Bland Beginning (23 page)

He pushed the cat down impatiently, and looked again towards the door: but now the shadow had disappeared. For a moment the space in the doorway was blank, and then it was filled by Basingstoke – a Basingstoke who held a clasp knife in his hand, and whose face was grey. He made a gesture to Bland, and the young man hurried across the garden. With a shudder, Basingstoke pointed inside the door and then stepped out into the garden, drawing into his lungs great gusts of air.

The room from which he had come was, as Bland had surmised, the kitchen. Unwashed dishes and plates lay in the sink; saucers were on the floor, but there was no milk in them; there was a strong and sickening smell of cats, and a buzz of flies; and sprawled over the stone floor of the kitchen was a body which the young man recognised from Basingstoke’s description as that of the bookseller, Jonathan Jacobs. A white cat was licking at his face. Bland pushed away the cat, controlled his feeling of nausea, and bent down to look more closely at the bookseller.

His face was purplish in colour, and his tongue hung out, swollen and discoloured. A thin but strong-looking piece of rope was strung round his neck. He was wearing old flannel trousers and a corded dressing gown. Looking up at the ceiling, Bland saw a hook, of the kind that is often used for hanging meat, with a small piece of rope coming down from it. The man had been hanging, then, and it was his shadow that had shown so grotesquely through the doorway; Basing-stoke (Bland remembered the clasp knife in his hand) had cut him down, standing on a chair to do it. It was this chair, presumably, that had been kicked away, Bland thought with a frown, when the bookseller hanged himself. At least there was no other chair in the kitchen. He bent down again by the bookseller, and his mouth made an O of surprise. He touched a small white patch by the man’s ear, and examined the cups, teapot, and dishes in the sink carefully. Then he walked down the passage and into the room at the back of the bookshop, staring at the floor all the time. In this room it seemed that he found what he had been looking for. He straightened up, went out of the house, and joined Basingstoke, who was sitting despondently in the garden.

“I came to see him as you suggested, and found him like that,” the tall man said. “It was awful. That damned kitchen was full of cats – all pawing at him. I think that was what really upset me. I couldn’t let him stay up there like that. I had to cut him down.”

“So I saw,” said his friend, whose rosy cheeks and undisturbed manner presented a queer contrast to Basingstoke’s almost distraught appearance.

“There’s one consolation.” Basingstoke looked towards the open doorway. “At least this ends it.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s just as you said last night. He was the forger himself; obviously, and lied when he said he got the copies from Cobb. He knew the game was up.” His young friend looked at Basingstoke with an expression that suggested a certain disappointment in his companion’s mental powers, and said in his soft voice, “Oh, I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t think he committed suicide. It was rather a fragile rope, don’t you think? It might have broken under the strain of the drop.”

Basingstoke looked at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. “But – it didn’t break.”

“Because he was killed first, and then strung up there. When you hang yourself,” he explained, and Basingstoke flinched a little, “you kick away the chair and drop, imposing a sudden strain on the rope. This rope might have broken, and I don’t think he’d have used it when he had a good thick cord on his dressing gown. On the other hand, a murderer wouldn’t worry about the rope in the same way.” He smiled faintly, and added: “Or at least, not for the same reasons.”

Basingstoke gulped. His face was showing a healthier colour now. “That seems very fine-spun.”

Bland’s hair gleamed like metal in the sunlight. “My dear fellow, there’s no doubt about it. How long ago did you get here?”

“About twenty minutes ago.”

“Very well. He died this morning. He had drunk a cup of tea before committing suicide – the pot was still faintly warm, and so were the dregs in the cup. But he had put down no milk for the twelve cats he was so fond of. He had committed suicide before the arrival of the milkman, then – because the milk is outside the door now. Would one expect a suicide, that self-condemned man, to take his early morning cup of tea? Well, possibly. Just possibly. But would he be in such a hurry that he would leave his beloved cats unfed? Surely not.” He went on remorselessly. “And finally, surely he would not go so far as to shave in order to appear a presentable corpse? But Jacobs did shave this morning – there is a dab of cream just by his ear. No, no, my friend, he was killed in that little room behind his bookshop – there are signs of a struggle on the linoleum back there – and then dragged into the kitchen and strung up.”

Basingstoke looked at his friend with unfeigned admiration. “I say, you’re wonderfully quick. But why should anyone want to kill him?”

“I think I know why.”

Basingstoke laughed. “And you know who it was too, I suppose?”

Bland’s cherubic face was grave. “I think I know who it was.”

“Who?”

“The answer to that question may be inside, though I doubt it. But we ought to look.”

Basingstoke’s scar twitched. “I don’t much fancy going in again.” The young man made no reply, but stepped towards the kitchen door. Basingstoke followed unwillingly. They skirted the thing that lay on the floor, and Bland looked only cursorily at the bookshop and its little inner room. They went up a narrow flight of stairs into the three rooms on the first floor. One of them, obviously a lumber-room, was crammed with odds and ends of the bookseller’s stock. Another was a bathroom, and here Bland paused only long enough to point out the damp shaving brush. The third room had been the bookseller’s bedroom, and here Bland paused on the threshold. Basingstoke was about to enter and put his hand on the iron bedstead, when his friend checked him sharply.

“Don’t do that. If there was anything here, it has been taken. I don’t see any signs of disorder, but I’ll swear that this room has been searched, and there may be a crop of fingerprints. We’d better inform the police.” With a glance at his friend and a slight smile, Bland said, “I think we shall both of us be in for an unhappy half-hour – you for cutting down the body, and me for being here at all. You say the Inspector’s unpleasant?”

Basingstoke was given no chance to say what the Inspector was like, at that time, for as they walked out of the garden through the little green door they met him coming down the passage. He glared at them and said to Basingstoke, “What are you doing here?” but without waiting for an answer to that question, asked two more. “Where’s Jacobs? Why isn’t his shop open?” When Basingstoke told him what had happened, the Inspector stood staring at him as though he could not believe his ears. Then he went in and looked at the body. His expression was not pleasant. “What the devil did you cut him down for?” With savage mockery, he asked, “Did he make you feel sick? Well, let me tell you,
you
make
me
feel sick with your theories and conclusions. Who do you think had your precious book at the time you were telling Jacobs all about it?” He gave a kind of snarling snort. “
He had it himself.
What do you think of that, Mr Basingstoke?”

“Had it himself?”

“Those crooks who knocked out your friend Shelton were doing the job for Jacobs, and passed on the book to him afterwards. He certainly made a monkey out of you.”

“You mean to say that he deliberately put me on to the track of Cobb, knowing Cobb wasn’t the forger?”

Bland said quietly, “It’s because Jacobs knew the identity of the forger that he was murdered.”

Inspector Wrax’s hot eyes passed over Bland, and he said to Basingstoke, “What the devil’s this? Something out of Sunday school?”

“He’s a friend of mine. I’ve told him something about the case.”

“Oh, you have.” He addressed Bland for the first time, as he said, “And what makes you talk about murder, young man?” Bland told him and, to Basingstoke’s surprise, the Inspector listened. At the end of the recital he grunted, and said, “I suppose you call yourself an amateur detective?”

“No. I call myself a clerk on holiday.”

“And I suppose you think you’ve solved this case?”

The young man’s smile was cherubic. “Yes.”

The Inspector glared at him. “Now, take my advice, sonny. I don’t say you’re not clever. You may be the original boy wonder, for all I know or care. But keep out of this.” He pointed a threatening finger. “I’ve got my plans laid, and I don’t want them messed up by a schoolboy amateur Sherlock.” His glance ranged to include Basingstoke. “By a
couple
of amateur Sherlocks. Understand?”

They said they understood.

When Inspector Wrax put down the telephone after speaking to Victoria Rawlings, he had no idea of going to Blackheath. He sat at his desk and stared with his hot, dark eyes at a spot on the opposite wall. Then another telephone on his desk rang, and when he lifted the receiver he heard Sergeant Thynne’s voice, more squeaky than usual with excitement. “We’ve got Billy the Toff, sir. Picked him up in Limehouse.”

The Inspector took it calmly. “Good. Any news from Italy?”

“Give us a chance, sir.” That appeal was the Sergeant’s stock-in-trade. “Do you want Billy in now? He’s a pretty tough customer, and smart with it.”

“Oh, is he? Send him in.”

When the youngish man with the dark moustache was brought in, the Inspector was writing at his desk. He looked up and said, as though his visitor were paying a social call, “Ah, Nugent. I don’t think we’ve met before, but you’ve probably heard of me. My name’s Wrax.” Then he settled down again to writing in a notebook.

Equally conversationally, the man said, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

With a smile, Inspector Wrax said, “What would you say to robbery with violence?” The youngish man said nothing. “Doesn’t appeal to you? Then shall we say – accessory after the fact?” His voice did not change in tone as he said, “You’ve done it wrong this time, Nugent. You’re mixed up in murder.”

“Not me,” said Nugent confidently, and stroked his small moustache.

The Inspector looked at him steadily, and under the gaze of those strange eyes it seemed that Nugent’s confidence wilted just a little. “You’re a pretty smart boy, aren’t you? And you’ve got a nice little organisation. I’ve admired it from a distance for some time. Ever heard of a man named Jebb?”

“Saw a piece about him in the paper. Somebody knocked him on the head.”

“Somebody knocked him on the head,” Inspector Wrax echoed. “Ever hear of a man named Cobb? Somebody shot him,” he said in mimicry of Nugent’s tone. He smacked his hand on the table. “And you’re mixed up in it, Nugent.”

“You know that’s not true, Inspector. My boys had nothing to do with any of that.”

“What about the book you stole from Mr Shelton?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Or of Mr Rawlings either, I suppose? Or of a little book called
Passion and Repentance
?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nugent was looking much less happy.

“Shelton says you assaulted him – twice.”

“No.”

“Robbed him of a valuable book.”

“I’m not a reading man.” Nugent touched his moustache.

“You
are
smart,” said the Inspector admiringly. “I suppose you were more interested in his diamond ring.”

“We never took a ring off him,” Nugent cried. He stopped. The Inspector was showing his teeth in a laugh. He added sulkily, “Or anything else.”

Inspector Wrax was twisting a small piece of metal in his hands. He spoke persuasively. “Look here, Nugent. This won’t do you any good. Shelton recognised your photograph, and so did his girlfriend. They’ll identify you. You can’t wriggle out of it.”

“If I knew what you were talking about,” said Nugent, “which I don’t – I’d say it was a different thing from murder. Don’t see any connection.”

“You can take my word for it that there
is
a connection. Those books you pinched had something to do with the murder of two men. Just let me tell you the way it works out for you. You won’t mind me doing that, will you?” The smile on Inspector Wrax’s face was benevolent, but the dark eyes under his beautiful white hair were hot.

“Say what you like,” said Nugent. “It won’t hurt me. I’m keeping my mouth shut. I had nothing to do with any murder, and you can’t prove I had.”

“Perhaps not. But I’m telling you now, Nugent, that if you keep your mouth shut I’ll book you for accessory to murder as sure as my name’s Sam Wrax.” Nugent looked into the Inspector’s eyes, and then away. “And you know what they say about me – I never book a man on a charge without making it stick. Believe me, Nugent, I shan’t mind one little bit making it stick in your case. If a man’s against me – I break him. I think you’d be foolish to keep your mouth shut, but, of course, if you want to, that’s your privilege.” There was a sudden snap as the Inspector broke the piece of metal he had been twisting. He showed it to Nugent with a whimsical smile, and tossed it into a wastepaper basket.

“Well?” Nugent’s voice was slightly hoarse.

“Your other course would be to answer some questions. If you do that, I’ll do what I can for you. I make no promises, Nugent, but I’ll say this. If nothing fresh comes in, we’ll be able to forget the murder charge, and I might be able to induce Shelton to drop the other.”

The Inspector saw with interest that beads of perspiration had formed round Nugent’s moustache. The hand that came up to wipe them away was trembling slightly. He said, “I had nothing to do with any murder, and I’m not a nark. You’ll get nothing out of me.”

The Inspector pressed a bell on his desk and stood up. The corners of his mouth were drawn down, and his eyes were gleaming. “I’m charging you as accessory to the murder of Arthur Jebb, Nugent, and don’t look for any mercy from me, for by God you won’t get it.” Nugent wiped his face with his hand again. A detective-sergeant opened the door, and the Inspector made a violent gesture. “Take him away. Charge him as accessory to Jebb’s murder.” He turned his back.