Dictator's Way (14 page)

“I'll talk,” he said, “as one gentleman to another. But no writing nothing down. Take it or leave it.”

Bobby decided to take it. If necessary, Clarence could always be brought in later for more severe interrogation. For the present, it would be best to listen to what he wanted to say.

“Oh, have your own way,” he said, settling down comfortably in bed. “Any objection to a cigarette? They are somewhere about. Help yourself and throw me one. There's a lighter on the dressing-table. Thanks. Now, how about starting at the beginning. How did you first come to know Mr. Judson?”

It appeared that Mr. Judson, something of an athlete in his youth, and still, even in middle age, of fine physique, was interested in boxing. He had been himself an amateur boxer of some standing. Also he had been one of Clarence's backers in the last heavy-weight contest Clarence had taken part in.

“I'd have won all right,” Clarence interposed, “had it all my own way till I sort of slipped, and my head went whack against one of the ring posts, and them calling it a K.O. Yah.”

He paused to spit out of the window as a sign of disgust and then continued. It seemed that Mr. Judson, being in need of a real tip-topper, thoroughly trustworthy, honest as the day, straight as they're made, had inevitably, in Clarence's opinion, thought of Clarence. For one of the disadvantages of the generous hospitality Mr. Judson liked to extend to ladies of his acquaintance at The Manor – as being more private than hotels or the flat – was that occasionally friends and relations of the said ladies desired further pecuniary rewards, under threat of a publicity from which it was hoped Mr. Judson would shrink.

“Blackmail,” said Clarence who, never having been in the Foreign Office in his life, was able to give things their own names. “When they tried it on, Mr. Judson told 'em to come along to The Manor and talk it over and they'd get what was right. Only when they come, there was me waiting, with instructions to dump 'em in the lake. Which being done according, they never came back no more.”

“If Macklin was trying blackmail, too,” Bobby said, “why didn't Judson treat him in the same way?”

“What I says,” Clarence answered slowly, “is as how Macklin, he knew something. Them others, they was just small change. Their lay was, here's a swell city gent., what won't want nothing known, or why don't he take 'em to Brighton for a week-end, like anyone else? Something behind that, they thought, wife and family he don't want to know – ought to be good enough to cop a tenner on, says they, the poor suckers. But that's where they backed a wrong 'un, Mr. Judson not being respectable and his wife knowing it all and not caring, being on the same lay herself, if all stories are true.”

“Nice couple,” observed Bobby.

“It takes all sorts to make a world,” Clarence pointed out, “and then he's a gentleman, he is, and she's class, too. Plenty of money as well.”

“Money covers a multitude of sins,” agreed Bobby.

“So it wasn't no tenners, only the lake for them, the poor dubs,” explained Clarence, “and two quid for me, let alone the fun. The young lady t'other afternoon only came through with a nice new pound note, but ladies ain't never free like with the ready – always mean like, is ladies.” So it had been no impulse of chivalry surging up in his rough, untutored, but manly bosom that had urged Clarence to Olive's rescue, but merely a keen eye for a business opportunity!

“Got that note still? Bobby asked, and seldom had more difficulty in getting words pronounced, for suppose Clarence had, and suppose the number proved to be one of the series originally paid out by the bank to Macklin?

He hated having to ask the question, he hated still more the doubts that made him hate it so, but Clarence looked at him with a certain pity and said:

“What do you think? Reckon with a thirst like I had I was going to hang on to it for a keepsake? ‘The Manor Arms' may have got it still, if you ask 'em.”

“Never mind. Go ahead,” said Bobby, refusing to admit to himself that it was a relief to know there could be no hope of tracing a pound note paid in the usual way over the counter of a busy public-house. Nor did the fact that Clarence had noticed it was a brand new one count for much, since all banks frequently pay out notes fresh from the printing press.

Clarence continued his story. He had also been employed, as Bobby already knew, as a kind of guardian of the door when Mr. Judson entertained his friends at The Manor. If, as sometimes happened, uninvited guests appeared, then it was his duty to deal with them – to see them outside the grounds if they went willingly, and inside the lake if they showed any reluctance to depart.

“Your blokes tried it on once,” said Clarence, closing his eyes with a beatific smile at the thought of that happy memory. “You did ought to have heard the telling off I gave 'em – one of your inspectors it was, Ferris his name is, I told him things about himself all the way to the entrance gates. Never said a word back neither,” Clarence added with a little sigh of disappointment.

“Discipline,” explained Bobby, though secretly wishing he had been there to hear Clarence taking advantage of such a heaven-sent opportunity to tell a dignitary of Scotland Yard exactly what he thought of him. Bobby remembered having seen Ferris's report, which had somehow forgotten to mention Clarence and had merely stated briefly that no foundation appeared to exist for the rumours that strangers were admitted to The Manor entertainments.

“Top dog – that was me,” said Clarence happily.

“We all have our turn,” agreed Bobby.

It seemed further that Mr. Judson's guests were often aware of the fact that Clarence had been tried for murder, had narrowly escaped conviction, and had served a term of penal servitude on the lesser charge of manslaughter. In consequence, some of them sometimes questioned Clarence on his experiences, which, as he now admitted, lost little in the telling and were often worth a liberal tip.

“When they was good and screwed and ready to put it up,” Clarence explained, “I used to throw in another murder what no one had never found out but kept me awake at night, dreaming of the blood flowing free from the cove's throat what I cut from ear to ear. Copped a fiver, that did, one time, and a quid as often as not. Got me a repitition, too.”

“A repitition? repeated Bobby, puzzled for the moment, “Oh, a reputation. I see. Go on.”

“It got so as some of 'em,” explained Clarence, “would give me half a crown soon as I looked at 'em, for fear of being handed out the same – especial if I showed 'em the knife I done it with, sharpening it all the while on my boot. But I had to drop that.”

“Why?” asked Bobby.

“Same gent, but not the same knife,” explained Clarence. ‘Slipped up I did when one time I showed him the carving knife what I done it with, and next time it was a razor I showed with the spots on it what was the blood before wiping off. So he called me a liar,” said Clarence sadly, “and didn't turn up not even a copper.”

“Hard luck,” agreed Bobby sympathetically. “That means all Judson's guests knew about you?” he added reflectively, thinking to himself that this meant that any one of them, believing Clarence guilty once of murder, might have had the idea of hiring him to commit another.

“All of 'em,” admitted Clarence proudly. “You could see 'em looking,” he added, pushing out his chest. Then he added, for though he loved the reputation thus gained, he had his scruples about it, too: “But I never done no murder all the same. All I done that time I was pinched was to out a bloke with a straight one to the chin when he come at me with a knife. It was another bloke he copped the kick on the head from what did him in.”

Bobby nodded. The doubts existing on the identity of the person actually responsible for the fatal kick had, he knew, been enough to save Clarence from the gallows in spite of some hard swearing on the part of others implicated and chiefly anxious to save their own skins. In the end the verdict had been manslaughter and a lenient judge had passed a sentence comparatively light and certainly no more than Clarence had thoroughly deserved for his part in the affair, even if that had stopped far short of murder.

Clarence continued. In the course of his employment by Mr. Judson he had been obliged now and again to present himself at Mr. Judson's offices. Sometimes, too, he had been there on errands connected with Mr. Judson's boxing interests, as an occasional backer of likely youngsters. In this way he had picked up an acquaintance with some of the staff, and had heard that it was the general opinion in the office that Macklin had some, kind of hold over Mr. Judson. Macklin had made his appearance suddenly about three years previously, he had been taken into the office at once, within three weeks he had been appointed manager of the coal export department over the heads of exceedingly disgruntled employees of long service who felt one of them ought to have been given the post. Moreover he had shown himself utterly inexperienced, though he had picked up the routine quickly enough. He had in fact proved to be quick and intelligent, though very apt to leave all the work to be done by the very men over whose head he had been appointed. He had always been amiable and friendly in the office, and so was not unpopular personally, and then Mr. Judson had, since Macklin's arrival, been generous in the matter of rises, as if in compensation for missed promotion. As a result, what with the unnecessary Mr. Macklin's own salary and the extra rises given, Mr. Judson was paying out in overhead office costs some six or seven hundred a year more than before, and that amount made so big a hole in the already exiguous profits of the coal export department some of the staff expected it would soon be closed down altogether.

“They say,” Clarence explained, “as there's a deal of money owing along of them foreigners not paying up and no business could stand it, not carrying on just on all debt and no pay, only Mr. Judson has to, along of not never getting none, if he don't.”

Bobby nodded. He knew, of course, that to-day, with the whole world in a ‘state of chassis', to quote a celebrated saying, it is often the creditor who has to dance to the debtor's tune.

After that had come the mysterious attempt to hire Clarence in the role of first murderer. He had received a message instructing him to go to a call-box and ring up, at the hour given him, a specified number. He had done so and had been told to proceed to a described spot, not very far from The Manor, where the road ran by the edge of Epping Forest, and there wait. Presently a big car had drawn up. Without much preliminary, for it had apparently been assumed he would be ready to undertake the job, he had been offered five hundred pounds to carry out a killing, one hundred down, and four hundred on completion of the task, complete safety guaranteed. Arrangements, he was told, would be made to provide an absolutely sure alibi on testimony that would have to be accepted.

Clarence's story was that he had not at first understood that the offer was made in sober earnest, and when he did understand it was seriously meant, he had responded by a flat refusal and an effort, as he put it, to ‘swipe the bloke one as would learn him better'. The ‘bloke', however, had dodged the blow and produced a gun. Clarence, scared, for the gun had a nasty look, dodged away into the trees, and the ‘bloke' drove off with a final shouted warning to Clarence to hold his tongue about the events of the night, if, that is, he wanted to go on living.

“Which I do, guv'nor,” said Clarence earnestly, “which is why I've come the way I have to-night, so as no one wouldn't know, for there's been them tailing me, which I thought was your busies at first, only it wasn't, and a note come through the post, too, telling me as I was to watch out if I didn't want to cop it some night. So I don't and I ain't making no signed statements neither, and from now on I'm lying low, the way you can count me out, till this here game's cleared up.”

Nor from that determination could Bobby move him, either by threats or promises. Nor could he give any clear description either of man or car. Nor had he kept either of the notes sent him. The first note he had flung away at once, thinking it of no importance. The second note he had destroyed, because, as he said, he hadn't half liked the looks of it. He remembered, however, that the writing had been in block capitals so that every precaution had probably been taken to prevent the sender being traced. Nor did Clarence remember the 'phone number he had been instructed to ring up, but then almost certainly that would have been some restaurant or public-house – possibly even another call-box.

“One thing more,” Bobby said as Clarence began to show signs of wishing to depart, “how was it you happened to be at The Manor that day? You are sure you saw no one?” 

“No one,” repeated Clarence earnestly, “except the young lady, and the cove I dumped in the lake, and you, guv'nor, what I scrapped with.”

“You didn't see Macklin? or go into the house?” Clarence asserted with various oaths that he had neither seen Macklin nor entered the house. He had only got there a few minutes before Bobby. Further questioned, he admitted he had come on foot through the forest and had no evidence to prove what time he had actually arrived. His reason for going there was that he had been hanging about in the neighbourhood of Mr. Judson's city offices with some vague idea in his mind of trying to find out who had wanted to hire him to commit a murder and for what reason.

“I thought as I might get to know something,” he explained, “and then I saw Mr. Judson and Mr. Macklin go by in Mr. Judson's car and they was heading Epping way so I thought I would follow and see if I could twig what was up. Five hundred pounds is worth copping, and more than you most ever get a smell of all your life, though I ain't no murderer. Only there you are.”

“That's right,” agreed Bobby, wondering a little if Clarence had on second thoughts been inclined to regret a too precipitate refusal.