He came up to her and started looking a little pink and ponderous.
She looked rather large, bending down, and he had the naïve thought that their child would be rather large too, when it bent down forty years from now; it would be sure to be a girl and go in for odd colours, like Marjorie did. Marjorie was in a long flowing red dress; it matched the flowering currant at the door of the greenhouse there. Her hat was the colour of the newly painted green water barrel. After a bit she looked up and gave him a bright smile. He smiled.
She noticed the quaint frequency with which he embraced her throughout the rest of the afternoon and the early evening, not even minding Bess’s presence. He seemed to think that this procedure was required of him, and urgently; and as she was in love with him, it was, of course. He seemed to think she should now sit down more than she should stand up, and that Lucas should not bound at her, and that she should not bump into things. He politely moved chairs, saying: ‘Careful, my dear!’ and frowning anxiously. He was rather hot and red. Just before going down to receive their guests, he kissed her again, and in consequence had to go and wipe her lipstick from his face. Before going, he turned to her and said quaintly:
‘I don’t think I realized quite how fond of you I really am, my dear. Until today.’
He meant, of course, that he was in love with her. She knew that. Men were scared of the word ‘love’ and preferred to say ‘fond’. They dodged ‘dearest’ as much as possible, and often even ‘darling’, and said instead, ‘My dear’, like an announcer!
Her eyes sparkled.
‘Dear Ernest …!’
And the evening sparkled as well as any evening of their lives so far, notwithstanding the dourness of bald Mr Leveson, who was politely stiff and inarticulate in technique, and to whom Bess talked continuously in a loud voice upon all subjects throughout dinner. The three Misses de Freece, looking very tall and smiling, sat in a thin row, saying it was wonderful to have anything to eat at all when one thought of the European countries. They had several new guesses when the war would now end, making it much nearer than usual. Annabella and Jonas sat saying very little and holding hands under the table in a chaste, old-fashioned way. There was nothing abandoned about the love-products of this war; it was old lace and lavender; there had been nothing new to learn, either about love, or about sex. After dinner quite a lot of people, described as ‘strays’, were ‘dropping in for a drink and a dance’, including Mr and Mrs Wintle, who didn’t drink or dance, but who liked to be neighbourly whilst declining to eat other people’s dinners in wartime. Sitting at the head of his table, and watching Marjorie at the other end, Mr Ernest Bisham felt that things were all too good to be true. And, very suddenly, to the tune of his favourite modern song, it came startlingly to his senses that they were! He had just said good-bye to the Misses de Freece, who didn’t care to be about too late in the blackout. He closed the front door on their torchlight and there was the distant strain of ‘When I Look At You, I Look At An Angel’, which Annabella had put on the radiogram; they were dancing in the hall-lounge. He had the uncomfortable sensation of not being alone in the curtained lobby by the front door there—and suddenly there was a second sensation. Something was sticking sharply into the pit of his back.
‘Count ten before you do anything silly,’ Leeman said softly, but quite pleasantly. He suggested: ‘Shall we go up to your study by the back way, Mr Bisham?’
Marjorie’s laugh rang out. There was the quaint sound of Bess and Mr Leveson discussing the ‘Victory Polka’.
Things were getting merry.
Mr Bisham’s sense of the ludicrous did not desert him as he walked silently ahead up the stairs. Leeman’s footsteps creaked behind him. Where was Mrs Leeman? Gone, no doubt. This was no doubt carefully arranged. Leeman probably had a record—or had he merely been attracted by the new safe?—and the sight of Hood today might have given him swift-moving ideas. How much did he know? Did he know anything at all? He couldn’t. Yet there was the uncanny feeling that he did. Had he really got the gun habit? Or was it bluff? This was indeed ironic! The tables turned and the biter bit! But, to be sporting, it was entirely justifiable and deserved. Alas, that it should have to be at such a time, when, tomorrow, it would have been too late. He tried not to think of exposure and shame, of Marjorie and their child, who, he thought, would be called Daisy. She would be a lady announcer called Daisy Bisham reading it. Now was the time to keep calm. Calm? Bess, the family name, Marjorie and Daisy; their joint future in the happy peace days which were round the corner …
‘That’s the ticket,’ Leeman said. ‘Go right across the room, near the wall. You can drop your hands, I know where your gun is!’ He grinned and locked the door with a quick movement. He stood with his back to the door and the gun raised, looking yellow and grinning.
Mr Bisham, feeling slightly embarrassed, sat on the arm of a chair and pulled out a cigarette.
To his acute discomfort, he became aware that the safe was standing wide open. On the table in front of it, his parcel for Leveson was also lying open. The Maybee diamond, amongst the former possessions of Lady Stewker, Mrs Mansfield and Lord Sudbury, were glinting attractively in the firelight.
Leeman said:
‘So I looked at it this way, Mr Bisham. I totted up the rewards offered for recovery of the missing jewels, and for apprehension of the Man In The Mask, and I thought of the pleasure to be got in seeing him unmasked! And it is a pleasure, not to say a surprise! I couldn’t believe it at first—’
‘Shall we get to the point?’ suggested Mr Bisham. He sat with his arms folded, the smoke from his cigarette curling up his back. ‘My guests, you know! I rather fancy that our time is, of necessity, limited,’ he hinted. It was meant as a warning to Leeman, who seemed commendably calm and sure; but it was also a voicing of his own fears; Marjorie or one of the others might come and look for him any moment. Of course, he realized Leeman held all the cards, and had only to expose him …
‘I think we’re all right for five minutes,’ Leeman said. He kept the revolver poised. ‘If anybody comes before we’re finished, I shall have to ask you to say something tactful through the door!’
Mr Bisham thought:
‘When I point a gun—it’s sheer bluff. It is with most people … What about you?’
He tried to measure this delicate problem while Leeman talked. He’d started to talk rapidly, all his cards, as it were, tumbling excitedly onto the table at once. He was more excited than he probably wanted to show. That was a fine point. He looked sallow and lean, but his cheekbones were slightly tinged with colour. His hair was greasy and sleek and excessively unattractive. Mr Bisham tried to guess his strength. He was thin, but he looked wiry. He was evidently an expert safebreaker, and that probably meant he’d done time, his complexion indicated that, so probably he was pretty tough in a scrap. Mr Bisham peeped down at his own ever-growing paunch, regretting it anew. All the same, if Leeman got at all close, or off his guard, it might be a good thing to chance it? Yes, about the only hope of salvation would be to lay Leeman flat and keep him like that until Leveson was safely out of the country tomorrow night. If Leeman tried any nonsense about exposure then, he would just be laughed at, without the necessary evidence. The only alternative, which Leeman was now verbally inviting, was, alas, quite out of the question. The man seemed to think that announcers were millionaires!
‘I haven’t got that amount of money, my friend,’ Mr Bisham apologized ruefully, and got up from the arm of the chair with a casual movement.
‘Keep over there, please.’
‘With pleasure …!’
‘Well, it’s my only offer. And I reckon it’s quite a sporting one, Mr Bisham? But, after all, I don’t bear you any malice; I’ve no wish to get you or anybody else seven years—I know what it means! But I have to think of the money, and you know what reward they’re offering. I can’t afford to ignore it, and that’s the truth.’ His little black eyes gleamed and he seemed almost to plead, in a qu
aintly childish way: ‘Mrs Leeman and I always wanted a hotel in Bognor.’
‘Bognor,’ thought Mr Bisham.
‘It’s very wet down there,’ he heard himself criticizing stupidly. He was trying to decide whether Leeman really would decide to shoot if he rushed him. He certainly looked a nasty piece of work.
A door opened downstairs.
‘It’s for you to say the word, Mr Bisham,’ Leeman’s voice almost pleaded. ‘And to show how much I respect your word, I’d take a cheque. The Man In The Mask has a reputation for being a sport.’
Mr Bisham thought:
‘Well, there’s one solution!’
But he knew he could never sink to a solution like that. It was a question of honour.
During the pause, he strained his ears to hear if anyone was coming up the stairs.
But the door shut again.
‘Well?’ said Leeman.
‘Sorry,’ said Mr Bisham, stubbing out his cigarette in the duck-egg ashtray Seal had given him years before. ‘I suppose I could easily give you a dud cheque, my friend! But it’s not my way of doing business!’
‘I’ll drop it to five thousand pounds, then. Half down and—’
‘I have not got that amount of money.’
‘You must have,’ exploded Leeman, turning aggressive. ‘In your position!’ There was an unsatisfactory pause and he went on: ‘Very well. But you can’t say I haven’t given you a sporting chance.’ He shrugged. ‘I take the jewels to Inspector Hood. And I say where I got them from.’
‘Be careful! He may not believe you!’
‘I’ve thought of that. But having been down here I’ve got a perfect alibi—’
Suddenly Mr Bisham made up his mind.
With guns, he decided, Leeman was too much of the pleader to be anything but bluffing.
Having positively decided this, he strode quickly and rather weightily across the room and, unimpeded, except by a warning snarl, gave Leeman a straight right across the jaw.
Unfortunately, when he stepped back, he did not observe the little red footstool Marjorie had bought for his comfort from Heal’s. He fell flat on his back with a heavy, breathtaking thud.
Leeman made no second error of judgment. He knew he never had any inclination for what he called ‘swinging jobs’, and now that his bluff had failed so surprisingly he stuffed the revolver back into his pocket and picked up a small black chair. He was against robbery with violence too, with its unpleasant sentence if and when caught, but, for once, he felt he was working on the side of justice. He wanted the evidence and he meant to get the reward it would bring. Mrs Leeman would be at the station by now, waiting for him. He’d given the man every chance.
He brought the chair down on Mr Bisham’s head with plenty of force and without feeling too squeamish about it.
As he did so, portly Mr Bisham made a dive for his legs and seized them in a muscular grip.
He fell to the floor, knocking over a small table. There was a loud crash of smashing brandy glasses.
Bess Bisham gave a slight start. She thought she heard a crash upstairs, but she wasn’t sure. Mr Leveson didn’t appear to have heard anything. He danced stiffly with her to the vocal refrain entitled ‘How’s Your Love Life?’ It seemed a little unseemly, but Mr Leveson wore a thin, polite smile on his pale, studious face. He was bald at the front of his domed head, and two beads of sweat rose and swelled and rivalled each other in size. It was a hot May night, and without being able to open any windows or doors because of the black-out wartime dancing was hardly a pleasure for the aging. Soon, however, all doors and windows would be flung open to the spring and summer nights, and the scent of tobacco plants would seep excitingly in again. Mr Leveson started to say that he must be getting back to London and the Dorchester. He was leaving at midnight on the morrow and still had much to do. He had an Admiralty car, which he drove himself; their beautiful chauffeurs embarrassed him. She took him to the sofa, where Marjorie gave him a drink. He turned to Marjorie and asked where Ernest was. Marjorie, startled, realized that Ernest had been missing for some little time. Just then, Bess thought she heard another crash upstairs. What on earth was going on? Where was Ernest, anyway? Neglecting his guests like this! She crossed the dance floor and started up the stairs. As she reached the top, she heard a door open and shut and somebody, she thought, hurrying down the back stairs. She marched to Ernest’s door and opened it.
‘Ernest …!’
He was sitting dejectedly in his armchair. The room was in complete chaos and there was a large lump on the left side of his forehead.
He thought:
‘Well, the game’s up. I suppose it was bound to beat me in the end.’ He remembered how sure he had always been that you never got caught out if your motive was clear and you had no fear. That was wrong, then? He felt his head painfully and wondered if he was going to be sick.
He interrupted Bess’s flood of enquiry with a vague:
‘Oh, I had a … fall.’
She cried:
‘A fall? Another? Have you taken to secret drinking, Ernest?’ she again demanded sternly. ‘Just look at the room! What on earth is that lump on your head?’
‘I’ve just told you.’
‘How could you fall, up here? At your age—’
‘I suppose a man can slip.’ Slip was indeed the word.
‘Slip? On a thick pile carpet?’ She stared round the room. She had never seen such chaos, and Ernest so tidy and methodical.
‘Please spare me all these questions and get me something for my head.’ He invented, with an eye to the inevitable discovery of the Leemans’ absence: ‘If you must know, I’ve had a row with Leeman. He was … insolent. He’s left.’
She mouthed his words.
‘Insolent? Left? He struck you?’
‘Well, he tried to … that is to say, he wanted some money. Oh, what does it matter? I fell over the damn table. Get me something for my head and for goodness sake don’t say anything to Marjorie. I mean, about Leeman. I can’t have her upset.’
‘Upset? She’s been wondering where on earth you’ve been all this time. Ignoring your guests …’ She strode out for a cold compress, calling over her shoulder: ‘And Mr Leveson’s going …’
He thought, staring at the empty safe:
‘My whole world is going. It goes with Leveson.’
Going, going—gone.
He buried his face in his hands.
CHAPTER XXII
WHEN everyone had gone, he sat alone with Lucas by the dying fire. Bess and Marjorie had gone up to bed.
He regarded himself as a man who had already been sentenced, but who had been granted, as a boon, this one night of sanctity and freedom. Honour was still intact; he would go upstairs in a moment or two, and in Marjorie’s expression there would still be that trust, respect and contentment. She would no doubt give him another cold compress, and they would talk of Daisy and their plans for her. He was sure it would be a girl, and they must plan for her. Perhaps she would be the first lady to read the Home News!
Their plans!
What could those plans be now?
He was not due on duty on the morrow until the nine o’clock news, which he was to read, and she would be looking forward to his company until about seven, when he would have to catch his train. That was what she would be contemplating now. But what would, in fact, happen? Leeman’s train would by now be running into London. He was evidently determined on contacting Hood at Scotland Yard, and nobody else. Probably he would contact him tonight, and then, some time tomorrow morning, well, there would be a ring at the front door.
In the evening papers, all of them, there would be, perhaps, headlines which would oust the war. It would give the gentle reader a change of diet—and a spicy one.
And at nine, when Big Ben was striking, Marjorie might be sitting here listening to the news, which, this awful time, would have to say, in another voice …
He lit a cigar and got up.
He went
into the night-scented garden.
The sky was a fading black, turning greyer and somehow higher; stars had begun to peep in the East. Gradually, it would turn to dim light in the small hours, blushing, finally, through seeping dew, into another beautiful day.
When it at last dawned, Inspector Hood sat up on his elbow in bed.
The telephone was ringing.
He hadn’t been in bed long, having been at work on another case outside London, a tasty affair of a woman found dead in a wood. She was wrapped up in a sack and had a silk handkerchief stuffed down her tonsils. There had been one or two irritations to complicate things, notably another assinine example of carelessness on the part of his young man Hanbury. Young Hanbury had fallen down again in precisely the same way he had fallen down only yesterday, when he’d detailed him to watch every movement of Ernest Bisham and trail him. In this murder case, Hanbury had gone and lost the trail of a suspect, as yesterday he had altogether failed to see Bisham come out of Broadcasting House. However, it was certain, was it not? Bisham could not have been at Commander Legge’s house in Hampstead at the time of the astounding latest exploit of the Man In The Mask? For he was on the air then. Hanbury was safe about that, one presumed? At any rate it was confirmed in the Radio Times; Hanbury had produced a copy. Or ought one to check up even on that? What a very queer thing, though—yet another ‘coincidence’—once again the victim had had very recent dealings with Mr Ernest Bisham, the announcer! Nor had one forgotten the very unsatisfactory item of the revolver and the three flattened bullets. Most unsatisfactory! Mr Bisham possibly didn’t think so, but …
The telephone shrilled again and he put out a hand for it. The alarm clock said five to six, which was almost Mrs Hood’s getting-up time. She was snoring tunefully; nothing but an actual alarm clock woke her.
A Voice Like Velvet Page 21
