Close Quarters (11 page)

‘The driver seemed amused at the thought – murmuring “Just like a ruddy paper-chase,” he swung his machine across the bows of a blaspheming Rolls-Royce, and joined the procession.

‘Past Chancery Lane on the left and Sergeant's Inn on the right – to say nothing of the best pub in London – and by that time we were about two-thirds of the way down Fleet Street, and Ludgate Circus was in sight. Prynne's taxi pulled up with a jerk. Plainly Malthus had got off his bus. Then Prynne's taxi executed one of those lightning cross-traffic pirouettes that only taxi-drivers seem to understand, and plunged down a turning in the direction of the Embankment. Mine performed the same manoeuvre in front of the same bus (I think the bus driver was already speechless with rage) and followed demurely.

‘The affair seemed likely to reach a point at any moment. I said to my driver, “If that taxi ahead of you stops, go on round the next corner and stop too.” Then I sat well back.

‘I was none too soon. We turned to the right again and found ourselves in a very narrow street behind one of those mammoth newspaper blocks. The first thing I saw was Prynne himself standing on the kerb paying off his taxi. Malthus was already out of sight.

‘My driver said something most uncomplimentary to Prynne's driver, Prynne's driver replied in kind. We mounted the pavement and scraped past. The moment we were round the corner I was out of the cab, slipped ten bob to the driver and ran back. One cautious peep was enough. The street was empty. Evidently the quarry had gone to earth.

‘Prynne's man was still there glaring at his scraped mudguard. Stimulated by a further flashing of my warrant card he indicated a door some yards up on the right.

‘“That's where they went,” he said, “both of them.” I saw that the building he was pointing to was part of the big Megatherium newspapers block. “The big tall one following the little bald one. That's what he told me to do. I can't tell you why. I hope there was nothing wrong in it.”

‘“Nothing at all,” I said cheerfully, “we're doing very nicely.”

‘“I dare say they mistook the door,” he went on sadly. “It must have been a religious paper they were looking for, mustn't it?
Protestant Truth
, or
The Banner
– they're both in this street, you know, but farther up. That one there's nothing but a lot of lady's papers. Fashions and such-like.”

‘I left him speculating, and made for the doorway he had indicated. It led to nothing more exciting than a flight of stairs, and since no alternative offered I went up them. In front and all round me there was a sort of murmur and bustle of activity, concentrated but subdued by distance or very thick walls.

‘On the first landing I stopped and looked round me. The only door visible was a heavy iron studded affair labelled 'Emergency Exit Only.' It was locked or bolted on the other side – anyway I couldn't shift it, so I went on upstairs.

‘This arrangement was repeated on the second and third landing; I had quite decided that I was on the wrong trail – this was clearly nothing but an emergency staircase and leading probably to the roof of the building – and I was on the point of turning back when I noticed something. The stairs so far had been plain stone, grey and undistinguished, but from the landing where I stood and upwards they were carpeted. A small enough point, but it made the place look more inhabited and hopeful somehow. I was utterly beyond speculation by this time, but on tiptoe and with a curious sense of expectation I climbed quietly upward.

‘The turn of the stairs showed me a fourth landing – also carpeted – a plain wooden door, and Canon Prynne. He was on one knee, with his back to me, and sad though it is to relate of a canon of the Established Church, his eye was firmly affixed to the keyhole.

‘I watched him, fascinated, for a few minutes. Then he straightened up, adjusted his collar, and opened the door. I had just time to hear him say “So that's your secret,” and then I stepped in behind him.

‘I don't quite know what I'd been expecting – an Ali Baba's cave, with Malthus in the midst of it undergoing a Jekyll and Hyde transformation into a master criminal – anyway, it was quite an ordinary office with a desk and some file cabinets, and a shelf or two of reference books, and a huge pile, of letters in one of those wire basket contraptions, and a couple of telephones, and in the middle of it all – Malthus sitting in a swivel chair with his waistcoat off. He looked, I thought, both surprised and aggrieved. He certainly didn't look in the least alarmed. When he saw me I thought his eyes were going to fall out of his head, then Prynne turned round and he saw me too, and quite suddenly an extraordinary thing happened. We all burst out laughing …

‘“In short,” Malthus was saying five minutes later (we were all seated round his desk by this time in the greatest possible amity), “I am Aunt Sylvia of the
Woman's Sentinel.
It began years ago when I was a young curate at St. Saviour's Wormwood Scrubbs, and got married – a thing young curates are not encouraged to do. I was extremely hard up, and an old college friend of mine – I can give you his name if you want it – got me this job. He had done it himself for many years, and had to give it up as he was going abroad. I was a little doubtful about taking it on at first, but really, do you know, I found it ideally suited to my needs. They pay me quite an absurd amount of money, and I can do most of the work at odd moments. My dear wife is a great help to me. She has a perfect genius for ferreting out odds and ends of knowledge which I can use in answers to my correspondents. You only have to be a bit careful about copyright and libel and so forth; then, of course, sometimes I don't know the answer and I can't find it out, so I write a nice letter to the person, thanking them for asking such a clever and intelligent question, and explain quite frankly that at the moment I can't quite find the best answer. Nine times out of ten they're so pleased at catching you out that they're quite satisfied. As a matter of fact I've only had one persistently dissatisfied customer – in that way – since I took the job, and that's an old lady in Epping, who's been writing to me regularly for the last three years.”

‘“What does she want?” asked Prynne keenly; as a matter of fact he'd been listening most attentively to Malthus' little discourse.

‘“Well,” said Malthus, “it's quite an absurd thing, really. She wants to know who was the fattest woman in history. We can't think what possible use the information will be to her, even if we can get it, which seems—”

‘“I can tell you that,” Prynne interrupted him. “It was a Mrs. Robinson, a Mrs. Delilah Robinson of Kansas City; she lived at the end of the last century. Her peak performance was when she turned the scale at fifty-two stone exactly, wearing only a bathing-dress, at the first Chicago Federal Exposition. The sensation was, I am told, unparalleled.”

‘Malthus looked just like a shipwrecked mariner sighting land after six weeks in an open boat. “Really,” he gasped, “why, that's splendid!” My own private impression, which I didn't confide to Malthus, was that Prynne had made the whole thing up from beginning to end.

‘When I could secure their attention I recalled Malthus to the business in hand.

‘“Now, look here,” I said rather sternly, “we are investigating a very serious affair. What I want from you is an account of your movements last Tuesday night.”

‘“Why, certainly,” he said. “Now that you've surprised my little secret there's no point in keeping anything back. It's like this. Whilst I was still in London I found it easy to do my work in the parish as well as this little extra job. But when I came to live in Melchester Close – well, it was a wee bit different. You do see that, don't you?”

‘I thought of Canon Beech-Thompson, and also of Mrs. B.-T., and I assured him that I saw it perfectly.

‘“Well, it was a bit awkward. I knew that if it leaked out I should have to put up with a good deal of ridicule. I might have had to drop it altogether, and I needed the money badly, with a growing family. Funnily enough”—and here he gave an apologetic blink at Prynne—“I chiefly dreaded your finding out. I imagined the jokes you might make—”

‘“You misjudged me,” said Prynne. “I respect your work on the
Woman's Sentinel
– what I have seen of it – infinitely more than your work in the Church. This is your real vocation, if there's any meaning left in the word. Your advice last Monday to a young wife on how to keep chickens in a fourth-story flat, fell little short of genius. And now that I have discovered your guilty secret I promise you my silence – for a price.”

‘Malthus gave a squeak like a shot rabbit, but Prynne continued unmoved: “In future there will be two Aunt Sylvias; I have a wide fund of general knowledge which is entirely at your disposal, whilst you will supply the human touch. Aunt Sylvia as Malthus was good. As Malthus-Prynne she will be the non-pareil.”

‘“Really!” cried Malthus, looking both alarmed and pleased at once, if you can imagine such a thing. “I don't think my editor—”

‘“Your editor need never know,” said Prynne firmly. “We will consider it settled.”

‘If he sticks to his word my own opinion is that the next few numbers of the
Woman's Sentinel
should be worth reading.

‘With difficulty I again recalled Malthus to business. I'd better summarise what he said, or we shall be all night. He hummed and hawed a good deal, and Prynne kept interrupting him, as fresh ideas occurred to him for brightening his feature page.' In short, what he told me was this: His first main difficulty was that he had to get up to London at least once a week, usually on Thursday, to see the editor about matters concerning the policy of his “page,” and to deal with any letters which had come to him at the office.

‘We were quite wrong about Tuesday – Malthus never went to Bournemouth at all. He was called up on the Monday for a long “policy” conference – his page has been such a success lately that you may be glad to hear they are doubling his feature space – and since he was kept late he stayed on until Tuesday. He came back by the seven o'clock from Waterloo. As usual, to short circuit any questions, he arranged with his sister the customary fiction that he was visiting her in Bournemouth. That suited him very well, as the six o'clock from Bournemouth made a connection with his train, so there would be no discrepancy if anyone happened to meet him at the station when he arrived. So, unless he took to himself the wings of the morning and flew, it's a stone-cold certainty that he wasn't in Melchester until nine o'clock. He walked straight home and went to bed. I might say now that I wait afterwards with him to Waterloo, and since he clings to the pleasant old-fashioned habit of lavish tipping, I easily found the porter who had put him on to that particular train last Tuesday. Incidentally, he also cleared up his wife's movements. When she disappeared yesterday she was paying one of her discreet visits to the free library, to unravel a knotty point raised by a reader in Brighton anent the mating of Leghorns.'

When he had finished his story, Pollock added rather despondently, ‘Another dead end, sir. I suppose we shall have to sit around now and wait for something to happen.'

‘Not a bit of it,' said Inspector Hazlerigg grimly. ‘It's happened.'

11

A TEA-PARTY – AND AFTER

When Pollock departed for London in pursuit of Prynne, Hazlerigg went and had lunch. Since the lunch was a good one, and was being paid for moreover by his country, he added the small luxury of an Indian cheroot. Fortified thereby he reviewed the case.

An infallible instinct told him when he had reached the storm centre of a disturbance. For the moment a pleasant inaction was indicated – until such time as he heard from Pollock or until the local police saw fit to cry on one of the lines they were hunting so patiently. Ahead of him he saw the breakers, and far, far ahead the passage for which he was steering, half hidden in the mist and spray.

This nautical imagery was so pleasing and the leather arm-chair in which he was sitting was so comfortable that he was on the point of sinking into that lotus-flower coma which is the stepsister to sleep, when he realised that someone had come softly into the room and was standing behind his chair.

Just for a moment Hazlerigg forgot he was in the cathedral city of Melchester. He had been trained in a part of London where wise policemen face strangers at all times.

In a fierce concerted movement he heaved his bulk out of the chair and spun round.

Facing him was a solemn and startled boy. It was Hazlerigg who recovered his poise first.

‘Well, my lad, and what can I do for you?'

‘Please, sir,' said the boy, shifting awkwardly from one foot on to the other after the manner of his kind, ‘are you Inspector Hazlerigg, and if you are could you come up to the school sometime this afternoon if it isn't inconvenient and have a word with the headmaster?'

‘I am and I could,' said Hazlerigg, gallantly abandoning all thought of a siesta. ‘I take it that you are one of the choirboys – I'm sorry, choristers. Would it be indiscreet of us to inquire your name?'

The boy suddenly giggled and looked more friendly. ‘I'm Brophy,' he said. ‘John Brophy. I'm head of the school. I'm leaving this term and going to Marlborough.'

‘Melchester's loss is Marlborough's gain,' said Hazlerigg courteously. ‘Lead on.'

The motion of his legs seemed to have the effect of unlocking John Brophy's tongue. Indeed, his worst enemy could not have accused him of being a difficult person to talk to. Amongst other items of information Hazlerigg gathered that Halliday was “rather a good sort,” that Prynne was “all right” but could be “frightfully sarcastic,” and that the late Appledown had been “not bad.” Even as an epitaph Hazlerigg could detect no conviction in this last statement.

His guide stopped at the last corner before they reached the school. His embarrassment had returned. Fumbling in a distended coat pocket he produced an autograph book and thrust it into the inspector's hands. It was the first time that Hazlerigg had realised that he possessed even a notoriety value. With a dawning sense of values he signed his name under Don Bradman but above Somerset Maugham.

Brophy led his visitor into the big schoolroom and left him there whilst he went in search of Dr. Smallhorn. Most of the boys had gone down to the playing-fields, and the place was unnaturally quiet and empty. Sunlight through dusty windows, ink-stained desks, a varnished map of the Holy Land, and the mingled smell of mutton and carbolic soap.

Hazlerigg's mind flicked back thirty years to his own early schooldays. He could remember little of his preparatory school except that it had seemed to him a place where the masters were much happier than the boys. No doubt that was all changed now.

At that moment Dr. Smallhorn made a precipitous entry, with Brophy fussying round him like a dog reuniting two dilatory walkers.

‘Ah, Inspector. I'm truly relieved that you managed to get here. That'll do, Brophy. You can run along now and change. If you hurry you should be in time for the kick-off. Now, Inspector – could you come this way? Mind the step. We'll go out into the garden, I think; there's less danger of our being overheard. Don't be alarmed, but I've got something rather serious to tell you.'

Hazlerigg promised that he would endeavour not to be alarmed. By this time they had reached the back door which gave directly on to the boys' changing-rooms. The headmaster pointed to the door itself; comment was really unnecessary.

‘Crude work,' said Hazlerigg. ‘When did it happen?' He fingered the broken hasp of the lock, and ran a professional eye over the raw dents and sears in the wood. ‘Someone's been using a jemmy or something of the sort. Not very clever at it either.'

‘I found it like this when I came down this morning,' said Dr. Smallhorn. ‘I locked the door myself at eleven o'clock last night. No, no one heard a sound, but then we none of us sleep – hi, get off that grass, you little ruffian. How many times have I told you to keep to the path when you're wearing football boots? That's Canon Fox's boy. A very promising Greek scholar. As I was saying, we none of us sleep on this side of the house.'

‘Yes,' said Hazlerigg dubiously. ‘But it must have made a noise like a pistol shot; young heads sleep sound, eh? Has anything been taken?'

‘As far as I know, nothing.'

‘What's in this next room through here? Just boys' desks. The top form, I see. And you're sure that no one has missed anything?'

‘The boys, do you mean?' said Dr. Smallhorn. The thought seemed to surprise him. ‘I'm afraid it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would want to steal their things. They have very little private property, you know.'

He opened a desk at random and revealed a complicated clutter of picture books, meccano, and natural history specimens.

‘Not an ordinary burglar,' agreed Hazlerigg absently. He was lost in abstracted contemplation of the open desk in front of him. Peering over his shoulder, Dr. Smallhorn could see nothing more remarkable than a dispirited bag of toffee.

‘Have you discovered something?'

‘No, no. I was just thinking. Tell me. Dr. Smallhorn, how many suits do your boys bring back with them?'

Dr. Smallhorn's first impression was that his visitor had gone mad – then came a happier thought. After all, even inspectors married and had children – a prospective parent!

‘I must introduce you to our lady matron,' he said affably. ‘Such a charming woman. A great organiser. Come along. Mind the step.'

They found Mrs. Meadows upstairs, folding and brushing clothes. A placid, middle-aged woman of ample proportions. She evidently held to the theory that many hands made light work, for over her shoulder Hazlerigg could see Halliday staggering under a pile of second-best suits. He had the look on his face of one who has entered the toils.

‘This is Inspector Hazlerigg, Mrs. Meadows. He wants to know about clothes for the school. Perhaps you have a list handy. By the way, how old is your boy?'

‘Six,' said Hazlerigg at random.

‘Rather young. But still, no harm in that. Six to seven is a very formative age. And, really, Mrs. Meadows is a second mother to all our younger boys.'

Mrs. Meadows smiled grimly and produced by sleight of hand a typewritten list starting “Thirty-six handkerchiefs (all clearly marked with boy's name and number).” It was a comprehensive document, embracing spiritual as well as bodily clothing (“Bibles, two, authorised and revised versions”). Hazlerigg examined it with interest.

‘Splendid,' he said. ‘I must show this to my—er—to my dear wife. Two suits for weekdays, I see, and a dark suit for Sundays. That's three, isn't it? I wish I had as many myself. Please don't let me interrupt you, Mrs. Meadows – I can see how busy you are.'

So compelling was her personality that he felt that in a very few minutes he would have joined Halliday and be bustling round with piles of underclothing.

‘Come this way, Inspector,' said Dr. Smallhorn. ‘Mind the step. I will now show you our sanitary arrangements …'

Half an hour later, as he shook hands with the headmaster and emerged into the forecourt, he encountered Halliday, making a furtive exit. He grinned sympathetically.

‘Mind you,' said Halliday, in answer to the unspoken criticism, ‘she's quite all right, really. A bit bossy, that's the worst that can be said. But she works so hard herself that it just hurts her to see somebody doing nothing. I was a bit surprised to hear you were married. I'm sorry, that sounds rude – what I meant is that I somehow thought of you as a bachelor.'

‘You weren't really so surprised as I was,' said Hazlerigg.

‘I expect,' said Halliday, apropos of nothing, ‘that you'll be coming to the Dean's tea-party this afternoon. It's sure to be crowded, but if you don't mind a crowd you ought to enjoy yourself. Everyone'll be there, of course.'

‘I haven't been invited,' began Hazlerigg doubtfully.

‘Good gracious me, you don't have to be invited. It's a regular Thursday afternoon “do.” The Chapter takes it in turns, and everyone in the Close rolls up and eats sandwiches and lacerates each other's characters, and all in the most Christian way imaginable. You'll regret it all your life if you miss it.'

Sometimes, afterwards, when it was all over and done with, Hazlerigg remembered this remark. He was inclined to agree with it.

‘Glad you were able to come, Hazlerigg,' said the Dean. ‘What have you done with my young nephew?'

‘I had to send him up to town,' said Hazlerigg, amiably certain that everyone in the room was listening to him. ‘Business, you know. An unexpected call. He should be back some time this evening.'

‘Splendid,' said the Dean vaguely. He still found it a little difficult to decide whether he should think of Pollock as a jolly undergraduate nephew or the hand of the law. ‘Do you know Dr. Hinkey, our Precentor?'

‘I've heard of him,' said Hazlerigg truthfully.

‘So difficult, you know,' purred the Precentor, ‘to make up one's mind how to treat this very distressing and shocking business.'

(But he doesn't look in the least distressed or shocked, thought Hazlerigg.)

‘I think the happiest thing,' went on the Precentor, ‘is to forget about it altogether. I have always found that if you really make up your mind to disregard a thing it ceases to exist. Have you ever noticed what an extraordinary faculty cats have in that direction?'

‘Talking of cats,' said Halliday, surging up with a tea-cup expertly balanced on one huge palm, ‘I just heard rather a good story about Prynne.'

‘Really,' said Hinkey. ‘I don't think we ought to listen to unkind stories about our neighbours.' He made, however, no perceptible attempt to depart.

‘You remember that Zenana pageant of Scripture that the Beech-Thompsons got up last summer? Of course, as you know, Mrs. B.-T. was running it and pinched all the best parts – Ruth and Bathsheba and so on – most unsuitable. Well, apparently Prynne met her one morning in the Close, and after chatting of this and that he said that he thought it would add just the crowning touch to the pageant if she came on as the Inspiration of the Song of Songs. Mrs. B.-T., overcome with pleasure and gratification, asks just what is it in the Song of Songs that puts dear Canon Prynne in mind of her. Prynne says he can't remember the exact reference, but he thinks it's somewhere about chapter seven, verse four. Mrs. B.-T. hurries home and looks it up and goes off the deep end. She wouldn't speak to Prynne for a month.' There was a desperate silence whilst keen theological brains attempted to locate the snag, and then Hinkey broke into a low musical laugh.

‘Splendid,' he said, ‘the older version, of course. “Thine eyes like the fish pools in Heshbon – thy nose as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus.” No wonder B.-T. doesn't like Prynne. Do you remember that time on the choir outing when they could only find two bathing-machines—?'

Unfortunately, what promised to be a further entertaining narrative of clerical life was interrupted by the arrival of Canon and Mrs. Beech-Thompson, the latter wearing a hat which the irreverent Miss Bloss immediately dubbed “The Wedding of Hope and Charity.” She and Miss Prynne were entrenched in a secluded corner demolishing a plate of savoury sandwiches and the characters of their elders and betters.

‘Where's your father?' asked Miss Bloss suddenly.

‘No idea. And Malthus seems to have skipped too.' Other people had noticed the absence of Malthus and Prynne, but it was left as usual to Mrs. Judd to voice what everyone was thinking. She had arrived a few minutes previously, supporting her tottering steps on ivory walking-sticks.

The Dean, seeing the light of battle in her eyes, had endeavoured to steer her into a safe and secluded arm-chair in the corner, but she had disdained the suggestion, spurned all comestibles, accepted a cup of China tea, given it immediately to Miss Halliday to hold, and fastened herself to Inspector Hazlerigg.

‘Such a funny thing,' she shouted in his ear. ‘I've had a man looking at my lamp all day.'

‘Indeed,' said Hazlerigg uneasily. ‘I wonder if he found what he was looking for.'

‘Do you know what I think?' screamed Mrs. Judd, abandoning one stick and clutching at Hazlerigg's lapel lest he should escape her at the eleventh hour. ‘I think he was spying on me.'

‘Why should he do that?' asked Hazlerigg feebly.

‘I don't like to think,' said Mrs. Judd, ‘but it was a very alarming experience. But I didn't lose my head. I'm not easily frightened, you know, Inspector. I'm sure I did the right thing. As soon as I saw he was spying on me I sent for the police. They soon chased him away.'

‘That was a sensible thing to do, ma'am,' agreed Hazlerigg. ‘When in doubt send for a policeman.'

Mrs. Judd didn't answer him. Her bright, birdlike eyes were darting round the assembled company. A frown puckered her forehead.

‘Where's Mr. Prynne?' she exclaimed. ‘And dear Mr. Malthus – he's not here either. Have you arrested them, Inspector?'