Choice of Evils

by E. X. Ferrars

  He picked up a fork and jabbed at his omelette. Andrew had about finished his.

  ‘Tell me what you really think,’ Nicholl went on earnestly. ‘Do you think Amory could have had anything to do with Magda's disappearance?’

  ‘I believe Amory spent most of the afternoon with Miss Todhunter, playing chess,’ Andrew replied. ‘It's something they do every Saturday afternoon/

  ‘Even when he's got guests? He'd your nephew and Rachel Rayne. It hardly seems like the behaviour of a perfect host.’

  ‘But it's apparently what he did.’

  Nicholl managed to swallow a mouthful of his omelette, then pushed his plate away, muttering, ‘I don't want this. I'll just have some coffee.’ He looked round for the waiter and gave an order for coffee. As he did so a change came over him. He seemed to be stiffening himself, carefully erasing the expression from his face and gazing not at Andrew, but just past him at some spot on the wall. ‘I hope you'll forgive me for burdening you with my worries,’ he said in a flat, lifeless voice. ‘Probably very embarrassing for you and all to no purpose. Not the sort of thing I usually do.’

  ‘But entirely understandable in the circumstances,’ Andrew said.

  It was plain that Nicholl regretted having talked as he had, for he became quite silent and as soon as he had drunk his coffee said a terse good night to Andrew and left him.

  Andrew had cheese and biscuits after his omelette. It irritated him very much that as soon as he was left to himself his mind became filled with the rhyme:

  Among them was a bishop who

  Had lately been appointed to

  The balmy isle of Rum-ti-Foo …

  He knew that this afflicted him only because he did not know what else to think about, and that if only he could bring his mind to bear, say, on the problem of why and by whom Rachel Rayne had been murdered, or on the mystery of the disappearance of Magda Braile, he would be freed from this nonsensical way of occupying it. But the problems were too big for him to be able to grasp them and he was very tired. The habit of mumbling doggerel rhymes to himself was always at its most obsessive when he was tired. And there was no avoiding the fact that lately he had found himself getting tired far more quickly than only a year or two ago. He was getting forgetful about things too. Sometimes in the middle of a sentence he would find that he had forgotten what he had started out to say. When he had drunk his coffee he went up to his room.

  Going up the stairs he made the rather satisfying discovery that the bishop of Rum-ti-Foo had been defeated by another quotation, and one with somewhat more dignity.

  Cover her face, mine eyes dazzle. She died young.

  It was not really surprising that he should find this filling his mind, since it was the most famous line in the play which he and Peter had failed to see that evening. But Rachel Rayne had not been so very young when she had died. Thirty-five at least. And Magda Braile, in the accident in which she had almost certainly been involved, if it had been fatal, had been somewhat older. Not that that would have been apparent when she was on the stage. What with make-up and skilful lighting, it would have been easy to make her appear young. But thinking about that in no way helped to explain either calamity. It did not even give a hint as to whether in some strange way the two incidents might be connected. There was no reason to suppose that they were, except that they had happened on the same day, and that probably meant nothing.

  Andrew slept soundly that night, sheer fatigue over-coming him as soon as he got into bed. He had meant to start reading Death Come Quickly, but it remained unread on the table by his bed. In the morning he awoke in a puzzled state, feeling that something that he ought to know about had gone wrong. For a moment he could not think what it was. Then he remembered. Murder. Mysterious disappearance. Yes, certainly things had gone wrong the day before. His mind cleared, to find the maid trying to place his breakfast tray on his knees. Coffee, toast and marmalade, and then of course a slice of his own cheese. After that, shaving, a shower and getting dressed, and feeling more or less awake and normal by the time that his telephone rang.

  He assumed that it was Peter calling him, but it was Detective Inspector Mayhew with a request that Andrew should meet him in the police station for a discussion of some odd things that had come up. Andrew arrived at the police station at about ten o'clock and was received by the inspector in his office, a small, clinically tidy room, in which he was sitting at a table on which some neat piles of papers were arranged. He rose to his feet when Andrew was shown in and shook his hand, then gestured to him to be seated in a chair that faced him across the table. His large, square face with the small features in the middle of it looked freshly shaved and considering that he had probably spent not very much of the night asleep, surprisingly alert.

  With one of his small, tight-lipped smiles, he said, ‘You understand, Professor, this is unofficial. If you can help me, I'll be grateful, but I realize you may be reluctant to answer one or two of the questions I want to ask you, and I'm not going to try to put pressure on you. It's your advice I want, as much as anything.’

  ‘I hope then I can help,’ Andrew replied.

  ‘I want to ask you first,’ Mayhew went on, ‘whether to your knowledge, your nephew, Mr Dilly, had ever met Miss Rayne before this Friday.’

  ‘To my knowledge, no,’ Andrew said. ‘Also, to the best of my belief, no. But I understand why you think I may be unwilling to answer your questions if they're all like that one.’

  ‘Just so.’ The distrustful little smile still puckered Mayhew's small mouth. ‘But murder is a serious matter, even if one's nephew might be suspected. One might be ready to part with a little information concerning him. Sometimes even closer relatives will talk, parents about children, children about parents, husbands and wives about each other.’

  ‘Are you telling me that you seriously suspect my nephew of this murder?’ A hot little flame of anger stirred in Andrew's brain.

  ‘No, no, only clearing the ground,’ Mayhew answered. ‘You're telling me that to the best of your knowledge and belief, Mr Dilly had never met Miss Rayne until the day before she met her death?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Can you tell me then what brought him as a guest to Mr Amory's house? I understand that his reason for coming to Gallmouth was to take part in the Arts Festival, but why is he staying with Mr Amory? They don't seem to be special friends.’

  ‘All I know about that,’ Andrew said, ‘is that they met at a literary luncheon and Mr Amory suddenly invited him to take part in the festival, and to spend the weekend with him. Then the official invitation from the committee arrived a few days later and my nephew accepted it as well as Amory's to stay with him. But I agree the relationship doesn't seem to have ripened into friendship. My impression is that Amory is a somewhat difficult man. I imagine he gave the invitation on an impulse and has since regretted it.’

  ‘For any specific reason?’

  ‘For none that I know of. May I ask you a question now? Has anything been found out yet about the disappearance of Magda Braile?’

  A small frown wrinkled the inspector's high, smooth forehead. It looked as if he disliked the question. ‘Nothing yet,’ he said.

  ‘There's no trace of her?’

  ‘The last that's been seen of her, according to our pre-sent knowledge, is when she left that hotel where you're staying, stopping for a moment to speak to the receptionist and say that she was going for a walk. Then she went off down the drive to the main road and vanished.’

  ‘At what time was that?’

  ‘About quarter past four.’

  ‘You've no witnesses to where she went or what direction she took after that?’

  ‘None have come forward yet.’

  'She's after all a fairly well-known figure.’

  ‘Perhaps not in Gallmouth. We're rather off the beaten track here.’

  ‘Well, it's very disturbing.’

  ‘Almost as disturbing as murder, one might say. Now, I wonder if yo
u'd take a look at this.’

  With a quick little gesture Mayhew tossed across the table to Andrew a small book with a cover of bright red plastic. Picking it up, Andrew saw the word, ‘Addresses’ printed on it in gold. He opened it and flicked the pages over. They were fairly full of names, addresses and tele-phone numbers, written in a small but sprawling hand. Then he suddenly put it down.

  ‘Ought I to have handled it?’ he asked.

  ‘It's all right, it's been tested for fingerprints,’ Mayhew said. 'There are a few very old and very smudged ones, and some of Mr Amory's. It was found in a drawer of the desk in the summerhouse. But it isn't Mr Amory's address book, it's his wife's. And I'd be grateful if you'd look through it carefully and tell me if anything special strikes you about it.’

  Andrew considered it.

  ‘You want me to do that now?’ he said.

  ‘If you would, but take your time,’ Mayhew said. 'There's no hurry.’

  Andrew began to turn the pages more carefully. He began at the beginning, wondering what he was supposed to find. None of the names there meant anything to him. He had reached the letter C and was reading the address and telephone number of Edward Clarke when a man came hurriedly into the room, bent down over Mayhew and muttered something into his ear. Whatever it was brought Mayhew immediately to his feet.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, already on his way to the door. 'Something important's come up.’

  He left the room.

  Andrew stayed where he was, continuing to turn the pages of the address book. After a time he took a small notebook out of his pocket and jotted down in it a name and address. Soon afterwards he closed the book, held it for a moment, looking at it thoughtfully, laid it down on the table, then he stood up and made his way out of the room and down the stairs to the entrance.

  He spoke to the constable behind the counter there.

  ‘Can you tell me the way to Linwood Drive?’ he asked.

  As he asked it the telephone on the counter began to ring, and at the same moment two men came hurrying down the stairs and out of the door to the street. Then another man came in at the door and went striding to a door that opened into a room in which there were already a number of men. The sound of a loud, clear voice reached Andrew, which seemed to him to be giving orders. As the constable put the telephone down, having answered it briefly, Andrew repeated his question.

  ‘Can you tell me the way to Linwood Drive?’

  The man looked at him as if he could not think what he was doing there, and found it difficult to bring his mind back from whatever it was that the telephone call had done to it. In fact, it was obvious that Andrew had chosen a very bad time for his question. Something of far greater importance was absorbing everybody. He had a chilly feeling that he knew what it was.

  ‘Linwood Drive?’ the constable said at last. ‘Hm, yes, straight down till you reach the church, then turn left, then go on till you pass Marks and Spencer, then right, then cross the square and the road straight ahead of you is the one you want.’

  Ts it far?’ Andrew asked.

  The man looked him up and down as if measuring what meaning the word might have for someone of Andrew's age. But he seemed reassured by what he saw, for he said, ‘About ten minutes’ walk.’

  At that moment the telephone began to ring again, so Andrew only said a quiet, 'Thank you,’ and went out into the street.

  It took him rather more than ten minutes to reach Linwood Drive, for the directions that he had been given, though accurate, were hard to remember. Finding his way at last to the square, he found the street he wanted leading out of it. Walking along it slowly, he took his notebook out of his pocket and checked what he had written in it.

  ‘C.W. Wale, 37 Linwood Drive. Tel 932875.’

  The house for which he was looking was in a Victorian terrace of small houses, some of which had been rejuvenated with bright paint, and some of which looked as if they were quietly decaying. They had what had once been small front gardens, but most of which had been covered with gravel, with only an odd shrub or two appearing here and there. Number 37 had neither been brightened up with new paint nor entered yet into a state of decay. It looked neat and modestly unnoticeable.

  Andrew crossed the little gravelled yard in front of it and rang the bell.

  After a short pause he heard footsteps inside and the door was opened. A small woman who looked as if she was about fifty stood there, looking at him curiously before giving him a smile and saying, ‘Yes?’

  She was dressed in dark blue slacks and a bright blue and white striped sweater. Her grey hair was cut short, with a curly fringe falling forward over her forehead. Her eyes were a clear blue.

  ‘Miss Wale?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘Mrs,’ she answered.

  ‘I'm sorry - Mrs Wale. There are a few questions I would like to ask you concerning Mrs Amory, if you can spare me a little time.’

  She did not answer at once, but studied him thoughtfully.

  ‘You look respectable,’ she announced at length.

  ‘Thank you,’ Andrew said.

  ‘And you're not police, you're over the age limit.’

  ‘Indeed I am.’

  ‘Then you'd better come in. Only - you aren't some kind of private detective, are you?’

  Andrew hesitated for a moment, because although he was not by profession a detective of any kind, he was at the moment engaged in a sort of detective work. He avoided the question by asking another.

  ‘Have the police been to see you, then?’

  ‘Yes, only a little while ago,’ she said. ‘But come in. If you're going to ask as many questions as they did, we don't want to stay on the doorstep.’

  She stood aside for him to enter, closing the door behind him, and took him into a small, cosy room with a bow window, neatly shrouded in net, overlooking the street, a flowered wallpaper, several comfortable chairs covered in bright cretonne, a desk with a typewriter on it, and what Andrew presumed was her dining-table, though there was only one chair drawn up to it. If a Mr Wale existed, it did not look as if he lived here.

  ‘Well, get ahead with it,’ she said when they were both seated on either side of the gas fire. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘You're a typist, aren't you?’ Andrew said.

  ‘You could call me that, yes.’ She nodded her head. T don't do it regularly. I just take in the odd job from time to time.’

  ‘Did you ever do any odd jobs for MrsAmory?’

  ‘Mrs Amory?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The police wanted to know if I ever did any work for Mr Amory.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No. But I did a couple of jobs for his wife before she died. I typed a couple of novels for her. But I don't think either of them ever got published. They weren't so very good, in my humble opinion. But she was a nice woman. I thought her death was awfully sad.’

  ‘Was either of the novels you typed called Death Come Quickly!’

  She gave him a puzzled look. 'That's a film.’

  ‘But it started life as a novel. Did you type it for her?’

  She shook her head. ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘Nor for Mr Amory?’

  ‘I told you, I never did any work for him.’

  ‘Do you remember how you got in touch with his wife?’

  ‘I believe it was through Miss Todhunter. The lady who runs the bookshop. Yes, that's how it was. I've done one or two jobs for her. I believe she did a good deal of writing in the old days, but nowadays she seems to have given up. But when Mrs Amory took to writing and wanted a typist. Miss Todhunter recommended me. I can't remember how I first met Miss Todhunter. It was several years ago.’ She pushed a hand through her curly hair, disarranging her fringe. ‘Now will you tell me why you're asking these questions? Seems to me I've answered enough.’

  ‘Thank you, you're being very helpful. Well, I was shown an address book this morning by the police which was said to have belonged to Mr
s Amory, and it had your name in it, but not under W. It was under T. For typist, you see. And it struck me as curious, because to the best of my knowledge Mrs Amory had never done any writing. Her husband took to it after her death, and now of course he's famous, but I've never heard any word of her trying her hand at it. As you've explained it to me, however, she did try, but without any success, and that's why your name is in her address book.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ she agreed.

  ‘When she brought her manuscripts to you, were they just handwritten?’

  ‘That's right, but quite easy to read, I was glad to find. Now will you tell me just what you've got to do with all this? I know there was a murder up at Amory's place, and I've had the police here, asking me just the questions you've been asking me now, but I don't know who you are or how you come into all this. Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘My name's Basnett,’ Andrew replied, ‘and I came down to Gallmouth for a short change and a rest and I happened to run into a nephew of mine called Peter Dilly, also a writer, who's staying with Mr Amory for the moment. I'm staying at the Dolphin. And it was my nephew who discovered the dead body in the summerhouse, at a time when there was no one else in the house. So it's natural, I suppose, that he should come under a certain amount of suspicion, and so I'm doing what I can to solve a few of the problems connected with the case, to help to clear him.’

  ‘You're certain then that he had nothing to do with the murder?’

  ‘Quite certain.’

  She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Of course you would be. But what's the reason for worrying about my typing?’

  ‘Only that several manuscripts, apparently by Mr Amory, which he kept in a drawer of his desk in the summerhouse, seem to have been removed by the murderer. Or by somebody. And when the police showed me an address book with your name in it entered under "Typist", I thought you might be able to tell me a little about those manuscripts. As you have.’