Macdonald, having recovered his car from its appropriate parking place by the law courts, drove westwards to call on Neil Rockingham again, with the intention of picking up Bruce Attleton’s suitcase and taking it to Scotland Yard as exhibit A. Before he entered the car, he got into touch with the indefatigable Reeves and told him to go and find out what he could about Mr. Thomas Burroughs who lived in chambers in Knightsbridge, but was at present away from home.
Reeves had already spent a busy day. Having had a stroke of good luck early in the day in finding the taximan who drove Attleton to Victoria, he had then provided himself with a photograph of that well-known author and tackled the porter on the continental side of the station. Industry and pertinacity had rewarded him by finding one Henry Hobbs, porter, who remembered taking Attleton’s suitcase off the taxi, and who had been told to wait with it in the booking hall while its owner telephoned. A few minutes later Attleton came hurrying up, obviously excited and put about, and told Hobbs to get another taxi and put the suitcase on it. This had been done at top speed, and the order Charing Cross given to the driver. Since Hobbs knew the second taximan by sight, Reeves was enabled to catch him at his midday meal at a nearby cabman’s shelter, and learnt that he had deposited his fare at Charing Cross Station, that here Attleton had alighted, carrying his own suitcase, and walked into the station—and off the map, so far as Reeves was concerned. No amount of patient questioning got him any further.
Reeves always knew when it was a waste of time to belabour a vanished trail. This one had eluded him for the time being (not surprising, as Macdonald observed, considering Charing Cross booking hall was filled with a large party of Czechoslovaks, assembled for their return journey), so Reeves began on another line—that of Sybilla Attleton herself. She also had left home on the Wednesday morning, shortly after Bruce had done, but had driven herself in her own car, a green Hillman Minx, taking two suitcases and a jewel case. Weller had no idea of her destination.
Reeves pursed his mouth up a bit. While he considered it improbable that Mrs. Attleton had driven to a railway station (a taxi would have been simpler for that) it was obvious that she had all England to choose from, and Reeves no indication at all to guide him.
“Elimination” is a byword at the Yard. If you can’t find where a man—or woman has gone, you can sometimes find out where they have not gone. Mrs. Attleton might have taken her car abroad; if so, it would be easy to discover the port of embarkation. If she had not taken it abroad, a concentrated all-stations interrogation could do marvels about discovering the abiding place of any car.
Reeves had his lunch and returned to Scotland Yard. The telephone, allied to the system whereby every police station in England received a “lookout” warning, did its work in a marvellously efficacious manner. Reeves spent the afternoon at the phone, but before evening he had learnt that Mrs. Attleton’s Hillman Minx was now in a garage in Southampton, the owner having given orders for decarbonisation, as she would not be needing it again until April 1st, when it was to be ready for her.
Having achieved this result, Reeves was quite ready to attack the trail of Mr. Thomas Burroughs, who, as Macdonald suggested, might also have gone to Southampton—possibly.
When Macdonald arrived at The Small House, he rang Rockingham’s bell several times before he got any answer, and was just beginning to feel somewhat anxious, when Rockingham opened the door, consternation written large on his countenance.
“Good Lord! I’ve made the damnedest fool of myself,” he blurted out. “I’ve let my own nerves play old Harry, hauling you in like this. I could kick myself! That was Bruce Attleton on the phone just now, talking to me, after I’ve been spending my time concocting blood-curdling stories about him.”
“I’m glad your anxiety is appeased,” said Macdonald politely. “All the same, you’d better let me know what he said.”
“Of course. Come in. Holy Moses, old Bruce’ll never forgive me for the song I’ve raised!” groaned Rockingham. “Look here, Chief Inspector, if there are any damages to pay over this, let me have a note of them.”
“All in good time,” said Macdonald, “accounts aren’t in my department, anyhow. I’ll just use that phone if I may.” He went straight to the instrument and called up the operator, giving instructions that the call which had just come through should be traced, and then turned to Rockingham.
“What had Mr. Attleton got to say for himself?” he inquired.
“Hardly anything. Just said he was sorry he’d let me down in Paris, but he’d had unexpected news and had to go up north in a hurry, and would be writing in a day or two. Then I butted in, as you may imagine, and wanted to know where he was and what the devil he’d been up to, and before he answered me we were cut off. Good Lord! What a crazy story!”
“Sure it was Mr. Attleton?” asked Macdonald, and Rockingham stared at him.
“I’m as sure as I can be of a voice I know as well as my own,” he retorted, and then stared at the other man. “Oh, hell!” he groaned, “don’t tell me it wasn’t he! I tell you it was.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” replied Macdonald. “I’ve no reason to contradict you. Hullo! There’s your phone again. Perhaps he’s making another call.”
Rockingham fairly bounded across the room, and snatched up the receiver.
“That you, Bruce? Grenville? What the blazes? You’ve seen who?” After a moment or two during which Macdonald could hear the buzz of an excited voice from the receiver, interspersed by violent ejaculations from Rockingham, the latter snapped:
“Tell him? Of course you must tell him. Hold on, he’s here! For God’s sake don’t get cut off before you’ve finished. Where are you?”
Turning, he held out the receiver to Macdonald.
“It’s Grenville. Says he’s just seen Debrette in Trafalgar Square and lost him again. He’s in a call-box at Charing Cross.”
Macdonald caught up the receiver and listened to the excited narrative which followed. Grenville said that he had been about to cross the Strand at Trafalgar Square when the traffic lights changed against him, and just as the buses started moving forward he had seen Debrette standing on the opposite pavement. Grenville had lost his head, plunged into the traffic in an effort to reach the man on the other side, and been knocked over by a motor cyclist. By the time he had disentangled himself from the subsequent confusion, Debrette had naturally vanished—“had time to get miles away,” said the wrathful Grenville, “and one of your damned traffic cops says he’s going to summons me for walking to the public danger, and the chap on the mo-bike’s been taken to Charing Cross Hospital. What a bloody mess.”
“Bad luck!” said Macdonald. “Are you sure it was Debrette?”
“Sure, certain, honest to God abso-bally-lutely certain,” retorted Grenville. “There can’t be another beard like that in London, nor in hell neither, and the chap’s as dark as a dago. Besides, he footed it like knife when he saw me. What shall I do? I told a mutton-headed copper about it, and he just kept on saying, ‘That’s all right, sir, now don’t you get excited.’ What shall I do?”
“Go home to bed, and ask your landlady to make you some Bengers,” retorted Macdonald. “I’ll come and see you later. No, you mutton-headed journalist, you can’t. The chap’s in Golders Green or Timbuctoo by this time. Go to bed, do, and stay there.”
Replacing the receiver, Macdonald turned to Rockingham, who had got a bottle and glasses from a cabinet while the Chief Inspector was admonishing Grenville.
“I apologise,” said Rockingham, raising the glass he held, “but I needed it. I’ve never felt such an insufferable ass in my life. Do for pity’s sake, have a drink. You must have met plenty of other idiots in your time, so I’m not unique.” His face, when he began speaking, was a picture of dejection, when, catching Macdonald’s eye he began to laugh, throwing back his fine head and fairly shouting with mirth.
“Crackbrained fool that I was, letting that blasted belfry get on my nerves. I’d made up my mind that Bruce was murdered and Debrette was a fugitive from justice, and now inside ten minutes I learn that Bruce is right as rain, and Debrette is in Trafalgar Square. My dear chap, I know the world’s full of mugs, but I’m the biggest!”
“Well, it looks as though I’d better go and call my pack off,” replied Macdonald. “We’re like the London Fire Brigade, accustomed to false alarms. All the same, I’ll take that suitcase—Mr. Attleton can take the trouble to call on me when he comes home and explain why he left it in a cellar in a studio that didn’t belong to him.”
“He jolly well can. I wash my hands of it,” said Rockingham. “Provided Bruce is all right, I’ll never butt in to his affairs again. I’ve had my lesson.”
“You’ve nothing to blame yourself for,” said Macdonald. “I told you, I should have done exactly what you did.”
“Well, I was out of my depth,” said Rockingham, rising to his feet as his visitor showed no signs of staying. “I’ve never had any truck with melodrama, either on the stage or off, and when Grenville took me to that demented studio, my reaction was police. Not heroic, perhaps, but heroics aren’t my long suit.”
He was still chuckling when he saw Macdonald out into the mews, and the Chief Inspector heard him laugh again as he closed the front door.
Arrived back at Scotland Yard, Macdonald deposited exhibit A, and inquired for the man who had been sent to the house agents—Messrs. Keyland & Belling—in Notting Hill.
“Got me the chap I want, Raines?”
“Yes, sir. Party named Wetherby. Had the tenancy of the Belfry for three years previous to the chap who hanged himself. He says he’ll meet you there at nine.”
“Good man!” said Macdonald. “Gives me time for a meal. So Davies was right in his hunch?”
“He’s not often wrong, sir. Blood it was, and human blood, too.”
At nine o’clock punctually, Macdonald arrived, at the gates of the Belfry, and saw there a short fellow smoking a pipe.
“Mr Wetherby?”
“That’s meself. You’re not wanting to buy a pre-war concert grand, are you? There’s a fine one in there.”
“I’ve seen it,” replied Macdonald. “Is it yours?” He opened the gate, and the little man waddled in unconcernedly. “They say possession’s nine points of the law, so I suppose it was nine-tenths mine, only I didn’t bother to take it away. I found it when I took possession. Some of the treble strings were still good, then. It’s the hell-uv-a shame the way they’re letting this place fall to pieces. Best studio I ever had—only it rained.”
Macdonald produced the key which he had taken from Grenville. “By the way, my name’s Macdonald. If you’d like to see my warrant—”
“Streuth, and what for? Some police wallah—a very polite young man—comes along and says you’ve a fancy to inspect the place with me as guide. I’m not supposing half London’s yearnin’ to see the Belfry after dark. Think I’m afraid of you, Jock? Think again. I’m from County Cork meself.”
Macdonald chuckled. “I’m of a cautious race, and it is always worth while finding out who’s leading you into the local Morgue.”
“Get along with you. It’s the most peaceful spot in London, abode of Beelzebub that it is, but it rained.”
Switching on the lights as they entered, Macdonald said—“I want you to tell me if anything fundamental has been altered since you were here. Just have a look round.”
“The bastards have swept the floor,” said the little man sorrowfully. “Did ye find a number six Rigger, good red sable, Robeson’s? No? I liked that brush. Saints and angels! What’s the canopy for? Ah, the rain—sculptor wasn’t he?” He wandered round burbling inconsequently. “That easel now, young Billy Duveen fell on it once too often, till it wouldn’t hold a man up nor a canvas, neither. There was a nice cat used to come here, black, answered to the name of Satan, a rare devil for rats, he was. So you’ve filled the niche up, Jock. Presbyterian? Statues and images repugnant to the deity, you heathen Lutheran! I liked that niche. I had an Artemis up there myself. Am I drunk, laddie? There was a niche there?”
“Show me where it was exactly.”
The little man walked up to the wall and peered at it.
“It’s the devil himself must have done it—Devil a mark. I tell you there was a niche! See you here.”
He waddled across to the opposite wall and pointed to some marks on the wall. “That’s our base, where Billy and me played darts. At herself, there in the niche, you know, with chalked darts. Ten if you got her amidships and rubber for a right and left in succession. Grand game, Jock!”
“I’ve no doubt it was. What did you do with the lady when you left? Take her away?”
Wetherby began to laugh, it was a jolly laugh, beginning in a series of chuckles and rising to a roar.
“No, and I didn’t! Wasn’t she part and parcel of the establishment, like that grand piano up there? We had a party me last night here and we ended up by putting Artemis in the bed there in me bedroom, to comfort the next poor devil. Fine she looked, with a sheet tucked up nicely round her! Man, we painted her like a lady, with rose madder on each cheek and lake on the lips!”
Macdonald’s lips twitched.
“I’d as lief had my bed to myself,” he replied, and little Wetherby roared, and clapped him on the back.
“And meself, Jock! I didn’t sleep in that, I’ve got me own ideas of comfort, and if Artemis and the piano and the bit of a bed were ‘part furnishing,’ as the spalpeens called it, it wasn’t for me to take ’em away. Have you still got the jolly old gas stove in there? Twas a fine blow up we had with it that day I turned on the oven gas and forgot to light it and all. John Shand went in with his pipe alight and opened the oven door to look for the leak, and he lost his eyebrows and all.”
Macdonald got rid of the jovial Irishman at last by walking him round to The Knight Templar and leaving him to the congenial society of Melisande (a name whose origin Macdonald could not fathom) and his native whisky, after which the Chief Inspector rang up reinforcements from the Yard, and strolled back leisurely to the Belfry, looking, with his pipe between his teeth, and his air of placid unconcern, the most untroubled inhabitant of that pleasant neighbourhood.
Once inside the studio, Macdonald walked to the spot indicated by Wetherby and stood and stared at the wall space he had examined that morning. There was nothing to indicate that a niche had ever existed; the smears on the wall ran across the surface unbroken, the plaster felt neither more nor less damp than that of the surrounding walls. A penknife stuck into it caused it to crumble away as might have been expected, save that Macdonald, picking up the dislodged fragments and rubbing them between his fingers, observed them to be whiter in colour, and different in substance from ordinary wall plaster. It crumbled, but did not powder, and his subsequent diagnosis proved correct, “quick-drying plaster of Paris—the chap was a clever workman.”
When his men arrived, Macdonald set them to work on the space indicated, warning them to be careful how they worked. A short reconnaissance however, showed how the niche had been concealed. A few inches of plaster were stripped off, and then a wooden boarding displayed itself, fitting closely up to the arch of the niche. The latter was about six feet high by two feet across. When part of this boarding was removed, a cascade of white dust began to come down, which proved to be a mixture of plaster of Paris and quick lime, together with larger fragments which must once have constituted the cast of the Artemis. It was not long after that that the niche revealed its secret in the mummified bundle which was carefully roped on to the wall and kept in place by staples.
Macdonald had seen many gruesome sights, and his nerves were of the steadiest. He regarded human remains as calmly as a dissector might, not confusing the poor clay with the feelings of the living, breathing, sentient being which it had once been, but he was glad to go outside and smoke a cigarette once the main task was over.
“Well, you tumbled to it, Chief,” said Jenkins cheerfully, “and a cunning piece of work it was.”
“Tumbled to it!” said Macdonald. “Tumbled down on it, you might say. Who is going to identify those remains—a headless and handless corpse? It’s the remains of a once healthy man, but who, Jenkins? This morning I should have said, ‘It’s either Attleton or Debrette,’ this evening I’ve been told that Attleton rang up a man who knows his voice better than I know yours, and Debrette was seen in Trafalgar Square. If some one swears to those remains, how can we tell they’re right? It’s the very devil of a problem! Assuming—as appears—that deceased has no scar or physical abnormality whereby he can be recognised, how is any pathologist to state who he was?”
Jenkins puffed away at his pipe.
“Yes. It’s difficult. You’ll have to go on probabilities.”
Macdonald nodded. “The probabilities are all in favour of Debrette being the murderer,” he said. “Debrette was known as a sculptor, or posed as one. He might have had the skill to plaster up that wall. It was the work of a skilled hand, and it seems unlikely that Attleton could have acquired that skill—but is the argument conclusive? We take it for granted that Debrette lived here, but that’s only a surmise. He was here on and off, showing up in the neighbourhood occasionally. Attleton might have worked such an impersonation, it’s not impossible, and during the hours he spent here have practised the craft of plastering.”
“It’s not impossible, but it looks to me unlikely,” said Jenkins. “Then what about that suitcase? Would he have left it there to prove that he was implicated?”
“That’s just what he might have done, if he were clever,” replied Macdonald. “He left it there to prove that that corpse was his own. The argument’s obvious. One says at once, ‘If Attleton were the murderer he’d have taken that case away.’ He may have counted on that.”
The two men smoked for a while in silence, and then Jenkins went on.
“Well, how do you make sense of that telephone call? Seems to me all wrong.”
“Everything sounds all wrong, man! There are two answers. Either Rockingham is lying, and I can’t see his point, or else Attleton is alive and beginning to lose his nerve. Knowing Rockingham, he was afraid of him going to the police and starting the hue and cry. He wouldn’t have known that friend Neil would have acted so promptly.”
“But who was the chap who played poltergeist in this old shanty, when those two were in here yesterday evening, if not the murderer? Grenville got a sock in the jaw, didn’t he?”
“No. He got a bang on the nut. I don’t believe there was anybody else here at all. There’s cats and rats and God knows what else in this barn, and I believe both those chaps were rattled. Grenville hears something upstairs, and comes blinding across the little room and tripped up—on what? On the fuse box and meter which project from the wall there. That shook the contact and the lights went out temporarily, and the fellow crashed his length and hit that straddling easel—the blow on his head was obviously not made by a man’s fist, but by a bar or rod of sorts. He was knocked out and confused—semi-concussed, and assumed some one had gone for him. I’ve barged against an obstacle in the dark myself, and sworn some one had hit me. Then when Rockingham found him, they both assumed there was some one else here. I’m certain that’s the explanation—unless Grenville is up to tricks, and put the light out and bashed his head on something for verisimilitude.”
“Good enough. We’re assuming that Attleton doesn’t know Rockingham’s come to us, nor that Grenville’s found his suitcase, and he—Attleton—rings up to reassure his friend, and get a few days’ grace. Where did that call come from?”
“Charing Cross Station. Call box.”
Jenkins whistled. “Jumping Jehoshaphat! And the chap rings up ten minutes later from the same spot to say he’s seen Debrette. Sounds promising.”
“Sounds a long sight too promising,” said Macdonald. “Even supposing that Grenville’s clever enough to imitate Attleton’s voice, would he have been such a mutt as to make the second call from the same spot? Besides, he can’t have faked that motor-bike accident. That had to be the pukka thing. Too many witnesses, and our chaps at that. A man may run his head against a bar to get a bonny bruise, but it takes a cool nerve to plunge into traffic with the intention of faking an accident. That’s more like suicide.”
“Where the raving rats are we?” groaned Jenkins. “Do we take it that Attleton’s walking about London dressed as Debrette, ringing up his friends and saying oke in a friendly spirit?”
“Maybe. When I heard about that glass of whisky chucked in Grenville’s face, I was certain it was done to blind him—pro tem. He’d seen just as much as he was to be allowed to see. It did enter my head that Rockingham was the funny bird, but this spills it completely. If Grenville saw Debrette at Charing Cross while I was with Rockingham in Mayfair, it lets the latter out. One comfort is that we ought to be able to get outside evidence this time. If a bloke with a white streak in an otherwise dark beard did stand on the pavement at Charing Cross, some one will have seen him.”
“It’d be nice to fix on a motive,” mused Jenkins, and Macdonald fairly snorted.
“Motive? There’s lashings of ’em! Attleton kills Debrette who blackmailed him. Debrette kills Attleton for seducing his daughter or some such. Grenville kills Attleton because he wants to marry his ward. Mrs. Attleton eggs on Thomas Burroughs to kill unwanted husband, and urges virtues of concrete, as in anecdote. That reminds me. We’re minus a head and a pair of hands. Was another brainwave adopted? Plagiarism at parties. Do we follow the thread and search in London crypts for missing members, or send out a party to explore dene holes?”
“More likely the English Channel, if you ask me,” growled Jenkins, and Macdonald said:
“Oh, that reminds me. Neil Rockingham went to France on Wednesday, the 18th, and returned on Wednesday, the 25th. I managed to look at his passport while I was telephoning. It was stamped as plain as daylight. Exit Neil Rockingham. It wasn’t he who chucked whisky at his little friend on Friday night. Excellent thing, our passport system.”
Jenkins agreed, absent-mindedly. He was deep in thought.
“By heck, it’s a teaser!” was his only other contribution to the conversation.