A Voice Like Velvet

by Donald Henderson

  When the eight o’clock news was filling the house, and filling the houses and cottages and flats and rooms of millions of people, not to mention the myriad moving vehicles such as ships, cars and ’planes, he was having a quiet poke round Mr Bisham’s ‘den’. There was plenty of money here at Tredgarth, wasn’t there? Yet there was nothing very handy, so to speak. Mrs Bisham didn’t seem to go in for tiaras, or anything of that kind. She didn’t seem to go in for rings, and her necklaces weren’t worth the taking. In Mr Bisham’s room there was nothing but fags and cigars. You didn’t exactly see bundles of notes lying around. But it was comfortable. You could say that.

  He took a fag and sat down in Mr Bisham’s armchair. The best part of having a boss like Mr Bisham was that you knew where he was at a given time. It might be convenient—if there was anything for it to be convenient about. But there wasn’t. Or, if there was, it would no doubt be in that safe. Come to think of it, what did he keep a safe for? He’d said something about papers, but what sort of papers would he want a safe like that for?

  He sat staring at it.

  When he grew tired of staring at it, he lit another fag and stared sourly round the room. Mr Bisham had a nice taste in brandy, as well as old brandy glasses, and he reached out an arm to help himself. Mrs Leeman started calling him to come and see to the breakfast, but he was having a glance through the morning paper. Hullo, another cat-burglary again last night? The Man In The Mask too! He was a bit of a lad! Got away again, too? Well, it wasn’t everybody’s luck, and his wouldn’t last for ever either. They’d catch him one of these days. Shot his way out, chased in the morning light all over Belgravia, thought to be a man in a light coat and felt hat, very well dressed and rather on the hefty side. Might pass for Mr Bisham himself! Or Mr Hood himself, or Lord Sudbury himself! There were photos of all three of them, at the sale of gems, and there was a photo of the man Bardner. Bardner said: ‘He was armed. I couldn’t do anything. There was a gun in my ribs the whole time and he was desperate. He bandaged my eyes with my own handkerchief so as I couldn’t see him, and he tied up my wrists with a bit of string. He had a voice like velvet and spoke just like an announcer. In fact, when we were listening to the eight o’clock I said to his lordship, “He sounded just like that, my lord.”’ Lord Sudbury’s statement said: ‘Amongst the stolen gems is a pendant belonging to Lady Sudbury which is almost priceless. Other priceless jewels were taken. The thief must have hidden in the house after the sale yesterday, or something of that kind. I am offering a thousand pounds reward for apprehension of the Man In The Mask, or whatever the thief is called, and for recovery of the jewels. Lady Stewker and Mrs George Mansfield, two recent victims of what may easily be the same robber, are offering five hundred pounds each for recovery of their property.’

  Inspector Hood’s statement said:

  ‘I’ve got a clue this time—three flattened bullets. We had to cut them out of the wall. There has never been a clue of any kind before, not a fingerprint or a footmark. But that’s just luck. A man of this kind starts slipping sooner or later, and when he starts he goes right down to the bottom. An arrest may be early expected.’ In a later interview Inspector Hood commented on the curious fact that no attempt to sell any of the stolen jewellery had ever been tried in the usual underworld channels, ‘a curiously consistent aspect of these cat-burglaries which also tends to indicate the work of one man, perhaps an eccentric.’ He didn’t think it might be the work of a woman, but didn’t deny the possibility. ‘Some women have deep voices,’ he admitted. ‘But Bardner is sure it is a man. And the police officers were sure it was a man they chased through the streets. So is the woman who passed him on the stairs in her mews flat. At any rate, he had a very mannish appearance and sound.’

  ‘Curious aspects,’ thought Mr Hood, reading the newspaper account of his statement. ‘Yes, yes! Curious is perhaps the word!’ He stuffed the newspaper in his pocket and went into a shop he knew well in Pall Mall. He took out the three flattened bullets and wandered unhurriedly into the inner room and shut the door. It was an unhurried action he had many times done before. Yet never, perhaps, before had he come out of that little room feeling quite so surprised about anything. Of all surprising things, the bullets—and the gun that fitted them—had been bought not so very long ago by Mr Ernest Bisham, the announcer. But then, he thought, there was nothing to be surprised about in that. Quite obviously somebody had pinched his gun from him, and the bullets. There would be some answer like that. Still, it was a bit of a surprise. Perhaps the feeling of surprise was due to a little coincidence; two, in fact: Mr Ernest Bisham’s name had been mentioned in this Man In The Mask case twice already—by Lady Stewker, and by Mrs Mansfield! They had both chanced to see him over a broadcast a few days prior to each robbery. Most odd! And then, of course, he was at the Sudbury affair yesterday! Well, at any rate Mr Bisham looked a nice kind of fellow and he would be sure to be most helpful. And Mrs Hood would be tickled to death to hear he had had to meet him again. Well, things certainly seemed to be getting warmer.

  Mr Hood walked up crowded Regent Street, thinking hard. He paused at the window of Hamley’s, a shop that had always fascinated him. As a matter of fact, though it was very silly, of course, he had several times bought Mrs Hood dolls there. It was regrettable they couldn’t have any children, and although at the Yard they would laugh themselves sick if he was ever daft enough to tell them, Mrs Hood had a little weakness for dolls. Well, she had two little weaknesses: dolls—and announcers! We all had some little weaknesses, no doubt. Other people might laugh, or even frown. The motive was the thing. He always felt a bit embarrassed when Mrs Hood’s relations turned up and saw the dolls lined up in their bed, if it was daytime, and in a large cot if it was night time. They seemed to think it affected, or even indecent, but for his part he always studied the reason in things before criticizing.

  But this was no time to be distracted by Hamley’s, was it? There was work to be done.

  He suddenly took a taxi and went along to Lord Sudbury’s place. There was nobody there except Bardner, which was all he wanted. He had another frown round by the cloakroom window, where the man must have got in, and then he wandered across the hall to Bardner.

  ‘I’ve been having a bit of a think,’ said Mr Hood thoughtfully. A most extraordinary train of thought had stuck in his mind. He said: ‘What made you say this chap sounded like an announcer?’

  Bardner stood rolling a fag and looking very much on the defensive. What had Hood come back for? Did he think he had a hand in it?

  ‘Announcer?’ he mouthed vacantly.

  ‘It was a queer thing to have said.’ Or—was it? Wasn’t it the same way in which we used to say, ‘Oh, so and so spoke like a public school man’?

  Bardner looked like a scared baboon.

  He started to say he hardly knew what he’d said. He said Lord Sudbury was in a very funny mood, and he didn’t know whether he was going to have the sack, or what.

  ‘I can’t make out how you could let a man tie up your eyes like that. The man had a steel nerve, I should say.’

  ‘He had a steel rod, I can say that, and …!’

  ‘I know that,’ said Hood, mildly disparaging, ‘but he’s got to drop his gun so’s to tie the knot, I suppose? That would have been your chance, I should have thought?’

  Bardner’s eyes were wide.

  ‘What? Good gracious, and a shot in the back …!’

  ‘He’d never have shot me in the back! I can tell you that! And as for the string round your wrists—!’

  ‘What?’ Bardner exploded. It was too much altogether. ‘Look here, if you think I had a hand in this affair—’

  ‘Calm down,’ interrupted Hood. ‘I never said anything of that kind. No. But didn’t you get the slightest glimpse of him, out of the corner of your eyes?’

  ‘Not a glimpse! I tried …!’

  ‘And he sounded like a … well, a gentleman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You couldn
’t even see what colour coat he’d got on?’

  ‘No. I tried, but …’

  ‘But he sounded like an announcer. In fact, like the announcer who was reading this morning’s news, eh?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Mr Ernest Bisham was reading it,’ said Mr Hood, as if to himself. And presently he wandered out. He thought: ‘Just before we go on a little jaunt to Broadcasting House, we’ll take the trouble to pay one other little visit.’ He got into a taxi and went to the mews flat where the Man In The Mask was said to have passed a woman on the stairs. The woman was called Mrs Mantlestone.

  Both Mr and Mrs Mantlestone were delighted to see Mr Hood. They had seen dozens of people the whole morning, and told them their story. Mrs Mantlestone now told it again, explaining that she had got up early to go to her war work, which was making screws, but as the police had delayed her she was having the day off. She had yellow hair done up into a sort of huge sponge. Mr Mantlestone had black hair done in a sort of fringe over his forehead, and he smelt of horses. In the midst of their excited chatter, Mr Hood said all he was trying to get at was what did this man look like.

  ‘It was too dark on the stairs to see that,’ Mrs Mantlestone said shrilly. ‘Except he had a soft felt hat well down over his eyes.’

  ‘What colour felt hat? Could you see that?’

  ‘Brown, I should say.’

  ‘No, it was grey,’ said Mr Mantlestone. ‘The glimpse I got of him when he dashed up the mews.’

  ‘Well, what colour coat had he, then?’ said Mr Hood rather wearily. It was always the same, nobody ever noticed the smallest thing about anybody else, or if they did they got it wrong.

  ‘Light brown,’ said Mr Mantlestone, to that.

  ‘Light grey,’ said Mrs Mantlestone. Then they started arguing the toss. Mr Mantlestone made whistling noises through his lips as if he was grooming his horses, and he started saying how he’d had to kick their bedroom door in, and he didn’t know where he ought to send the bill in. Mr Hood examined the window-sill for a bit of thread or cloth, but of course there was nothing. There never was anything. Who would be a detective? People thought it was exciting and romantic! If only they knew! About the only thing the Mantlestones were sure of was that they couldn’t see his face, ‘becorse his coat collar was up’; they couldn’t be sure how tall he was, he was anything between four foot and seven, and they couldn’t be sure what his voice sounded like when he said good morning to Mrs Mantlestone.

  ‘Well, was it a gentleman’s voice?’ said Mr Hood, cold.

  ‘Well, yes and no,’ Mrs Mantlestone said, frowning, and bolstering up her sponge hair with a knuckly hand. ‘He sounded rather like your uncle,’ she turned and said to Mr Mantlestone. ‘But then, he’s a butcher, isn’t he? But still, he went to the council school, didn’t he?’ She told Mr Hood the Man In The Mask sounded very quiet and kind. ‘Well, why did you scream, then?’ enquired Mr Hood unkindly. ‘I hear you nearly brought the house down!’

  ‘Jack the Ripper,’ exclaimed Mrs Mantlestone, flushed and hurt, ‘was quiet and kind—at first! And so was Neil Cream!’ She said she had made a study of these things. ‘But there was plenty of screaming afterwards,’ she pointed out indignantly.

  Mr Hood broke into a small laugh and apologized. He hadn’t meant to be rude, or even cynical, but this Man In a Mask affair was getting him down. And his latest train of thought was so fantastic that he knew in advance there could be nothing to it.

  But there you were, if you felt you were getting warmer, you had to follow it up. Sometimes, in the past, he had had the most fantastic ideas, and even when they proved to be indeed fantastic, they did none the less very often lead him on to the right goal. It was funny, but he’d noticed it many times. He thought of it when he reached Broadcasting House. At the Reception Desk he asked the charming and beautiful receptionist for Mr Ernest Bisham. ‘If it’s possible to see him for a minute? Some other time, if not, you know.’ The lady enquired who he was, and when he told her she reacted in no way whatever, as if to prove, which it did, that she had so many clients in every walk of life that, to her, a visitor was yet another important broadcaster. When she had telephoned, she informed Mr Hood that Mr Bisham had been on the air doing routine announcing most of the morning, and he had also had rather a tiring night.

  ‘Oh?’ said Mr Hood, interested and sympathetic.

  ‘He’s now resting before reading the one o’clock news. But I spoke to him and he asked if the visit was urgent. Are you about to broadcast, or …?’

  Mr Hood blushed. Imagine if Mrs Hood heard that!

  ‘No fear,’ he apologized. ‘I once had to make a little speech at a police concert and it turned me hot all over! Mrs Hood was quite disgusted!’ He said it wasn’t at all urgent, and please to say so to Mr Bisham, with apologies. ‘I’ll make an appointment. He may remember we met at Lord Sudbury’s, and—’

  ‘Just a minute,’ the girl said kindly. She was motherly.

  She spoke to Mr Bisham again.

  ‘Not urgent,’ said Mr Bisham into the telephone thoughtfully. He felt a mild relief. All the same, it was a bit odd, the pace was speeding up a bit. They’d obviously traced the bullets already. That was quick work. What else could bring the inspector here? Curiosity got the better of him and he said: ‘I’ll come along. Ask him to wait a minute.’ He rang off and got up from the settee.

  It was a little disturbing and he couldn’t resist finding out just what, if anything, Hood had up his sleeve.

  As he walked slowly along to the lifts, he thought carefully. His statements must be carefully thought out. And they must coincide in every way with the statements he had made to Marjorie—would she forgive him these white lies if she knew? His conversation with her this morning on the telephone had been a long one. The Duty Editor had ’phoned her and she’d been worried to death. Ernest told her at once that she must never worry about him at all, he would never miss a broadcast. His explanation had been simplicity itself, to the point of dullness. He hadn’t been able to sleep, ‘those bunks, so narrow and short’, and after about three o’clock he’d got up and dressed. He went for a very long walk, so far, in fact, that he suddenly became aware that he had gone too far, he was going to be late. ‘And do you think I could find a taxi, Marjorie? Nowhere! Until at last …’ She had laughed at her fears. Even the Duty Editor had laughed—in a strained sort of way. Duty Editors were not expected to laugh. And then poor old Marjorie, in her relief, burst out with the most disconcerting remark, over the telephone too. ‘Ernest, don’t think me silly, but … why do you keep a loaded revolver?’ It had made him a bit breathless, not to say self-accusing. Was he getting careless? It seems he had left it in his den one day, and she’d seen it and put it in the drawer of his desk. He remembered wondering how it had got in his desk. And then, it seems, she had been so disconcerted that she’d gone again to the drawer only to find it had vanished. She assumed he had taken it with him. ‘And then, another thing, Ernest—that night I thought you were announcing in Manchester. Where were you?’ It was ticklish.

  It was an eye-opener to discover how she watched over him! He didn’t know much about women, did he! ‘Why, my dear child,’ he cried down the telephone, inventing regretfully as he went on, ‘as a matter of fact I was walking again. I didn’t want to worry you, but as a matter of fact I can’t sleep up here; it’s the over-warm atmosphere.’

  ‘Oh, Ernest, not to tell me …!’

  ‘As for this talk about a revolver, my dear. Don’t alarm yourself! I never keep revolvers.’ There was a slight pause.

  Her voice came:

  ‘But, Ernest, there was a loaded one in your room. I put it in the drawer. Next day, it was gone and I presumed …’

  His laugh came.

  ‘Yes, well, we must look into it, Marjorie. It’s very curious. Perhaps one of our guests left it there. Many people come to my den for a chat, don’t they? We must look into it …’

  If you must lie, he always thought, be si
mple and vague.

  He would follow the same line with Mr Hood, if necessary. These detectives were pretty sharp. He’d be nosing round Tredgarth before one knew it. Perhaps chatting cunningly to Marjorie.

  He advanced on Hood with a broad smile and at once took the line that he had invited Hood to see Broadcasting House, and that he had been interested enough to come along so soon.

  ‘How do you do, Mr Bisham,’ Hood said, slightly taken aback by this welcome. He felt rather like a stage-door fan who had arrived at an awkward moment with his autograph book. Mr Hood again thought what a distinguished man Mr Bisham looked, and he couldn’t help thinking how thrilled Mrs Hood always was whenever he was on the air, and in consequence couldn’t help feeling ridiculously overawed by his personality and his suave manners. But he succeeded in shaking this off as Mr Bisham led him along to the famous Drawing Room. Two very famous men came out of the Drawing Room as they went in, and when they stopped and spoke to Mr Hood as well as to Mr Bisham, Hood was tickled to death, as he said afterwards. ‘I was their bodyguard, so to speak,’ he explained modestly, ‘for a time, when I was a younger man, Mr Bisham.’ They sat down together on the long green leather settee and exchanged politenesses about this altogether pleasant meeting.

  ‘Well, now,’ smiled Mr Bisham politely, and, having lit their cigarettes, sat waiting.

  Mr Hood sat waiting for his brain to work. He smiled politely across at Mr Bisham. He found himself looking at two rather humorous but tired eyes around which were the lines and creases of a man past his youth. His cheeks were a little full, not unduly so, and not uncolourful, and his hair was thinning and rather grey. He wore a very well cut blue suit with starched white collars and cuffs. A Savile Row and Bond Street man. A man well past forty, judged Mr Hood accurately. And a nice man. No doubt the women all fell for him like flies. An honest man? Well, that question depended on how you judged the word ‘honest’. But if this was the Man In The Mask, he’d eat a policeman’s helmet! That fanciful notion surely went by the board straightaway. One made mistakes, of course, and it was only human to do so. Moreover, it happened to people like himself, who often had to pretend to themselves that they suspected this one, or that, because it was their duty to do so. Told you so, said Mr Hood to himself! No such easy, if fantastic solution as that, my lad! (Imagine what Mrs Hood would have said, had she known his passing doubts about her idol!)