Case with No Conclusion (16 page)

“Do you suspect Peter Ferrers, then?” I asked.

“Never mind who I suspect. If you do as I ask you, we'll very soon get to the bottom of this.”

Duly, at seven-fifteen, I rang the electric bell at the door of Peter's flat in that large block which he had mentioned to us as his address. He opened the door himself, and seemed quite genial and pleased to see me, perhaps a little relieved that Beef, on this occasion, was not expected to make an appearance. He gave me a drink, and I set about explaining the story of Ed Wilson. He seemed, as usual,
more concerned for his brother's sake than for anything else.

“It really does look as though Stewart was being blackmailed,” he said. “I can't understand that. However, I've arranged for us all to see him on Thursday, and perhaps that will clear the matter up a bit.”

“But about Wilson,” I began, for I had taken an interest in the young man and his wife.

“So far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to be said. He's returned the money. By his own account he stole it from Benson, and if, as I feel confident, Stewart can clear up this suggestion of blackmail and say why he was paying the doctor that sum, it's really for Sheila to say what should be done. But I've no doubt that she will think as I do. Very reprehensible of course, but one can understand it. The silly boy had these ideas about seeing the world, and five hundred pounds in small notes belonging to a dead man was too much for him. I think it's rather pathetic that his great adventure should have ended in Ostend, of all places.”

“Well, I think that's a very decent way of looking at it, but by the way…” and I began to tell him about Orpen. He was frankly incredulous.

“I don't see how it can be Orpen,” he said, “unless he's lost a lot of money. He always seemed a most flourishing individual. Not at all the sort of man you'd expect to find in a small jeweller's shop in the Edgware Road.”

“Well, that's what Beef thinks, and you know
that when he gets these ideas into his head they take a lot of shifting. He must have some reason for supposing that it's Orpen. At any rate, it will be easy enough for you to settle the matter either one way or the other; it's only a few hundred yards away, and you could see in a moment if it were he or not.”

Peter nodded. “I suppose I shall have to,” he said, “but I get a little tired of humouring your old sergeant. Actually I think I've a higher opinion of him as a detective than you have. It may seem odd, but I have the greatest confidence that he will get to the truth about this case. And the truth certainly isn't that my brother's a murderer. But that doesn't make it any easier to put up with what seem the stupidities of his method, and now and again I wish that I had someone more frigidly efficient.”

“Still,” I persisted, “you'll go round, won't you?”

“Yes, I'll go round,” said Peter. “I'll go round straight away. Pour yourself out another drink; I shan't be long.”

I waited four minutes after I heard the doors of the lift clang to, then the long whine as it took Peter down to the ground floor, before I ventured out into the passage. But when I did so there was no sign of Beef. From one of the flats along the corridor came a sudden burst of music as a young woman came out pulling on her gloves. Then she closed the door after her and the music ceased. Her high heels tapped icily on the stone as she walked away from me towards the lift at the far end of the
passage, and the word or two she said to the cleaner in a baize apron who was gently moving a mop over the polished surface of the floor floated back to me in unrecognizable form. This man's bent and distant figure—for the passages of that block seemed interminable—annoyed me, for it meant that the Sergeant's entry would have a witness. I stood there hesitating, and noticed that the man was moving this way, steadily cleaning as he went. His back was towards me, and it wasn't until he was right outside the door that he said “'Ush” in a sepulchral voice, and I knew that it was Beef.

“Ridiculous,” I told him when we were safely inside Peter's flat. “You risked the whole thing with that nonsense. If you'd come up here normally dressed…”

“I did,” he said. “I only put this on when I got up to the landing.”

“Supposing one of the porters had seen you. What do you think he'd have thought? Whereas if you'd been in your ordinary clothes there would have been nothing to it.”

“I had my reasons,” said Beef. “Now, where shall I hide?”

It was useless, I reflected, to search one of these modern flats for a cupboard large enough for a man to stand in. The safest place was obviously the kitchen, and this wasn't hard to find. Beef stepped in and sat down while I returned to do as Peter had invited me, and take another drink. It seemed a long time before I heard his latch-key in
the door, but when he entered he showed no sign of excitement or dismay.

“Nothing like him,” he commented tersely. “I can't think what gave Beef the idea. Orpen was a big man.” He glanced at his watch. “Hadn't we better move along,” he said, “if we're to meet Sheila at seven-forty-five?”

I agreed very heartily, and was relieved when the two of us had entered the lift, leaving Beef in possession of the flat.

I had chosen the Cul-de-Sac for dinner, though I don't know whether this would have been what Beef had described as “classy.” Certainly the cooking is as good there as anywhere in London. But its traditionally dingy walls and tarnished candelabra, the red plush seats preserved from before the war, and its air of having been patronized by Edward VII, might not have seemed to Beef to make it the kind of place that he associated with “society.”

Sheila Benson really looked rather fine in a deep green dress which suited her dark eyes and hair. When she and Peter greeted one another it was, I felt, as very close and understanding friends. There was no gush or demonstration, but real pleasure and happiness in seeing one another again.

“This is charming of you, Mr. Townsend,” she said, “and I hope we're not going to talk about finger-prints and things all the evening.”

I wanted to discourage any of the levity which
had characterized our last conversation, and said, “I'm afraid while Stewart Ferrers is still under arrest we are bound to find ourselves still concerned with this case.”

“Naturally,” she said, “only don't let's be morbid. Have you, or your old Beef, discovered anything concrete yet?”

I evaded this awkward point by suggesting a drink, and we sat in the little foyer of the restaurant waiting for a table and enjoyed Tio Pepe. For the moment at any rate the details of the case seemed to have been pushed out of the door. There was a warmth and comfort in our casual conversation, as in the smell of cooked food and the subdued sounds of cutlery and careful movement in the other room.

As I watched the two of them I was suddenly struck at the strangeness of the fact that neither of them could be thought to be deeply concerned with the horrible facts which overhung them. To see Peter sipping his sherry and smiling at Sheila, one could never have believed that his brother was to be tried for murder in a fortnight. And to watch Sheila, who made no pretence at all of wearing mourning, was equally incomprehensible. I wondered whether Beefs theory, if he had a theory, took this into account.

We moved into the restaurant and ordered our meal. Once again I noticed how wholeheartedly these two studied the menu, how amiably they discussed with me the matter of wine, how much
like a dinner with any engaged couple this seemed. The conversation turned to Wilson, and I repeated to Sheila the story which I had already told Peter Ferrers. She laughed outright.

“Ridiculous boy,” she said. “I always rather liked him though. Didn't you, dear?” she added to Peter.

Peter nodded. “Seemed a decent sort of a chap. However, he's returned the money, so there's no great harm done. Beef needs him as a witness, you say?”

I pointed out that one piece of evidence had been supplied by Wilson alone.

“Does Beef depend on that?” asked Peter.

“He never tells me what he's working out until the last.”

“But you think he's getting somewhere?”

“I've been driven to the conclusion,” I said, “that Beef always gets somewhere in the end. The more I see of that man, the more I'm convinced that what appears to be simplicity is buffoonery as often as not. I sometimes wonder if he doesn't put it on. Some buffoons are extremely acute, you know. Like Touchstone.”

“I daresay,” said Peter, and became occupied with his food.

As the evening went on, the apparent indifference of these people began to trouble me. I felt oppressed with an odd sense of responsibility. If Stewart were innocent there seemed to be nothing in the world except the ability of Beef which could save him. And who was I to judge how far that
went? I had to admit that I never knew with Beef how much his success had been luck and how much a natural gift. And if an innocent man's life hung on it, it was a distressing position for me. Perhaps I showed this preoccupation, and perhaps Peter recognized the cause of it, for when we parted that evening he left me with a remark that seemed to me, in retrospect, quite extraordinary. With calm cheerfulness he patted my shoulder.

“Look here, Townsend,” he said, “I shouldn't worry yourself unduly. I've a strong feeling that everything's going to be all right. What's more, Wakefield agrees with me.” And with Sheila on his arm he turned away.

I walked back to my rooms pondering that. Had he some secret piece of evidence that would clear his brother, or what did he mean? And why that sudden reference to Wakefield, whose name had not occurred in the conversation during the whole evening?

T
HIS
time I was really anxious to hear from Beef what was the result of his search in Peter's flat. It was just the kind of job in which he excelled. Without haste or flurry he would have gone through every nook and cranny in those rooms and, if there was any kind of evidence there, he would have found it. So that it was in good time the following morning that I went round to his small house and found him reading the newspaper.

“Lots of news,” he remarked sagaciously.

“Have you?” I said.

“I meant here,” he returned, tapping the
Daily Mail
.
“Hitler's off again about something. And they've bumped another dozen of them off in Russia.”

“I'm more interested,” I said, waving aside the fate of Russian reactionaries and German Jews, “in what you discovered last night in Peter's rooms.”

“Oh, ah, that,” said Beef. “Well, I've got a little surprise for you there. After you'd gone I set to work. There was nothing solid, as you might say, around the room that told me anything. Artistic, mind you. Books and that. I daresay my wife's cousin who's in the antique trade could have
learned a thing or two, but I didn't. Then I started on his papers.”

“But, Beef,” I said, rather angrily, “what right had you to examine Peter's papers? You're employed by him.”

“In a case of murder,” said Beef ponderously, “you can't stop to consider little things like that. You've got to find the evidence.”

“Do you suspect Peter, then?”

“I haven't said that. But sometimes people hold evidence back with the best intentions. Or else because they don't know it is evidence. Anyway, you've got to get at the truth. By fair means or foul. Well, as I was saying, I began to look through his papers. I found a lot of interesting facts, but for a long time there was nothing, as you might say, to go on. There was letters from Sheila Benson that would make your hair stand on end, coming from a married woman. Business letters from his brother, stiff and formal most of them. Nothing to show he'd been philandering around with anyone else, so I daresay this carrying on with Mrs. Benson was genuine enough. Then, right down in one of the lower drawers in his desk, just stuck in a plain envelope, I found this.”

Beef fumbled in his pocket-case and withdrew a small slip of paper which he handed to me. On it I read these words: “Add this to the medicine.” That was all.

“Well?” I said.

“That's Benson's handwriting,” returned Beef.

“What about it?”

“Well, in the first place, don't you think it's rather extraordinary for a doctor to be telling anyone else to
add
something to medicine he's already prescribed? He'd never do such a thing in the ordinary way. If the medicine wasn't right he'd have it dispensed again. Never trust a private person to do that sort of a job. Then again, what was it doing kept so careful in an envelope at the bottom of Peter's desk? Even if it had been a prescription he'd wanted again he wouldn't have kept it more careful than that. Why should he have bothered about five words on a bit of paper?”

“Perhaps he regarded it as evidence,” I suggested brightly.

“If so, why didn't he tell me?” returned Beef. “No, there's something very fishy about it, and I'm going to find out what.”

“Is that all you discovered last night?”

“That's all there was in his room.”

“I hope you put everything back as you found it. I don't want to be involved in any trouble through letting you into the flat.”

“Everything's exactly as I found it,” returned Beef, “except for this. And if he finds out that this has gone I don't think he'll say anything. When I'd packed it all back and put everything straight I went downstairs to have a chat with the porter. He was a nice fellow; entered for the
News of the World
darts championship last year, but had a bit of bad luck in the second round. Couldn't get the double
one. But there you are, it's happened to all of us. I've seen a pair of good players…”

“Had he anything to say about the case?” I asked severely.