Close Quarters (10 page)

10

PRYNNE IS ALMOST CERTAIN

When Canon Prynne awoke on Thursday morning he realised that something very jolly was happening. It took him a moment or two to sort his sleep-scattered thoughts, and then he remembered. As he remembered he glowed with a pure and disinterested enthusiasm.

Appledown had been murdered – so he had! And he, Canon Prynne, knew who the murderer was. And no one else knew. The two policemen from London, to give them their due, had probably guessed – had, anyway, a shrewd suspicion. But suspicions were far from proofs.

For that matter he had no concrete proof. And though he could point the finger and say how and when and where, the why of it eluded him. And today being Thursday he was going to have a shot at getting proof and the why at the same time.

He dressed in a mood of thoughtful elation, and went down to his customary breakfast of orange juice and dry toast.

Morning service over, he returned to his house and settled down in his study. It was the best and largest room in the house, and from Prynne's point of view it had one great advantage. It possessed a bow window which commanded the stretch of the road from corner to corner of the precincts.

Having positioned his chair carefully in the window recess he settled himself in it, facing west; on his knees he laid a weighty commentary on the book of Job.

At twelve-thirty he shut the book with a sigh, rose to his feet, left the study, passed through the front hall, and reached down his town-going hat. A moment later he was strolling along the Close walk in the bright sunshine with which September had graced its closing day.

He was so occupied with his philosophic reflections that he did not notice the peculiar behaviour of a solid-looking man in corduroys who seemed to have been spending a busy morning doing nothing in particular to the lamp outside Mrs. Judd's gate. Not, in point of fact, that there was anything very remarkable about the stolid-looking individual, except possibly the size of his boots. But no sooner had Prynne passed him than he deserted his work on the lamp-post and entered a near-by telephone booth, where he put through a call. (And why not, anyway?)

Pollock was at the police station when the call came, and he took it himself. He listened carefully, and said at last: ‘Quite right – but of course we can't make 'em all stop in the Close. Pass the word to Page and tell him to phone me in ten minutes. I'll hang on here.'

Ten minutes later the station telephone rang again. Pollock listened with growing excitement and satisfaction. This time he said, ‘The devil he did! Well, don't lose sight of him. I'll be with you myself in five minutes.'

To Hazlerigg, who came in at this moment, he explained rapidly, ‘It looks as if one of them's breaking cover. I can't quite make out who it is, from the description, but he's up at the station – no, he's not simply meeting someone; Page just heard him book for London. What about it? He says there's an up train due in about ten minutes.'

‘Then I think,' said Hazlerigg, ‘I really think that you might take a trip to London yourself. It's a beautiful day. There's a police car outside the door …'

‘Of course,' said Pollock many hours later, when he was making his report to Hazlerigg, ‘that infernal car would elect to break down just in the middle of the High Street. Even then I should have had loads of time to walk, but the fool of a driver – may he tramp his beat to the black end of eternity – assured me it wouldn't take a minute to put right. It was nearer five minutes. In the end I got the train by the skin of my teeth.

‘However, at Waterloo I was out of the train before it had come to a standstill, and dodged quickly into cover behind the paper stall in the middle of the platform. It was at this juncture that it struck me that I didn't know who I was chasing. Gimblett had said “one of the clergymen from the Close,” and Page had been hardly more explicit, and stare as I might I couldn't see anyone I knew. I had been standing at the extreme end of that paper stall, keeping well down, but now the last passengers were climbing out and the porters were slamming the doors, so I made a move forward. It was one of those two-sided stalls with an opening on each side, and as I moved up level with it I could see right through it, and there on the other side, unconcernedly buying an
Investor's Chronicle,
was Canon Prynne. He must have been within six feet of me the whole time.

‘There was only one thing to be done. I retired to my previous position, hoping that I hadn't been seen. And I don't think Prynne did see me, but a new danger appeared in the shape of a very superior station official who had for some minutes been regarding my conduct with the gravest suspicion. He may have seen me leap from the train. Anyway, I was obviously a suspicious character and “lurking with intent.”

‘By the grace of heaven, before he could get at me, Prynne had bought his paper and was half-way down the platform, his nose deep in his
Investor's Chronicle.
I had time, therefore, to produce my warrant card and explain to the stationmaster in a blistering whisper exactly what I thought of interfering minor officialdom (rather unfair, really, but it took him aback to such an extent that he never even asked me for my ticket – which was lucky, because I hadn't got one).

‘Prynne, by this time, was through the barrier and drifting up the station. I say drifting, because I've never seen anyone progress with his nose buried so deep in a newspaper – but I daren't give him too much rope, as he was obviously making for the Underground, and I knew by experience the choice which the Waterloo Underground offers, even to an innocent quarry.

‘However, he ignored the City line entirely, and kept straight on, and it presently became apparent that it wasn't the Edgware, Highgate and Morden line that he wanted. That left the Bakerloo, and a balance of probability that he was making for the West End.

‘So for, as I have said, no hunter could have desired a more considerate quarry. He never took his eyes off his paper and he never looked back. When he reached the Underground platform he stood well against the wall, and continued to read. There was a fair crowd, and I was well out of his sight, some twenty yards farther down the platform, in the opening of the corridor. All too, too easy.

‘Well, I may have been lulled into a false sense of security, because the next bit caught me on the wrong foot. A train came in, and Prynne moved up with the others as if to get in. Then he changed his mind – too crowded for him, I thought, as he moved back to his old position. I stayed where I was, of course. The guard had shouted “all clear,” and the train doors were beginning to close when Prynne changed his mind for a second time, and showing a most remarkable turn of speed he nipped across the now empty platform and inserted himself between the rapidly closing doors.

‘I don't know, to this moment, how I managed to get aboard myself. In fact I don't think I should have done, had not some part of Prynne been caught as the doors closed, whereupon the presiding deity opened them again sufficiently to clear the obstruction, and this just gave me time to insert my own vile body.

‘But I was horribly perturbed, nonetheless, for it stuck out a yard that there was nothing accidental about Prynne's last manoeuvre, and it's disturbing to find you have been underrating an opponent.

‘But the business presented another curious feature. To start with, I was as sure as I could be that Prynne had never once looked at me. You know how sensitive you get to these things when you are “tailing” somebody, and there isn't one man in a thousand can prevent himself from giving that involuntary backward glance when he realises he is being followed.

‘By the time we had run through Charing Cross and were approaching Trafalgar Square I had come to the conclusion that either Prynne was a bold and desperate criminal or else I was the world's fool – and neither idea pleased me much. But then when I saw him pottering off up the platform, still seeming uncommonly interested in market prices, well – the first notion seemed fantastic.

‘When we got to the lift Prynne was the last man in – which meant, of course, that I couldn't go in after him, so as the lift shot up I sprinted for the emergency stairs. They were as endless and as filthy as emergency stairs always are, and by the time I arrived breathless at the top I expected that Prynne would be out of sight. However, he was only just leaving the station. He seemed to be in no hurry. He had put away his paper now and was making for the Strand.

‘At the first corner we came to I slowed down and took a squint into a conveniently placed shop window; it was lucky I did. Prynne had stopped dead and was backing. Not walking back, but walking backwards, if you follow me. I could only see his reflection, and it looked so odd that I stood rooted to the spot. Another moment and he had disappeared into a doorway – something that looked like one of those back kitchen or basement entrances you see behind big hotels.

‘I was wondering whether to go forward (which meant certain discovery if Prynne was merely standing in the doorway) or stay where I was and wait on events, when a hand tapped my shoulder and I leapt round to find – yes, laugh if you like – a common or garden police constable regarding me with owlish suspicion; it was an ‘A' Division man, and fortunately I knew him by sight.

‘“Now then,” he said, “I've bin watching you.”

‘“Well, Potts,” I retorted, or words to the effect, “You can something or other well stop watching me this something minute and get on with your qualified job and leave me to do mine.” It's funny how extra savage you sound when circumstances force you to whisper.

‘I think he must have recognised me at this juncture, for he grinned toothlessly and started to move off, and suddenly it struck me that here was a heaven-sent ally.

‘I quietly explained the situation to him, and told him that he must walk up the next street and glance in at the doorway as he did so. “You'll probably see a clergyman standing there,” I ended.

‘“Ah,” said he, “I've bin keepin' a hye on ‘im too. I thought it looked a bit suspicious, being a clergyman, like; which on 'em are you after?”

‘At this I think I stood stock still for a minute, staring like a ninny. At last I said feebly, “What do you mean, Potts? Are there more than one?”

‘“There's two,” said Potts, “a fack which first roused me suspicions. First a little fat one wearing no hat, with a bald patch to the top of his head like a soup plate, and horn-rimmed specs, and then a long thin one follering him, and then you follering the long thin one, only of course I wasn't to know it was you.”

‘Well then, of course, everything slipped back into perspective, and if I hadn't been so taken up with my own misadventures I should surely have seen it all before. Whilst I was following Prynne, Prynne for some reason of his own was following Malthus (I had no difficulty in recognising him from Potts' graphic description). Seen in this light, Prynne's behaviour became purely rational. His lingering behind on Waterloo platform and burying his nose in the paper, and being last into the train and last into the lift were merely his own devices for keeping out of sight of Malthus.

‘“Bald's gone in to have a snack in the grill room of the Imperial,” went on Potts. “That's the entrance round the corner on the left. Number two's waiting for him to come out, I suppose.”

‘That being so it struck me I could do with a snack myself.

‘“How long will number one be?” I asked.

‘“I'll find out,” said Potts, and disappeared.

‘He was back within a minute.

‘“Grilled kidneys and braised carrots,” he breathed in my ear. “Ten minutes to serve and ten to eat, barring he don't ‘ave something else besides.”

‘I didn't, of course, question the accuracy of his calculation, knowing what I did of ‘A' Division and their friends in the West End catering trade.

‘I doubled back to a little eating-house I had spotted, leaving Potts on guard, and consumed a quick bacon and eggs. I even spared a thought for Prynne lurking foodless in his doorway, and wondered for the first time what he was after, and what it all had to do with the Melchester affair and the decease of Daniel Appledown. A quarter of an hour later I was back on the corner.

‘“Nothing doing,” Potts reported. “Number two come out once and took an eyeful into the grill room door; he didn't go in, though. I thought he looked a bit hungry himself. They tell me Baldy's going on to mushrooms on toast,” he added. “That gives you seven minutes more.”

‘“All right,” I said, “now double round and get me a taxi. Have it waiting in front of the Imperial in five minutes' time. You can stand on the pavement at the corner where I can see you, and give me the signal when number one comes out. You'd better blow your nose.”

‘Potts barged off, and a minute later I saw him reappear at the corner of the Strand. He stood there woodenly on his heels for a few minutes, moved off to caution a street vendor, directed an old lady to somewhere or other, and at last, when I was beginning to think that something had gone wrong, slowly drew out an enormous khaki handkerchief and blew his nose.

‘I was off like a flash and found my taxi ticking over in the next side street. Malthus was plainly visible. He had crossed the road and was waiting for a bus to take him up the Strand. Prynne was still out of sight. I decided to bide my time.

‘Malthus ignored the first offer – a number 1 – and chose a Cannon Street bus. Still no Prynne. The bus moved off. At that moment there was an angry honk behind us – we were right in the middle of our side street – and a taxi squeezed past. Canon Prynne was in it talking earnestly down the speaking-tube to the driver.

‘“Follow that taxi,” I said. “And you needn't go too fast, because I happen to know that it's following a bus, so you can keep well back.”