And So To Murder (13 page)

‘Then that is settled,’ he said grimly. ‘If you insist, it is funny. I will agree, without a struggle, that it is the funniest spectacle since the hanging of Larry O’Halloran. We will sit right down here and split our sides over it. But you are going to listen to me just the same. I am not going to have you go about any longer in danger of being attacked by that swine. I think too much of you for that. Here is the plain fact. I lo –’

‘Old Building! Lights!’

It blattered out, on dead silence, in the same familiar way. It made them both jump and turn towards the windows. The usual guardian was making his rounds outside the windows at the usual time.

‘Old Building! Lights showing!’ bawled the voice.

Monica was looking at Bill Cartwright.

‘Wh-what did you say?’ she asked.

‘Miss Stanton! Middle room! Lights!’

‘Wh-what did you say?’

‘Miss Stanton! Middle room! Top of black-out curtain! Chink showing!’

An invisible hand hammered on the glass of one window.

‘Miss Stanton! Lights!’

Monica went to the window – it would be fair to say that she flew at it – as the voice faded away. She pulled back the heavy inner curtains to their full width, and raised her hands to the black curtains underneath.

Bill watched her go. In an abstract way he saw the details of the room, lit by a naked glare of electricity. He saw the black-out curtains, smoothly drawn together without a chink down their length. He saw Monica squarely facing the oblong of the windows, her arms raised and her fingers fumbling with the top of the curtain-rod. He saw her shadow, blacker still on the black sateen. He saw –

This time you won’t be able to jump back
.

It was the wrong voice.

‘
DOWN
!’ he yelled, ‘
DOWN
!’

He was just too late. The crash of the explosion shook the window-pane as he ran for her.

The bullet had been fired at Monica’s face. It drilled a hole in the window-pane without shattering the glass, and left another hole in the curtain at about the height of her ear.

3

When he considered it afterwards, it always seemed that these things took a very long time, though in point of fact it was a matter of seconds.

Monica, still at the window, made a gesture. There was a very faint reddish patch on her left temple by the edge of her hair, like a slight abrasion before it begins to bleed. That was where the bullet had grazed, before it smashed the picture of Canon Stanton against the opposite wall.

The door communicating with Tilly Parsons’ room was flung open. Tilly stood in the doorway, her jaw-muscles loose and the lipstick standing out vividly against her face. Behind her, the office was a drift of crumpled papers; a cup of coffee smoked on Tilly’s desk, and a cigarette smouldered on the edge of the standing ash-tray.

Her voice was so hoarse as to be barely audible.

‘Was it –?’ she said.

‘I’m quite all right,’ said Monica. ‘He missed again.’

‘You’re hurt, dearie. I can see it! You’re –’

‘I’m quite all right,’ said Monica.

But she went over and sat down on the sofa. Bill Cartwright managed to speak.

‘Got a torch, Tilly?’

Tilly turned blazing eyes. ‘You going out after the so-and-so?’

‘Yes. He’s got to run along the edge of the lake. He can’t get across it. Give me a torch, quick!’

Tilly ran into her office and waddled back with a flashlight.

‘I know that voice,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard that voice: I mean the so-and-so who pretended to be the ground-keeper yelling “Lights”. Where have I heard that voice? Where – ?’

But Bill was already out of the room, the door banging. For a time there was no sound in Monica’s office except that of hard breathing. Tilly took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes; she seemed as much excited as moved.

‘Let me bathe your head, honey. Come on! Let me put some stuff on your head.’

‘No. Not just for a minute, please.’

‘Would you like a little drink, honey?’ wheedled Tilly. ‘I’ve got one, if you’d like it.’

‘Not for a minute.’

Monica sat on the sofa, her hand shading her eyes. Then she got up and went over to the photograph of her father. Canon Stanton continued to smile. The bullet had smashed the glass, making a hole in the Canon’s collar to bury itself in the wall behind; the picture hung sideways.

Taking down the picture, Monica looked at the splintered abrasion in the wall. She carried the broken picture over to her desk. Here, in the ordered neatness of things, she put it down beside a Victorian needlework box in red leather: a present from Miss Flossie Stanton, which Monica now kept full of cigarettes.

Tilly regarded her rather grimly.

‘Are you going to give it up now, honey?’

‘Give what up?’

‘Are you going to get away from this place, like he wants you to?’

‘I – I don’t know. No, I’m not!’

‘Easy, honey.’

‘I’m all right.’

‘Have a Chester,’ urged Tilly, dragging out the packet as though inspired. ‘English cigarettes are muck, dearie. I wouldn’t smoke one on a bet. Dearie, look.’ She paused. ‘He didn’t swipe your letter. I did.’

‘I thought so.’

‘Then why did you say – ?’

‘Oh, never mind.’

‘It was for your own good,’ said Tilly. ‘Honestly it was. He didn’t know anything about it until to-night. I told him; I told him everything. You trust him. He thinks he knows who’s been doing this: he’s been watching somebody. Why do you want to be so uppish? I told him you’d fallen for him.’

Monica gasped.

‘You told him –’

‘Ah, why deny it, dearie? It’s true. You know it’s true.’

‘It’s not true!’

‘It’s as true as gospel. Why, you even talk about it in your sleep. I remember the other night. I thought I heard somebody muttering, and I got up and put my head in your room. And it was you. It was something about his being a Roman, or your being a Roman, or your both being a Roman; but anyway, honey, it was
something
, I can tell you.’

Monica stared at her with widening eyes, and a widening flush which made her cheeks bright pink. She seemed to have difficulty in getting her breath.

‘That settles it,’ she breathed, after a long pause. ‘I was trying to make up my mind, but that settles it. That beast!’

‘But he didn’t do anything, honey. Don’t blame him just because he knows. Blame me. I told him. He didn’t do anything except shave off his beard because he thought it would please you.’

‘I hope a lion bites him,’ said Monica. ‘If he comes anywhere near me,
I’ll
bite him. I never want to have anything more to do with him as long as I live.’

‘Sh-h!’ whispered Tilly, jerking up her head.

Both of them whirled round towards the window. Outside, clear on the night air, came what sounded like a view-halloo bellow from Bill Cartwright. A noise of running feet burst out, dodged, and grew more distant; there was a terrific splash from the lake, a thrashing, a triumphant howl from Cartwright, and more footsteps pounding away along the bank.

1

T
HAT
was Monday night. On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 13th, Bill Cartwright was entering the courtyard of the War Office.

He had not really expected a reply to the letter he had ultimately finished on Monday night and put into the eleven o’clock post. At least, he had not expected more than an acknowledgement of receipt. But an answer, on Wednesday morning, came with such promptness as to startle him and make him wonder.

The reply gave no information. It merely stated that if he would come to the enquiry-office of the War Office, entrance in Horse Guards Avenue, if he would present this letter and ask for Captain Blake, the messenger would do the rest.

Meaning – ?

Craftily, as he thought, he persuaded Monica to go with him to London.

‘Like to come along to the War Office? After all, it concerns you.’

‘No, thank you. In any case, I’ve told you I would rather you didn’t trouble yourself about me.’

‘Just as you like. But it’s an interesting sight in itself. The War Office, shrine of Military Intelligence! Generals and pukka sahibs. Decorations galore. Marble halls and deep carpets. King’s Messengers dashing away on secret missions to the East. In
Desire
you sent Captain Royce to the place a dozen times, and so I thought perhaps –’

‘We-el,’ said Monica. …

But the journey to town, in a train which stopped to take a nap five or six times in fourteen miles, was not a conspicuous success. Monica sat primly in one corner of the carriage, and refused to talk about anything except detective stories. It appeared that in her three weeks at Pineham she had read hundreds of them. He himself had once been foolish enough to introduce the character of a clergyman into one of his books; and what Monica did with this was nobody’s business. Judging by the number of ecclesiastical errors he had committed, it seemed to him that it was only by a miracle he had escaped being burnt at the stake.

He could not make the girl out. At one time, just before that shot was fired through the window, he could have sworn he saw in her face something he wanted most to see there.

Then, suddenly, it wasn’t there. Not only was it not there, but the current of cold air which surrounded her had attained Arctic dimensions.

But once in London, and on their way to the famous War Office, she thawed a little. The wine-like September air had its effect. The sky, September blue, was dotted with the silver shapes of the captive balloons. Little had changed in wartime, except for the sand-bags buttressing some buildings, and the gas-mask containers which most of the crowd carried slung over their shoulders: but these were carried with rather the air of people carrying lunch-boxes and had a look more of festivity than of war.

‘Bill,’ said Monica, in the taxi from Marylebone Station. It was the first time she had used his Christian name for two days.

‘Yes?’

‘We
are
going to see Sir Henry Merrivale, aren’t we? The head of the whole Military Intelligence Department?’

‘We are.’

Monica began to wriggle.

They got out of the taxi at a court-yard, enclosed on three sides by a massive grey building, and paved with uneven small stones which reminded Monica unpleasantly of the cobblestones of Eighteen-eighty-two. A number of cars were parked in the court-yard. They moved in the direction towards which people seemed to be going – a big door on the left.

Inside, in a big, dingy reception-room, it was crowded. Here there were no signs whatever of marble halls or deep carpets. And there were no uniforms, except one or two with the red arm-bands of staff-officers. Bill Cartwright elbowed his way through the crowd to a counter on the left, where a capable-looking messenger, with one arm and a walrus moustache, was attempting to deal with a hundred things at once.

‘Yes, sir? Got an appointment?’

Bill held out the letter.

‘You’re all right, sir,’ the other assured him heartily. ‘Just sit down over there and fill in one of those white slips.’

While Monica’s mind conjured up magnificent images behind those darkish walls, Bill filled in the slip. All things balance themselves. Upon Bill Cartwright the War Office was working exactly the same effect as the film-studio had worked upon Monica Stanton. His hands shook so much that he could barely fill out the particulars. Now that he was here, with an actual introduction to Sir Henry Merrivale, what might not happen? Mightn’t they give him a job in Military Intelligence, even? This, the ultimate dream of his life, was so dazzling a prospect as to make him resolve never to be so logical or so compelling as during the forthcoming interview.

He returned the slip.

‘That’s all right, sir,’ said the messenger, conferring with some others. ‘Captain Blake, Room 171. But what’s this about “Miss Stanton”?’

‘That’s this lady. She’s with me.’

The messenger’s thick eyebrows went up. Some swift telepathic instinct warned Bill that he was about to receive a terrific kick under the ear.

‘But the lady can’t go up with you, sir.’

‘She can’t?’

‘No, sir.’

He caught Monica’s eye. After this Monica began to look very steadily and thoughtfully at the ceiling.

‘But why not? My business here concerns this lady. She’s the most important witness I have. It was because of her that I was granted an interview at all. She –’

‘Sorry, sir,’ returned the messenger, with finality. He drew a black line across the slip. ‘The letter says you and nobody else. Didn’t you know that when you brought the lady here?’

‘Monica, I swear I didn’t know that!’

‘Why, Bill, of course you didn’t,’ laughed Monica, suddenly galvanized into patting his arm. ‘I quite understand. It’s hardly my place here, anyway, is it?’

‘Look here: I won’t be long. You don’t mind waiting here for me?’

‘No, of course not. Not a bit.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Good heavens, of course not!’

(You villain. You low, mean, despicable, sneaking
hound
.)

‘Look, Monica: you mean that, don’t you? You’ll stay here? You swear to me you won’t go back to Pineham?’

‘Why, Bill, why ever should you think of such a thing? Of course I’ll wait. You run along and have a good time.’

‘This way, sir,’ interposed the messenger, patient but weary. ‘Keep that white slip. You’ll want it to get out again.’

Holding tightly to the brief-case he had brought with him, Bill was escorted away.

2

‘Phooey!’ said Sir Henry Merrivale.

Bill Cartwright, from information he had received at various times from Chief Inspector Masters, was prepared for certain things. He knew that H.M.’s manner was seldom one of effusive cordiality. He did not expect to be greeted with a slap on the back, or with the polished politeness of most Government departments. He knew that the old man was apt to get into a bit of a tear now and then.

But at the same time he was not prepared for the extraordinary, quiet malignancy of H.M.’s expression. H.M. sat back in a creaky swivel-chair, twiddling his thumbs over his paunch. His big bald head shone against the light from a window. His spectacles were pulled down on his broad nose, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down almost to his chin. On his face was an expression which would not have been out of place in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s.