Calamity in Kent, A British Library Crime Classic (3 page)

Chapter III

In Which an Intruder Appears

I needn't say that I was a trifle alarmed. I had, of course, realised that there was quite a possibility of someone wanting to use the lift. But somehow there was something unexpected about this newcomer. I don't quite know what it was; but that there was something odd about him it was totally impossible for me to deny.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” I said querulously.

“My remark was ‘Hullo, hullo, hullo,'” he said with a cheery grin. He was a tall, fat, red-faced fellow of sixty or so, and his face was wrinkled and happy.

“I heard that,” I said. “But I am afraid that I must ask you not to get into this lift just at the moment, if you don't mind.”

“This is a public lift, I take it,” he said, still grinning, but with a suggestion, somehow, of steely strength behind the cheerful countenance.

“It is,” I agreed readily enough, standing so as to guard the newcomer from a possible view of the body. I still thought that this corpse was, in a way, my property, and the fewer people that knew about it, the better I should be pleased.

“If it is a public lift,” the newcomer said, the grin slowly fading from his red face, “can you kindly inform me why it is that you have the right to ask me not to get into it? On the other hand, perhaps you would be so kind as to inform me who you are, and by what right you debar me from taking my place in what is a public vehicle?”

The shutters were down now with a vengeance. The grin had completely vanished from the cheery face. It was, in fact, no longer a cheery face, but one which was grim and earnest. I saw that I should have to put up a pretty good argument to persuade this fellow that I was in the right. There was no doubt that he was, in his own opinion, entitled to ask for a ride in the lift. And short of telling him that there had been a murder (which was something that I was sturdily resolved not to do) I did not see what I could do.

“There has been an accident,” I explained, temporising as far as I was able.

The grin returned. The man, it seemed, positively doted on accidents.

“What sort of accident?” he asked.

“An accident on the lift,” I replied, somewhat obviously.

“You mean to say that the machinery of the lift has gone wrong, I take it?” he commented. This verbal fencing didn't really amuse me, but I didn't see what other course of action I could take.

“No,” I admitted. “As far as I am aware, the lift is still in working order.”

“Then why,” he enquired, “am I not permitted to use it? And why, my dear sir, are you—whom I have never before seen in my life and who may therefore certainly be denounced as not the regular lift operator—why are you demanding that I should walk down about ten thousand infernal steps to the beach when there is a perfectly good lift available?”

I thought that there was little that I could do with this man. He looked like proving a confounded nuisance; there was no doubt, indeed, that I should have to tell him something about what was going on. I didn't really intend to reveal exactly what had taken place, but at the same time I felt pretty sure that unless I gave him some inkling, it would be impossible to get rid of him. And I had no desire that he should still be there when the police arrived on the scene. I knew that I should have enough to do in the way of awkward explanation, without having to do this in the presence of a stranger who had managed to attach himself to the party while Aloysius Bender was fetching someone from the police station.

“Someone has been hurt,” I said.

“Badly?”

“Pretty badly, yes.” No harm, I told myself, in admitting as much.

“Killed?”

“Ye-es.” I was sorry that I had gone so far now, but having gone so far, I did not see that I could very well stop short, without involving myself in all sorts of other explanations which I wanted to avoid.

“Murder?” This was the one question that I had been fervently hoping he would not ask. I might, however, have known that it would come.

“I don't know yet,” I answered.

“Police not here yet?” he went on, and by this time his grin had become something positively fiendish.

“No,” I said.

“On the way?”

“Yes,” I said. You will observe the way in which the chap had driven me, so to speak, into a conversational corner, so that it was well-nigh impossible for me to avoid telling him the very things that I had wanted to keep to myself.

“Mind if I have a look?” he went on, still grinning. He adroitly stepped past me into the lift. I had made up my mind not to tell him anything, or let him learn anything about what was going on. But he managed to get the best of me, and there was mighty little that I could do about it.

“Whew!” He whistled quietly to himself as he looked down at the body. “He got what was coming to him, didn't he?”

“Know the fellow?” I asked curiously. I was watching the newcomer carefully, and I was pretty sure, in my own mind, that he was not all that he appeared to be on the surface. I was, in other words, fairly certain that he had quite deliberately set out to see what was happening, that he had, in fact, some kind of knowledge of the murder. My instinct might, of course, be at fault, for I had no real knowledge of what had happened. But at the same time the instinct of a journalist with a nose for news is rarely at fault.

The man looked at me with a quizzical smile when I enquired if he knew the murdered man. “Do you know, I rather think I do know the fellow,” he said, after a momentary pause. “In fact, I'm pretty certain that I have seen him a few times before the present sad occasion.”

“Then who is he?” I asked.

“A somewhat bad lot, if I am not mistaken.”

This was not quite what I had expected. Still, I knew that it would be as well not to show any sort of surprise. I merely raised my eyebrows slightly, and said: “A bad lot? What exactly do you mean by that?”

My companion grinned, but there was no humour about the expression. There was, in fact, a kind of savagery about it, which I by no means liked.

“He had a finger in many a dirty pie,” was the reply. “He dabbled in all sorts of crooked games. In fact, he was a bad hat generally. By name Tilsley, if I'm not mistaken. And he seems to have upset someone pretty badly, for them to have dealt with him like that, eh?”

This was not quite the response that I had anticipated. Still, I was resolved to pick the man's brains, without giving away any kind of information on my side.

“Might I have your name, do you think?” I therefore asked him; though I thought, actually, that there might be a fairly considerable difficulty in persuading the man to tell me just who he was.

“My name is Watford,” he said, “Cyrus Watford, to be precise. I have the pleasure—if pleasure is the correct word—of practising the science (or should I say art?) of medicine in this town. I have encountered the late lamented Mr. Tilsley in connexion with my profession.”

This was straightforward enough, though I was by no means sure why a man who was apparently a perfectly ordinary doctor should come into contact with a man whom he knew enough about to describe as a “bad hat.”

“And so,” I said, “you got to know Mr. Tilsley well enough to know that he was a bad lot?”

“Yes.” That was laconic enough, in all conscience. There was, I thought, a definite tendency on the part of the man to dry up as I showed signs of wanting to know a bit more about him, and about his acquaintanceship with the dead man. Whether Dr. Watford was all that he appeared to be on the surface, or whether there was more in his appearance on the scene of the crime than met the eye, was something that would have, I decided, to be investigated, and investigated soon. It would, in fact, take a pretty high position on the list of things that I had to study before I was much older.

“Did you want to get down to the beach, Doctor?” I asked, more with the aim of keeping him in conversation than anything else.

“I did want to,” he replied, “but in view of the revelation that has met me here, I think that I shall change my mind, and just stick around, as our American friends so expressively say.”

This suited me well enough. I thought that it would be of some value if the man could be induced to stay on the scene until such time as the police arrived. If I could contrive to hang about, it might well be that the man would be given the chance of giving himself away. And I was firmly convinced that this strange doctor was connected with the death of Tilsley more closely than he had himself admitted.

“Have the police been informed of this lamentable occurrence?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I already told you that.”

“How?”

I smiled. “Another witness went to fetch the police,” I explained. “They should be along here at any moment now.”

The doctor looked at the watch on his wrist. “I think,” he said hurriedly, “that it would be as well if I made a move.”

“So suddenly?” I asked with a grin.

“I have patients whom I have to see, my dear sir,” he replied, with what was doubtless intended to be a disarming smile, though it did not strike me that way.

“At nine o'clock in the morning, doctor?” I enquired. I didn't bother to try to conceal my disbelief. It was too clear for words that the man was anxious, if it were at all possible, to dodge seeing the police.

“A doctor's is a busy day, my dear friend,” he said. “His work is never done, you might say. In fact, at all hours of the day he is at the beck and call of all and sundry—particularly if I may say as much without appearing to be in any way nasty, of those who fancy themselves to be much more ill than in actuality they are.”

That speech sounded straightforward enough. But I couldn't get out of my mind the fact that the fellow had been quite prepared to go on talking to me until he recalled the fact that the police were likely to appear on the scene. When that got home in his mind, he was in a tearing hurry to get away without delay.

Still, it was, of course, impossible for me to detain him. I had, for one thing, no legitimate standing in the case myself. And even had I some standing, there was no reason that I could lay my mind to, which would enable me to keep Doctor Watford there. Yet there was a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind, a suspicion which refused to be quieted, and which suggested that there was something fundamentally wrong about the man. It was not that there was anything about his conversation which did not ring true; it was not even that his attitude seemed in any way incorrect. He might, I told myself, be everything that he held himself out to be. He might be a doctor who dealt with Tilsley as a patient, and who somehow had stumbled on some secret of Tilsley's which indicated that the man was a criminal. But there was something about him which to my mind suggested the fake and the phoney. Just what it was I could not for the life of me decide; but I made a mental note to study the doctor as much as I could. For the moment, it was certain, I had to let him go.

“So you are on your way, Doctor?” I said quietly, studying his countenance as I spoke. I'll swear that it was a look of the most intense relief that came over it as he began to realise that I was not going to try to keep him on the scene of the crime. This was, again, a reason for studying the man with great care in the future.

“Yes. I'm a busy man, sir,” he said with a businesslike air. “My patients must come first, much though I would like to remain here and help the police in the investigations which must undoubtedly begin ere long.”

And he was away, with long swinging strides that got him over the ground at a deceptively fast rate. I thought that I had seldom seen a man so delighted to be getting away; but I could not really make up my mind why he had been so pleased. That there was something more than a trifle suspicious about the doctor seemed to be an unavoidable conclusion; but what the suspicions really amounted to it was difficult to say.

I glanced at my watch. Things had happened so quickly that it seemed impossible that only about ten minutes had elapsed since I had sent Aloysius Bender in search of the police. Yet such was the case. All the argument with Doctor Watford had, in fact, taken only about eight minutes.

Still, Bender had said that he thought the police station was about ten minutes' walk. That meant that the police would be on the scene at any moment now—for it was sure enough that they would waste no time in coming along when once Bender had told his tale.

I swung open the lift gates and glanced cautiously up and down the promenade. It was still fairly peaceful; there were few people about. I supposed that most of the visitors were probably having their breakfast. Certainly it was a lucky thing for me that there were not crowds clamouring to be taken down to the beach. I should probably have found it none too easy to explain to them what had happened.

Then I saw a figure in blue in the distance. Slightly behind it was the limping man whose strange behaviour had first brought me into contact with this case. And behind him was a tall, spare man who seemed to me to be vaguely familiar, though I could not for the moment quite place him. Anyhow, there was no doubt that the police were coming. Now I had to face what might well be a trying cross-examination. Still, I had brought it on myself, and if I got into a jam or a tangle I had only myself to blame for it.

Chapter IV

In Which the Police Arrive

I swung open the gates of the lift to allow the police to enter. And certainly Mr. Bender had told his tale well, for the limbs of the law had come along in force. There was a uniformed constable, a sergeant, and a grim-looking man with a military moustache, whom I soon learned to be Inspector Beech of the Kent County Constabulary. This was an impressive array of police talent; but in the background—that spare figure who had seemed familiar to me in the distance—was a man whom I was unfeignedly glad to see on the spot. If I had got myself in any sort of jam as a result of my excess of journalistic zeal he was undoubtedly the boy to get me out of that jam. He was, in fact, my old pal Detective-Inspector Shelley of New Scotland Yard. But just how he had contrived to get in on a murder on the coast of Kent within ten minutes of its discovery was something that I found difficult to understand.

“Hullo, Jimmy,” Shelley said, holding out his hand in friendly fashion.

“Good-morning, Inspector,” I said, only too delighted to have my credentials thus established early on in the case.

“You seem to make a habit of being in on the beginnings of murders, my lad,” Shelley said. “Only last time it was in a London night-club. Still, don't go finding too many bodies for us, Jimmy. We have suspicious minds in the force, you know.”

This was all said in an airy enough manner, as if the Inspector knew that I shouldn't take it too seriously. But I thought that behind it there might well be a hint not to assume that I should be quite beyond suspicion, merely because I was an old friend of the man from Scotland Yard.

I merely grinned. “Who are your friends, Inspector?” I asked. I was duly introduced. Inspector Beech gave me an unwinking stare that seemed to suggest he was not very impressed by me. I felt, under his glare, rather like a second-form schoolboy summoned to the headmaster's study.

It soon came out that Shelley had been staying with the Chief Constable, and, when my friend Bender had arrived at the police station, Shelley had actually been there, being shown round the premises by the chief, who was an old friend of his. He had forthwith rung Scotland Yard and had obtained permission to retain Shelley for a day or two, until it became clear whether this was a case which needed expert attention or not.

I thought that I could see more than a trace of resentment in Inspector Beech's manner. This was in many ways understandable, since he would probably not much like the idea of Shelley's being called in—though, naturally, he could not let Shelley see this.

Still, I thought that I should no doubt come under Beech's suspicious eye, since, as an admitted friend of Shelley's, I should more or less automatically be accepted as an unfriendly person.

I made up my mind to tell Beech the absolute minimum; any real confidence which I had would be reserved for Shelley.

But I now had the opportunity of witnessing the police at work—something which, in spite of some experience in my days as a cub reporter, I still found peculiarly fascinating.

Shelley and Beech, however, seemed to be working together well enough. That there may have been some psychological by-currents of which I was not aware was true enough; but outwardly they seemed moderately friendly. And I knew, from past conversations with him, that Shelley prided himself on handling the provincial policeman tactfully. It certainly seemed that he was doing that now.

Anyhow, there was something businesslike about the way in which the two Inspectors set to work. First of all, they moved the body over very gently; then they turned out the man's pockets, noting all the things which I had previously seen.

“Know the fellow, Bender?” Beech asked abruptly.

“No, sir. Never saw him before in my life,” answered my red-headed acquaintance.

“Do you know him, Jimmy?” asked Shelley, looking at me with a quizzical eye.

“No,” I said. “Of course, this is the first time I've ever been to Broadgate, so I might not know him, even though he may be a well-known local character.”

“I don't think that he was a local character,” Shelley replied, as he glanced at the letters he had taken from the man's hip-pocket. I wondered how much Bender had told the police about my searching the man, and consequently how much they knew about me. Of course, it was difficult for me to put myself in their place, and to decide just what they would think of the way in which I had acted. I'm sure that had I been in Beech's position I should have been very suspicious of a man who pushed himself into the case in the way in which I had done.

“Now, Mr. London,” said Beech, when they had concluded their examination of the body, “I think that, before we go any further, we should like you to answer a few queries. What do you think, Mr. Shelley?”

“I entirely agree,” Shelley said. “Of course, it so happens that I am an old friend of Mr. London's, and so I can, in a way, vouch for his character, so to speak. But at the same time I realise that he has a bit of explaining to do.”

I grinned. Shelley, I saw, while he was entirely ready to do the correct thing, had not forgotten our old friendship and was prepared to make the course of events as smooth as possible for me.

“How did you come into this business, Mr. London?” Beech asked, producing a large notebook and hovering a pen over it, as if he thought that he could intimidate me into some admissions of criminality. At least, that was my idea; it may not have been his, of course.

I told my story frankly, explained that I had seen Mr. Bender, obviously on the point of collapse, and, being both a journalist and a human being, had come forward to see if there was anything that I could do to help.

Shelley, I could see, believed me; about Beech I was by no means convinced. He had a sceptical eye, that man, and he seemed to think that I was hiding something—as indeed I was, for I did not intend, if I could help it, to reveal the fact that I had searched the fellow's pockets, or that I had managed to get hold of some information which was rightfully the possession of the police.

“You're a journalist?” Beech said.

“Admitted,” I grinned.

“On the staff of what paper?”

I explained that I was on the staff of no paper at the moment, having spent some months on my back after an operation which had not gone as smoothly as the doctors had hoped. I added that I was in the running for various jobs, and that I thought, as soon as my brief period of rest and convalescence was over, I should land something worth while.

Beech again did not look impressed. I thought that I had said my piece very nicely; but Beech had a truly suspicious mind, and did not seem to be prepared to accept me at my face value. This was a bit of a nuisance to me, though I could see that there was a certain amount of sense in his attitude—more sense, in fact, than he could know; unless he knew that I had been hunting through Tilsley's pockets.

“You won't be writing anything about this affair, then?” Beech said. I thought that I could detect a twinkle in Shelley's grey eyes.

“I can't guarantee that,” I replied.

“Why not? You said that you were not at present on the staff of any paper?” objected Beech.

“Not at present. But I am in the running for various jobs, and I might land one of them at any moment. Then, since I am already to some extent on the inside of this case, so to speak, an editor might well ask me to cover the case officially for his paper,” I explained.

Shelley chuckled. “If I know that unscrupulous journalistic mind of yours, Jimmy,” he said, “you'll be on the phone within five minutes of our leaving you, ringing some London editor, telling him that you are on the inside of this case, and offering to cover it for him and give him a good deal of exclusive news into the bargain.”

I grinned. “I must admit that such an idea had crossed my mind,” I said.

“But can't we stop him, Shelley?” Beech asked indignantly. It seemed that there was something about a journalist which made him see red. I diagnosed that he had been badly reported at some time—perhaps when making a speech at a police dinner, or something of that kind—and that as a result he had ever after a dislike of pressmen.

“No,” Shelley said cheerfully enough. “We can't stop him, and I don't see why we should try to. This case is certainly going to be pretty extensively reported in the papers, and Jimmy here is a fairly conscientious man, as journalists go. I mean to say, he takes a fair amount of trouble to get his facts straight; if he works for some London daily on the case, you can bet your life that he'll deal with it reasonably and fairly. And that's more than one can say of a lot of the news-hounds who are about nowadays.”

I must say that I thought that was uncommonly nice of Shelley. His statement certainly appeared to impress Beech, who for a moment became almost human.

“You won't publish stuff without our permission, I take it, Mr. London?” he said.

“I won't publish anything you tell me without your permission,” I amended his statement. “Anything which I manage to discover for myself I shall of course publish as I think fit. There is, after all, no embargo on news in this country—not as far as my information goes, anyhow.”

I thought that he deserved that dig. After all, I had received an unsolicited testimonial from Shelley, and I thought that I could, at least, have been taken more or less on trust by a lesser light like Beech.

In all these exchanges we seemed almost to have forgotten the reason why we were all there. Even the body had passed into the backgrounds of our minds. But it was now recalled by the arrival of the police surgeon, a cadaverous Scot named Gordon.

He was as businesslike as the two policemen. He knelt beside the body, tested it briefly for
rigor mortis
by bending the joints of the arms, glanced at the knife, and then stood up.

“I'll have to have the body around at the mortuary, ye know,” he said.

“I realise that, of course, Doctor,” said Beech. “But can you give us any information now? I mean, can you indicate cause of death, time of death, and any other information which is likely to be of some value to us at this stage? It doesn't matter if it is only approximate, but we find every little indication valuable early on in the case. Of course, you know all that anyhow.”

“Well,” the Doctor said thoughtfully, and paused. He was clearly a naturally cautious man who did not at all like being pressed to commit himself to any sort of definite statement which he was not capable of proving. “Well, I wouldn't like to say too much until after the post-mortem.”

“But you can tell us something?” There was an almost pleading tone about Beech's voice, and I saw that Shelley, who had had a long experience of reluctant medical witnesses, was more than a trifle amused.

“The cause of death I should have thought was obvious enough,” Doctor Gordon said. He pointed to the knife. “Judging by the blood that spattered all over the place, I should say that the knife had severed a main artery somewhere. And a man with a main artery bust hasn't got much of a future, you know.” He chuckled at his own macabre jest.

“And what about the time of death?” Inspector Beech was persistent enough. He was, indeed, like a bloodhound on the scent of something worth while in the way of food.

“I'd not like to commit myself very closely,” the Doctor said cautiously, looking at his watch. “You know as well as I do, gentlemen, that
rigor mortis
is a very tricky and undependable thing. It varies so much from one case to another that it's by no means easy to base any sort of precise decision on it.”

This little lecture in medico-legal practice was not too well received.

“Have a shot at it, Doctor,” Shelley said—his first direct intervention since the doctor's arrival. “Give us some sort of idea of when you think the man died, if you possibly can.”

Again the doctor peered at his watch. “Well,” he said, “if I must give you some sort of estimate, I should say that the man died between seven o'clock and midnight last night. But even that is not much more than a guess, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that he died at five o'clock last night, or at three o'clock in the morning. If I have to give evidence at any trial, gentlemen, I shall refuse to be at all precise about the matter. I strongly distrust all definite statements based on
rigor mortis
.”

I could see that Beech didn't like this; Shelley, on the other hand, was in no way put out. Personally, I thought that the doctor was being a bit pig-headed; but it had to be remembered that there had been cases when a medical witness, being too decided about the time of death, had been shown up in court by contradictory evidence, disproving what he advanced as a scientific estimate. Clearly Gordon was a cautious old boy who was not going to commit himself to anything which he did not regard as a cast-iron certainty.

Now he left, and an ambulance drove up. The attendants removed the mortal remains of John Tilsley. I thought, actually, that the whole thing had been quite skilfully handled. Few of the visitors who were now thronging the promenade could have had any idea of what had happened. The police managed the whole thing discreetly. Then Inspector Beech turned to Bender.

“What do you do on the odd occasions when the lift may get out of order?” he asked.

Bender fished in a locker underneath the seat that ran along one side of the lift. He produced a large sheet of cardboard. On it were printed, in large bold letters: “LIFT OUT OF ORDER.”

“I hang that on the outside of the gate,” he said. “There is a second one, too, for hanging outside the gate at the bottom, where it leads to the beach.”

“Good.” The Inspector was now all brisk efficiency. “You'll have to hang your notices out today, Bender,” he said. “The lift will be out of action, I'm afraid, for a day or two—until we have completed our preliminary investigations of this affair, at any rate.”