Calamity in Kent, A British Library Crime Classic (10 page)

“Did he explain why?” I asked. Some of this story of hers might be lies, but that there was a substratum of truth in it I was very sure.

“It was something to do with income-tax,” she said. “After all, most people try to wangle their income-tax a bit if they can, don't they? I imagine that he was doing some deals for cash, and he didn't want any sort of documentary evidence at his garage in case the income-tax people got too curious.”

Superficially this might have seemed to be quite a convincing yarn; but I was in no way taken in by it. I knew enough about the ways of the income-tax men to know that they would not search through a man's correspondence providing his books were convincing. And if Timothy Foster was as cunning as his girl friend was suggesting, I thought that he would have very little difficulty in so “cooking” his books as to take in everyone but the most highly skilled. Still, I didn't show my scepticism this time. I let Maya Johnson think that I was fully convinced of the sense of what she was saying.

“And did you receive any letters for Foster here?” I asked.

“One now and then.”

“And how many altogether, in the course of the last six months or so, say?” I asked.

“I really don't remember,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “I don't suppose it's more than a matter of half a dozen altogether.”

This was not as convincing as it might have been. I wished that I had kept a note of the dates and amounts which stood opposite Maya Johnson's name in Tilsley's notebook. Still, I supposed that I could consult these in Shelley's office at any time when I wanted to do so. And I knew Shelley would be extremely interested with what I had to tell him, when I got back to the police station. But that lay in the future; for the moment my job was to get hold of all the information that I could and not to be too suspicious. The suspicions could be sorted out later.

“You don't happen to remember any of the dates, I suppose?” I said quietly.

“No; why should I?”

“I thought there might be something which stuck in your mind, as sometimes happens,” I explained. “You know, one which came on somebody's birthday—that sort of thing.”

“No; the letters just came, and next time I was going down the street I dropped them in to Tim at the garage,” she explained.

And that, it seemed, was that. I was not sure if I was any further forward. But at least I had hit on something slightly suspicious.

Chapter XII

In Which I Visit a Garage

As I left Maya Johnson's flat I wondered if it would be too late to call at the garage that evening. After all, it was now about half-past six. If Timothy Foster was there, there would be nice time to have a chat with him before I went back to my boarding-house for dinner.

I was relieved to see the lights in the garage. “Foster” shone in red tubular letters above the entrance, and, just inside, a man in dirty overalls was wielding a grease-gun.

“Mr. Foster about?” I asked.

The man jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating an inner office. I told myself that I was to some extent in luck, anyway. I only hoped that Foster's girl friend hadn't phoned him up while I was walking around. I didn't want him to be forewarned as to my arrival.

I tapped on the office door. “Come in,” growled a deep voice. I shoved the door open and walked in. Seated behind the table was a massive-looking young man. Thick black hair, plastered down with cream, surmounted the large head. His coat hung over the back of the chair. He was sitting in shirt and trousers, and was working over a pile of papers that were on the desk in front of him. He looked up at my entrance, apparently a little taken by surprise.

“Who are you?” he growled.

“My name is London, James London,” I said. “And I want a chat with you, if you can spare a few minutes, Mr. Foster.” I saw that a businesslike air would pay with this fellow.

“I don't know what you can want with me,” he said. I sensed a touch of tension in the air. Foster felt, I was sure, vaguely uncomfortable, and I should like to have known what was worrying him.

“It's with regard to the late John Tilsley,” I said, watching him narrowly.

“The late?” That answer, I thought, came just a little too promptly, as if he was more or less prepared for it.

“Yes; didn't you know that he was dead?”

“Hadn't the least idea,” Foster said. There was a slight air of bewilderment about the man's face; but at the same time I thought that his denial didn't ring true. I would have been prepared to swear that he had known of Tilsley's death, though he had been taken by surprise by my approach to the matter. Indeed, I think that he had been surprised by the fact that anyone had come to question him about it. The mere fact that he had not asked me what right I had to query him regarding the matter was a strange fact. I know that if anyone came to me and started asking me questions about a friend of mine who had died, I should want to know his credentials before I started to unburden myself. The fact that Foster did not do so was something slightly suspicious—though where that suspicion might be expected to point I was not at this moment prepared to say.

“He was murdered, you know,” I said in as matter-of-fact a manner as I could command. And this time, though he winced, I would have been prepared to swear that he was not in any way surprised at the news. Of course, this might not really have been in any way suspicious; it may merely have been an indication of the fact that his girl friend had rung him and told him the news, by way of warning him that I was on the way to see him.

“I wonder if you could tell me anything about the man,” I said.

“I shouldn't think so.”

“But you had some dealings with him, didn't you?”

“Nothing of any real importance.”

This seemed to me to be extraordinarily unconvincing, and I think that I let Foster see that I was in no way impressed by his statement.

“Nothing of any real importance?” I repeated. “Come, my dear Mr. Foster, that won't do.”

“What do you mean?” he blustered. “And anyhow, who are you to come asking me questions like this? Do you come from Scotland Yard?”

It was a bit late in the day for him to start to put up this sort of bluff, and again I let him see that I was in no way impressed by what he was saying.

“I'm not from Scotland Yard,” I said, “though I have some good friends there.”

“Then where do you come from?” he asked.

“I come from Fleet Street,” I said.

He grinned sardonically. “A newshound, eh?” he said.

“Precisely,” I agreed.

“And what exactly do you want to know? What right have you got to ask me questions about John Tilsley? What can you do if I flatly refuse to answer the questions about him that you ask me?”

There was almost a whine about the man's voice now. I saw that, whatever else I had succeeded in doing, I had managed to put some fear into this man. He was badly scared. I thought that there could be little doubt about that—though I was not at the moment prepared to say what it was that had scared him so.

“I can do nothing,” I said, “except tell the police what I have found out already about yourself…and about Miss Maya Johnson.”

He almost yelped. “You keep her name out of this,” he said. “She knows nothing about what was going on. You've no right to drag her into it.”

“But what about the deals in her name, Mr. Foster,” I said. “What about the hundreds of pounds which Tilsley had received from her? You see, I have seen Tilsley's account books, and I know that on paper, at any rate, she had been in various business deals with him.”

“She never had any business deals with him.” This was said in a kind of surly snarl; as soon as I heard that tone come into his voice I was pretty sure that I had Mr. Timothy Foster just where I wanted him. A man who adopts that kind of tone is usually, in my experience, a man who needs only a little careful handling to produce just whatever information one is after.

So I said: “Well, she may have some difficulty in convincing the police of that.”

There was a sort of pathetic eagerness in the way in which he now rounded on me. Soon, I told myself, the man would be absolutely eating out of my hand.

“You think that the police will soon be questioning Maya?” he asked.

“I'm sure of it.”

“Why?”

“Well, I thought I had already explained that she was featuring pretty prominently in the books kept by our friend Tilsley. And when a man has been involved in some fairly shady deals—deals, mark you, which may have infringed various laws, and which, in some way, lead to his death—the police are naturally enough interested in everyone who has been in any way involved in those details. That, of course, is not to say that everyone eventually comes under suspicion of having anything to do with the man's death; but there is a natural feeling on the part of the police that it is among the man's business associates that the explanation of the man's death is most likely to be found. I hope that you follow what I am trying to say.”

I hoped, too, that I had not laid it on too hard and strong. I thought that in some respects I might have done so, but I knew, now, that I had the man in a sense on tenterhooks; and when you are trying to get some information out of a man, and have got him into the right stage of nervousness, there is something to be said in favour of rubbing things in good and hard. It is only thus that the proper use can be made of the nervous condition.

It didn't seem, at any rate, that I had in any way overdone things. Foster just gulped and looked at me with wide open eyes.

“You mean to say,” he gasped, “that they may be suspecting Maya Johnson of killing Tilsley?”

“I didn't quite say that,” I corrected him. “I merely said that, in common with all the others whose names and addresses have been found in Tilsley's books, she will sooner or later be called in for questioning by the police—that is, unless someone can definitely prove that she really had nothing whatever to do with the man.”

“All right,” he said, “you win. I'll tell you all I know about the business if you will undertake to keep Maya's name out of this investigation.”

“I can't undertake that,” I pointed out. “But I can undertake that if she is genuinely innocent I can give my friends at Scotland Yard all the particulars that I know of her innocence. And, knowing them as I do, I don't think that there is much doubt that they will agree to forgo anything more than the most formal of cross-examinations.”

He nodded. This, it seemed, satisfied him. I was glad that I had played my hand pretty high. Once or twice I had thought that I was tending to overdo the friend of Scotland Yard stuff; but it had obviously paid in the end.

“And what is it that you've got to tell me?” I asked.

“I think that Tilsley was a crook,” he began, and I grinned broadly.

“That's no news,” I said. “But what particular sort of crookery do you think that he specialised in?”

“I'm not at all sure.”

Again I grinned, but a little more savagely this time. “You had dealings with the man, and you're not sure?” I said with some scepticism. “Come, Foster, you don't really expect me to believe that, do you?”

“The deals I had with him were more or less above board,” he explained.

“Yes?” I tried not to sneer.

“Yes. It was a matter of various spare parts and components, things which are in pretty short supply. He told me that he could let me have them at a price—usually a pretty high price. But since I have some customers who are prepared to pay a high price themselves he argued that I should be able to make money out of them. The real trouble is that the makers have standard prices for all spares, and they take a poor view of anyone who sells above those prices. It is a sort of black market; it doesn't break any laws except the unwritten laws of the motor industry. But if the makers knew that I was doing that sort of thing they would probably close down my sources of supply. And that would put me in a jam.”

“Is that why you had Tilsley send his letters to you care of Miss Johnson?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Nothing illegal—in the sense of breaking the law of the land—was going on?”

“Nothing.”

I must admit that this was a bit of a facer for me. I had been so sure that something to do with a black market had been going on, involving some sort of infringement of the raw material controls, that this revelation that it was only an infringement of the rules set up by the motor industry staggered me. Of course, there was a definite possibility that Foster was lying. But, as I have already indicated, I have a fair knowledge of human nature. I've mixed with most types in my time. And when a man is telling lies I usually have a pretty good idea of the fact.

And I was sure that Foster was telling what, at any rate, he believed to be the truth.

“You see,” he said, as if he could read the thoughts that were running round my head, “other people in the industry might feel that I was doing them down. Especially in view of the fact that the prices I had to charge were very high. Tilsley never sold anything at less than about ten times the official market price for any of the spares.”

I whistled gently. “That's a bit steep, isn't it?” I said.

“Yes, but if your car is out of action because of a broken part that should cost a pound, you'd probably rather pay ten pounds than have the car laid up for six months,” he said. I had to admit the justice of this.

“And that is all that you knew of John Tilsley?” I said.

“Absolutely all.”

“You knew nothing of any business which he might be doing outside this racket in spare parts for cars?”

“None at all.”

And this time again I was prepared to bet that the man was telling the truth. But it was a real staggering revelation. I wondered what Shelley would have to say about it.

“Where did you meet Tilsley originally?” I asked.

“In here.”

“In this garage, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Did he just come and offer you the spare parts?”

“Oh, no. He brought his car in for repair. Something quite small had gone wrong—he'd broken some little bolt somewhere. I told him that it would take a week or two, as the makers wouldn't supply such parts under three months, and I should have to have the thing specially made.”

“And what then?” I asked.

“He told me that he could lay his hands on various parts, but only if they were ordered in advance, and only if I was prepared to pay a pretty high price for them. He couldn't guarantee to supply anything and everything; but most spares for most of the more popular makes he thought he could do.”

“And has he done so?”

“Oh, yes. What happens, you see, a customer comes in here with or without his car. He will point out that something is broken, or will let me have a look at the car to find it out for myself. Then I have to tell him that it is out of stock, get in touch with Tilsley in London, and in a couple of days it will be delivered here. He's let me down from time to time, but as a rule it's perfectly reliable. The only annoying thing is that the times he's let me down almost always turn out to be an old and valued customer.”

I grinned. “It always turns out that way,” I said. “But you did say, Foster, that you thought the man was a crook. There may be something slightly unethical about this story that you have told me today, but there is nothing really crooked about it, is there? I mean to say, there is nothing which is a direct breaking of the law.”

He paused and smiled sourly. “Well, no,” he said. “But, you see, I always keep asking myself: where did Tilsley get all these spares? They're not so easy to come by in these days, you know. Especially when they come from some popular car of twelve years or so back—a car of the age which is always tending to break down in one way or another.”

“And what is your answer to that pretty little riddle?” I asked.

“I think the spares are stolen,” he said. “In other words, your friends at Scotland Yard might find themselves holding me as a receiver of stolen goods. Mind you, I never had any sort of definite proof that they were stolen; if I had I wouldn't have gone on dealing with the man. That sort of game is too dangerous to keep up for long. But I think in my own mind that he has got a gang of confederates in a lot of the car factories, salting away spare parts. Then he has a store of some sort in London, and he's probably supplying a lot of small garages like mine with the stuff their customers want.”