The Doors Open (9 page)

Three more months passed. The Kromisky imbroglio took place. Cripps made his first attempt to cope with a Russian state banquet, and the authorities, in desperation, took a sensible step: a step, indeed, which they might have taken much earlier. They called the family into the search. Young Lieutenant Rumbold, Lord Cedarbrook’s nephew on his mother’s side, was seconded from his regiment, who were having an exciting time manning a road block in Lincolnshire, and was instructed to find his missing uncle.

By the application of common sense to a knowledge of his uncle’s character he performed this task in three days.

First of all he visited the nearest recruiting centre and learned that almost the only active unit which would accept direct recruits of above the normal enlistment age was the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps.

“So long as they’re fit and willing,” said the Sergeant, “we don’t worry too much about birth certificates.”

Nap had then demanded the locations of all AMPC units in England. No light task, since that tough and spirited corps was apt to be split into small detachments and to go where the job was to be done. Fortune favoured him and at his fifth visit, at Skegness, he had come face to face with his uncle, wearing three stripes, though not much else, and superintending the digging of an aerodrome drainage system.

The old man had been looking superhumanly fit, his face the colour of beaten mahogany, his blacksmith’s arms wielding a twenty-eight pound sledge as if it had been a tack-hammer; his flow of language, choicely larded with Russian, Persian and Chinese terms, a joy and a revelation to his squad.

These thoughts and memories passed through Nap’s mind in the few seconds that he stood in the library, listening to Cluttersley’s decorous footsteps mounting the stairs; hearing the mumble of his uncle’s voice; hearing the old man coming down.

He wondered how best to broach the subject of his visit. Lord Cedarbrook saved him the trouble.

“Your father has been on the telephone talking about your troubles,” he said. “He gets more long-winded every year. Sit down. What’s it all about?”

Nap told him the story. When he had finished everything that he had to say, Lord Cedarbrook proceeded to cross-examine him, and at the end of thirty minutes, Nap began to perceive how much he had left out. At the end of an hour His Lordship was apparently satisfied.

At all events he sat back with a grunt and said, “What do you want me to do?”

Nap had rehearsed his answer to that one, and it came out pat.

“I thought, uncle,” he said, “that an independent judgement on the whole matter and a fresh approach–”

“You really mean that? You don’t just want me to pull strings and get your friend out?”

“Good Lord, no. That was the last thing in my mind,” said Nap untruthfully.

“Hmm. That’s a good thing, because there aren’t many strings on English justice nowadays – whatever the papers may say. Do you think your friend pushed this man in front of a train?”

“No,” said Nap.

“Right. That’s something definite. Let’s start from there. It means that at least three people are lying.”

“The two soldiers and the woman.”

“No. The two soldiers and the man who was pushed – what’s his name? – Sims. The woman’s neither here nor there. Hysterical. Would say anything. Besides, she says your friend struck the man in the back. Both the soldiers say he
pushed
him. They’re very precise about it. They both mention that he used his left arm. Significant, hey?”

“Quite so,” agreed Nap.

“Now, if the man who was pushed says substantially the same thing, then there will be a strong prima facie suggestion that they were all in it together. Preconcerted story.”

“But surely,” said Nap, “would anybody take the risk. Being pushed in front of an electric train–”

“Not much risk really,” said His Lordship callously. “He fell into the safety trough, didn’t he? That’s what it’s there for. People are always doing it. Look in your papers – it happens once a month. I expect he was well paid. Another thing. You noticed how he was dressed.”

Nap turned up his copy of the deposition.

“An overall, belted and clipped at the wrists and ankles. Gym shoes–”

“Precisely. No loose ends to catch on the rails. Rubber-soled shoes. It sticks out a mile, doesn’t it? Now listen. You’re Carter’s lawyer. Can’t you insist on being present when Sims makes his statement?”

“Unless he’s made it already.”

“Two hours ago he hadn’t,” said His Lordship calmly. “As soon as your father had finished I rang up Rahere’s. The matron’s a good friend of mine. The man’s in a private annexe playing at being shocked. I expect he’ll condescend to come round and make a statement sometime today. Insist on being present.”

“He’s a prosecution witness,” said Nap doubtfully. “I don’t know that I’ve any right to be there when his statement is actually being taken.”

“All right,” said Lord Cedarbrook, “but make a point of demanding it. Then if they refuse we’ll get it on the record and it won’t look too good at the trial. Creates prejudice. I’ll get Hilton-Carver to lead for us – if it ever comes to trial. I don’t know anyone in England who’s better at creating prejudice. Now, get busy, my boy. There’s a lot to do. I’ll consider the rest of the story later. It’s a very interesting yarn. Great possibilities.”

He selected from one of the bookshelves a large red leather volume which appeared to contain press cuttings. The interview was over and Nap retired.

3

That afternoon some surprising things happened in a private ward at Rahere’s and elsewhere. They can best be understood if related in chronological order.

At three o’clock Mr Sims sat up in bed, passed a hand over his forehead, blinked once or twice and said in a weak voice, “Where am I?”

A police constable who was sitting beside his bed came mentally to attention and said, “You’re in horspital, chum. Er you feeling better?”

“Hospital?” said the man. “What the peeling potato am I doing in hospital?”

“You’ve been very lucky,” said the constable reprovingly. “You fell in front of a chube train.”

“Ah, yes, I remember now,” said the man. “I was standing–”

“Arf a mo, arf a mo,” said the constable. “Inspector wants to hear this.”

He stepped heavily from the room and made for the telephone box on the landing. Left to himself, the man sat up in bed. From the look on his face it would appear that he was trying to concentrate. His lips moved soundlessly.

Twenty minutes later Inspector Hannibal was seated by Mr Sims’ bed and Mr Sims was talking rapidly and confidentially to him. A shorthand writer took it all down. The Inspector seemed gratified by what he heard. One question, indeed, he repeated, so anxious was he that there should be no mistake about it.

“You felt his hand in the middle of your back pressing you forward? Quite so. He was standing on your right-hand side? Then I take it he must have used his left arm. I mean, he didn’t turn towards you. No. I see. Thank you very much, Mr Sims.”

“And can I have a copy of that statement, Inspector?”

“Certainly, Mr Rumbold,” said the Inspector smoothly. “We have no objection at all. It was at the express – er – request of the Commissioner that you were asked to be present when we took this statement.”

“Very civil of him,” said Nap.

At four o’clock Nap telephoned Lord Cedarbrook.

At four thirty Lord Cedarbrook called by appointment on a Major-General Rockingham-Hawse at the War Office. He addressed him familiarly as “Rocking Horse” and spent fifteen minutes using his private extension telephone and making a number of enquiries of such authorities as ‘Records’, ‘Discipline’ and ‘Postings’.

At five thirty an army truck drew up at a small house in a quiet thoroughfare in the residential district behind Liverpool Street Station and a sergeant of military police got out with two of his redcaps in attendance.

At six thirty Mr Sims had a visitor.

At seven o’clock Mr Sims was lying quietly in bed reading an evening paper which one of the nurses had kindly lent to him. He was alone. His statement once taken, it had evidently been considered unnecessary to leave him under surveillance. Indeed, there seemed to be remarkably little wrong with him. He looked very wide awake.

Probationer Larkworthy, a pink and white child, was passing the door when he hailed her.

“Nurse.”

“Yes, Mr Sims.”

“Where are my clothes?”

The probationer smiled indulgently. “You aren’t allowed – really – what do you want?”

“I wonder if you could look in my jacket pockets,” he said. “There are a couple of unopened letters. I didn’t have a chance to read them.”

“Well,” said the probationer good-naturedly, “I expect I can find them.”

As soon as she was out of the room Mr Sims, displaying remarkable agility for a sick man, jumped noiselessly from his bed, tiptoed to the door and applied an eye to the crack. He saw the probationer go over to one of the lockers in the hallway and open it. He noticed with satisfaction that it was not, apparently, fastened in any way. By the time the probationer returned, he was back in bed again.

“I think you must have been mistaken, Mr Sims,” she said. “You can’t have put those letters in your jacket pocket. There’s no jacket there at all. Just your overalls.”

“And my under-alls,” said Mr Sims, “eh?”

Probationer Larkworthy thought this remark highly diverting, and laughed quite a lot as she recounted it to her friends at supper that night.

It was as well that she found something to laugh at, in view of what Sister had to say when she made her rounds at nine o’clock and discovered that the jovial Mr Sims had apparently got up, dressed himself, and walked calmly out of the hospital.

4

Chief Inspector Hazlerigg summoned Inspector Roberts from the West End Central Police Station and Inspector Hannibal from Marlborough Street to his office at New Scotland Yard. When he had listened to their stories he was silent for a long time, watching his old friends the gulls scavenging above the Embankment.

He recalled the story which Major McCann had told him, some weeks before. McCann was an old friend, and he knew him to be a cautious man, given to understatement rather than to exaggeration. And he thought of certain reports which were filed in the steel cabinet behind his desk.

“I suppose you’ve released Carter,” he said.

“Lord, yes,” said the Inspector. “The case fell through entirely. I’ve never seen such a flop.” He spoke cheerfully, but there was a hint of resentment in his sharp little face.

“What happened exactly?”

“The witnesses all disappeared. Except the old lady. But you couldn’t have hung a cat on her testimony.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes. We had the tip from the War Office that both those gunners were bad lads. One was still wanted on a desertion charge. Come to think of it, I’ve never known the WO move so smartly before. Looks as if someone must have been stirring them up.”

“I think someone has,” said Hazlerigg. “Go on.”

“They sent the CMP round to pick ’em up. But something slipped and they missed ’em. Then the third chap – the one who was playing possum in hospital – he’s vamoosed too. Someone got word to him that the gaff had been blown and he evaporated. Picked up his clothes and walked out.”

“Did you get a line on him?”

“Yes, sir,” said Inspector Hannibal. “We did. And it all fits in rather neatly. In his last job he was employed by a film company – as a tumbler. You know, the chap who takes the place of the hero when he has to drive a car over a cliff or fall off his horse into a pond. I expect that little stunt on the Underground station was toffee to him.”

“Hmm. Yes,” said Hazlerigg. “Very ingenious.”

“What I don’t quite see,” said Inspector Roberts, “is where Major McCann comes into all this?”

“He doesn’t,” said Hazlerigg. “Not really. You remember that night you helped him out – at the Mogador – him and Rumbold? Well, Carter’s a friend of Rumbold’s. He lives with him. The next morning Major McCann came up here, and told me the whole story – as far as he knew it. That was a fluke – a very happy fluke and a very important one. It puts us one ahead of the game. Because when this latest development took place we
already
had the idea that someone – somehow – it was all very vague – might have a good reason for trying to get Rumbold or Carter into trouble. That put us on enquiry. We started asking questions. Then someone else – and I think I know who – started pushing from the other side. Between us we squeezed out the truth pretty quickly.”

“As you said, sir, it was ingenious. But do you think it had any real chance of coming off?”

“Yes, I do,” said Hazlerigg. “I’ll go so far as to say that I think it was very unfortunate not to come off. Tell me this. How often do you make enquiries about the character and antecedents of a
witness
. In a straightforward case, I mean.”

“Yes,” said Inspector Hannibal slowly. “Yes, I see what you mean.”

“And even if we hadn’t quite believed the witnesses – if we’d thought, as we might have done, that they’d made a mistake – if there had been enough reasonable doubt for Carter to have got off – don’t you see, even then they’d have done most of what they set out to do. As I see it, this chap Carter’s got something on them – whether he knows it or not. So they set out to spike his guns. When Carter comes along to see us with some story, we just say, ‘Oh, Carter – he’s mad. He’s the chap who pushes people into rivers and under trains’.”

As the other two men were getting up to go, Hazlerigg added:

“I don’t think I can ever remember a situation in which I’ve been more certain that something was wrong and less certain what all the fuss was about. It’s got an odd smell about it. Keep your eyes open, both of you. And I’d like you to find out what racket Luciano and his boys are on.”

“I can tell you that, sir,” said Inspector Roberts. “It’s drugs.”

“Drugs of course,” said Lord Cedarbrook. “It’s the only possible solution.”

He glanced at Nap and Paddy much as a High Court Judge might regard a couple of recalcitrant jurymen. “If I’d been given the full and proper facts before–”

“I only heard Major McCann’s story yesterday,” said Nap defensively. “Even so, I don’t quite see–”

“Now, listen.” His Lordship took his stand on his library hearthrug, his feet falling exactly on the two worn patches which they had obviously occupied a hundred times before. “This cashier – Brandison. He’s the fellow we’ve got our eye on at the moment. So let’s start by running through some of the things we know about him – some of the things you have told me. First of all, his habits. Six evenings of the week he spends at home. He leads a normal suburban life. He earns – what? Six hundred and fifty a year? All right – eight hundred. He has a small house at Warbridge – a wife and a servant. He’s well thought of locally, a pillar of the church, a cog in the mechanism of local government, a taxpayer and a voter. Now if you were writing a sensational thriller” – he turned accusingly on Paddy – “that’s just the sort of man you’d cast as your villain, hey?”

“Well,” said Paddy, “I expect–”

“Exactly. He’d be a master criminal – the leader of a gang of thugs and housebreakers – or possibly a receiver of stolen goods. Despite the fact, as a child could have told you, that since he is under observation every single minute of his day and night it is absolutely impossible for him to be any of these things. A man who lives a family life in a small suburb and works in a large insurance office is living under glass – you see what I mean?”

“You mean he shouldn’t throw stones,” said Paddy helpfully.

Lord Cedarbrook looked at him for a moment and then nodded his agreement.

“What I mean is,” he said, “that it stands to reason that in examining a person of this sort the only points which we need consider are his variations from the normal – if any.”

“Friday night?”

“Exactly. Friday night. Now what is Friday night?”

“Bath night,” murmured Nap. “Amami night. Pay night.”

“Passing over the first two suggestions,” said Lord Cedarbrook, “we will concentrate on the third, which has some rudiments of sense in it. Pay night. On a Friday evening Brandison draws his money. He leaves work late. He seems very tired and dispirited. He walks in that jerky way that you have described so graphically and the real significance of which seems to have escaped you entirely. He goes along High Holborn and turns into a small barber’s shop. The shop is an old-fashioned one with cubicles for each customer – quite an ordinary arrangement in women’s hairdressers, I believe, but rather unusual in male establishments. Brandison, after a short delay, is shown into a cubicle – always the same cubicle, mind. Before going in he makes one or two purchases from the proprietor – a bottle of hair cream, a stick of shaving soap
and
a packet of safety razor blades. Whatever else he buys the last item is invariable. He always purchases one packet of the same brand of safety razor blades. Most of this information, by the way, came from your friend, Major McCann, who’s been doing a little investigation on his own–”

“Of course,” said Nap, “that accounts for it. He wrote me a strange letter, which I couldn’t make head or tail of, asking me to find out whether Brandison used a safety razor – he suggested that I should ask Maria, the Brandison’s maid. When I tackled her she was quite definite. He always uses an old-fashioned cut-throat, I see now–”

“Allow me,” said Lord Cedarbrook, courteously but firmly. “As I was saying: at the end of half an hour, Brandison comes out of his cubicle. Our observer then notices another curious fact. Nothing actually seems to have been done to him. His hair is no shorter, his chin no smoother–”

The three men contemplated the structure of logic which Lord Cedarbrook’s legal mind was building up, and found its conclusions irresistible.

“Sniffs of cocaine done up as razor blades,” said Nap. “That’s why Brandison looked so frisky when he came out. He’d lost his funny jerky walk, too. Isn’t that one of the first effects of cocaine?”

“Why, that explains everything,” said Paddy enthusiastically. “No wonder he’s such a shady customer. Drugs – I mean to say–”

“I confess that I wish I could be as sanguine as you are,” said Lord Cedarbrook. “To my mind, the explanation, satisfactory though it is in itself, would appear only to deepen the mystery.”

He walked across to the broad northern window and stared out of it. In the middle distance, between the roofs, the yellow funnels of a tramp steamer could be seen, and as she moved downstream the following wind blew the black smoke ahead of her like a flag. His Lordship seemed to find the sight interesting, for his eyes followed after her and it was a full minute before he spoke again.

“Whatever the cynics tell you,” he said, “the vast majority of people in the world are honest. Therefore, whenever you find someone engaged in some shady business – be it financial, political or what-have-you – the first question to ask is – how? How is the ramp being worked? How does the man who’s working it do it? And if he isn’t doing everything himself, how is he getting hold of his assistants? You see, the honest man who wants to start a career of crime runs up against a big snag straight away. He needs a lot of expert help – and he can’t get hold of it. He just doesn’t know the ropes. Now in this case you’ve got someone – we’ll stick to the conventions and call him X – who wants to do something dishonest. We don’t know exactly
what
it is – probably financial. And he needs some strong-arm stuff. Shall we say, he wants an inconvenient witness put out of the way, or an interfering young idiot whose natural inquisitiveness has outrun his discretion” – Nap smiled politely – “beaten up. X doesn’t know any beater-uppers himself. He doesn’t move in beating-up circles. But here’s where he has a bit of luck. A close friend of his, Brandison, is a drug addict. He knows that Brandison gets his weekly supply from a certain source, and it needs no great effort of the imagination to realize that there must be a number of shady and violent characters involved in such a transaction. So X uses Brandison as a stalking-horse. When he wants a rough job done he gets Brandison to arrange it for him – on his normal Friday outing. And of course” – here Lord Cedarbrook permitted himself a smile – “Brandison can’t very well refuse to do what X wants, because X happens to be his employer.”

“What?” said Paddy.

“Mr Legate?” said Nap.

“Of course,” said Lord Cedarbrook. “Did you really imagine that Brandison was a principal? A man who earns six or eight hundred a year. A man who’s so hard up that he can only
afford
to buy his cocaine on pay night. How could a man like that hire the services of a tip-top expensive thug like Luciano Capelli? Why, he couldn’t keep him in cab fares. The person we’re looking for is a big man, someone who’s got some money himself and is in a position to lay his hands on a lot more when he wants it.”

“I must admit,” said Paddy, “now that you mention it, that it did strike me as a bit queer that Brandison should have been able to get me turfed out of my firm. After all, he’s only a cashier.”

“Quite so,” said Lord Cedarbrook. “As soon as you think about it, it becomes obvious. Incidentally, did it strike you as odd, too, that a cashier should have a private office next door to that of the General Manager? It might have been a coincidence, of course. However – as I said before, this is only part of the answer. There are other parts. There’s a ‘what’ and there’s a ‘why’. We’ve got an equation here with at least three unknowns.”

“You mean, what is Legate up to, and why is he doing it?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, the reason, surely, must be £. s. d.”

“Why should it?” said Lord Cedarbrook. “He’s a very rich man already. Yes. I’m quite aware that that’s not a complete answer. A greedy man is never quite rich enough – and there’s the corruption-of-power angle to it, too.”

“Is he as rich as all that?” asked Nap. “When all’s said and done he’s only a salaried employee of the Stalagmite.”

“You’re speaking without the book,” said Lord Cedarbrook. “I know something about Legate because I’ve made enquiries. It’s true that his official position is managing director of the Stalagmite Insurance Corporation. A job which brings in a nominal salary of two thousand five hundred and seventy-five pounds a year – or very much less when the government has had its cut. But there’s more to it than that. Legate came into the public eye in 1932. His claim to fame was simply that he foresaw the ending of the 1931 slump about three months before anyone else in the City and had the courage to back his convictions in cash. At the time I’m speaking of he was a partner in a firm of stockbrokers, Moody and Van Bright–”

Paddy stirred in his chair. He was on the point of making an observation so momentous that it might have changed the whole course of this narrative. Unfortunately, however, Lord Cedarbrook chose that moment to give vent to one of his most intimidating coughs, and Paddy relapsed into well-disciplined silence.

“He not only acquired a good deal of money by his foresight – he also earned one of those enviable Lombard Street reputations which are born so silently and die so hard. He was talked about as ‘one of the greatest authorities on finance in the City’. He was ‘a good chap to watch’. His name became a byword in the markets. And I dare say he deserved a good deal of it. He’s certainly a very sound businessman. The Stalagmite wasn’t doing too well at the time. I expect they jumped at the idea of getting hold of a first-class man like Legate. He was probably able to name his own price. He’s certainly pulled up the Stalagmite’s turnover almost a hundred per cent in ten years. Very well, then. Is there anything in all that to suggest to either of you any convincing motive for a career of crime?”

“What about earlier days?” suggested Nap, after some thought. “Before 1931.”

“There’s nothing much doing there, either,” said Lord Cedarbrook, “though our information isn’t yet as full as I’d hoped it would be. He had a war record – of sorts. Enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps in January 1915 – never got to France though. Transferred to the RASC and served in various home stations. Then he transferred again – to the Pay Corps this time. He got a commission in 1918 and was demobbed in 1919 and got a job with Buckley and Hobbs – his CO in the Pay Corps was one of their principals, I think – then joined another firm and worked his way up. He was a junior partner by 1931. Then, as I said, he came into his pile, and his name started to mean something.”

“Even earlier, then,” said Nap. “He must be between fifty and sixty. That would make him – let’s see – about twenty-five when the 1914 war broke out.”

“That’s one of the odd things about the man,” said Lord Cedarbrook. “He doesn’t seem to have any earlier history. All the facts I’ve been giving you were easy to come by – War Office records and friends in the City. But when you get back to January 1915 you run up against the wall. I’ve tried everything, and, quite honestly, I’m at a loss to know where to look next.”

“His army records,” said Nap. “Don’t they give his name and place of birth and his parents and so on.”

“They supply a great many facts,” said Lord Cedarbrook, “and those which I have been able to check are all, so far as I know, false. For instance, there was no one of the name of Legate registered at Somerset House on the day on which he states he was born, nor is there any record of the marriage of the persons stated to be his father and mother.”

Paddy said, “I suppose he must have had some technical training. Have you tried the Institute of Chartered Accountants?”

“Certainly, and every other professional body that keeps records.”

“School, then,” suggested Nap.

“That’s not so easy. But I can tell you another odd thing. If he did go to school – and I suppose he must have done – he seems not to have passed the School Leaving Examinations. The Joint Board and the Universities keep records and there’s no Legate in any of the likely years.”

“You’ve certainly put some work in on this case,” said Paddy with enthusiasm.

“Uncle,” said Nap, “there’s more in this than meets the eye. “What does Legate mean in your life?”

“It’s funny you should say that,” said Lord Cedarbrook, “because until three days ago he meant nothing at all. He was just X, one of the unknowns in your puzzle. I investigated his past as thoroughly as I could, because when I take on a job it amuses me to do it properly. Then, three days ago, an odd thing happened. I called at the Stalagmite, on a pretext, and saw Mr Legate.
And
I recognized him. You see, I’d seen him once before, a long time ago.”

If his listeners were expecting a dramatic revelation at this point, then they were disappointed. Lord Cedarbrook added simply, “I can’t for the life of me remember where.”

“I’m always imagining I’ve seen people before,” said Paddy helpfully. “I remember once in Tunisia in 1943–”

“You will excuse me for correcting you,” said Lord Cedarbrook, “I did not say I imagined I had seen him before. I said that I had seen him before. My mind is quite a reliable instrument–” The look which he directed at Paddy as he said this was more pointed than kind. “It informs me that I have seen Mr Legate before and supplies this additional information. The occasion was in some way connected with the sound of musical instruments, the feeling of water running down the back of my neck and the smell of anaesthetics.”

“You only saw him on one single occasion. I connect it also, though, with a photograph I saw afterwards in the papers,”

“A public occasion, then. Was it in the open air? I mean, it sounds rather like an open-air band concert, and someone fainting in the crowd.”

“Except that there is very rarely such a big crowd at an open-air band concert – and if it was raining it would hardly be hot enough for people to faint.”

“What about a flower show, or a gymkhana,” said Paddy, “A big crowd of people jammed together in a leaky marquee.”