18

Arrest

 

The policeman at the front of the little hotel looked drowsy in the afternoon sun, but he straightened up and was alert enough when Shaw and Roger got out of the car and hurried towards him.

“They’re both inside,” he volunteered.

“Got eyes at the back, too?” demanded Shaw.

“I’d have been told if they’d left, wouldn’t I?”

“I hope so,” Shaw said forbiddingly.

He led the way in. There was no one in the small office, but a notice said, ‘Ring for Service.’ They went upstairs.

A policeman at the second landing, said, “All okay, sir.”

“Heard anything from them?”

“He’s in her room again – spends most of his time there.” The man grinned. “Golden opportunity, I’d say.”

“No one asked you,” Shaw said short-temperedly.

Roger felt the tightening of tension which had been with him so often since the finding of Denise Morrison’s body. On the way, misgiving had crowded his mind, too. He would not suffer personally if the Blue Flag Line ships reported all clear, but it would create other problems, and the Flags certainly wouldn’t co-operate. He even began to ask himself whether it was possible that Lancelot Smith had suffered from delusions, and whether these killings were divorced from the ships entirely.

They reached the girl’s door, which was marked 9.

Shaw banged on it.

There was no immediate response, but a curious kind of noise, almost like a gasp. Then springs, as of a bed, creaked and twanged. Shaw knocked again.

“Who is it?” the man posing as Benjamin Limm called. He sounded out of breath, and now there were other sounds; as of scuffling.

“Superintendent Shaw. I want to talk to you.”

“Come back in five minutes,” Limm called.

“Open this door in two minutes flat or I’ll break it down.”

The girl’s voice sounded, “What can they want?”

Limm didn’t answer. Roger heard a soft footfall on the far side of the door and instinctively braced himself. So did Shaw. The door opened inwards, so it couldn’t be banged in their faces but Limm might have read the danger signals, and be preparing to rush them.

He stood in the doorway, face dusky red with anger. He had on his trousers, socks, and shirt.

“What the hell do you want?”

“To know who you are,” Shaw said curtly. “Cut out the indignation. If you and the girl decide to have a tumble it’s no business of ours. What matters is keeping her alive. What’s your name?”

“Benjamin Limm?” asked Roger. “Or is it Solomon Barring?”

“Solomon Barring!” gasped Doreen.

All the anger drained out of the man’s face. Roger realised that he had not anticipated the discovery even after the peremptory call. His colour faded, the aggressiveness in his powerful body died away into consternation.

“Oh no,” Doreen whispered. “No.”

“You won’t alter facts—” Shaw began, but Roger gripped his arm, and he stopped immediately. The two men were on the same wavelength in most things, as Roger had learned when Shaw had visited London.

Benjamin Limm, alias Solomon Barring, turned away from then and looked at Doreen. There was something almost pathetic in his attitude. He held his arms out towards her, but not at full length, it was as if he expected a rebuff.

“Dorry, it’s not what you think,” he said hoarsely. “It is not anything like that.”

“You’re their brother. And they killed Denise. And I—” Doreen broke off, and looked as if she would burst into tears. Then suddenly fury exploded inside her, she was touched with surpassing beauty as she flung herself at the man.

“You devil!” she cried in a shrill, penetrating voice. “You devil.”

She struck Solomon Barring in the face, and struck and struck again. He stood without giving ground. She struck again and again until red weals showed, and redder scratches, too, but her lover did not yield at all. The girl raised her hands to strike still more but suddenly dropped them. She turned away from the rumpled bed and stood staring at the wall.

“Dorry,” Solomon Barring said, “please list“I don’t want to hear.”

“Dorry—”

“Go away! I hope I never see you again.”

Solomon Barring closed his eyes. He seemed oblivious of the two detectives, of everything except this girl. His lips opened but no words came and he closed them again. Slowly, painfully, he turned away and approached Roger and Shaw. It was a movement of submission, of absolute defeat. He did not speak but gave a little jerky nod.

“I want your explanation,” Roger said.

“Not—not here.”

“Yes, here.”

The man began to show fight.

“No. Let’s get out.”

“You can’t have it all your own way,” Shaw said. “We’re in a hurry. You’re Solomon Barring.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Why pretend you were someone else?”

“Because—because I didn’t want to sail on a Blue Flag ship under my own name.”

“Why take Limm’s?” Roger demanded.

“For God’s sake let’s talk about this in the car – anywhere but not here.”

“Just talk,” Shaw ordered harshly.

Solomon Barring looked as if he would throw himself at them, would do anything to get away, but they blocked his path, two tall and powerful men. He glanced round at the girl, but all she did was to cross to the bed and sit down, her back to the men.

“I believed my brothers were planning some crime against the Kookaburra,” Solomon said at last. His voice was very hoarse. “Something Paul said one night when he’d had too much to drink made me suspicious. Neither of them would tell me anything.”

He paused as if he were physically weary, and standing was an ordeal.

“At the time of the take-over I hated the Blue Flag Line as much as they did, but I couldn’t keep on hating. They could. That’s why I moved out to the country, away from Sydney. We didn’t meet very often, but whenever we did the subject always came up, and they seemed to get worse instead of better.”

“What was your father’s attitude?” asked Roger.

“Dad? He just gave up,” Solomon said. “The Blue Flag Line gave him a kind of golden handshake, enough to keep him in comfort. Losing the ships hurt him in a lot of ways, but it didn’t turn him bad. The worst thing it did was to kill my mother – the worry of it was too much for her. At one time it looked as if the whole family would be without a penny, and Mum and Dad had inherited the Line from their families, it was everything to them. Dad couldn’t get a grip on himself for a long time. He went up to the North Coast of Western Australia, did a bit of fishing and played around with the mother-of-pearl business, but it was years before he was anything like himself again. It hurt me to see him. It made my brothers mad. That’s the truth – it drove them mad. All they could ever think of was revenge.”

Solomon stopped, moistened his lips, and shifted his feet. Doreen was still sitting on the bed, but twisted round, staring at Solomon. Roger stretched out for an upright chair, and pushed it near Solomon.

“I’m all right,” Solomon said roughly. He squared his shoulders and stood to his full height. “I heard from a friend in Sydney that they’d got these jobs on the Kookaburra, and I didn’t like the sound of it. I always had a sneaking fear that they’d had something to do with the loss of the Koala. They were running a launch service to Heyman Island at the time, and were less than fifty miles from the spot where she foundered. They wouldn’t talk about their reasons for sailing with the Kookaburra, so I booked a passage. I borrowed Ben Limm’s passport – just stuck my photograph in place of his. Ben is prospecting for uranium up near Cape York, and didn’t need it. The issue stamping was about right, and no one ever noticed it. I didn’t want Paul and Marcus to know in advance. They didn’t know I was on board until we’d been at sea the better part of a day.”

“What did they do?” Roger asked.

“They told me I was wrong to be suspicious, and they were going to work for Blue Flag in future. They said they’d got over their thirst for revenge.”

“Did you believe them?”

“No.”

“Did you see any evidence of what they were planning?”

“I don’t really know,” Solomon said, heavily. He looked round at Doreen, as if the way she was now staring at him had made him sensitive. The expression in his eyes grew brighter and his voice became stronger. “At the end of the voyage Paul was seen entering passengers’ cabins, and he had a passenger’s wallet in his own berth. The passenger wouldn’t make a charge, and Paul had to leave the ship at Southampton. Marcus went with him. They’d talked big to Denise and Doreen on the ship, and I tried to discourage the girls, but they wouldn’t listen. When I saw Denise’s photograph in the newspaper, I just had to know what had happened to Doreen, so I came and saw you. I couldn’t tell all the truth but I told as much of it as I could. I didn’t believe Paul was a murderer. I can hardly believe it even now.”

Doreen stood up from the bed, very slowly.

“You said you didn’t really know if you saw any evidence against your brothers,” Roger said.

“I thought possibly they’d decided to steal from the passengers, making things as unpleasant for the line as possible,” Solomon said. “Now it’s obvious there was more to it than that, and entering cabins and stealing that wallet may have had something to do with it. As for why they killed Denise and tried to kill Doreen, and why they killed Sheldon – I simply don’t know. In London . . .”

He hesitated again, and glanced round; Doreen was within arm’s reach. He stretched out, and she took his hand.

“In London I simply didn’t know what to do. I told you who—who Denise was. I hoped – I prayed – that my brothers had nothing to do with her murder, but now I know they had. The one thing I could do was try to help Doreen. I felt sure she must know why it had happened even if she didn’t realise it. You”—he looked at Roger—“you asked me to try to make her talk, but I didn’t need any persuasion. She can’t remember anything that might help, that’s the hell of it. Can you, Dorry?”

“If only I could,” she said. Her voice was stronger and her manner had a new self-assurance. “I’ve racked my brains but I can’t think of a thing anyone told me about those two. Ben”—he did not seem to realise that she used his false name—“why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you really have believed me?” Solomon asked. “Would it really have been better to know who I was? I wanted to make you remember, because it seemed the only way I could save you from harm.”

His manner, his eyes, his voice, all added, ‘Because I love you so much.’

“Just one more question,” Roger said. “Do you know why your brothers didn’t attack you?”

After a long silence, Solomon Barring answered, “They wouldn’t kill me. That’s the last thing they’d do. The family mattered so much to them. They wouldn’t kill me in any circumstances. They’d take it for granted I wouldn’t harm them, either.” He squared his shoulders. “You’ll make sure Doreen is safe while I’m away, won’t you?”

“Where are you planning to go?” asked Luke Shaw.

“Aren’t you going to take me with you?”

“We’re going to watch you closely, and we want you to stay here until we’ve cleared up some points,” Luke said. “So far we may have suspicion but we haven’t any case against you.”

“The best thing you can do is to try to jog Doreen’s memory,” Roger said emphatically. “Even a word or two might be enough to help us. One question, now.”

“Yes?”

“Do you know where we might find your brother Marcus?”

“If I did I’d take you to him,” Solomon Barring declared. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

 

It was some time before either Shaw or Roger spoke, when they had left the room. Roger felt strangely affected both by the story and by the reconciliation between the man and Doreen. There was some quality about their obvious love for each other which had a humbling effect on him.

“I think he was telling the truth,” said Shaw abruptly, when they were in the hotel hall.

“It would surprise me if he wasn’t,” Roger admitted. “How soon can you check with the real Limm?”

“Shouldn’t take long,” Shaw said. “I’ll get it started as soon as I’m back in the office. You any ideas?”

“My only idea is to speed up the answers from those ships,” Roger said.

“Should be coming in by now.” Shaw stepped on to the pavement of Liverpool Street and saw the mass of home-going traffic between them and the park, screwed up his nose and remarked, “Be quicker to walk than take the car.”

“Suits me,” said Roger. “Do you know what we haven’t had time to do?”

“Digest the developments of the conference with the Flags,” answered Shaw, with a nod. “We’ll have to see what the old subconscious has done for us. When you called their bluff they caved in pretty quick.”

“Too quick?” wondered Roger.

“Don’t be cryptic. Tell you what,” went on Shaw, “let’s shut up until we’re back in the office. We can’t talk here.”

He was right. The pavements were thicker with people than the roads with cars. There was the constant hum of engines, clatter of footsteps, medley of other noises. Shaw kept just ahead, and Roger had difficulty in keeping pace, so many people got in their path. It was relaxing in a way – physical exertion and stimulation yet a rest for his mind. They seemed to be walking past shops for a long time until they came to the narrow street which led to the police headquarters. This was almost empty, a temporary backwater. They turned into the crowded parking place of the building and went up in a lift which crawled. Shaw drummed his fingers on the back of his hand, betraying his impatience. They got out at the third floor, and walked straight to his office. It was empty. The papers on the desk were tidy, and on top of one file was a pencilled note, much as Kebble would have left it in Roger’s office. Almost indifferently Shaw picked it up and read it. The change in his manner was astounding.

“The bloody swine,” he rasped. “Marcus Barring rang up, and sent a message to you and me.”

Roger streaked across the room, and read as Shaw went on, “He says the Kookaburra will never tie up again. And if I know Barring, he means it.”