Chapter Twenty

Discovery

Mannering closed the door of the room behind him, very softly. He hadn’t stayed long. He had taken the key out of the inside of the lock, and now he inserted it from the outside, and turned it; it clicked sharply. He stood waiting tensely, hardly breathing until he was sure that Brash hadn’t been disturbed. Then came the old, familiar thumping of his heart.

He turned away.

He didn’t want to think about Brash, yet; the meaning of this might be obvious; it was even possible that Fenn suspected that Brash was here, but if that were so, wouldn’t he have made a search?

He moved to the landing, and noticed a draught of cool air sweeping over his face. Alarm flared; for a door might have opened, someone might be coming upstairs. He saw and heard nothing.

He moved again, and felt the current of cool air, went to one side and saw an open window. It was too narrow to climb through. He looked out, awkwardly. It would tax the agility of a tiny monkey to climb up here, for the window was set in a blank wall which overlooked an alley and the wall of a house behind the High Street.

Mannering shone his torch, carefully.

This window wasn’t the usual kind; was more like a small glass door. It could be fastened like a door, too. Then he saw that part of the wall was different here. In fact, a section of the inside wall had been taken out, but could be put back to cover and to conceal the window.

He moved both the window and the piece of wall; each was fitted on hinges which moved smoothly and without the slightest sound. Opposite, in the other house, was a large window. He didn’t think there was much doubt about the purpose of the windows. If the police raided Crummy Day’s, and Crummy carried “hot” jewels on the premises, they could be thrown out of this window to the house opposite – and when the inside was closed and covered, no one would know that there was anything but the blank wall. If it were ever found by the police, the stuff would have been sent to safety first.

Mannering moved away, listened at Brash’s door, heard nothing, and went downstairs. He hadn’t yet found the safe, but need he look? If the police came and found Brash—

He reached the landing, and went to each of the doors. Two were locked, two unlocked. He looked into a bedroom and a bathroom. The bedroom overlooked the High Street, there was some traffic and light from street-lamps; and a low-pitched, rhythmic snoring. Mannering moved cautiously towards a large double-bed. A bearded man and a heavy-looking woman lay there, face to face. The man’s beard showed up grey even in this poor light; it was he who snored. The woman’s hand was close to his almost bald head.

Mannering remembered the story of Crummy Day’s soubriquet; he always had crumbs on his beard.

Mannering took the key out of the lock, and locked the couple in. Search first, tackle Crummy afterwards.

Would anyone else be at the house?

There were only the locked rooms to search, now; and he had plenty of time. He hadn’t been much more than an hour from the time he had started working on the window of the kitchen. Nothing suggested that Crummy Day thought there was the slightest need for alarm.

Then, out of the brooding quiet, came a crash of sound, the clattering roar of a burglar alarm. He’d found one, and not searched for another; but there was one.

Mannering stood still for a breathtaking moment of time; and then he moved. He heard the bell as if it were a distant but menacing thing. He turned the key in the lock of Crummy Day’s door, then turned and ran towards the landing and the second staircase. He went up, not down. He heard a man bellow, then heard a woman’s voice. He reached Brash’s door, unlocked it, and stepped swiftly into one of the stock-rooms. No one could sleep through that din.

He heard Brash shout, “What’s that, what’s the matter?” in the kind of voice a man might have in a nightmare. There were creaking sounds, followed by footsteps. Downstairs, the woman cried out. Then Brash’s door opened and he rushed to the stairs, calling, “What’s the matter, what is it?”

Mannering crept out.

Brash reached the foot of the stairs and disappeared. Mannering went after him …

“Charlie, Charlie!” a woman screamed.

“Crummy!” cried Brash. “No, don’t—no!” His voice screeched upwards.

Two shots roared.

Mannering heard the woman scream again, heard Brash shouting, heard the barking of the gun. Next came a thud, as if someone had fallen. He could see Brash staggering back in the hall. Suddenly Brash lurched forward, still shouting, but the woman was sobbing in a strange voice: “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie!”

Mannering moved swiftly along the passage towards the landing. He saw the woman from the double bed on her knees, holding Crummy Day’s head in her lap. She was staring into the old man’s face, at the red mark in the middle of his forehead. Such despair and grief showed in the woman’s eyes that she reminded Mannering of Miranda.

He went swiftly past.

She didn’t look up, was oblivious of everything but the body of her husband.

The door which Mannering had left ajar was wide open.

Brash was rushing down the stairs, making the loose boards rattle, following a man who was just a shadowy figure against the poor light of the High Street.

Brash moved to one side, and flattened himself against the wall. A bullet thudded into one of the stairs.

Mannering waited, safe from bullets. Brash appeared against the light, a dark silhouette.

“He’s dead!” wailed the woman. “He’s dead, they’ve killed my Charlie.”

“Oh, no!” cried Brash. “No!”

He turned back desperately.

Mannering was now at the foot of the stairs; to Brash, he would be a stranger, even if Brash could see his face. Brash’s face showed in the light from the landing – terror filled it, he looked as if he didn’t know which way to turn.

Mannering slipped round the foot of the stairs, hurried into the kitchen, and went out the back way.

As he reached the back-yard, he heard a police whistle shrill out.

He hurried towards the High Street, reached it, and saw light streaming out of the doorway at Crummy Day’s, and two uniformed policemen – and Bill Brash.

Brash was trying to run, kicked out, and dodged to one side. A policeman grabbed him, the other pinioned his arms. Other police came running, and a patrol car screamed towards the spot.

Mannering hid in a doorway.

The sound of voices floated back; he didn’t hear the words, but could guess the gist of them. Brash, awakened from sleep, had run into murder – and into arrest.

But he hadn’t killed Crummy Day.

Did anyone but Mannering know that?

Brash, under arrest. Crummy, dead. Brash on the burgled premises – of course he would deny that he had killed Crummy Day, but who would believe him? Who would give the slightest credence to the story of another intruder? Unless there was clear, unmistakable evidence, Bill Brash was heading for the nine-o’clock walk. Crude; but brutally true.

Mannering was cleaning off the grease-paint in the garage at Victoria.

He could tell the truth, and admit that he had been at the shop. No, that wasn’t so. He couldn’t tell the truth. If Brash were on the point of being hanged, if there were no other hope in the world of saving him, then – yes. But not yet. If Fenn discovered how Mannering had got in, if the law could prove what he had done, there would be an end to Quinns; to reputation; to life as he knew it; to all the things that were precious to him and to Lorna.

Mannering couldn’t think of anything else.

There might be some other way to save Brash; the killer had taken his gun away. Hadn’t he? Hadn’t he?

The killer must have followed Mannering into the house, crept up, come to kill – who? Crummy Day? Brash? That was just guesswork.

There was a lot of guesswork.

Glittering had telephoned Mannering from Fleet Street, telling him about the murder. The police and the Press knew that there had been a second alarm system, which Crummy Day had set up in the bedroom. Mannering had probably disturbed him, and started the wild sequence of events.

Who had killed Crummy? Did the police suspect that anyone else had been present? The gun had been found, Mannering knew; deliberately left behind by the killer.

There was bright sunlight on a cool morning. Outside, the scene on the Embankment at Westminster hadn’t changed, except that there was no sultry, sulphurous yellow pall over the sky and the city. The sun glinted on the windows of London County Hall and, if Mannering cared to go to the window of Fenn’s office, on to the broad bosom of the Thames. Pleasure craft were moored in midstream, two launches moved downstream towards the Pool, all pennants flying.

Mannering was waiting for Fenn.

Fenn had sent for him. Not curtly or peremptorily, but through Sergeant Grimble, who had never seemed more reassuring; but he would probably look like that to a man he was going to arrest on a charge of murder.

It was eleven o’clock.

The morning papers had carried streamer headlines about the murder of Crummy Day and the arrest of Brash.

Now Fenn, as if with intent to fray his nerves, kept Mannering waiting.

Mannering smoked two cigarettes, then got up and looked out of the window. He had hardly reached it when footsteps came thudding along the passage, the door opened quickly and Fenn came in; alone.

“You won’t believe it,” Fenn said, “but I’m sorry. I was called out while you were on the way up.”

Mannering grinned; as might be expected of him.

“The Assistant Commissioner, I presume.”

“No,” said Fenn. “No.” He didn’t sit down, but moved so that he could see Mannering more clearly. With the light on his face, Mannering looked youthful and powerful; and if his eyes seemed a little tired, slightly red-rimmed, as much could be said of a lot of other people at Scotland Yard. For all Mannering could tell, Fenn might know, or think that he knew, that Mannering had been at Crummy Day’s the night before.

“No,” Fenn repeated, while Mannering felt the strain of trying to look mildly expectant. “It wasn’t the Assistant Commissioner. It was that poor devil, Brash.”

Mannering said softly, “Police sympathy for a killer?”

“In a way,” agreed Fenn. “Yes, I feel sorry for him, although that’s not for publication.” He moved to his desk and the tension seemed to ease. “He said he wanted to make a statement. I had to be there. He’s being held at Cannon Row until the first hearing, and will be up before the beak in half an hour.”

Fenn stopped.

“Did he make a statement?” Mannering hoped that he sounded just as interested as he should be, and no more.

“Oh, yes,” said Fenn. “He admits that he was at Dragon’s End the night before last, but denies murdering Revell. He says he handled an assegai which he tripped over. It was lying on the floor. He admits that he was at Crummy Day’s last night—he had to—but swears that he didn’t shoot Crummy. It’s almost pathetic and very nearly convincing. But—well, we found the gun in a corner, wiped clean of prints. He’d naturally do that. Day’s wife accused Brash, too. We’ll ask for an eight-day remand in custody, and get it. And in a week from now he’ll be committed for trial—unless we get fresh evidence.”

He stopped again.

Questioningly?