January, 1942, was a hard month in London. Friday, January 16th, was one of its bleakest days. Snow had fallen on the Wednesday and Thursday, rain during Thursday night. Enough snow had been left by the rain to form piles of slush in gutters and sideroads. Early in the morning it had frozen; the slush had become hard rutted cakes, and a thin film of ice had formed on the roads and sidewalks. Some, but not much, of this had been melted by the dull red sun which shone for a little while through the mist in the middle of the day. By 4.30 the sun was obscured by clouds; soon sleet began to fall, and a strong, bitterly cold wind sprang up. By six o’clock, when the darkness was pitch-black, the thermometer touched the lowest point yet that winter.
On this dreary day probably the dreariest place was a railway terminus. Those who were hurrying to catch the 6.12 at Euston may have thought so, if they had any thoughts to spare from their aching ears and fingers. One of them, Councillor Henry James Grayling, a thin man looking about 50, cursed the station and railway company aloud. Entering from the side, not through the grotesque, vast, black Euston arch, he had slipped on the frozen cobbles nearly in front of a lorry coming out in the darkness. He had fallen on his side and only been saved from injury by young Evetts, an assistant in the chemist’s department of his own firm—a man whom he did not like or trust. He had not known Evetts was near to him; he did not like the officious way in which the young man pulled him to his feet and ran his hands all over his clothes. “I’m all right. Thank you. Disgracefully dangerous place. Confound the company,” he said, ungraciously and reluctantly.
To evade his rescuer, as much as for any other reason, he crossed slantwise towards the refreshment room, picking his way in the faint blue light which was all that black-out rules allowed. He pushed through the swing doors, and then through the light-trap—a curtain—into the tearoom. It was brilliantly bright, close and hot after the dark and cold platforms.
Grayling stood for a moment, dazzled by the light and blinded by the film of steam that formed on his glasses. Waiting for it to clear, he decided that he might for once break a habit and really take a cup of coffee or tea before the train left. It would not be an indulgence, he reasoned; he was extremely cold, he had definite catarrh, and the price was low. But when the room cleared into his sight, he hesitated. The place was crowded, and it would take some time to get served. The cakes on the counter looked stale and unattractive. The tea would be served with tinned milk, if any milk were served at all; it would be scalding hot, and he had but five minutes to spare. His grey eyes, reddened at the corners, rested on a group of sailors who had been drinking beer and were shouting. One had a whisky in his hand. Grayling was a teetotaller, and envy or principle made him scowl; then, almost at once, he saw another thing which made up his mind for him. Near the door, in the crowd through which he had just pushed his way, was standing the square dark figure of a German refugee doctor—so called—whom he knew and viewed with personal dislike and political suspicion. He turned sharply and walked through the door, pushing fairly rudely against the doctor on his way. In his belief the German jostled him deliberately in return—a fresh offence.
The month before, a large number of trains had been taken off because of fuel shortage. His favourite 5.57 no longer ran. There was a crowd thrusting on to the platform where the 6.12 would come in; Grayling took his place in the queue and pushed past the barrier with the others.
The platform was already filling up; he had to thread his way to reach the far end, where he always waited for the train. To be at the end saved him perhaps a minute on arrival at Croxburn; besides, the carriages near the end tended to be less full. Inside the station the wind did not blow so continuously and hard as outside; it eddied and whirled. But it was cold enough for him to press his attaché case close to him and to fold his hands across his chest; with his case held in front of his breast he looked oddly like a man with his gasmask at the “alert.” When he reached his chosen place he stared out into the greater darkness from which the train would come. It was just possible to make out the edge of the station roof, a great dark arc against the darker sky. In the picture which it framed, the only visible things were the signal lights, red and green. They were of an unimaginable brilliance—unimaginable, that is, to those who only knew the pre-war station, whose brilliant lighting reduced the signals to unimportant glitters. Now they shone out from the thick, almost furry blackness with strong, unwinking cones of light. There seemed to be hundreds of them. Even Grayling, little accustomed to reflect on what he saw around him, wondered at the strength of the green lights. It wasn’t safe, he reflected. A plain signal to German aircraft.
The train was now five minutes overdue. The platform was getting crowded. Among the people standing near Grayling recognized, or thought he did, men with whom he travelled up every day. He was quite certain of one—the young man Evetts had reappeared. He began to edge away from him, still further up the platform, hugging his case. There was about £120 in that case, in pound notes and silver; he was not taking any risks.
Just then a flickering yellow light appeared among the reds and greens. The crowd moved, and a sound like a communal grunt of hope appeared; perhaps that was the light on the front of the engine of the delayed train? It jigged tantalizingly, but did not seem to come nearer. At last, but so slowly, it grew brighter, then it swerved to one side, and then, quite suddenly, there appeared behind it the black bulk of an engine, and rattling and panting the train pulled in, dead and dark with all its blinds drawn. As it came in Grayling saw that the company had made some effort to allow for the increased traffic. Extra carriages had been added; and, in common with other cautious passengers he ran forward to where the platform sloped down in a long ramp, in order to get into these additional and probably less crowded carriages. Once again, to his annoyance, he was jostled in the rush, and lost his favourable position by clinging anxiously to his case. When he did enter a carriage he found indignantly that all the corner seats had been taken, one, of course, by the wretched man Evetts. There was no sense in going to find another carriage, and in any case he was being pushed from behind by other travellers. He sat next to Evetts, coughing pointedly from the fumes of the large and foul pipe which the young man was smoking. The hint, if it was one, was not taken. Next to him there sat down with a thump a rather heavy man in clerical dress; he recognized in the dim light of the two lamps that were allowed the Vicar of Croxburn, his colleague on the Town Council. He nodded to him curtly: the Vicar was like himself a Conservative—or Ratepayers’ Association member as they called themselves—but the two were all the same generally in disagreement. He recognized two other persons in the carriage. In the corner opposite was a large-nosed dark little man, just outside the pool of the lamplight; he was fairly sure that that was Ransom, a corporal in the Home Guard platoon in which he was a second lieutenant, and a damned bad corporal at that. A little further along on the same side was a handsome, fair young man with a club foot; he glanced at Grayling, blushed scarlet with embarrassment and looked away. Grayling’s face became harder and angrier; but just at this moment a heavy bulk pushed in between them, and there sat down, dead opposite to him, the refugee doctor. Grayling drew himself back, hideously and openly affronted. But there was nothing that he could do to expel the German. He pulled himself stiffly back and took out his handkerchief, deliberately holding it in front of his nose, as if to protect himself from a disgusting smell. The German took no notice; or, if he did, did not show it.
In the far corner there was a fat middle-aged woman whom Grayling did not recognize; with her there was a small girl of about thirteen, in school uniform and with a running nose. Opposite them were two young working men in overalls whom he didn’t know either. Something appeared to have amused them excessively; they kept bursting into fits of loud laughter and exchanging half sentences, incomprehensible to the outsider, about an event that had apparently occurred at work. Their most frequent word was “bloody,” but they suppressed more coloured adjectives in deference to the company. The Vicar blew his nose with some violence, and Evetts withdrew his pipe to sneeze. Infected by their example, Grayling also blew his nose, and for a moment the carriage was echoing with sneezes, noseblows and coughs. At that moment the train started with a violent jerk, the passengers were thrown forward and Evetts’ bag, which he had put in the rack, fell on to Grayling’s head. Evetts leant forward, apologized, and pulled it back again; Grayling replied inaudibly.
Thereafter the train ran its usual course, stopping at each station as suburban trains do. After the fourth station, one of the exuberant workmen turned his attention to reading the inscriptions inside the carriage. It was an old carriage, brought back into service for the war period; and its notices had had more than their fair share of schoolboy emendations. The jests were neither very good nor very new, but the reader professed to find them overwhelming. To decipher them, he had to peer very closely, right past Grayling’s shoulder in one case, and to move right down the carriage, which he did without embarrassment. “Please restrain your ticket,” and “Do not leap out of the window” were established jokes; but he appeared never before to have seen the simple injunction: “Before alighting, wait until the train stops.” On the door itself the advice “To lower window, pull strap towards you” had defeated the inscription writer: he had got as far as “To love widow,” but had then given up in despair. The explorer’s colleague began to offer suggestions but was hastily hushed. The cream, however, was a notice above Grayling’s head, newly put up because of the war. By the simple but grandiose process of turning an “i” into an “o” it had been made to read: “During the blackout, blonds must be pulled down and kept down.” The Vicar was moved to protest at the delighted elaboration of this thesis that followed, and the reader fell into an abashed silence.
Nothing else noteworthy occurred. The passengers were silent, seeming to dislike each other’s company. Most had colds; all were cold. The young man who had blushed so darkly at the sight of Grayling, glanced at him once or twice with a very queer expression, but said nothing.
After three-quarters of an hour, the train pulled into the suburb of Croxburn. Most of the passengers got out, leaving the woman and her child, and the two workmen to go on to a later station. Grayling avoided speaking to anyone of his companions, got first through the turnstile, and was almost immediately hidden in the moonless night.
The Vicar made his way cautiously home; he had no electric torch and the ground was slippery underfoot. He prodded carefully with his umbrella when he thought that he had reached the kerb, or when he perceived what might be a lump of half-frozen slush. Though there was no fog, his eyes were sore, and the wind seemed to chafe his face unreasonably. He wrapped his scarf round his cheeks, but they had become so tender he pulled it away again. It was half an hour’s walk to the Vicarage, and he was never more glad to arrive than he was that evening.
As he switched on the light, having carefully closed the door first, his housekeeper, who had come out to meet him, gave a faint squeal: “Oh, sir, you’ve got that barber’s rash again. Look at your face!” The Vicar stared at himself in the long hall mirror, as much as his smarting eyes would allow. It was true; the left side of his face was covered by a pink rash, and it was certainly itching very unpleasantly. Some months before he had been troubled by a skin disease caught from a barber’s shop; he tutted irritably at this sign of its return.
He went upstairs rather heavily, and routed out from a medicine cupboard the remains of a zinc ointment prescribed for him at the time. In the bathroom, he rubbed some of it on lightly, and at the same time bathed his eyes with boracic lotion. These amateur operations eased his discomfort to some extent, and he was able to eat his dinner. But his eyes and skin still remained troublesome, and half-past ten he was wondering whether it was not worth while, even on so foul a night, to go down the road to call on Dr. Hopkins. At that moment the telephone bell rang. He lumbered across the room and answered it.
“Croxburn 0015.”
A cold, level, feminine voice replied: “Is that the Vicar speaking?”
“Yes.”
“This is Mrs. Grayling. I wonder if you could spare the time to come and see my husband.”
“I think so—I mean I—” The Vicar was puzzled at the request, and showed it.
“I think he is dying,” went on the voice, which seemed to have some difficulty in selecting its words, but showed no other emotion at all. “That is to say, he is certainly very ill. The doctor is with him now. But as he is one of your churchwardens, I thought perhaps you should be there.” It might have been a committee meeting to which Mrs. Grayling was inviting the Vicar.
“Oh, dear me, dear me. I am sorry. Has he—er—asked for me?”
“He cannot speak.”
“Oh.” The Vicar was distinctly jolted. “I will come: at once.”
Croxburn is one of the many huge “dormitory” suburbs round London, mostly built up in the between-wars period. There is a small nucleus of the old village, consisting of undistinguished Victorian houses, but the body of the borough consists of two-story houses, sold to middle-class occupants by building societies, on the instalment plan. Like every other, it has its Park Drive, Elm Avenue, Laburnum Grove and such roads, all alike and with identical houses, but made to curl and wind in a manner intended to recall an old English village. It makes it very easy for the stranger to lose his way, and even for the native it enforces long detours.
It took the Vicar half an hour to reach the Grayling house, and he had ample time to reflect on the character of the man to whose side he had been called.
His emotion was chiefly that of surprise. It was true that Grayling was a churchwarden at St. Mary’s, but he very much doubted whether he had any religious feeling. He was quite sure Mrs. Grayling had none at all. She was a very good-looking, self-possessed woman some twenty years or so younger than her husband; and the last time that the Vicar had taken tea at their house—a long while ago—she had told him she was not a Christian, and had spent most of her time trying to vex him with the more childish atheist puzzlers, such as “Who was Cain’s wife?” Grayling himself was one of the well-established clique which had had the Town Council in its pocket ever since there had been a Town Council. He had attached himself to the parish church of St. Mary the Virgin for no better reason, the Vicar thought, than that it was a form of municipal activity, and he intended to keep his hand on every local affair that he could. The Vicar had attempted, not being High Church, to drop “the Virgin” from the church’s name; Grayling had succeeded in preventing him, and the Vicar did not think he was uncharitable in saying (and he had done so more than once) that conviction played no part in the Councillor’s interference. Grayling attended service as rarely as was compatible with his churchwardenship; since the Home Guard had taken to parading every Sunday he had not attended at all, though Evensong never clashed with his military duties. The Vicar wondered if he could bring himself to believe that danger had brought out unsuspected spiritual earnestness in the Councillor. Forgetting for the minute that Mrs. Grayling had said her husband could not speak, the Vicar allowed himself to play with the idea that he might be being summoned to hear a confession. The near approach of death had a chastening effect on even the most hardy. He had long suspected Councillor Grayling and certain other members of the Council of corruption. The Gas Committee, of which Grayling was chairman, published very attenuated accounts, and the Vicar had been given three very circumstantial stories of graft—two dealing with the allocation of contracts and one with secret rebates. He had been investigating these, as he believed privately. (But here he was wrong; his activities were well known to those concerned. The Vicar believed himself to be a patient man with plenty of worldly cunning; as are most people who hold that belief he was short-tempered and naïve.) He wondered if, before meeting his Maker, Grayling had decided to tell the truth and disclose the facts to the one man on the Council who could be trusted not to hesitate in clearing out evil. He pondered over this, remembered Grayling’s character and decided it was unfortunately a very improbable hypothesis.
Mrs. Grayling answered the door when he arrived. She was between thirty and forty, with a rather lean face—pointed nose, pointed chin and thinnish lips. She had wide dark brown eyes and a head of dark brown hair. Her face was devoid of any marked signs of distress; it had an impersonal expression like that of a hospital nurse. “I am afraid I have brought you out for no reason, Vicar,” she said. “I telephoned your house, but I was too late. He cannot speak or see now. There is nothing you can do for him. Dr. Hopkins is upstairs with him now. I expect he will be down soon and we will ask him. But he warned me against expecting any good news.”
“What is wrong with your husband?”
Mrs. Grayling spread out her hands in a gesture of ignorance.
“The doctor doesn’t say. I think he doesn’t know. It is something to do with his lungs, I gather. But it is very sudden, for lung trouble, surely.”
“Yes. Yes, indeed. And he looked perfectly well this evening,” said the Vicar unhappily.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Grayling indifferently, “did you travel with him? What am I thinking of, keeping you standing here? Please come into the drawing-room and sit down.”
She led the way and they waited in the drawing-room in silence. After about half an hour Dr. Hopkins, a greying man with a half-bald head, came in. “He is very ill,” he said without preamble, “and—oh, are you here, Vicar?— and I am afraid that you must prepare yourself for the worst, Mrs. Grayling.” He stopped short, looking at her uncomfortably. He felt he should have said more, but what could he say? The Vicar stepped in: “Perhaps I could see Mr. Grayling a minute?” he said. “I do not think Mrs. Grayling—” “Why certainly,” fussed the doctor, “I think it would be better for Mrs. Grayling not to come up, unless she insists; but certainly you can come. I must go up now; I cannot leave the nurse alone there any longer.”
Mrs. Grayling made no move; and did not speak.
Just as they were going she said in a rather low voice: “What exactly is wrong, doctor?” “Lesions in the lungs, chiefly,” answered the doctor, “but there are other complicating symptoms. And it is not clear what has caused them. This sudden onset is most peculiar.”
Twenty minutes later the two men returned to the drawing-room. The Vicar advanced with outstretched hands. “He passed away while I was with him,” he said gently.
He held Mrs. Grayling’s hands between his. “My dear,” he said, “is there anything I can do?” He checked himself from offering to pray with her.
She looked up at him gratefully. “You are very kind,” she said. “I mean that. You are really very kind. But I don’t think so. I think you had better leave me to myself. And him.”
Dr. Hopkins spoke. “I am sorry to trouble you at this time, but there will have to be a post-mortem. I am going to ring up the police surgeon now. We will cause as little inconvenience as we can, I promise you.”
“I assure you, Inspector, I am only too glad to answer your questions. There is no need for these apologies. I am really distracted, and I only wish you could take complete control of this house and everything in it.” Mrs. Grayling’s voice did at last show some emotion, if it was only that of exasperation. “To answer the telephone calls from Barrow and Furness’s branches alone is really too much for me. Please sit down. I will tell you anything I can. I suppose you will ask me my name, though you know it quite well, of course. Renata Grayling. My age—well, I really think that is not wholly your business—”
Inspector Holly broke in gently. “I shouldn’t think of asking you questions like that, ma’am. I want to spare you trouble, not make it. I am so sorry that you have been worried by your husband’s firm telephoning. I will see if I can stop it. I cannot understand why they should do such a thing.”
“Oh, don’t blame them. What else can they do? They want to pay their people. They keep asking what Henry has done with the money. I can’t tell them.”
“With the money?”
“Didn’t you know? Henry always brought home with him, every Friday, the money to pay the staff in five branches of Barrow and Furness. Quite a lot of money, he used to say. He had them made out into packets and on Saturday morning three of the shops sent round for theirs while he took the packets for High Street and Austen Road himself. Austen Road has telephoned me twice already, and the manager of Neville Road was here at 8.30 this morning. But Henry didn’t bring the money.”
Inspector Holly said nothing about any reflections that that last sentence caused. “I will certainly see that you aren’t worried any more,” he said.
“Meanwhile could you—would you mind telling me just what happened last night, as far as you know it?”
“Yes. It was about 7.30 or a quarter to 8—I can’t be sure exactly, but it must have been after half-past seven, because I remember thinking Henry was late and might have missed his train—he was very regular in his ways, and it was unusual for him not to be in strictly to time. I remember saying to myself that perhaps the bad weather had delayed the train and then that if he had missed the train I ought to go and take the dinner out of the oven or it would spoil. Alice’s evening out is Friday, you see, and I was alone in the house and had prepared our dinner. I was just idly wondering like that, thinking of nothing in particular, when I thought I heard a sort of soft thump against the door. I wasn’t sure, and I went out into the hall to listen; and then I seemed to hear a sort of scrabbling against the door.”
A slight, almost imperceptible grimace as of horror went across her face.
“Well, I turned out the light, and opened the door; and Henry practically fell on me. He must have been leaning against the door, unable to stand up. He must have been on his knees, I think, for when he fell down his body was only half across the threshold. I didn’t realize what had happened; I couldn’t understand it at all. I couldn’t see much anyway; you know how dark it is in the black-out, especially a night like last night; and I had just come out of a lighted room. I did look round, but I couldn’t see more than a few feet. It was all blackness. There wasn’t anyone using a torch or anything, not even a bicycle lamp. I could see that the snow on the garden path had been sort of smeared and brushed about. I suppose Henry had dragged himself on all fours up the path. Well”—Mrs. Grayling began to speak more hurriedly now—“I dragged Henry into the hall by his arms as best I could, and as soon as I had shut the hall door I turned on the light, and then I could see he was in a terrible condition. There was blood down his chin and on to his tie, and he had been sick. He couldn’t stand or speak, and he kept clutching at his throat. His face looked as if he was in most hideous pain, and was all blotchy. And while I looked at him he coughed up a fresh lot of blood and spittle, but he couldn’t say anything but make a faint sort of moaning noise, though I’m sure he was trying to tell me something. I went straight to the telephone and got Dr. Hopkins, and told him my husband was taken horribly ill, and he must come at once; and must see that a nurse came too. Well, he did so; and while I was waiting for him I managed to get Henry to bed and out of his clothes. And the rest I think you know.”
Mrs. Grayling drew in her breath and let it out with a sound which was neither quite a gasp nor a sigh.
The Inspector said: “Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. I have talked to Dr. Hopkins, and I do know the rest. You’ve told me everything very clearly. There’s only one other thing I would like to ask you—did your husband have a case or a bag with him?”
“No. He hadn’t got anything in his hands. And he hadn’t his hat on. He usually carries an attaché case and he set out with it that morning. Have you found it?”
“I think we have. We found a case fifty yards or so down the road. It was open and had some Barrow and Furness notepaper in it. Nothing else. No money. I’ll ask you to look at it later, if I may, to identify it. And Mr. Grayling’s hat, which was not far away. A black felt, with H.J.G. on the band. But there’s no hurry about that.
“It’s very kind of you to have helped us so much. I want to express again, er, our deep sympathy in your bereavement and our thanks again. I will not intrude on you any more. I will go and deal with these telephone calls.”
And thus, clumsily, the Inspector took his leave.
Inspector Holly walked slowly back to the police station after he had left Mrs. Grayling. He was a tall, thin man with iron-grey hair; he was walking just now with a slight stoop and with his lips pursed up as for a soundless whistle. He looked perplexed, as, in fact, he was. He was not a native of Croxburn; he was a Devonshire man who only recently had been transferred. He wished he knew more about the people concerned. For example, Mrs. Grayling had said he knew her name was “Renata”; but he had not known even that. He knew Grayling’s own position—that is, he knew that he was a very influential councillor, though not a very well-liked one. The Vicar he knew too: he rather liked him; he regarded him as a busybody, but an honest busybody. But he knew none of the gossip that an old inhabitant would know—not even enough to know where to look and what to ask.
He put aside his worry for the minute with the reflection that after all it was not certain that much inquiry would be needed. The death was an odd one, it was true; but there was after all no very clear reason to assume it was anything but natural. The disappearance of the money that Grayling seemed to have been carrying was obviously something requiring investigation. But it did not seem a serious problem. If Grayling had been suddenly taken ill, he might well have dropped the case from his hand; and afterwards staggered home without it. He was probably trying to tell Mrs. Grayling about it when she picked him up. Meanwhile some passer-by in the dark found the case and opened it—or maybe it had flown open as it fell—and when he saw the packets of money inside, pinched them. If so, he was probably a local man; no one else was likely to be wandering about suburban roads late on a January evening. There were no fingerprints on the case, but that was not surprising. Anyone who had gloves would be wearing them on a night like that. Nor did it matter; if it was a local sneak-thief who had collected over £120 in one windfall he would fairly quickly give himself away. He would be caught spending it.
The Inspector decided more cheerfully that he had reconstructed the course of events correctly; he straightened himself and began to walk briskly. All that remained was to confirm from the doctor’s that Grayling’s death had been natural.
He found Dr. Hopkins with Police-Surgeon Campbell. He respected Dr. Hopkins as a hard-working, unpretentious G.P., quite competent to deal with any case likely to come his way; he neither respected nor liked Dr. Campbell. He could not follow easily what he said, for the doctor’s broad Scots was never in the least moderated for his Devon ears; he believed that the doctor regarded him as an intruder and was intentionally rude; he suspected that he drank whisky too freely and was inaccurate in his work. But he was the police doctor, and there was nothing Holly could do about it—not, anyway, until he had been in Croxburn considerably longer.
“So ye’ve come, have ye?” said Campbell. (There is no possibility of attempting to reproduce his accent.) “Maybe ye will explain the case to the Inspector, Dr. Hopkins; I doubt I could make him understand.”
Ignoring him Holly turned to the smaller man. Dr. Hopkins began fumblingly: “The case presents, um, several features of difficulty. I am not quite sure how to present—that is, to explain exactly …”
“Dinna haver, man,” said his colleague. “Tell Mr. Holly we don’t know how the man died; and then tell him why we don’t know how he died. Be very simple for the Inspector.”
“Well, it is not strictly true that we don’t know how he died. He died of heart failure, if you are going to be exact, Campbell,” said Dr. Hopkins. “But what induced the heart failure is, of course, as usual, the real question.”
“And at that he may have died of choking,” interpolated the other.
“Choking?” almost shouted Holly.
“Ye see, ye have to be careful with the Inspector,” sneered Campbell. “Choking doesn’t necessarily mean someone strangled him. Explain it, Hopkins, in words of one syllable.”
Dr. Hopkins, blushing scarlet for Campbell’s boorishness, went on: “The condition of the body, Inspector, is very strange. Grayling died of heart failure consequent on two, er, causes. That is to say, it might have been due to either one of them. They were: loss of blood, and suffocation. Both his lungs and throat were terribly affected. There was oedema of the lungs, and the symptoms of very severe laryngitis. The latter was the reason why he could not speak; there were even what are called pseudo-membranes in the throat. The tissues were very severely affected.…”
“Blood must have been pouring into his lungs,” grunted Campbell. “Sodden like sponges they were.”
“What caused all this, Doctor?” asked the Inspector.
“We don’t know. There was no previous history of bronchial trouble or throat trouble that we know of, and in any case it is doubtful if that would explain the attack. It must have been almost in the nature of a seizure. Most extraordinary. We did have,” Dr. Hopkins coughed deprecatingly, “an idea which momentarily seemed to explain the affair; but it had to be abandoned.” He stopped speaking; Holly wordlessly urged him to go on. “Well, we thought that possibly someone might have thrown vitriol at him.”
“Vitriol!”
“Yes; you see we found marked traces of burning round the nose and mouth. The eyes were badly affected. I think, indeed, that towards the end he was partly if not totally blind. The skin of the face seemed in parts to be almost raw. But although some of his appearance was consistent with an attack by a vitriol-thrower, that was all that could be said. It doesn’t explain the rest of the symptoms. And it was those after all that caused his death.”
“The man didna die of a burnt face, ye ken,” added Campbell. “The long and short of it is, we canna tell ye how he died, and ye must bring in Sir James from the Home Office.”
“He won’t be able to get here till Monday,” objected Holly.
“Then ye must e’en wait till Monday.”
Dr. Campbell clearly enjoyed leaving the Inspector on that sentence.
The Inspector had had a talk with the Superintendent, who had told him to do just what he had expected. Since no clear lead had come from the doctors, he was instructed to be on the safe side and inquire as fully as he could into the whole circumstances. If he had to have a hypothesis, let it be that Grayling had been attacked by vitriol at some time. But it would be better to have no hypothesis. He was just to reconstruct as closely as he possibly could Grayling’s actions that day, especially on his homeward journey. His first calls should be on the Vicar, who had travelled down with him and the manager of Barrow and Furness who would know about his actions during the day. It would be as well to make those calls early ones. Memories faded only too quickly.
That was exactly what the Inspector had expected the Superintendent to say. It was the only correct thing to say, and if he had been in the Superintendent’s place he would have said it. But it was no more agreeable for that. It meant, in effect, going to look for something and not knowing what that something was. In the Inspector’s opinion, this talk about forming no hypothesis without sufficient facts was like the Judges’ Rules—something theoretically sound but, in fact, quite impracticable. To have no hypothesis was to have no object: to have a hypothesis which one knew to be untrue was no better.
All the same, work had to be done, he telephoned both the Vicar and the manager of Barrow and Furness—the latter first, in order to catch him before he left the office. (It was now 11.30 on Saturday morning.)
The manager had a disagreeable voice, and he seemed in a disagreeable temper. He appeared to hold the police and Grayling equally responsible for the loss of the money which should have paid the staff in the North-Western branches. Holly elicited from him, or was presented with this information:
That the sum lost was exactly £124 10s. 3d.
That he, the manager, was about to go away for the week-end by the 12.15, and that he would not adjourn his departure, nor give the Inspector an interview, nor disclose his week-end address. He would answer what questions he could on the telephone, forthwith or on Monday afternoon. He might find time to see the Inspector in the week. That the staff at the North-Western branches would merely not be paid that week-end. Something would no doubt be done on Monday. Inconvenience to the staff? The inconvenience of a heavy loss to the firm was his sole concern.
That Mr. Grayling was one of four assistant cashiers, all of whom had been with the firm many years and possessed the firm’s confidence. That he had arrived at the usual time, 9.30, and left at 5.30, and spent his day as usual at his desk. All the assistant cashiers sat at desks which were visible from his, the manager’s desk, and nothing in any way unusual had occurred yesterday. He had no conversation with Mr. Grayling except a few words of greeting or farewell. On the question of the money, the manager said this:
“Originally, the wages of the staff were sent out by special messengers on Friday afternoon. With the outbreak of war this expense seemed unreasonable. Besides, the men whom we employed being strong and healthy, would naturally at once wish to answer their country’s call. In any case, we dispensed with their services, and arranged for each assistant cashier to take home on Friday night with him the wage packets for the area with which he was concerned. In the morning he would deliver some, and some would be called for at his house.
“He made his own arrangements about that. The position was quite clear. The money was in the assistant cashier’s charge until it was delivered to the various branch managers. In consequence, the loss of this particular sum is the concern of the late Mr. Grayling’s estate. I have been endeavouring to make this point clear to his representatives, but have not succeeded.”
Holly was used to callousness, but this was too much. “I had heard,” he said, “that Mr. Grayling’s widow was being pestered by telephone calls of some such kind, immediately after her bereavement. I am glad to say I have arranged with the telephone exchange that the nuisance shall cease.”
The manager made a strangled noise.
“One more question,” continued Holly. “To how many people was this arrangement known?”
“I—um—that is to say,” replied the manager more subduedly, “it was not a secret in any way. I could not say how many knew of it. Anyone who chose, of our headquarters staff, that is.”
“But your staff was paid on Saturday at midday, not on Friday.”
“And why not?” said the manager, recovering himself. “Our business is run to suit the convenience of our customers, not of our employees.”
“No doubt, I was not interested in that aspect of the matter. I was remarking that your outside staffs, also, would presumably know of the arrangement.”
“Yes. I suppose so,” agreed the manager reluctantly.
The Vicar. Not a troublesome man, like the manager, Inspector Holly had no difficulty with him. Only the smallest amount of guile was needed in approaching him.
The inspector sat in his study, tastelessly furnished by a multiple store, and said:
“I’ve come to you for help, sir, because you know the parish so well. I’m relatively a newcomer, and I’ll have to rely on you. I’m sure I can trust in your discretion if I speak to you a little more freely than I would to the ordinary man.”
The Vicar’s large, rather pink face beamed at him. It gave the illusion of literally shining. Nothing could be more flattering to its possessor than this approach. Though he was far from being High Church, and regarded Anglo-Catholicism with deep suspicion, the Vicar had a strong sense of history and an elevated estimate of the importance which he should possess in the life of the community. In Croxburn, he was the parish priest. His position should be no less—it should indeed be greater—than that of the Mayor, the M.P., the Medical Officer of Health, and other functionaries whom everyone knew. But what were the facts? Very few people even knew of him. He ministered in an ugly, dark, middle-sized church, rebuilt and spoilt in 1851; he lived in a false Tudor-timbered semidetached house, differing only from its neighbours in that the freehold was held by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners instead of a building society. His congregation was small, and its members were chiefly ageing. His attempts to advertise himself, his church and his religion were unsuccessful, and on looking back at them he often found them humiliating. He would have been able to bear it if the citizens of Croxburn had attended the synagogue, the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, the Pillar of Fire Gospel Hall, or even Our Lady of Sorrows with its detestable, shifty Irish “Father.” That would have meant that heresy was rampant, and he could fight heresy, ramp how it might. But they did not: they passed them all by. The Vicar felt himself like a man sitting by the wayside, dressed in sacred raiment, each piece of which had a noble and ancient history, offering eternal truths; and the people ignored him and went to the pictures.
Now, for the first time, a man in charge of the civil power, having the right to bind and to loose, was calling on him for advice and help, deferring to him as one who knew the truth about the parish. (How wise Holly had been to use the word “parish,” how nearly he had forgotten to do so!)
“My dear Inspector, I am so glad you have come to me. I will give you every help I can. And most certainly I shall treat as absolutely confidential anything you think you should tell me. Please tell me what I may do.”
Campbell would talk anyway, reflected the Inspector; it was as well to make a virtue of necessity.
“I expect you have guessed already what it is about, sir,” he said. “It is the death of Councillor Grayling. We are completely at a dead end. The strangest thing has happened. The doctors do not know how he died. We are having to call in specialists, and hope that they will tell us. I have never known such a thing; we simply do not know if the death was natural or not.”
“But Dr. Hopkins was with him when he died.”
“Why, yes, sir, strictly speaking we do know how he died: lung trouble, as I understand it. But what caused this sudden attack—that is what the doctors cannot say.
“Now, sir, we all hope it was a natural death. But, as policemen, we may not take chances. It might not be a natural death. I hope, sir, you will not let it be known I said this.”
“Of course not.”
“If it isn’t a natural death, then we shall have to find the murderer, to put it bluntly. We shall in due course, there is no doubt, be told whether it was natural or not. But meanwhile we had better proceed on the assumption of the worst. Clues are evanescent: men’s memories are short. But if it came to anyone’s ears that I was investigating and that the police entertained a suspicion of murder—consider the scandal! And then if after all, we were to find out that our alarms were baseless. We might have done untold damage.”
“Quite. Exactly so.” The Vicar removed his eyeglasses and fixed on the Inspector a strained glare which was intended to suggest both concentrated attention and phenomenal acuteness. It gave him a slight squint.
“So I am going to ask you, sir, to tell me all you can about two subjects. The first is—Councillor Grayling himself. Give me an idea of the man, tell me what he did, what enemies he had, and anything in his life that was—well, in any way irregular or likely to lead to consequences. The second is more easy. I want as full an account as possible of his journey back home with you last night.”
“The man himself …” The Vicar abandoned his stare and looked pensively up at the electric chandelier, whose glass had a pattern of Greek keys in orange on it. He must be honest, but charitable; fair but precise. “That is a very hard question. I will do my best. Henry Grayling was a churchwarden, but I never felt he was a man of strong religious views. I regarded his wardenship as a tribute to the conventions. We never had any conversation on serious subjects, and that I think was not only because he was a silent man. His wife, as you may know, is an infidel.”
“I did not,” said Holly, surprised by the antiquated word.
He himself was what used to be called a worldly man and, since you have asked me to speak freely, I suppose I should say that I have had laid before me some evidence about him that might have become your affair later in any case. There were three different cases which had been brought to me. You probably know that Grayling is, or was, Chairman of the Gas Committee of the Council. Both the manager and the majority of the committee belong to a clique which, in the opinion of many citizens, runs our municipal affairs to its own private advantage. These three cases refer to the Light and Power Station.”
“Don’t you think,” asked the Inspector, “that you ought to be more explicit? You said they were a police matter.”
“I said they might become one. Frankly, I can’t say more, because I haven’t proof. I will go so far as this: two cases allege the giving of secret commissions to three Councillors, of whom Grayling was one, to secure contracts either for repairs or for the supply of necessary raw materials. If and when I get evidence amounting to proof, which I have not got now, I was going to expose the matter at a Council meeting. I shall do so still.”
“Well,” said Holly, “I won’t press you, sir at the moment. I may have to do so later. Is there anything more that you can tell me? About his private life, for example?”
The Vicar looked highly embarrassed. At last he said: “There is nothing else that I know.” There was just a faint emphasis on the last word.
Holly said gently: “If you have any suspicion, I think you should tell me. We are speaking in confidence, after all; and I have learned to be discreet.
Cornered, the Vicar thought unhappily of the figure of Mrs. Buttlin, once the Grayling’s cook, housekeeper, and still a regular attender at his church. “A whore, and the wife of a churchwarden. You shouldn’t be afraid of a scriptural word, a person shouldn’t. A whore, that’s what I said.” Indeed, that had been what she said, but not by any means all that she said. He made up his mind.
“A servant who left them brought me a detailed and unpleasant story charging Mrs. Grayling with adultery. She added that Mr. Grayling was refusing a divorce on religious grounds. I did not, and do not, believe that. And as for the main allegation, I told my informant—as soon as I could get a chance to speak—that I would not listen to gossip.”
“You gained no idea of who might be the guilty man— if there was one?”
“No, indeed.”
“But would you tell me who it was who spoke to you?”
The Vicar scratched his head and then ran his finger round his neck inside his dog-collar. Well, I suppose. Yes. Mrs. Adelaide Buttlin; she lives at 34, Chamberlain Gardens, with her niece; but I believe she is away at the moment. I would rather you did not mention my name.”
“I certainly will not. Now, about my other question. Would you give me an account of your journey home with Mr. Grayling?”
The Vicar’s relief was obvious. “With pleasure, with pleasure. I can remember the carriage and its occupants well. In fact, if you wish, I could do more.”
“Hm?”
“I could identify the carriage. I could point out in it precisely where each person sat. I think I could also recite everything that occurred on the journey, such as it was.”
“Identify the carriage! May I ask how you could manage to do that?”
The Inspector thought that after all there might be traces in the carriage. Traces of what? Heaven knew. Not of vitriol, anyway. Confound this case.
“But certain—er—marks that I noticed,” the Vicar was saying rather archly.
“I think I will take advantage of your offer,” said the Inspector. “If I may use your telephone? Tell me, first, what part of the train was your carriage in.”
“By all means. We were in the very first coach.”
“Thank you.”
The Inspector took a little time in getting on to the Traffic Superintendent from the local station, and then back to the local station. Eventually he had unexpected good fortune. The coach in question was easily identified, it was standing in a shed at Croxburn and had not been used since the previous night. Saturday traffic being noticeably less than other days, trains were shorter, and it was not wanted.
“If you will be so very kind as to come with me,” he said to the Vicar, “I’ll put your promise to the test. The stationmaster says we can go over the coach now, if we choose. It is not being used to-day; it’s in a siding.”
A little while later, accompanied by the inspector and an inquisitive stationmaster in a hard hat, the Vicar gleefully picked his way across the railway tracks. For the most part he was as excited as a schoolboy, but once he was badly frightened. His umbrella caught in the loose stones between the sleepers and nearly tripped him. At that moment a light engine, roaring and blowing like a dragon, rushed towards him and appeared to be about to crush him. “Steady, sir!” said the stationmaster, and pulled him up; the engine swerved on to a side line and ran fuming away about its own affairs.
At last they arrived at the coach. Standing alone, away from any platform, it seemed unexpectedly tall. The Vicar had to be hauled up into it. He inspected first one carriage then a second, pursing his lips and wagging his head to and fro. At the third, he said triumphantly: “This is it.”
“Are you certain?” said the Inspector.
“Yes. I am certain.”
“Do you mind my asking why?”
Slightly less triumphantly the Vicar answered: “Because of the, um, modifications of the inscriptions.”
“The what, sir?”
The Vicar pointed to notices which said:
Wait until the rain stops.
Please restrain your ticket.
“Ho!” said the stationmaster. “I wouldn’t go much by that. You’ll find them in most carriages of this type, I’m afraid. Passengers have been doing that for years. Especially schoolchildren, on these local trains.”
“I am aware of that,” said the Vicar, a great austerity filling his countenance. “But I had reason to notice that these mutilations were carried to a greater extent than usual. There is, for example, that notice which was behind my head as I sat, and which seemed to amuse some of my fellow passengers.”
The notice originally dealt with the pulling down of blinds. But it now said: DURING THE BLACKOUT, BLONDS MUST BE PULLED DOWN AND KEPT DOWN. The stationmaster, a man of noticeable vulgarity, who had risen from the ranks, let out a horse-laugh. “Ha, ha, ha! Hoo, hoo, hoo! Blonds must be pulled down. I should shay sho!”—an ancient Edwardian catchword which vexed the Vicar exceedingly. “It’s a very unusual one, that,” he continued, speaking to the clergyman as one collector to another. “It’s a long time since I saw it.”
Holly intervened.
“Could you tell us where you sat, sir, and, as far as possible, how the rest of the carriage was filled?”
“I can tell you with great exactitude,” replied the Vicar, turning with pleasure from the gross-minded railwayman. “I sat here. Immediately to my left sat Councillor Grayling. To his left, in the corner, sat a young man smoking a rather foul pipe. I think he was known to the Councillor personally. When the train started it jerked a bag or parcel off the rack on to Grayling’s head and this young man retrieved it. They exchanged a few words, and I think Grayling called him ‘Everitt’ or ‘Evetts,’ I am not sure which.
“On my other hand, on my right, sat two young men of the artisan class. They were rather boisterous. I did not know them, and as they did not leave the carriage at Croxburn I suppose they lived further up the line. Those were all the passengers on this side of the carriage.”
The Inspector looked at the long seat and fixed its population in his mind. From one corner to the other it had been as follows:
Young man with pipe, Evetts or Everitt.
Grayling.
The Vicar.
A boisterous workman.
Another of the same.
Five on the one side, a full complement, especially as the Vicar was a Broad Churchman physically as well as theologically.
“Here was where you said Mr. Grayling sat?”
The Vicar nodded.
Holly inspected the place carefully. He could see no traces of burning, discoloration, or anything to indicate the presence of an acid. However, he was no expert, and after all he did not know what he was looking for.
“I’ll ask you to let one of my men go over this thoroughly,” he said to the stationmaster.
“When? Can’t keep this coach out of commission indefinitely: it’ll be needed Monday,” said the stationmaster.
“To-day or to-morrow. And now the other side, sir.”
“Yes,” said the Vicar. “Now, in the corner opposite the young man with the pipe, there was a man whom I didn’t see clearly. There were only two lamps in the carriage, as you see, and they were encased in those two black cones, because of the black-out rules. They made two sorts of circles of light, and this man, who was rather a small fellow, was mostly outside the light. I have an idea that I’ve seen him before, in Home Guard uniform, but I’m not sure.”
“Directly opposite the Councillor was a man whom I know well by sight, a dark, square largish man with glasses. A refugee, I have been told. I have been told his name, too, but didn’t remember it.
“Next him was a fair young man, good-looking, but with an injured foot. He is an acquaintance of the Graylings, and his name is Hugh Rolandson. You will find him easily. Then there was a middle-aged lady with a schoolgirl of about thirteen with her. I didn’t know them: they also went on past Croxburn. I can’t remember anything distinctive about them except that the girl had a bad cold and sniffed continually. A little disagreeable, still, we nearly all had colds and were coughing or sneezing most of the time.”
“Thank you.”
Holly memorized this side of the carriage too.
Slight man, possibly Home Guard.
Large Refugee.
Hugh Rolandson.
Unknown woman and her daughter.
As they picked their way home, he asked the Vicar: “You were going to tell me about the journey, would you do so?”
“I think I’ve told you most. The train was late and the platform was crowded. I don’t remember seeing Mr. Grayling there. But a rush was made to the far end of the train, and when I got into the carriage he was already sitting down next to the young man with the pipe. I am not sure if I spoke to him, or if I merely nodded. The German refugee sat down opposite, and Mr. Grayling did a curious thing, which I thought rather offensive. He drew out his handkerchief and held it before his nose, as if the poor man smelt. But I may be doing him an injustice: he certainly had a cold and blew his nose more than once. I couldn’t tell you, otherwise, in what order the others sat down.
“When the train started, it did so with a violent jerk. First backwards, as if the engine had charged it, and then forward again. I cannot imagine how engine drivers manage to do such complicated things with their machines. Certainly, the two men opposite were flung almost into the arms of myself and Grayling, and then, when they were jerked back, the young man Everitt or Evetts’ bag fell on his head. Everitt or Evetts apologized and rescued it. I got a good sight of him and could recognize him.
“Nothing that I can remember happened during the journey, except that one of the workmen, who had been talking rather loudly and sillily, read those notices aloud. He got up to read the one that I mentioned and leaned over between me and Mr. Grayling, without any apology. I rebuked him for a rather gross comment and his behaviour was more seemly for the rest of the journey.
“Everyone got out at Croxburn except the two workmen, and the lady with the small girl. I think Mr. Grayling must have gone out of the station very quickly, for I could not see him when I looked round.”
“Thank you very much, sir. That has been very clear. I won’t trouble you any more for the minute.” Inspector Holly saluted and turned on his way to the police station.
Later in the day he summarised his results to the Superintendent.
“Until we know the facts of his death we can’t go very far. This is all I’ve got—
“On his way home from Croxburn Station he may have met somebody or may not. It was a pitch-black night; and the black-out was made for crime.
“If he met anyone in the streets of London, we shan’t know it either. But we do know who was with him in the carriage, and could possibly have followed him home. We can’t rule out of the question someone having lurked waiting for him at Croxburn Station; inquiries merely show that no one was noticed there. These are the people who were in the carriage, anyway.”
Holly summarised the Vicar’s description, and went on:
“Supposing there has been any funny business, had any of these people a grudge? Well, sir, it’s early to say. £124 in notes, anyway, is as good a motive as a grudge. But for what it is, here’s all I know.”
“The Vicar clearly did not like Grayling. He tells me he had something on him and expected shortly to expose a first-rate scandal and drive him from public life and possibly get him quodded. Not a motive for murder. Might have been, the other way round. Nor do I think that the Vicar wants £124 very badly. If things become serious, though, we might have to inspect his banking account.”
The Superintendent shook his head.
“I’ve found nothing about the two workmen or the woman and girl. But after all they didn’t get off here. Nor do I know who was the alleged Home Guard. But there is an H.G. parade to-morrow, and Major Ramsay has agreed to make an announcement and ask the man who travelled down with Grayling to report to us.
“Evetts or Everitt I haven’t traced yet. It shouldn’t be difficult, if he was an acquaintance of Grayling’s. He may have been a fellow-employee, in which case he would know about the money.
“About the fair young man, Rolandson, I do know something. The Graylings’ maid, Alice Williams, indicated to me that if Mrs. Grayling had done any sleeping-out, Mr. Rolandson was the boy friend. There had been rows between the Graylings about him. I’ll get more when Mrs. Buttlin comes back.
“The German, too, is a possible line. Refugees are a Home Office matter, and Inspector Atkins deals with them. But I remember him telling me about one, who sounds very like this man, whom Grayling was making a dead set at. I can’t remember the name, but Atkins will when he comes in. Grayling had written both to us and to the Home Secretary charging the man with being a spy, possessing a bicycle and a radio, and passing himself off falsely as a refugee, using the name of someone the Nazis had, in fact, killed. We didn’t pay much attention, because Grayling had recently become very violent about such things and talked rather wildly. But I seem to remember Atkins spoke as if an arrest wasn’t unlikely.
“That’s all I have. What shall I do next?”
The Superintendent spread out his hands like a Jewish stallkeeper. “What can I say? You know as well as I do. Follow up all these people, and pray that the doctors make their minds up soon. You know where most of them could be found. You could ring up the deceased’s firm about the young man Evetts or whatever his name is.”