The Tiger In the Smoke (9 page)

‘No, sir; we'll go along to the station, if you don't mind. It's just round the corner. The body must go down to the mortuary. The van will be here now.' Luke was firm but respectful and the old man nodded. The two appeared to be in complete accord, Mr Campion noticed, as if they had known each other a very long time.

‘I want that jacket,' said Avril. ‘I want to take it home.'

‘Very good, sir.' Luke did not bat an eyelid. ‘We'll have all the clothes, George, as soon as you can, down at the station. Okay?'

Picot stepped back to give an order. The atmosphere of the entire proceedings had undergone an abrupt change. The query had gone out of it and life and bustle had returned.

While Mr Campion was taking from his uncle the terrible handkerchief, which he appeared to be on the verge of stuffing into his pocket, Luke paused to give the routine instructions. The power of the man became almost frighteningly noticeable at once, as if a truck engine had suddenly started up in the narrow way.

‘Detective Slaney there?' he inquired, and hurried on as a compact shadow hurried in out of the dark. ‘Mrs Gollie, Bill. You know her well, don't you? Nip along to the side bar of the Feathers and see what you can pick up. She'll open her mouth, of course, but if you don't fall right in you may be able to sort out something from the shower. Keep it as quiet as you can until this lot is out of the way. Detective Coleman.'

‘Here, sir.' The young voice just behind Campion was unsteady in its eagerness and a heavy figure brushed past him.

‘Look alive, look alive! Zeal, energy, that's what we want in the C.I.D.! Don't tread on Exhibit A.' Luke's irony was as ferocious as his smile in the dark. ‘Now, just down here behind us there's a low fence with a wicket in it. If you can't find the wicket climb over the fence. You'll see a little window all lit up. When you've fallen over the graveyard of little images which fill the perishing place, tap on a window and a door will open just beside you. Inside there'll be the damnedest old man you ever saw, called Creasey. Listen to him, and if you don't lose your temper you'll make a good policeman. If you can get him to tell you if he heard or saw anything unusual in this alley between five-thirty and six-forty tonight, you may grow into a detective. He's sure to have been in. He's got a bedridden old mother in there who he can't leave. Got it?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Right. Off you go. Step on it. Sergeant Branch about? Oh, there you are, Henry. The deceased has got some relations, nice decent little people called Atkins. Mrs Atkins is a sister. They Jive in Tufnell Park. I've got the address here somewhere. I took it down when I looked him up this afternoon. Yes, here it is: twenty-two Smith Street. Can you see to that?'

‘Right, sir.' The crowd of detectives was thinning and the mortuary attendants had appeared. Luke took Campion by one arm and the Canon by the other and moved them gently round. ‘We must get back,' he said; ‘the Boss will be down by this time.'

Avril looked back. ‘That poor fellow, will they take him home?'

‘Well – ' Luke was amused, ‘they tell me Chelmsford's a modern prison and it's amazing what they're up to nowadays, but even so I doubt if they see their old boys off with plumes and four carriages for the mourners.'

‘But you said something about relatives.'

‘Oh yes, next of kin.' He sounded gloomy. ‘It comes hard on people like that. He gave the poor woman's name at his first conviction, I suppose. We never forget. Still, someone's got to stump up for the box and shovel, if we can persuade them to. The public must be protected. This way, sir. I think you want to talk to me. Did you know him?'

The torch in the hand which was through Campion's arm happened to slip up at that moment, and the beam played over the fine old face.

‘No. He was a complete stranger.' The Canon sounded regretful. ‘I should have known Martin. I should have known Martin anywhere. He was a strange, distinctive lad. This poor boy was not like him in feature at all.'

There was a moment's interruption as they came out of the path and found the wider pavement. They were all three walking very fast, all tall men, their heads close together.

‘But the jacket,' Luke began, and Avril nodded.

‘The jacket was Martin's, and it came from my house.'

‘Did it, by Jove! When? I mean, when did you last see it?'

‘I've been trying to think. I don't know exactly. I'm not very observant. Some weeks ago, perhaps. Perhaps two months.'

Luke pursed his lips for a whistle and changed his mind. They had reached the station and he led them into its austere carbolic-scented interior and through to the C.I.D. room and his own modest office beyond. Even here the fog had penetrated, hanging in the atmosphere like a smoke haze. But the light was quite good enough to show the younger men something they had not noticed before: the Canon was in no fit state to be sent home uncleansed. The only occupant, Detective Constable Galloway, a round-faced young man who was Luke's clerk, sprang up from his desk at the first glance, supposing no doubt that a murderer had been brought in red-handed, and even Mr Campion looked startled.

‘Yes, well,' said Luke, eyeing the old gentleman with incredulity, ‘we'd better continue this in the wash-room. Has the Super phoned, Andy? He hasn't shown up yet, I suppose?'

‘No sign of him sir. There are one or two items, though. There have been several inquiries concerning Mr Geoffrey Levett. His secretary is creating. It appears he was speaking at a dinner tonight, rather a big show, and he hasn't turned up. Both the secretary and Mrs Elginbrodde suggested he might have conacted you. They seemed very worried.'

The two younger men exchanged glances and then Luke shrugged his shoulders and touched Avril's arm.

‘You'd really better come along with us, sir,' he said, and in the wash-room, while they attended to him with considerable efficiency, the interrogation continued.

‘Oh no, my dear fellow, it was not years ago.' In his shirtsleeves Avril stood talking to the back of Luke's neck, as the Chief Inspector scrubbed the front of the famous coat with a wet towel. ‘That particular jacket, one could hardly mistake it, has been hanging in the cloakroom at the rectory for years, but it was there quite recently. It was certainly there when this winter began.'

‘How do you know, Uncle?' Campion was running warm water over the old hands, slender, clumsy scholar's hands whose fine almond nails took care of themselves, and he put a piece of soap in them as he spoke.

‘Because I saw it there when I took my heavy coat from over it on the first cold day of the autumn. That was St Matthew's Day, the twenty-first of September, very early for cold weather. We old men notice things like that.' Avril took the soap and washed his hands with the obedience of one who was used to tyranny in small matters. He made a long thorough job of it, exactly as he had been taught long ago. It was clear he had no idea what he was doing and his eyes were very grave and thoughtful. ‘Yes, it was there then. That's less than seven weeks ago. I always hung something over it, you see, and I looked round for something else to cover it with. There was a mackintosh there and I put that round it.'

‘Why?'

The Canon put out his hands for the towel. ‘Because I thought Meg might go in there and see it. It always reminded me so vividly of Martin. I saw no reason why she should have the same experience.' His glance flickered over to Luke who was watching him, nodding, his diamond eyes live as coals. Avril echoed his faint smile. ‘I might have put it away, mightn't I, folded it and hidden it in my study? But I didn't, you know. I just left it there and covered it up every time. Queer how the mind plays these little tricks. One isn't thinking, I suppose. You understand that, don't you, Inspector? I thought you would.'

Luke's face grew a shade darker and he laughed, only to become serious again immediately.

‘Have another look at it, sir. Best to be sure. You see what it means.'

‘Of course I do, my boy, of course I do.' Avril struggled back into his clothes. ‘Someone very close to us indeed must be involved, and it's a very curious thing because as I see it this strangely cruel deception is aimed directly at Meg, and I should not have said that anyone who knew her would do it. That's why I must have that jacket and I must take it home.'

From force of habit he took the lead back to Luke's room, talking freely, his pleasant voice resonant in the bleak corridors.

‘You think you can find out who it was, do you, sir?' Luke got in front just in time to open his own door.

‘Oh yes.' For a moment the old eyes met his and he saw there that strange sternness which hitherto he had only associated with the Bench. Its utter ruthlessness shook him once again, as it always did. ‘Oh yes,' said Avril again, ‘I shall find out.'

They had been longer than they thought, and Sergeant Picot was waiting for them, his horrible brown paper parcel open on a table and each item, neatly labelled, set out upon it. His stolid eyebrows rose as Avril pounced upon the stained and sodden jacket and spread it before them.

‘The contents of the pockets is in here, sir,' he murmured to Luke, indicating a second, unopened parcel.

‘We shan't want that.' Avril brushed him aside and concentrated on the garment. ‘It's what we used to call “loud”,' he observed. ‘The tweed is loud. That's what Meg recognized, do you see? She sees a great deal of material in her work. She'd forgotten this, but the pattern stuck in her mind and was associated with the boy, do you see that?'

He pointed to the place where the tailor's tab had been carefully unpicked on the inside of the breast pocket.

‘How extraordinary! Now who in the world would have thought of doing that?'

‘Quite a number of our clients, sir. You'd be surprised.' Luke was grinning. ‘It's the patches you recognized, though, wasn't it?'

‘Yes.' The Canon turned the sleeve over and found them again. ‘Those two patches. I used to wonder, idly you know, why there were two. Why not put a large piece of leather over both holes? I know nothing about such things, but it struck me as being most odd.'

‘Perhaps the holes were made at different times, sir.'

Sergeant Picot, whose thick dark hair shot out of the top of his head as if he were in a permanent state of shock, decided that his chief was determined to humour a harmless idiot and attempted to play too.

Avril was unconvinced. ‘It may have been that, but I still think it would have been wiser to have a single patch,' he said. ‘However, I can swear to these, that's one thing. I sometimes feel that all these very small things have a purpose, you know. One mustn't be precise, and that line of thought leads one to some very strange conclusions, but I do sometimes wonder. Now, if you'll wrap that up I'll take it home and find out how it came to be where it was.'

He handed the jacket to Picot and indicated the brown paper.

The Sergeant shot a questioning glance at Luke, who nodded.

‘I'm going to send George here down with you, sir,' he said. ‘Do you mind?'

The Canon frowned. ‘I'd rather do it alone. I shall be dealing with my family. Everyone in the house has lived there so long.'

‘Exactly.' Luke was handling him with affection rather than merely with care. ‘That's why I want to give you George. He's my senior assistant, a quiet, discreet sort of man,' he added firmly, eyeing the Sergeant with open menace. ‘He's so self-effacing you won't know he's there:

Avril remained dubious. ‘I should find it much easier,' he said sadly, and Luke hesitated.

‘No,' he said at last, ‘I daren't. It's evidence, you see. Got to be produced in court. George has signed for it. He can't let it go.'

‘Very well.' The Canon gave way not only with grace but with generosity. ‘In that case, Sergeant, you and I must make good friends. Come along. I warn you though, my dear sir, I fear this may be very painful for you, very embarrassing and painful indeed.'

Picot regarded him blankly, but he was experienced and did what he always did when in doubt, falling back on silent obedience. Nothing could have been more fortunate.

As the door closed behind the unlikely pair, Mr Campion offered Luke a cigarette and took one himself.

‘You would have trusted him,' he remarked, ‘in fact you
are
trusting him, quite amazingly. You're right, of course, but I don't see quite why you decided to.'

‘Don't you?' Luke was uncharacteristically embarrassed. He thrust long fingers through his hair. ‘I know that kind,' he said. ‘There's not a lot of them and they're seldom much to do with the Church – except there was one old girl I remember who ran a convent down in Leyton when I was a child. She was one and she was religious, wore all the doings.' He made himself a coif with his plaited fingers and lightly sketched in a swinging crucifix. ‘But it doesn't follow. The one I got to know best was a dear old bloke who had an eel stall in Paddington market. They crop up anywhere, you can't miss 'em. All you know is that you can trust 'em where you wouldn't trust your Ma. They've
got
to be on the up-and-up, see?'

‘Not entirely.' Mr Campion conveyed that this was a field of police knowledge entirely new to him.

Luke sighed and turned to his desk, where the chits had accumulated.

‘Because otherwise they fall flat on their kissers, chum,' he said cheerfully. ‘Look at 'em. By ordinary standards they're not safe out. They ought to be starving in the gutter, imposed on by every crook in creation. But are they? Are they hell! There they go, picking their way like a drunk on a parapet, apparently obeying instructions which no one else can hear. They go barging into filth and it runs off them as if they were lead glazed. They see all the dirt and none of it shocks 'em. They hand over all they've got and yet they never want. All you and I can do is to spot them when we see them. I recognized that old boy the moment he spoke to me. He'll come back with the truth about the jacket whatever it costs him. He's got to.'