threw himself into the river on the way home – after he slipped away from the pub last night–”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Then,” said Paddy, slowly, “what about that light I saw in his front window when I got home?”
“Well – of course, sir, Mr Britten might have forgotten to switch that off – when he left for town that morning.”
“Or he might not have committed – I mean, he might have gone home first and done it afterwards – sometime that night.”
“You didn’t perhaps hear anything to suggest such a thing?”
“Certainly not,” said Paddy. “I slept like a log – always do.”
“Just so,” said the Inspector. “I dare say there’s many who wish they could say the same.”
“It comes,” said Paddy defiantly, “from having a good digestion and a clear conscience.”
“Just so,” said the Inspector again. “Well, I’ll be off.”
“By the way” – a thought occurred to Paddy – “when you got Mr Britten out, did you search his pockets?”
The Inspector paused, half in, half out of the door.
“Yes,” he said, “we did.”
“I suppose you looked in his wallet.”
“We didn’t find a wallet,” said the Inspector. “Good night, sir.”
4
In due time a report on the unexciting death of Mr Britten wound its slow way through the channels of the central police organization: for Staines, though twenty miles from the centre of London, forms nevertheless an outlying part of the Metropolitan district.
In the report, as originally printed, Winterbourne had written:
“It did occur to me at one stage to wonder whether Mr Carter might have had some hand in the accident. He seems to have gone out of his way to render Mr Britten intoxicated. The gun, which might have been traced to Mr Britten, and would have formed tangible evidence in support of Mr Carter’s story, had most unfortunately been thrown away – etc. etc.”
However, Divisional Detective Inspectors are not encouraged to indulge in too much speculation and a heavy senior hand had written in the margin:
“Unlikely. What possible motive could Mr Carter have had for such an act?”
Beneath which no less an authority than the Deputy Commander (Crime) had suggested:
“Schizophrenia. Due to war service?”
“Poor old war,” said Chief Inspector Hazlerigg when this came to him. “How she does get blamed for everything.”
2
Paddy Gets Busy
“Tell me, Tiny,” said Paddy. “What goes on inside that mausoleum?”
He indicated with a thumb the pile of the Stalagmite Insurance Company just visible through the steaming window of the tea shop.
“Honestly, old boy,” said Tiny, “I haven’t a clue.”
“But I thought you worked there. Theo told me–”
“So I do. Yes indeed. Six months come Candlemas.”
“Then, surely you must have some idea,” said Paddy helplessly.
“It’s so big, old boy” – Tiny made a spreading gesture with his fish-knife – “so broad: so many ramifications – so – I beg your pardon, madam. I didn’t notice you sitting behind me.”
“All right,” said Paddy. “It’s big, it’s wide, it’s spreading. There’s no need to wave your arms about. But surely you must have some idea of what goes on. Your own department, for instance. What do you do?”
It was lunchtime on the day following the events narrated in the previous chapter.
A little research and some telephoning amongst his many acquaintances of the war had produced ‘Tiny’ Anstruther. (“I believe he’s something to do with insurance, old boy. Was a gunner – yes, a mathematical type.”)
Paddy remembered him well from an unforgettable course of combined operations on the North Coast of Scotland in 1941.
“Well” – during the interim Tiny had obviously been doing some solid thinking – “it’s like this. I sit in a big room with a marble floor and marble pillars – the mixed nougat sort – not unlike that square bit under the dome at St Paul’s – and I have a desk and a reading lamp with a rather nice green shade. Don’t think I’m exclusive, though. There are thirty-nine other chaps who have desks with reading lamps with green shades, too. We all arrive at nine o’clock and punch a little what-d’you-call-it to show we’re there – and then, round about eleven, we trickle out and get a cup of Java and have a bit of gossip. Some of them are good ty
pes, you know; some pretty fair shockers, too. I’ll tell you who I did meet – Enderby, that Captain in the KRRC–”
“What, not ‘Little’ Enderby?”
“That’s the chap. The one who socked the Town Major–”
“Talking of Town Majors,” said Paddy, returning ruthlessly to the matter in hand, “who’s the head man?”
“Come again.”
“The Boss. The Big White Chief. The man who summons you to a well-appointed inner office and says, ‘Tiny, old boy, as a mark of esteem the firm has decided to double your weekly wage’ – or more likely ‘Tiny, old boy, even the best of friends must part and the time has come that your desk is wanted for another.’”
“That’ll be Legate.”
“Legate?”
“James Legate. Our manager.”
“I see. What’s his position? What does he do?”
“He’s something halfway between God and a Corps Commander,” said Tiny carefully. “I mean, naturally one knows there are powers within powers – people with the ultimate say-so; like our board of titled directors. But Legate is the outward and visible sign of authority.”
“What sort of chap is he?”
“Quite decent, I understand. In a rather hard-boiled sort of way. Not that I ever see him to speak to, of course. But what am I among two thousand?”
“Tell me the best way to set about getting to see him,” said Paddy.
Tiny finished his coffee, took Paddy’s last cigarette and lit it carefully whilst he considered the problem.
“I shouldn’t think it would be too terribly difficult,” he said at last. “Look here, old boy – what’s it all about?”
Paddy said, “I would tell you if I could, Tiny. But it’s not my secret.”
“All right,” said Tiny good-humouredly. “Well, look here. I can give you one tip. Four o’clock in the afternoon’s the best time for a snap interview. Send your name in to Miss Pocock. She’s Legate’s personal yes-woman. She’s a very decent little girl. In fact, she and I – well, anyway, send it in.”
The Doors Open Page 2
