Frequent Hearses (12 page)

“Where’s that?”

“Doon Island. Near Portsmouth.”

“I’d have thought she’d have needed you with her wherever she was.”

“Said it was time for me to have an ’oliday.” Felicity considered retrieving the truant “h”, and decided that this would only draw attention to its absence. “Quite true, at that. So I’m me own mistress till she comes back on Wednesday.”

“And what about the secretary?”

“Lord, Pete, you aren’t half
nervy.”

“I’m not nervy,” Mr. Snerd asserted stoutly. “Not me, ducks. It’s you I’m thinking of.”

Being of the more percipient sex, Felicity thought this profession unlikely; but she accepted the fact that men habitually lied as a part of the order of things, and so made no attempt to argue the matter.

“Secretary’s gone with her,” she said. “She’s well out of the way; never you fear.”

“Just as well to be sure about these things,” said Mr. Snerd cheerfully. “I remember when I was in the RAF we had a flight-sergeant who…”

He drifted off into fictitious war anecdotes.

At closing time they finished their drinks and left.

Madge Crane’s apartments, near the Westminster Hospital, were in a small, expensive block of service flats of the sort which in these latter days are within the reach only of the exceptionally well-to-do. Mr. Snerd knew what things cost, and the sight of its furnishings and fittings impressed him mightily, though he took care to conceal this fact beneath the casual air of one inured from birth to such opulence. From a sideboard in the dining-room Felicity fetched gin and orange squash; and having liberally sampled this they retired about midnight to bed.

Mr. Snerd was awakened at seven o’clock by the Monday morning traffic. Felicity was still soundly asleep, and it occurred to Mr. Snerd that here would be a suitable opportunity to have a look round the flat. It is doubtful if he intended to steal anything much, for such larcenies as he was accustomed to commit concerned objects so little valuable as to make it seem likely, when their owners discovered the loss, that they had been merely mislaid. It is even more doubtful if he had blackmail in mind; he had never yet selected a victim who was eminent or notorious, being aware that, even in this democratic day and age, wealth and influence are still liable to get round behind a man and deal him shrewd knocks. No; his motive, so far as it can be ascertained at all, seems to have been mere curiosity—or, if you prefer it, a natural love of surreptitious doings even when they served no useful purpose. His reasons are not, in any event, important to this chronicle. It is his actions that count—for those actions were destined to be largely instrumental in cornering a particularly subtle and ruthless murderer.

As he climbed cautiously out of the bed, perfunctorily covered his nakedness and slipped barefooted from the room, Mr. Snerd was not at all conscious of the portentousness of what he did: he was conscious, rather, of that exhilaration which comes to a man when his actions are unlawful without being specially perilous. Outside in the passage he paused for a moment, and then made his way silently to the sitting-room, where the previous evening he had noticed a small rosewood desk which would probably repay attention. With ears alert for the slightest sound of movement from Felicity he began to investigate it, replacing everything, once examined, with scrupulous accuracy in the position in which he had found it. However, little that was noteworthy rewarded his efforts, and presently he was reduced to a speculative contemplation of the desk’s only locked drawer. His proceedings were disinterested, and he knew that there was absolutely no necessity for him to see what was inside it; having absented himself from Felicity a sufficient while, he might at this point quite easily have returned to her and left it at that. But his habit of inquisitiveness pricked him like a goad, and there came a crucial moment when he was no longer capable of denying it. He crept back to the bedroom.

Felicity lay as he had left her, the damp flush of exhausted slumber on her brow. Pausing only to assure himself that she really was asleep, Mr. Snerd took his gloves from the dressing-table and put them on (since he was wearing nothing else but pants, this gave his appearance a decided quality of the bizarre), extracted a bunch of skeleton keys from his trousers pocket and again slipped from the room.

The drawer’s contents might be confidential, but they were not, he found, at all numerous. To start with, there was a packet of treasury notes; over these Mr. Snerd lingered wistfully, but in the end he virtuously replaced them untouched. Next came a privately printed volume, with curious illustrations, entitled
A Whip for Veronica,
and this, after a little thought, Mr. Snerd determined to appropriate for his own use and enjoyment. Finding it gone, Miss Crane would probably imagine that she had left it lying about and that a servant, perhaps Felicity, had picked it up; but she would scarcely be in a position to enquire about it, and although relations between mistress and maid would undoubtedly deteriorate as a consequence, that (Mr. Snerd felt) was Felicity’s look-out…

Finally, there was a letter.

It was written on good-quality notepaper in a sprawling, slightly childish hand. And as Mr. Snerd read it, his knees grew weak with excitement, and in order to avoid tottering and perhaps falling he was obliged hurriedly to sit down. The cause of this excess of emotion was as follows:

Thursday night, 2 a.m.

My dear Madge:

It’s done, and now I’m wishing like hell it weren’t. I’ve just told Gloria—asked her to wait behind after the others had gone—and I was afraid she was going to faint or be sick or go for my throat. I’ve never seen anyone in such a state—getting that part meant absolutely everything to her. I warned her she’d find herself facing a slander action if she said anything about being tricked into breaking her contract, and for reasons you know, Jedd won’t talk. But it’s a devil of a risk. If anything comes out I’m finished in films—and I don’t mind saying I’ll see to it that you are, too. For God’s sake burn this letter and never breathe a word about it to a living soul.

She certainly won’t wait for the studios to sue her for breach of contract—couldn’t possibly afford to fight the action. I said I’d do what I could for her in the future, but of course she didn’t believe that for a single moment—thinks she’s completely washed up in films. She knows damn well you’re at the back of it all, too, with your ridiculous jealousy. I should watch out for yourself. She hardly seemed sane when she left here.

I feel very bad about it all. As
you know, I like the kid—not in Maurice’s way, either. Don’t try to talk about it when we meet on Saturday morning.

Nicholas

Mr. Snerd did some quick thinking. An enterprising Press had nosed out the fact that there was an element of mystery in Gloria Scott’s suicide, and the Sunday papers had reported it at length, touching discreetly on Nicholas Crane’s party and stating that the police had been unable so far to uncover any motive for the act. Mr. Snerd was therefore familiar with the general outlines of the affair: he had, he realised, chanced on a particularly revealing document connected with it—and one, moreover, which disgracefully implicated two notabilities of the film world; and as he sat there, grotesquely arrayed and clutching the letter in his gloved hand, he asked himself, with as much detachment as he could muster, what would be the most profitable thing to do about it.

And presently, after much strenuous cerebral effort, Mr. Snerd determined to take the letter and purvey it to
The Evening Mercury.

Now in this decision, that softening of the intellect in which Mr. Snerd’s ever-growing confidence had resulted is very clearly exemplified. He realised, of course, that once the letter was published there would no longer be any discretionary bar to Miss Crane’s reporting its theft to the police; he realised that Felicity would know him for the culprit. But he was foolish enough to suppose that for fear of losing her job Felicity would not denounce him; and even if she did, he fondly imagined that providing he never saw her again his pseudonym would protect him. With the money obtained—which should be a very tolerable sum—he would shut up his office and go away on a holiday; and by the time he returned the whole business would have blown over.

Thus did Mr. Snerd plot and plan, while unobtrusively his guardian angel abandoned ship. As we shall see, he badly underestimated both Felicity and the resources of the Metropolitan Constabulary. But for the time being his scheming seemed to him good, and he proceeded immediately to put it into action.

In the bedroom Felicity slept on. Mr. Snerd gathered up his garments and donned them elsewhere. Nicholas Crane’s letter he enclosed in the pages of
A Whip for Veronica,
and
A Whip for Veronica
he placed in the pocket of his raincoat. Subsequently, having closed and relocked the rifled drawer, he prowled about the flat, wiping his finger-prints off everything he could remember having touched. If by some mischance any remained, that could not be helped; his prints were not in the police files, and any that were found would therefore remain inexplicable. He considered forcing a window, so as to make it appear that the flat had been broken into, but decided, on further reflection, that it would be difficult to make this look at all plausible; moreover, it would involve noise, and noise would waken Felicity. For her he scribbled a note, explaining that his work called him away early and arranging to meet her at “The Queen’s Head” that evening—a
rendezvous
at which, needless to say, he had no intention of turning up. And having deposited this on the dressing-table, he waved a regretful but determined last farewell at her unconscious form and let himself quietly out of the flat.

It was a grey morning, promising rain. Out on the pavement with his spoils in his pocket, Mr. Snerd at first hesitated as to what direction to take. But presently, his mind made up, he boarded an 88 bus, which took him up Whitehall to Charing Cross. Alighting there, he headed for St. Martin’s Lane. And the clocks were striking eight-thirty when he pushed open the ornate bar door of “The Scissors”.

Being in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, where they work all night and require a drink early in the morning, “The Scissors” was enabled by special dispensation of the Licensing Laws to trade at this hour; and consequently, confirmed alcoholics, as well as the market porters, were regularly to be found there. It was for a person of this former class that Mr. Snerd was looking—a person named Rouncey who reported for the
Mercury.
Mr. Rouncey and Mr. Snerd were old cronies; in this and other bars they had over a period of several years cemented that companionship in shadiness which served them for friendship; and so far as either of them was capable of trusting anyone, they trusted one another. It was by the agency of Mr. Rouncey, then, that Mr. Snerd proposed to convey Nicholas Crane’s letter to the
Mercury
—and he had little doubt that the
Mercury
would pay well for it. For the Mercury, almost alone among English newspapers, was a scandal-sheet of the worst and most unscrupulous sort. Its sales were founded on vilification and near-pornography, the latter type of pabulum being justified by the adoption of hypocritical moral attitudes
(“Such a state of affairs, we believe, will not be tolerated by the British people…” “It is our view that we are performing a public service in revealing the practices of this depraved and vicious section of the community…”
and so forth); its myrmidons paraded monotonously in and out of the civil and criminal courts and were frequently gaoled; and yearly it disbursed huge sums by way of damages for libel, regarding these, apparently, as no different in kind from any other overhead expenses. Its policy earned it very large dividends and the execration of all who were intelligent enough to see through its pretensions to high-mindedness; and since it professed an unwavering abhorrence of the rich
(“Whatever happens, it will not be Lord X who will suffer; it will be the decent, ordinary folk—the miners and railwaymen and steel-workers and their wives and children…
“), the
Mercury
was a very popular paper indeed.

Mr. Snerd soon saw that he had come to the right tavern, for Mr. Rouncey was established in his usual corner of the bar, with whisky in his hand, a Woodbine in his mouth and a battered felt hat on the back of his head. He was an elderly, shifty man, whose peculiarity it was that alcohol invariably made him cry. This reaction was wholly physical and not related in any way to his mood, which though commonly gloomy was hardly ever lachrymose, and on strangers it was apt to have a disconcerting effect. Mr. Snerd, however, was accustomed to it and had long since ceased to think of it as out of the way. Undeterred by Mr. Rouncey’s smeared cheeks and overflowing eyes, Mr. Snerd advanced on him with affability.

“Morning, old man,” he said. “What’s yours?”

Without replying, or even looking up, Mr. Rouncey emptied his glass, pushed it across the bar and waited in silence while it was replenished at Mr. Snerd’s expense. Such demonstrations of incivility, which were habitual with him, had persuaded Mr. Snerd that he was a ‘character’, and so Mr. Snerd was not offended by his lack of response, but settled down at his side, drank manfully, fought off a sudden attack of queasiness and presently tapped his companion confidentially on the knee.

“Got something for you,” said Mr. Snerd. “Something hot.”

Mr. Rouncey turned a welling eye on him and removed the sodden cigarette from his mouth.

“And what’d that be?” he said without perceptible interest.

“Soon show you.” After glancing round to make sure that they were not overlooked, Mr. Snerd produced Nicholas Crane’s letter. “Just you take a gander at that.”

Having wiped his eyes and wearily adjusted in front of them a pair of bifocal steel-rimmed spectacles, Mr. Rouncey obeyed. When he had read the letter, without any change of expression, he handed it back and swallowed his drink at a gulp.

“How about another?” he said.