Calamity in Kent, A British Library Crime Classic (18 page)

Chapter XX

In Which We Find that a Plot has Failed

As we hurried around to the promenade I imagine that the thoughts flowing through Shelley's mind were not unlike those that flowed through my own. I was at last alert to the fact that something had happened which presumably our enemy had not reckoned with.

Previous events—the murder of Tilsley and that of Margerison, both taking place in the apparently impossible surroundings of the locked lift—seemed to have moved with a kind of fateful certainty. The murderer, or so it appeared to me, had such a control of the whole affair that all that we could do was to move in his wake, trying vainly to follow what he had done after it was over. The initiative, in other words, remained wholly with him. He was the attacker, whereas we were perpetually on the defence. But now, for the first time in forty-eight hours, it appeared to me that the murderer had made a mistake. This I assumed, not so much because Bender had not been killed, as because the attempt on him had been made on the promenade and not in the lift.

Shelley, in the course of many talks on criminology which I had had with him from time to time, had repeatedly pointed out that the criminal almost invariably carried out a series of crimes on precisely similar lines. The criminal, in other words, tends to be a specialist, repeating himself. And the fact that the deaths of Tilsley and Margerison were precisely similar showed that the plot was working according to a pre-arranged plan.

The death—or rather the attempt on the life—of Bender was so completely out of pattern that I felt that something that we had done had thrown the murderer temporarily off his balance. I said as much to Shelley as we hurried somewhat breathlessly along the street.

“I'm inclined to agree with you, Jimmy,” he said. “This attempt doesn't ring quite true, somehow, though I'm not at all sure what is wrong. But it's no good for us to get too confident, you know. That is the way in which the whole scheme, as we see it, may well fall to the ground.”

“But you agree that we may have thrown him off his stride, somehow?” I said.

“Either that, or this is deliberately out of pattern, in order to throw us off
our
stride,” Shelley pointed out. “We're up against a pretty clever and original brain, Jimmy, and I wouldn't put it beyond him to do that, you know. The main thing in a case of this sort is to be a thought ahead of your opponent all the time.”

“You think we are?”

Shelley smiled ruefully. “Up to now, we have been about two thoughts behind him,” he admitted. “But I hope, now, that we are about drawing level.”

By this time we had reached the promenade. I should, perhaps, explain that at Broadgate there is the usual wide promenade, with a bandstand in the middle of its broadest expanse at one end. But there is also a sort of back promenade, running behind the main promenade, and separated from it by a more or less continuous chain of decorative shrubs of one sort and another.

It was on this small back promenade that there are a ring of seats. And on one of these seats the unfortunate Aloysius Bender was lying. A constable stood by, and our old friend the police surgeon was in attendance.

“Well, Doctor?” asked Shelley as we approached.

The doctor was holding the man's wrist, his eye on his watch.

“He'll do,” was the doctor's brief answer.

“Yes; you mean that he'll live?”

“Of course. Only a scratch,” the doctor said. “I should think he probably fainted from shock. Certainly the wound was of no importance.”

“Where was the wound?” asked Shelley.

“Left side. But it did not go in at all deep. I should say that the intention was to strike the heart—but probably the man was nervous, at carrying out his attempt in such a public place. Either that, or he was disturbed just at the crucial moment. Not my business, of course,” the doctor added hastily, “to explain why things happened as they did. But I thought, Inspector, that you might care to have my impression of the thing.”

Shelley duly considered these remarks. Then he said: “Would you consider that this wound was given by the same hand as that which killed Margerison and Tilsley?”

“Could have been,” the doctor said. “After all, the circumstances were so different. Both the two murders were carried out in privacy of the lift. If the criminal had somehow lulled the men he was to murder into a sense of security, he could carry out his purpose more or less at his leisure. But this attempt on Bender was done in a public place, with no chance to pick the time. As a result, I think that he may well have made a more or less clumsy attempt. If he had had Bender in the lift well, the conclusion might have been very different.”

“I'm inclined to agree with you, Doctor,” said Shelley. “And you think that, if the other blows, on Tilsley and Margerison, showed signs of some knowledge of anatomy, this one was not in any way inconsistent with it.”

This seemed to be as far as we were likely to get in this respect, and Shelley now turned his attention to the man on the seat. Bender was pale, though, in view of what he had gone through, that was in no way surprising. Doctor Duncan had put a bandage around his chest, as a bulge underneath his shirt showed clearly enough.

Shelley felt for the man's pulse. Then he looked at me. “I should think he would be O.K. in a few minutes, Jimmy,” he said. “Will he be able to walk, Doctor?”

“With assistance, I should think so,” Doctor Duncan said. “But my car is on the road at the back. Why not put him into that and take him around to the Police Station—since I presume that is what is in your mind?”

“Should we carry him there?” asked Shelley.

“If you like,” answered the doctor indifferently. “But you will save yourself a lot of work if you wait for a few minutes. As you surmised, he's likely to become conscious at any moment now, and I think if two of us help him, he will be able to make his way to my car without much difficulty.”

Indeed, I could see a flicker about Bender's eyes as the doctor was speaking. Now he stirred and made as if to sit up. Doctor Duncan hurried around and assisted him, holding him in position as he made the effort to get into a sitting posture.

Bender blinked. “What…what…what's happened?” he murmured slowly.

“Don't worry,” the doctor reassured him. “Just come with us, won't you?”

I couldn't help admiring the skilful way in which Doctor Duncan slid Bender's feet off the seat, got him standing, and then, one arm around the man's shoulder, managed to start him walking. Bender was not altogether reluctant to walk, but his feet seemed to move like those of an automaton. I stood at the other side, and Bender put his left arm around my neck. Thus assisted by the two of us, he made his way to the car. Shelley followed at the back, and the little procession was ended by the constable who had found Bender and had first reported his find over the phone to Shelley.

The doctor's car was fortunately pretty roomy. It was an old-fashioned model, but we all got into it without any difficulty at all. Bender lay back in the seat and closed his eyes, as if he had found the effort of getting so far almost too much for him.

Within a matter of three or four minutes, however, we were at the Police Station. Now Bender had to be got out of the car and into Shelley's office. That was in some respects a more difficult matter than it had been to get him into the car, for there were some steps to be negotiated, and Bender's feet seemed to find steps not at all easy to get up or down. Still, with a little extra effort we made it.

Shelley hauled out a battered old leather armchair. In this Bender slumped back and shut his eyes gratefully, as if he had found the whole performance of the last ten minutes infinitely trying—as, indeed, he might well have done. Doctor Duncan thought that the man had lost some blood, which is always apt to leave the victim in a somewhat weary state.

However, the detective wasn't prepared to let the man get away with it. He frowned portentously on Bender. Then he spoke.

“Now then, Bender,” he said.

“Yes?” Bender's voice was hoarse and strained.

“We want to know what happened to you.”

“I don't think that I know much more about it than you gentlemen do,” Bender replied.

“But you must know what happened, man!” Shelley exclaimed, looking definitely impatient.

“I was sitting on the seat out there,” Bender said, “and I never gave a thought when I heard someone walking along the path behind me.”

“What time was this?” asked Shelley.

“Just about nine o'clock, I should think. You see, I was at a loose end. Your people have not returned the keys of the lift yet. It's still not ready for use by the public.”

Shelley nodded. He knew all about this, I could see. “You say that you heard someone approaching along the path behind you?” he remarked.

“Yes. Even when the footsteps stopped quite close to me, I didn't think anything about it. Then the man suddenly grasped me around the mouth with his left arm. I couldn't move or cry out. I was so scared I was just paralysed. I didn't struggle or anything, I was so frightened. Then I felt a sharp prick in my ribs, as if the man was pushing a sharp knife in there. I knew nothing more until I woke up, lying on the seat, with all you gentlemen around me.”

Shelley grunted sceptically. I could see that he thought this a thoroughly unsatisfactory story, but I couldn't understand why the appearance of disbelief flashed over his usually friendly countenance. It appeared to me that Bender's story was eminently possible. He might well have been taken completely by surprise, as he had explained.

Shelley grinned savagely. “So that's all that you know about the attack that has been made on you, is it, Bender?” he said.

“Yes.”

“You never caught the slightest glimpse of the man who tried to stab you?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all that would give us the slightest clue to his identity?”

“No.”

“H'm.” I could see that Shelley was in no way satisfied with this tale. But at the same time it was not easy to see how the man could be shaken. Indeed, as I have already said, I was tolerably impressed with the way in which he had told his story. It struck me as having the ring of truth. I thought that Shelley, with his lengthy experience of cross-examining suspicious characters, might well have a sort of sixth sense which made him realise when a man was not telling the truth. But at the same time, even if he was not altogether impressed with what the man said, I did not see how the story was to be broken down.

“Well, I think that's all we can say to you at the moment, Bender,” Shelley said. “We'll let you have a car to take you home.”

Bender was assisted to the car, and Shelley slumped back in his chair in a brown study. Doctor Duncan had already left us, and I was alone with the detective.

“Not quite satisfied, Inspector?” I said slowly.

“Not a bit satisfied, Jimmy,” he said. “But I don't see just what we can do about it. After all, we have no witnesses of what happened. And if Bender isn't telling the truth, I don't see what chance we have to prove that he's lying. After all, it's never easy to prove a negative.”

“But you think he's lying?” I remarked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“When you've been a detective for nearly twenty years, Jimmy,” he explained, “you get an idea that a man is lying, without being able to say why. I think it's something about the look in his eyes. Very few liars can look you straight in the face; there is something vaguely shifty about the way they look at you. And I've rarely failed to detect a liar, though often there is nothing very concrete that I can lay my hand on.”

I thought that this was not getting us very far. I thought likewise, that it was time to change the subject. I knew that I should have little need of extra material for my story to be phoned to the paper that evening. This attempt on Bender's life provided me with quite enough sensational material to justify splash headlines for the third day in succession. But at the same time I liked to get all the background material that I could; one never knew when it might be useful, on a day when the main story was at a standstill.

So I said: “Bender said that you had the keys of the lift?”

“That's true.”

“Bender's own set, and the set that was found in the Council Offices?”

“Yes.” I thought that there was a glint of slight amusement in Shelley's eye, as if I was now getting on to a point that had occurred to him long ago.

“Then that might be the reason why this attempt on Bender's life did not take place where the two murders occurred—in the lift?” I said.

“Yes.”

Shelley's monosyllabic answers suggested to anyone who knew him as well as I did that I was getting warm in my questions, that I was getting hold of some information not obvious on the surface, and not precisely what Shelley was anxious to disclose to me. The detective, indeed, would not hide things from me—his agreement with me was something that he would, I knew, keep to the letter. But that was no reason why he should share with me every little suspicion that might enter his head. It was therefore up to me to see if I could solve the little mystery that he had obviously made about this affair of the keys.

“But Bender told a story about a man who had had copies of his keys made,” I said.

“Yes.” Shelley smiled.

“That's one of the things that makes you suspicious of Bender,” I remarked.

“It's the main thing,” Shelley admitted. “That man is hiding something, Jimmy. I don't know what it is, but I've got no doubt that there is something there. And it may well be that he is holding out on us, and perhaps on the murderer also. You see, if he really knows something about the death of Tilsley, while it may not be enough to make the murderer scared, it may be enough to make him feel a little unsafe. And a man who has already committed two murders is not going to allow himself to be unsafe because of Bender. He's going to put Bender out of the way without delay.”