Bland Beginning (14 page)

“Jebb!” cried Vicky, and the bookseller looked at her with his small, shrewd eyes, but made no comment.

“Not until then did I have any suspicion that I might have been an unwitting agent concerned in imposing frauds upon book-collectors.”

“And did you write to Mr X?”

“I wrote to him two years ago – courteously, I hope. I put forward some of the observations which had been made to me – not, I may say, about
Passion and Repentance,
but about other books. I received no reply – and since then I have had no more of these first editions for sale.”

“Have they gone to any other bookseller?”

“I do not think so. To all appearance,” said the fat man slowly, “the supply has dried up.”

Vicky had been afraid to speak, in case she earned another venomous glance from Basingstoke. Now she said, in a voice that had turned into an unhappy falsetto, “Why are you telling us all this?”

He moved enormous shoulders. “It is difficult to say. You may call it a salve to conscience. I have found Mr Jebb rather – excitable, shall I say? in our correspondence. We have never met, but I understand he is writing a book and I think he suspects me of trying to obtain some of his ideas, so that I can write one myself.”

Vicky pursued her remark. “If you think these things are forgeries, why don’t you say so? Or why don’t you force Mr X to give you an explanation?”

You are very beautiful,” the bookseller said with a touch of exaggeration, “but very young. Why, after all, should I stir up muddy water? I should certainly be splashed. And, in any case, what would my word be worth against that of Mr X?”

“What about this client who is prepared to pay a hundred and fifty pounds for a first edition?” Basingstoke asked.

“He is nothing more to me than a name – a name which I do not propose to reveal. I see no reason to suppose that he is anything other than a collector, who will pay a good price for what he wants.”

“And you won’t confirm any idea I may have of the identity of Mr X?”

“You are persistent, sir.” The great shoulders heaved again with silent laughter. “I hope it is in a worthy cause.” The pudgy fingers were laboriously tracing outlines on a piece of paper.“I am sorry that I cannot accede to your request. I shall now leave you, to go and look after my twelve months. I shall not return for a few minutes, and during that time I shall expect you to make your departure. The outer key is a simple Yale.” The piece of paper fluttered idly from his hands to the ground. He rose from his chair with an effort. “Miss Rawlings – if that is really your name – you have irradiated this gloomy room with sunshine. I must thank you for it. To you, sir, my respects. I wish you both luck in your quest.” Slowly the fat man shuffled his bulk out of the door, and went down the passage. Vicky sat with her mouth open, looking after him, until Basingstoke said impatiently, “Come on.” They stumbled through the outer shop, unlocked the door, and came out into the sunlight of a fine May evening.

“My goodness!” Vicky said. “What a horrible place – and what an awful man. Ugh – those cats.”

“The eighteenth-century actor Lun,” Basingstoke observed pontifically, “had twenty-seven cats with whom he drank tea. One ate toast from his mouth, and another licked his teacup.” Vicky looked at him suspiciously, but he seemed perfectly serious.

“I don’t know about that,” she said, “but I know I felt all the time as if a goose was crawling over my grave. And how mean of him not to tell us the name of Mr X.”

“He did tell us the name,” Basingstoke said. “He wrote it on that piece of paper, and then dropped the paper on the floor. I picked it up.” He held it out to her, and she read, in a florid and straggly script, the name,
James Melton Cobb.

On the following morning, Victoria Rawlings dressed with more than her usual care in a red silk blouse, embroidered on its round collar and cuffs, and a short, black pleated skirt. One of her habits was to talk to herself when she was alone, and she told herself, aloud, that she was dressing for Anthony. Then she muttered, “I think you know of two” in an unintentional parody of the threatening tone Basingstoke had used to the fat bookseller. Her thoughts rambled to Ruth Cleverly, and with a tolerably accurate mimicry she said savagely, “We ought to see Arthur in the morning.”

That had been the sum total of the deliberations carried on from the time when Vicky and Basingstoke arrived back at Anthony’s house, to find him sitting on the sofa with a bandage round his head drinking Bovril, while the little monkey-faced girl sat watching him. The idea of dinner had been abandoned, and they ate chicken sandwiches and exchanged stories, all of them talking at once and expounding their own theories. Out of the tangle of conversation two or three points emerged clearly.

First, somebody was collecting, by orthodox methods when possible, and otherwise by force, copies of the first edition of Passion and Repentance. Basingstoke was inclined to think that two people were collecting the book, one forcibly and the other by paying cash, and that they were in competition; but this idea seemed to be negated by the fact that Anthony had remembered that one of his assailants on the Barnsfield road – the one whose voice had seemed familiar when he said, “I’ll take ’im” – had been the little red-faced man who bid against him at the sale.

Second, the first edition was a forgery, and was probably one of a whole mass of forgeries. All of them were convinced of this, except Anthony; and he, fingering the bump on his head, reiterated that it was a queer kind of forgery that people were so anxious to obtain that they knocked you on the head to get it.

Third, Cobb must be asked to explain himself. The trails all led back to him. Vicky thought that he was obviously the forger. Miss Cleverly and Basingstoke found it hard to believe that such a famous scholar would stoop so low. Anthony did not express an opinion, but under pressure was persuaded to write a letter to Cobb, explaining that he had bought a copy of the book and had doubts of its authenticity, and asking for his advice. “I hope he doesn’t ask me to produce it,” Anthony said wearily, and Ruth pointed out that if he did then that would at least give them a chance to see him and ask him questions.

Fourth, they must all go to see Arthur Jebb. “He said he knew who the forger was,” Anthony observed, and Ruth nodded her monkey-head. “Arthur’s not reliable – he bound us to secrecy, but he’s been in touch with almost everyone we’ve talked to. He believes it’s Cobb, but I can’t think he’s right.” Her face puckered up in a laugh – and Vicky, imitating it to herself made a hideous grimace to the mirror – and she said, “I don’t know what he’ll think of you, Anthony, when he finds out that you’ve lost the book you wouldn’t leave with him because you were afraid he’d steal it.”

That was as far as they got. None of them could think of a reason that would prompt anyone to be so enthusiastically criminal in collecting these first editions, whether they were genuine or not. They spent some time in argument, and then Mr Shelton came in and seemed, in his ironically courteous way, to be pleased to see them. They told him a little of their story, but he appeared only mildly interested, and after a few minutes went to bed. Anthony recovered sufficiently to be able to drive the Bentley. He drove them all over to Vicky’s house and then (she frowned) took Miss Cleverly on to the station. He dropped John outside her house, too, and John had recited one of his poems before saying good night. She couldn’t understand a word of it, but of course didn’t say so. She had come indoors at twenty-past ten, and had written in her diary for an hour after that.

“Vicky, Vicky.” Her mother’s head looked round the corner of the door. “Anthony is waiting for you downstairs, and so is that disagreeable young man.”

“He’s not disagreeable. He’s rather sweet.”

“Only yesterday you said – but there, it’s all too much for me.”

“Brush me at the back, will you? What’s too much?”

“The cook has given notice – she says there are too many people giving orders in the kitchen. I’m sure I never wanted to give orders,” said Mrs Rawlings tearfully. “And Edward has been very disagreeable about your taking the car. You were wise not to come down to breakfast. He has been reading a new American textbook, and feels sure that I have stomach ulcers.”

“Tell him he is looking exceptionally pale – that should upset him. Ring up the Labour Exchange about the cook. I must go.”

“But where are you off to? All this coming and going is really too much for me.”

“I’m hot on the trail of the Rawlings forger,” said Vicky, and closed the door as her mother was asking if they had found her gloves in the attic.

On the way up to London Vicky kept up a flow of conversation which received little support from her companions. Basingstoke sat in the back seat, and seemed preoccupied. He wore the same shabby dark suit that he had on the previous day, but had put on a clean shirt. Anthony was pale, and said that he had slept badly. “I had a bad dream,” he said. “And I never dream. It must have been that hit on the head.” Vicky asked him to tell her the dream, and he did so, not turning to look at her, but keeping his gaze on the road ahead.

Anthony had dreamed that he was in an enormous room, and that something very valuable to him was at the other end of it. He tried to walk towards it, but made no progress. He could not understand why this was so, until he saw that the floor beneath him was moving as well, so that the greatest effort of which he was capable left him stationary.

“Like Alice in Wonderland,” Vicky said, but Anthony seemed not to hear her.

In the meantime, he was aware that this thing of value was being carried further and further away from him. He increased his efforts to move forward, and – it was as though springs holding him to the ground had been released – found himself swimming gently through the air, a few inches from the ground. The object he was pursuing was at first a speck in the distance, but it gradually increased in size, and was revealed at last as a cloaked figure scuttling crabwise over the ground. The efforts that Anthony made now were prodigious, although they seemed not perceptibly to increase the speed of his motion. He felt the thudding of a heart, but it seemed to him, curiously, that the heart was not his own. He placed a hand upon the figure’s shoulder, but it slid away from him like quicksilver, and the ensuing chase was complicated by the fact that it was governed by rules which Anthony did not understand, but which nevertheless he observed.

Vicky was bored. “What happened in the end?”

“That was the horrible thing.” Anthony did not turn his gaze away from the road. “I caught the figure in the end, and took off the mask it was wearing so that I could see its face. And the face was my own, but it was all battered and bloody.”

“Perhaps you should see a psychologist,” Vicky said hopefully. “I’m sure interest in cricket is a sign of fetishism.”

They picked up Ruth Cleverly at her office. Even at this early hour in the morning her face was slightly smudged and dirty, and she looked rather like a schoolgirl playing truant as she ran down the steps. “I’m supposed to be seeing the printers. Henderson thinks we were convinced by snake Blackburn. He’d be furious if he knew I was off to see Arthur again.”

Basingstoke roused himself. “Did you tell Jebb we were coming?”

She shook her head. “Better to call on him. He might be rude on the telephone, but he won’t refuse to see us when he knows we’ve got news of forgeries.”

There was an air of liveliness about Madderley Gardens this morning. Two motor cars were drawn up outside Number 18, and as Anthony brought the Bentley by their side Vicky said, “Look. There’s a policeman. Surely he can’t have been arrested?”

Outside the door of Number 18 a blue-coated policeman was in fact standing. Ruth Cleverly ran up the worn steps and the man in blue said stolidly, “Yes, miss.”

“I want to see Mr Jebb.”

“Yes, miss. Just wait a moment, will you?” He opened the door, spoke to someone inside, and came out again.

“What’s happened?” Ruth asked shrilly. He made no reply.

Anthony said, “Won’t hurt you to answer a civil question, will it, constable.”

“I’ve got my orders, sir.” Ruth stamped her foot on the ground. The door opened again and a sergeant said, “Come; in, please.” As they went in they heard the sound of weeping. They went down the passage and were just about to enter the door to the left into Jebb’s room when Ruth screamed and pointed to the room on the right. It was the kitchen and in it Mrs Upton sat, crying drearily. In it also stood Jebb’s wheel chair; and it was at the sight of this empty wheel chair that Ruth screamed and cried, “Where is he?” At that moment the door of Jebb’s room opened, and a tall man with white hair stood in the doorway. He said, “If you mean Mr Jebb, he is dead.”

Ruth was still staring at the wheel chair. Anthony patted her clumsily on the shoulder. They went into the shabby room where Ruth and Anthony had seen the cripple on the previous day. “My name is Inspector Wrax,” the man with white hair said. “Are any of you related to Mr Jebb?”

“None of us are relations,” Ruth said. “I was a friend. None of the others knew him. He – had – a brother, I believe.”

“His brother lives in Edinburgh, and has already been notified. Such formalities have received attention.” He sat down in Jebb’s chair and looked at them placidly. Ruth and Basingstoke spoke at once. Ruth said: “Where is he?” And Basingstoke: “Was it suicide?”

“His body has been removed, and he was murdered,” Inspector Wrax said. “Why did you want to see him?”

There was a silence. Basingstoke said hesitantly, “That’s rather a long story.”

“We have all day.”

They were silent again. Then Anthony took a breath and said, “Two days ago –”

Inspector Wrax listened without impatience to the stories which all four of them told. At last he said, “What time did you separate last night?”

“I drove Miss Cleverly to the station at Barnsfield,” Anthony said, “and put her on the ten-thirty to London. Then I went home.”

“Jebb was killed between eleven o’clock last night and two o’clock this morning,” the white-haired man said pleasantly.

“Now look here, my man,” said Anthony hotly. “You have no right to make insinuations of that kind.”

“Keep your hair on, Mr Shelton,” the Inspector said. “And what beautiful golden hair it is, too. Which chair did you sit in yesterday morning?”

Anthony stared at him. “I can’t see that it matters, but I sat in the one by the fireplace.”

“It’s very natural, then, that one or two golden hairs should be found upon the back of that chair, isn’t it?” His voice became sharp. “It would be very curious, you’ll agree, if they were found on any other chair in this room.”

“Very curious,” said Anthony boldly.

The Inspector’s eyes were dark and greedy. “What would you say if I told you that these were found on the chair in which I am sitting?” He took from an envelope two thin golden hairs.

“I should say it was damned nonsense,” Anthony said.

The Inspector laughed pleasantly. “I am happy to say that they were found in the chair you sat in, Mr Shelton.” He looked at the hairs in the envelope and said musingly, “I have known as small a thing as this hang a man. And now, since you have been so frank with me, let me be equally frank with you, and tell you some of the things you want to know.”

Mrs Upton, he told them, had come that morning at half-past eight, and had let herself in as usual. Sometimes Jebb got up early and made his own breakfast, but otherwise she knocked at the door of his bed-sitting-room and asked him what he would like to eat. She did so this morning, and when she received no reply she opened the door. As soon as she did so she saw his body in the wheel chair, screamed, fainted – and called the police.

Investigation revealed that Jebb had been killed by several blows from some heavy object, which had broken his skull. They had no need to search for the heavy object; one of the heavy crutches with which he walked was lying on the floor, spattered with blood and brains. Since he was unable to rise from the wheel chair without crutches, the Inspector pointed out, he would have been at the mercy of anyone who took them away. The murderer had ransacked the room and, as they could see for themselves, had done it thoroughly. He had lighted a fire in the grate and burned a considerable mass of papers, taking care to pound the ash to a pulp afterwards. He had then, presumably, left the flat.

Questioning of the tenants in the other flats revealed nothing. The first-floor flat had been empty for nearly a year, and the second and third floors were used as offices, and empty at night. Medical evidence fixed the time of death between eleven o’clock at night and two in the morning. A telephone call had been made to Jebb’s number just after eleven o’clock from a call box near Charing Cross.

Inspector Wrax stopped, and regarded them with a smile which somehow lacked benevolence. “Perhaps you think we have gathered rather little information. But we have grounds for believing that the murderer was a man known to Jebb, that he was right-handed, and that the crime was unpremeditated.

“Consider, first, that eleven o’clock is a curious hour at which to pay a call. It’s unlikely that Jebb would have made an appointment in advance for a meeting here at eleven o’clock at night. Probably the appointment was made through the telephone call from the murderer; and again we can assume that Jebb wouldn’t ask somebody to come and see him at that hour unless he knew them. The murder was clearly unpremeditated, in view of the weapon used, and the direction of the blows indicates that they were struck by somebody right-handed.”

He produced another envelope, and showed them two cigarette stubs. “Next we have these stubs. There are two of them. Mrs Upton came back yesterday evening to cook a meal, and she is positive that there were no cigarette stubs in the ashtray on Jebb’s desk (where these were found) when she left, after tidying up as she always does. You will notice that these stubs, which are Player’s No.3, show no trace of lipstick. They were smoked either by a man or by a woman who does not use lipstick. They may, of course, belong to another visitor. If so, let us hope that he will come forward.” His greedy eyes moved to Vicky. “Did you say something, Miss Rawlings?”