Eight Murders In the Suburbs (8 page)

While waiting at the depository for the impostor who did not turn up, Rason inspected the furniture and effects removed from Dalehurst, eventually finding the Wilcox anthology which had been taken from the folds of the settee. He replaced it without feeling any wiser for the effort he had imposed on the warehouseman.

The routine of the Department, constructed by Rason himself, had a certain simplicity. When any object was offered or mentioned, one first checked the object itself. Then one checked the object in relation to the suspects. There were no suspects in this case, unless one counted the Penfolds—so Rason counted them. From the depository, he borrowed the girl who had shown Penfold to the manager's office, and stood her near Penfold's office at lunchtime.

“That's him!” cried the girl, when Penfold came out.

“Don't be silly!” protested Rason. “It can't be. This is only routine.”

The girl, however, was quite positive—which presented Rason with a teaser. The only way of squeezing in Penfold as a suspect was to assume he was lying when he said he was in his own drawing-room between five and six, the time of the murder. Nearly a year later he tries to work an elaborate deception on the depository people in order to be able to ‘inspect' some books, which couldn't have been there. How could all that help him to prove he didn't commit a murder, of which no one suspected him except Rason, who had to, owing to his routine?

Better ask Penfold.

“Renbald's Depository!” he exclaimed when civilities had been exchanged in Penfold's dining-room. Penfold looked ghastly, which was not what Rason wanted. “It's all right, Mr. Penfold—it's only routine. We don't worry about the forged letter and the fake name. Told 'em you wanted to inspect some books. What did you really want? Tell me, and I can cross it off.”

It was an unanswerable question. Penfold remembered the excuse he had used to induce Madge to search for the anthology.

“I did want to inspect the books, though I knew there were no first editions. The truth is, Inspector, I had lost a technical book of my own. I thought it might have got mixed up with Mrs. Blagrove's books—”

“But you could have got your wife to write you a real letter for that—and you could have used your own name?”

“I did ask her. She was unwilling, because she convinced herself that the book couldn't possibly be there.”

It was such an unrehearsed, knock-kneed tale that Rason was inclined to believe it.

“Perhaps I can help you,” he grinned. “I've inspected those books. Was it called
The Best of Wilcox?
”

“
No
!” The emphasis was not lost on Rason.

“
The Best of Wilcox
—” Rason was mouthing the words, “was found on the settee on which Mrs. Blagrove was killed!”—So Margaret
did
go to Dalehurst, thought Penfold.

“That does not concern me,” he said. Playing for his own safety, he added: “The copy of that book which I bought never left this house, so far as I know.”

“So
you
bought a copy of that book, Mr. Penfold?”

“I did. I intended to present it to Mrs. Blagrove on the following day, which was her birthday. Wilcox was her favourite author.”

“Where did you buy it?”

“In London.” He added: “At Waterloo station, before taking the train which arrives here at five three.”

Rason felt he was getting somewhere. The note in the dossier said that the book had been bought by Margaret Penfold, from the local bookseller.

“If you've no objection, I'd like to see what Mrs. Penfold has to say about this.”

“Certainly! She will tell you that—at around six o'clock that night—she handled the copy I had bought and talked about it—in this house. But I won't have her bullied and frightened.”

Penfold did not leave the room. He rang for the housemaid, but it was Madge herself who answered the bell.

“My dear, I'm afraid we have to talk about your poor Aunt Agnes,” began Penfold. “Mr. Rason has informed me that on the settee on which she was killed, there was a copy of
The Best of Wilcox
. I have—”

“Oh!” It was a quick little cry of dismay. “I think I can see what has happened. Arthur, I would like to speak to Mr. Rason alone. Please!”

She did go to Dalehurst—Penfold was certain, now. If she had also picked up a clue to his guilt he must try to cope with it before the detective could build it up.

“I am sorry, Madge, but I really feel I have the right to be present.”

“Very well, Arthur!” There was a shrug in her voice. “Mr. Rason, on the morning of that day, I bought a copy of that book locally, at Penting's. I lunched with Mrs. Blagrove and gave her the book—not as a birthday present—we were jointly giving her a more elaborate present the next day.

“In the evening I reached home at six. My husband had come home earlier than usual. He showed me a copy of
The Best of Wilcox
which he had bought in London for Aunt—for Mrs. Blagrove.” She paused before adding: “I was very greatly surprised—I have to say it!—I thought that my husband was not the sort of man who—who would ever think of doing a kindly little act like that. I did him an injustice, and was ashamed. I was above all anxious not to spoil the whole thing by telling him I had forestalled him. I intended to tell Mrs. Blagrove what had happened and ask her to help me in a harmless fraud. I took the book from my husband and, of course, I had to get rid of it, as Mrs. Blagrove would not want two copies. I had to go out that night to deliver a message to a neighbour, Mrs. Gershaw. I went on to a Mrs. Manfried, who was also a Wilcox fan, and offered her the book. But she had herself bought a copy that morning. The book was published that day and I suppose all the real fans bought it at once. On the way back, Dr. Delmore told me the news and I forgot the book. I found it in my mackintosh a few days later. I dropped the book in the croquet box, under the mallets. It may be there still. If it is, I'll show it to you.”

“Don't bother on my account, Mrs. Penfold. I'm glad it's all cleared up,” said Rason untruthfully. He had been quite hopeful when he thought he had cornered Penfold over the books. Journey from London for nothing!

“I wish my wife had told me at the time—it wouldn't have hurt my feelings,” said Penfold when Madge was out of earshot. “Is it too early for a drink, Inspector?”

“Too early for me, thanks. I—”

Madge burst in.

“Here it is!” The newspaper on which the rain had fallen was crinkled and torn. “Just as I pulled it out of the mack!”

“Well, I can put it on record that I've seen it!” said Rason, as he unwrapped the newspaper. “Cupids, eh! Same as the one I saw at the depository.
The Best of Wilcox
!” With hardly a change of tone, he went on:

“Now let's get this book business straightened out. At lunchtime, Mrs. Penfold, you gave Mrs. Blagrove a copy of this book? So the copy you gave her would still be in her possession at five-three—when Mr. Penfold arrived at the station here? Around six, Mr. Penfold shows you this copy I've now got in my hand—and you take charge of it?”

“Correct!” cut in Penfold, and was echoed by Margaret.

“Somewhere between five-three and six—” Rason turned from Margaret to her husband “—you picked up the wrong copy, Penfold. Look here!”

He opened the book and pointed: ‘
To dear Aunt Agnes With love from Madge
.'

Peter Curwen was every bit as sane as we are. No repressions: no unmentionable cravings. If you were looking for faults, you might have said that he lacked repose. He was one of those men who can never really sit still and are generally fidgeting with something. But you couldn't have made a grievance of it, as his wife did.

Most wives would have taken no notice—that is, most sensible, give-and-take wives such as Marion. Her enemies, if she had any, could hardly have picked on a flaw in her character worth mentioning. Nor could Peter—though he might have admitted to himself that, after three years of marriage, the sweetness of her nature had mellowed along lines he could not have predicted. True that she still took pains to delight his eye at all hours and that he still paid her dress bills with gratitude. Their flat in Kensington was tasteful and homelike. She had a sufficiency of the domestic virtues. But she did make a grievance of his little foible.

Of course, there was more in it than fidgeting and not sitting still. About one night in five he would get out of bed in the small hours to make sure he had turned off the light in the sitting-room. He would find pins on floors. Half way to a theatre, he would wriggle and mutter that he was making sure he hadn't forgotten the tickets. Multiply that sort of thing to cover most of the small activities in which there is a chance of forgetting or mishandling something.

Crisis came—unrecognised as such—at breakfast on the first Tuesday in March, which was an extremely windy day. Even the well set windows of the Kensington flat rattled now and then.

Marion, like any other woman who dresses constructively, did not like windy days.

As Peter finished his coffee, he put the coffee spoon on the plate that contained the débris of his toast and marmalade. Marion had first noticed that little trick on their honeymoon—which meant that she had noticed it at about a thousand breakfasts.

“Peter! Why do you always put your coffee spoon on your plate like that?”

“I dunno, dear. I suppose I do it to make sure it isn't mistaken for a clean spoon.”

“I think you ought to see a psychiatrist. I mean it, old boy. There are so many little things like that. The bath taps, for instance—the stoppers of the whisky bottles—all that ritual when you park the car. I have sung my little song about it—quite often, frankly—but I suppose you've forgotten. Forgetting is one of the symptoms.”

“Symptoms of what?”

“I can't remember the name for it. Something that means excessive anxiety about trifles—when it wouldn't matter if they went wrong. But they never do go wrong. The light always has been turned off. The stoppers are always airtight. The taps never drip. The thing is growing on you, Peter.”

“There isn't a ‘thing' to grow. Part of it is habit. But the main idea is deliberate. There's a system in it. I started it as a result of something that happened when I was in the Navy—”

“Darling, you really
have
told me how the signalling officer's braces fused something and sank—or was it burned?—the corvette. But that's a long time ago. And if you took another corvette and some more braces, you couldn't make it happen again. It was a freak accident. And, I mean, if you're like this at thirty-four, what will you be like at fifty?”

“My system has paid off in business—”

“People are beginning to notice, and that's not very nice for me. People laugh at people who are fussy. Why, you can't even help me into an evening cloak without feeling the hem, to make sure my heel won't catch in it.”

“I didn't know you had noticed. I oughtn't to let it touch—us. I'm sorry, Marion.”

“Peter! I didn't altogether mean to say that—it was beastly of me!” She would have burst into tears of contrition, but this was unnecessary because, at this period, he was a good tempered man who readily forgave almost anybody for almost anything.

“The charge of fussiness stands,” he said, while he was kissing her. “I promise I'll overhaul the system right away.”

“You'll never remember, darling, but it's sweet of you to want to.”

Outside the flat, he was about to shake the door, to make sure that the Yale lock was in order, when he cut his hand away. Salute to Marion! Three years of married life and still monstrously attractive at breakfast time! Wriggling a little as he made sure that he had not forgotten his latchkey, his note case and his fountain pen, he entered the lift.

If a prowling cracksman—he reflected on the way down—were to test the door and find it insecurely fastened, he would enter the flat, sandbag Marion, gag her clumsily and perhaps suffocate her. It wouldn't take a minute to get back into the lift and make sure the door was locked.

In a couple of seconds he had decided against going back. He had promised to overhaul the system. A pity, because it was a good system. Admittedly, the risk of disaster in any given case was minute. But why take even a minute risk of disaster when you need not? Still, in marriage, each side has to make concessions of principle. As he stepped into the street he removed his hat and carried it, to make sure it would not be blown away.

The system, even if he overworked it a little, had contributed to his success. He had made a niche for himself as a shipping agent, specialising in art objects and merchandise of a costly and fragile nature. By his own methods he had reduced loss and damage to a minimum, with the result that the insurance companies wafted business in his direction. In five years he had twice moved to larger premises.

It so happened on this windy and vexatious morning that he received a claim for damage which he believed to be fraudulent. He rang his lawyers and by eleven was walking the few hundred yards to their office in Hedgecutter Street. The lawyers occupied two floors in Sebastopol House, a dingy Victorian building, with a wastefully large entrance hall of unredeemable dinginess. The partners communicated with each other by means of a number of speaking tubes, the fore-runner of the house telephone. But their fees were high and their efficiency had been a catchword for three generations.

He was delighted when they advised him to fight. In the hall, on the way out, he lobbed a half finished cigarette into a huge brass coal vase, placed there for the purpose. He had walked a dozen paces into the wind before the system stopped him short.

He had thrown the cigarette into the vase, but had not actually seen it land. Lots of fires—some fires, anyhow—were caused by half finished cigarettes thrown carelessly away. Suppose he had missed the coal vase? Suppose the half finished cigarette had rolled along the floor, slipped through a chink in the boards? On a windy day like this, that old-fashioned building would burn like matchboard. He flashed up a pageant of disaster. The traffic cordoned off, the police holding back the crowd of morbid sightseers. He could hear the fire gongs, the cries of the doomed in the upper floors. Why not slip back and make sure about that cigarette?