Murder in Piccadilly (22 page)

“You seem to know more about it than I do,” she exclaimed with a laugh from which all the merriment was banished. “But there, I'm just an acquaintance of his. He's kind to everybody, I daresay.”

Bobbie, who was conscious that he was not in the picture, could have smiled at her cool repudiation of the man whom she had been championing at the very moment of the inspector's entrance, but he was too absorbed in trying to prepare for the visitor's first question to himself to have any desire to analyse the motives and the conduct of another.

“Oh, Nosey is unique,” said the inspector pleasantly. “I've never known another of his sort. Full of surprises, but clever in one respect at any rate, and an important one.”

Nancy's curiosity overcame her growing nervousness.

“If you ask me I think he's a dear,” she said defiantly, but the defiance was of her conscience. “But what is it you mean exactly?”

“I'll tell you, Miss Curzon.” To her disquiet he moved his chair nearer to hers and it had been too near. From her earliest years Nancy had been brought up to fear and suspect the police, the natural enemies of the denizens of the alley in which she had been born, and all the music hall songs and jokes about them which had become familiar to her since had not eradicated that suspicion and fear.

“He is never more than a friend to any woman,” was the surprising answer.

Nancy, who had never looked at Nosey Ruslin from this angle, was at once struck by its truth and accuracy. Nosey had always been so friendly with herself and other girls that somehow it had seemed his popularity was due to an amorous nature, but now that she had had her eyes opened she saw that for all his geniality, generosity and fondness of the society of her sex he never had an affair with any of them.

“I believe you're right,” she exclaimed, carried away by the discovery. “I suppose that's why I've always felt safe with Nosey and why all of us girls treat him as a father.”

“Of course.” The inspector smiled again. “And that's why it's not easy to find out anything about him that he doesn't choose to tell himself. Now if only he had a wife or a—”

A sudden return of terror and of fear of this placid, homely-looking man, whose smiling confidence presaged dreadful possibilities to her, infected Nancy with a hysterical anxiety to rush from his presence.

“I—I must be off,” she said, rising. “I'm dancing at the ‘Frozen Fang'—”

“The ‘Frozen Fang' is closed for a week,” he said calmly and without any challenge or note of triumph. “For repairs, the proprietor says.”

“I meant rehearsal,” she gasped.

“Oh, that's different.” He stood up to do the courtesies of farewell. “I hope the rehearsal will be a success.”

Was he laughing at her or trying to entangle her still further? Before she could decide whether it would be too risky to retort after the manner of the school which had been her first environment he diverted her thoughts by an unexpected reference to Nosey Ruslin.

“Should you happen to see Nosey Ruslin tonight you might—”

“I shan't be seeing him,” she began, flustering in an effort to lend an appearance of courage to her timid anger.

“You are having supper with him,” he said with the same quietness that hurt her more than a denunciation of her lie would have done. “Just mention to him, will you, that I'm calling early tomorrow. Nosey promised to help me all he could although he stands to lose if I get the murderer.”

Bobbie, unable to interpret correctly the mysterious reference to a loss by his most recent friend, uttered an exclamation which he could not stifle, but the others took no notice of him, and for that he was thankful.

“Oh, all right,” said Nancy, pettishly, “I'll give him your message, but it's something new to me to hear of Nosey turning a bloom—”She stopped, looked embarrassed, and then, after the manner of her kind laughed a shrill apology. “I mean to say, it's queer—” she hesitated again.

Chief Inspector Wake gallantly came to her rescue.

“You won't have much time for that rehearsal,” he reminded her, “and I expect Mr. Cheldon will want to escort you downstairs.”

The lovers' eyes met in a simultaneous glance of inquiry, each reading into the drawing-room nonchalance of the detective a sinister meaning of an importance in proportion to the liveliness of their fears. The quicker-witted Nancy was the first to regain a semblance of self-control.

“Come along, Bobbie,” she cried gaily, for the moment animated by Cockney wit and independence, “you can trust Inspector Wake with the family silver and he can't do a guy with the furniture.”

She frowned at her lapse into the vulgar, but Bobbie was beside her now and there was no further opportunity for self-criticism. Her brain might not be of the highest quality but it was in good working order for a girl who had yet to celebrate her twentieth birthday.

“Bobbie,” she said as they kissed on the landing, “Nosey.” She paused when he made a gesture of annoyance. “It's no good doing that. You've got to play straight with Nosey.”

“What do you know?” he gasped.

“Nothing. Nosey doesn't tell me anything. Only you're not to talk too much to Wake. He'll encourage you to chatter. That's what Nosey says. Good-bye. No, don't leave him alone for long. I know nothing—remember that. Nothing.”

She ran to the top of the staircase and descended with something of the movements of one escaping from imminent danger.

“Good-bye,” she called from the well below, but Bobbie did not hear her. He was worrying about Nosey's message and resentfully repeating his sense of disgust that this rather vulgar person should be trying to draw him into a partnership of conspiracy over the murder of his uncle.

In this mood he rejoined the detective and, still under the influence of a sense of superiority, lolled against the mantelpiece.

“I believe you have some information for me?” he asked with something of the affability of a politician and the dignity of a duke.

“Not information, Mr. Cheldon. I've come from Broadbridge Manor and what information I picked up there must be known to you.”

“You'd probably be surprised to hear that there's very little I know about Broadbridge,” he answered languidly. Languor suited him, and if only he could keep it up might prove his best defence.

“But you're the owner of the property now?” Chief Inspector Wake was content to sit and to make no attempt to assert himself. “You're the lord of Broadbridge Manor, thanks to the death of your uncle.”

“I don't care for the word ‘thanks',” said the youthful critic who prided himself on his sensitive ear. “An unfortunate accident, shall we term it, inspector?”

“Nosey Ruslin wouldn't call it unfortunate,” Wake remarked with an assumption of ease and indifference which was a trifle too perfect to be convincing.

“The opinion of a person of his stamp,” Bobbie said fussily.

“I know Nosey isn't your class, Mr. Cheldon, but he's proud of being your friend.” He paused and gazed meditatively at his inseparable umbrella. “Perhaps he hopes to benefit by your accession to wealth. You never quite know what Nosey is thinking about. And that reminds me. Mr. Cheldon, didn't you assure me that Nosey was not acquainted with your uncle? If I remember right you said they'd never met and had never corresponded? You were most positive about it.”

“And I'm equally positive now. Ruslin was more or less friendly with me. As Miss Curzon remarked he was kind to everybody and I was grateful to him for encouraging me when I was depressed.”

“But you never introduced him to your uncle?”

“Excuse me laughing, inspector. Introduce Nosey Ruslin to my uncle! That would have been funny. I don't wish to speak ill of the dead, but Uncle Massy was England's Public Snob No. 1. He never associated with people he didn't consider his equals.”

“He never wrote Nosey?”

The question was too direct and abrupt not to arouse suspicion, but Bobbie was not a comprehensive thinker and he founded his reply on his own narrow knowledge of the world and of men.

“Of course not. My late uncle was not fond of writing letters to anyone, and he certainly wouldn't have chosen Nosey as a correspondent.”

“Then how can you account for the fact that on the ninth of April your uncle sent a parcel to Nosey at the ‘Frozen Fang' and that for a special reason took the parcel himself to the post office to be registered?”

Chief Inspector Wake, who had no sense of the dramatic, stood up to emphasise the question which was an accusation.

“Good lord!” Bobbie exclaimed involuntarily, “I'd forgotten that.”

“Forgotten what?” The fleshy face was thrust towards his own.

Bobbie tried to laugh lightly, groaned heavily instead, and flushed with an anger which the detective could trace to its origin without inflicting any strain on his brain.

“Forgotten what?” he repeated.

“Am I on trial?” Bobbie was floundering helplessly. He attempted to clutch at another straw. “What my uncle did is no concern of mine.”

The inspector turned away to place his umbrella against the wall. He may also have desired from a sense of fairplay to allow his antagonist an opportunity for recovery.

“Look here, Mr. Cheldon,” he said, without rancour or heat, “every little thing your uncle did concerns everybody who is in danger of being lugged into the ugly business of his murder.”

“You don't suspect me?” came in a series of gasps.

“No, I don't, but what I do suspect is your motive for not being open and frank with me. It was a lie when you said Nosey never met your uncle.”

“It was the absolute truth!”

“And the registered parcel containing what I suspect was a revolver?”

Bobbie's knees began to wobble and he took a seat with an exaggerated leisureliness which was not worth noting because it was too obvious.

“That you had better ask Ruslin about,” he answered.

“I mean to, Mr. Cheldon.” The inspector changed his tone. “I am your friend and I've been your friend although you mightn't care to admit it. Any other man would have clapped you and Nosey and one or two others into a cell before now.”

“With the result that you'd be out of the force in a week,” Bobbie found the courage to retort.

Chief Inspector Wake smiled gently.

“You're very young, Mr. Cheldon, and so you'll be surprised and perhaps disbelieving if I tell you that this year alone, and it's not half over yet, that's been said to me by at least twenty persons. Did you read of the trial of a James Carruthers for arson? A sensational affair. He was sent down for ten years. I see you did. Well, Jim—we're rather old acquaintances—guaranteed that I'd be kicked out of Scotland Yard when the country heard of the infamy of his arrest and of my blunder in imagining he had had anything to do with the city fires. Then there was young Mrs. Unwin.” He smiled. “But that doesn't matter. I merely referred to them to convince you that almost daily I'm threatened with being kicked out of the force, as you put it.” He moved slightly and his expression hardened. “Mr. Cheldon, you didn't murder your uncle.”

Bobbie's lips moved but not a sound came to give articulation to the desire to say, “Thank you for nothing.”

“You didn't murder your uncle,” the inspector repeated, “but if you will only be candid you could help me a lot. Don't imagine it's a difficult case, for I don't. I'll have the man before the week passes, and then it won't be pleasant for those who are putting obstacles in my way.”

“Is that a threat?” Bobbie was once more under the influence of ten thousand a year and Broadbridge Manor.

“That depends on your conscience, Mr. Cheldon,” was the disturbing retort. “Come, be candid. Was it news when I told you just now that your uncle sent a registered parcel to Nosey Ruslin? You hesitate. That's the answer I wanted. Mr. Cheldon, what was in that parcel?”

“I—I refuse to answer. It wouldn't be fair to—to my uncle.” He had nearly blurted out Nosey's name, and the last moment substitution of his uncle's was a stroke of genius, for you cannot cross-examine the dead.

“Oh, very well. You won't reply and so I must have a few words with my old friend, Nosey Ruslin.” The heavy voice was heavier by a sneer. He reclaimed his umbrella, and to Bobbie's relief appeared to be intent on preparing to depart. “Oh, by the way, Mr. Cheldon, know much about Nosey? Anything of his past, eh?”

“I'm afraid not.” The tone was patronising, but it was patronage of the absent and not of the present. “He introduced himself to me at the ‘Frozen Fang' and I thought him a good sort. Free and easy, Bohemia and all that sort of thing.”

“Did he attempt to borrow money?”

Bobbie's laughter was genuine.

“To be fair to Mr. Ruslin I must admit that I borrowed from him, or he insisted on lending me twenty-five pounds.”

“Did he know you had no prospects of repaying unless you came into the family property?”

It was a silly question, and Bobbie very nearly said so, but another attack of nervousness silenced him.

“Nosey is generous, Mr. Cheldon, when he is in funds, but twenty-five pounds at a time when he's had to owe for his rent and couldn't pay his telephone account! I wonder—I wonder.” He was eyeing Bobbie slyly. “Mr. Cheldon, Nosey has never been through our hands, but he's dangerous, very dangerous. Twice I thought I had him—once in connection with a murder and once for a cheque fraud—but he wriggled out. He is nearly the cleverest crook in London.”

“Crook?” Bobbie breathed.

“Crooked and clever. He trades on his good nature and generosity, and uses men and women without scruple in his trade of crime. He's an organiser and not a doer; he hands the weapon to the stabber to do the dirty work for him. Mind you, I'm not saying he had anything to do with your uncle's murder—that is, I'm not saying it officially, for I've no proof that would satisfy an Old Bailey jury, but he's equal to murder by deputy. When your uncle was stabbed to the heart and—”