Dictator's Way (11 page)

Bobby explained that his business was urgent. He produced his official card and the maid looked suitably impressed and showed him into a comfortable, though slightly ornate drawing-room. Over the mantelpiece hung a large portrait of the Etrurian dictator, ‘Redeemer of his country', in his characteristic country-redeeming attitude so strongly reminiscent of Ajax defying the lightning. It was flanked on each side by portraits of his brother dictators of Germany and Italy, though these portraits were of smaller size and had less ornate frames – enough in these days, Bobby thought, to produce an international incident. Between the windows hung another large portrait of the Etrurian Redeemer, in the company of two or three babies, one of whom he was embracing on the well-established Eatandswill precedent. There were various other portraits of the same gentleman scattered about here and there. In all, including those on the side tables and wall brackets, Bobby counted nine, and decided that Mr. Troya must be indeed a loyal and devoted adherent of the existing regime. But then perhaps that was only natural on the part of a restaurant keeper largely dependent on the patronage of that regime's Ambassador. In one corner there was also a picture representing another and a different Redeemer, but it hung awry, and was evidently there on sufferance, before final removal.

The door opened and Mr. Troya came in, heralding his arrival with a sneeze or two. He was a short, sturdily built little man, a trifle run to fat now, but with broad shoulders and a deep chest that explained how effectively that soup ladle of his had been wielded on a certain occasion. His eyes were small, bright, and shrewd, set in a wide fat face, above a bristling little black moustache with waxed ends. He was wearing a dressing-gown and Bobby noticed that there were fresh ink stains on the forefinger of his right hand, as though he had been busy writing with a fountain-pen that leaked a little.

“Is. there any complaint, anything not satisfactory?” he asked, glancing nervously from Bobby's card he held in one hand to Bobby himself and then back to the card again. “I assure you I am most careful – always. Never, never do I permit in my restaurant –”

“Nothing to do with your restaurant, Mr. Troya,” Bobby assured him.

“It is about the murder, then?” Troya asked, and grew more pale even than before. “I know nothing about it, nothing at all. It is true I knew poor Mr. Macklin. It was a shock to me, naturally. But only in business did I know him, purely business. He was not a friend, you understand, a client, a valued, a most valued client.”

“How did you know there had been a murder, Mr. Troya?” Bobby asked.

Troya jumped – literally jumped.

“But – but –” he stammered. “But –”

Bobby waited.

“I heard – it was a message,” Troya stammered. “On the 'phone. I was rung up.”

“Who by?”

Troya gulped and looked round wildly, a little as if seeking help and counsel from his country's redeemer.

Bobby waited.

Waiting was always effective. If you stood and waited silently, then those who had reason to be nervous became generally very nervous indeed and soon felt it incumbent on them to do or say something. Troya wiped his forehead. It was wet with perspiration, but Bobby had in justice to admit that Mr. Troya looked as if he perspired frequently and on small provocation. At last he stammered out:

“I assure you, I do not know, it was someone, but who I do not know.”

“You don't – know?” repeated Bobby with some emphasis on the last word.

Troya let loose a stream of language, half English, half Etrurian, with an appeal at almost every word to every saint he could remember, each in turn, in the hope apparently that if one could not help another would, or perhaps on the simple theory that there is safety in numbers. He repeated that no name had been given and he had not recognized the voice. The news had so startled him he had not even wondered who his informant might be. He had been too ‘bowled over' ‘as you say here in England,' to think about that. Then, too, the speaker had rung off almost immediately and attempts to obtain further information had been useless.

It was a possible story, Bobby supposed.

But a little odd that Peter Albert had told one so similar.

Noticeable, though, that Troya's informant had given the right name.

“Mr. Macklin was a client of yours?” Bobby asked.

“Of the most valued,” Mr. Troya asserted, and then paused, but seemed to decide he might as well tell the truth since it would infallibly come to be known sooner or later.

“It was for the suppers,” he explained, “the suppers Mr. Judson gave at this house where the tragedy has happened. I supplied the food, the wines, the service – all of the highest, the most superb quality.”

“I see,” said Bobby. “Do you do much of that kind of work?”

“As much as I can get – but only of the best, for those who understand and who can pay. I am not a universal provider,” said Mr. Troya with a touch of professional pride.

“You know Mr. Macklin was murdered and you realize I am a police-officer engaged on the investigation,” Bobby said formally. “You understand also that it is your duty to give all the information you can and that it may be of great value?”

Mr. Troya protested that there was nothing he could say. The news was terrible. To him it had been a shock of the utmost. Horrible. One did not expect such things to happen to people one knew oneself – even though purely in business. Above all, not in England, so calm, so peaceful, above all with a police so admirable, so courteous, so obliging. The mere sight of an English policeman filled Mr. Troya with a sense of peace and complete security, and the odd thing was that he seemed quite sincere in saying this even though the presence of Detective-Sergeant Bobby Owen was very plainly inspiring in him sensations altogether different.

In answer to further questions he considered Mr. Macklin to have been one of the most friendly and kindly of men. He could not conceive the possibility of Mr. Macklin's having an enemy in the world. Admittedly he knew nothing of Mr. Macklin's private life, but one could tell, could one not? A little hard in driving a bargain, no doubt, but that one had to expect, and the bargain once made, everything that was most desirable.

All this came out in a torrent, a spate of words, every fresh question Bobby asked releasing a fresh outpouring, accompanied always by much gesticulation and appeals to different saints of whom Mr. Troya seemed to know as many as the mate of an American tramp knows swear words. Then Bobby fired a final question.

“You haven't explained what it was took you there yesterday afternoon?”

“I wasn't,” fairly screamed Mr. Troya. “Mother of God, why should I have been there? There was no reason, nothing to arrange, no supper, it was only for that I ever went, for the arrangements when Mr. Judson was expecting friends. It was for that alone I ever saw Mr. Macklin – may his soul rest in peace,” added Mr. Troya, and Bobby wondered if it was only a fancy that made him think this aspiration was one for which Mr. Troya did not consider there existed much solid ground.

“Mr. Troya,” he said, “I remind you again – a man has been murdered and I am a police-officer trying to discover what happened. From information we have received, we believe you were on or near the spot when the murder took place.”

“No, no,” said Mr. Troya faintly. “Oh, no.”

“Our information is,” Bobby continued, “that you sat there for some time under a tree, that you smoked two cigars – the stumps are in our possession.”

Mr. Troya flung up his hands with a groan of despair, evidently thinking, as Bobby had rather hoped he would, that the two cigar stumps were conclusive evidence. He moaned:

“You were watching me then all the time?”

“We are also informed,” Bobby continued, prudently ignoring this, “that you saw a lady in the grounds, that you spoke to her, that she resented your conduct –”

“Mother of God, St. Luke, St. Joy, St. Christopher,” screamed Mr. Troya and now his forehead not so much perspired as overflowed, “you will not tell my wife?”

“That entirely depends,” Bobby answered coldly, “on the course of the investigation. The more we know, the fewer questions we shall have to ask, the fewer people we shall have to see. Would you not prefer to tell us the whole truth?”

“Very well,” sighed Mr. Troya, “I will try.”

There was a silence, a long silence. Bobby waited. He had an air of being prepared to go on waiting, as if indeed he had no thought in all the world but to sit and wait. Mr. Troya began to feel a trifle easier in his mind. Just another stolid English policeman, he told himself. Well, was it for nothing that Etrurian subtlety was famous the world over?

Mr. Troya spread out his hands.

“I will tell you the whole truth,” he announced firmly.

Bobby looked depressed. He knew that gambit. It was an almost infallible warning that a pack of lies was coming. But he said nothing, only looked more stolid than ever, and Mr. Troya continued fluently:

“No one has any idea of the competition in the catering trades. It is terrific, unheard of, unparalleled. Our association will shortly approach the Government with a demand – it is not too strong a word – that no more restaurants shall be permitted –”

“Mr. Troya,” interrupted Bobby, “I don't want to hear about your business difficulties. I want to know why you were in the garden of The Manor at the time of the murder, and what happened while you were there.”

“But I explain,” protested Mr. Troya, hurt and indignant, for what is the good of subtlety against an ox-like stolidity that will not even listen? “I heard that Mr. Judson had been complaining – oh, not at the quality of the food, the wine, the service, that would have been impossible – but at my, in fact, incredibly small charges. Perhaps it was only a story. But I thought it would be best to see Mr. Macklin. I heard he was visiting The Manor yesterday and that he was to meet there some representative or another of one of the coffee-stall establishments.”

“Coffee-stalls?” repeated Bobby, surprised.

“I call them coffee-stalls,” explained Mr. Troya severely. “What else are they, these wholesalers of the art of dining, so delicate, so individual, with their establishments at every street corner?”

“Oh,” said Bobby enlightened. “Well, did you see Mr. Macklin?”

Mr. Troya shook his head.

“It was warm, it was sunny. I sat there in the shade. I smoked a cigar, another. I dozed. I was happy. There was no heat from the kitchen, no complaint from the clients, no quarrelling between the chefs and the waiters. In my mind I composed two new dishes. How was I to know that hidden agents of the police were watching my every movement, waiting to seize even the stumps of my cigars when I flung them away so heedlessly, poor innocent that I am?”

He nearly wept here at the thought of how Etrurian simple faith had been so meanly taken advantage of.

“Curious,” remarked Bobby, “that you did not see anything of Mr. Macklin.”

Mr. Troya rose to his feet and made fresh appeals to numerous saints to witness he was telling the truth. Indeed he would probably have gone through the whole calendar and then started afresh had not Bobby stopped him.

“It may be that I slept a little,” Mr. Troya admitted, “it may be that Mr. Macklin arrived while I reposed, it may be that he was already there. I repeat, I saw nothing of him. I saw nothing of anyone till I had given up hope and had decided to return home. Then I saw arrive a girl. Not pretty, plain, pale, thin – it breaks the heart how women now are thin. Why is it do they think that there exists a restaurant of the first order, such as the ‘Twin Wolves'? – ah, pardon,” for Bobby had made an impatient movement. “Nevertheless, it was a woman, and it was only natural, was it not? to suppose that she was one of the pretty ladies Mr. Judson entertains and that she had returned for some reason, perhaps in the hope of seeing again Mr. Judson, perhaps merely to meet Mr. Macklin, and that therefore since Mr. Judson was not there, and Mr. Macklin not visible, the opportunity was favourable for a friendly salute from one who is not yet perhaps – ah, pardon, yes, I keep to my story. She misunderstood. They often have that air. Well, as a rule, with a little persistence, one can remove that misunderstanding. But before there was time for that, there arrived literally from nowhere – literally, I repeat,” emphasized Mr. Troya who had chiefly learnt his English from a study of the popular Press – “a ruffian, a giant, an ogre, an animal of unbelievable size and stature. And then – by misfortune, in stepping backwards to defend myself, I slipped by the very edge of the lake.”

“You mean he picked you up and chucked you in, head over heels?” interposed Bobby.

“Sir,” said Mr. Troya with dignity, “you express it with a crudity and a vulgarity that I resent, but that I overlook.”

“What happened next?” asked Bobby.

“Nothing. It was enough,” answered Mr. Troya with still greater dignity.

Bobby asked a few more questions. Mr. Troya protested that he had never even seen Mr. Judson. Of the nature of Mr. Judson's parties, he knew nothing. There was talk, of course, among the staff, chatter about card playing, about the fabulous sums that changed hands, about the nature of the films shown, about this, that, and the other. But all of it only gossip, hearsay, inference. No member of the staff was allowed to be present when the films were being shown. The doors were locked, the windows were curtained and on the first floor, no one was permitted to go in or out. It was the same when cards were being played. Perhaps there was roulette also. No waiter was allowed in the room. One of the smaller adjoining rooms was fitted up as a bar, and any of Mr. Judson's friends wanting a drink had to come there for it, and, if he wished, carry it himself into the room where the gambling was going on. All that of course made plenty of talk, but talk it remained. There was always a bully in attendance in case of trouble, but his services had never been required, except once or twice when smart young gentlemen had tried to gatecrash, under the impression perhaps that The Manor was some kind of night-club.