Calamity in Kent, A British Library Crime Classic (9 page)

Chapter XI

In Which a New Witness Appears

I glanced at the list of addresses which I had noted down before handing Tilsley's little books to Shelley. Well, there was something to be said for the fact that I had a chance of making two contacts in Broadgate. I still felt that Broadgate was the real centre of the whole affair, and that it was in this Kentish resort that the solution would eventually be found. This was, of course, a wholly unreasonable feeling, but I have often had an irrational hunch which has, in the end, turned out to be justified, even though it is not, strictly speaking, arguable.

Anyhow, here were the two addresses: “Miss Maya Johnson, 135 Brunswick Terrace, Broadgate; Henry Margerison, 77 Cecile Road, Broadgate.”

They were the two people I had to meet; I could not make up my mind which one to look at first. I took a coin out of my pocket. Heads the lady; tails the man. I tossed it, and it came down heads.

Miss Maya Johnson—the name sounded a queer mixture of the exotic and the banal—lived at Brunswick Terrace. I wasn't quite sure where that was, so I asked my landlady.

“It's on the top of the hill, behind the town,” she said. “You know, sir, one of those long, rambling terraces that run out towards the North Foreland.”

Indeed, I knew them. In the early days of my convalescence in Broadgate I had often walked out that way, never quite succeeding in getting to the white lighthouse that stood on the North Foreland. But I was very conscious of the long, rambling terraces that ran out towards it. So Miss Johnson lived out in that direction, did she? Well, I should have to go and see her.

I climbed up the steep hill that led from the harbour to the terraces where Miss Johnson's home was situated. I was now very clear that this was something that was not easy to deal with. Previously I had been on pretty safe ground in that I was investigating a place that was directly connected with Tilsley. But now I had to feel my way carefully, since I was not aware of what was the connexion between Miss Johnson and the dead man. Still, the connexion did exist, and I had to find out its details.

I glanced at the names of the streets that I was passing through. Mrs. Cecil had not been very clear as to just where it was. I thought myself that it was a considerable distance out towards the North Foreland, and my opinion was soon shown to be true. I walked out some half-mile or so before I saw the name of the terrace I was looking for. Then I spotted it. Good, I told myself; now the great moment was at hand.

I looked for number 135, and soon saw it. The house was entered by a massive door, decorated by wrought-iron twisted into strange shapes. I walked up the short path that approached the door, and looked at the door itself. The house had obviously been divided into a number of flats, since there were several cards on the door, each bearing a name and each under a bell-push.

Yes; Maya Johnson was one of the names to be seen. I made up my mind that I would put a bold face on it, and let the moments of conversation with Miss Johnson bring their own decisions. To improvise in such a matter might seem to be foolish, but I thought that foolishness might be the better part of wisdom.

I boldly pressed the button which worked the bell connected to Miss Johnson's flat. I must confess that I felt a little nervous, though I hoped that I did not show my feelings too obviously.

The door opened. I drew my breath with surprise, for facing me was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. Her hair was an ash-blonde so fair as to seem almost white; her eyes were the clearest blue, and her skin was that pink-and-white colour so often seen on magazine covers and so rarely met with in real life. She was wearing a long dress of royal blue, relieved by a bow of some white milky material at the neck. I was almost knocked off my feet by her absolute breathtaking beauty. I'm in some ways, I think, a fairly hard-boiled individual—anyone who has got on in the journalistic world has to be so—but I had never seen a girl who created such an impression on me at the first glance.

“Miss Johnson?” I managed to say.

“Yes. And you are…?” She spoke in a quiet, extremely musical voice. I thought that her voice well matched her general appearance.

“My name is London,” I said. “I want to have a word with you, if I may, on a rather important matter. It is also rather private. So perhaps…” I paused.

“Come in, Mr. London,” she said. She stood aside and I stepped over the doorstep into the house. She then shut the door and led the way to the stairs.

Her flat was on the first floor. The sitting-room was tastefully decorated. It was obviously a woman's room, yet it had not that fussiness of which so many women's rooms may be convicted. In fact, its very quietude seemed to me to be its most satisfactory character.

“Sit down, Mr. London,” Maya Johnson said, indicating a comfortable-looking armchair, and seating herself in a chair opposite me.

“Thank you,” I said, and sat down where indicated.

“Now,” she said, in brisk, businesslike tones, “what can I do for you, Mr. London?”

“It's rather a difficult question,” I admitted, wondering just what would be the most satisfactory way of approaching the matter of John Tilsley.

“So it would seem.” She smiled and gave vent to what in a less charming woman would have been called a giggle.

“I really want to know if you can tell me anything about a man called Tilsley—John Tilsley,” I said, taking the plunge with what was really a sudden decision.

She looked thoughtful. “On what grounds do you ask me such questions, Mr. London?” she asked. “I mean to say, who are you and why do you ask these things?”

“I am a newspaperman,” I said. “And I ask you questions because I think that the police will soon be asking them. And I think that you might find it easier or more pleasant to answer me than to answer the police.”

She looked serious at this. “The police?” she said, in what was not much more than a whisper. And I thought that her face had become definitely paler, as if the very mention of the police had put some strange fear into her.

“Yes, the police,” I said, watching her carefully.

“But why?”

“Because John Tilsley is dead,” I said. I knew that this was a brutal way of blurting out the fact, but I did not know what connexion with the crime this woman might have; and to take her by surprise was the only way in which I could manage to get hold of the sort of information that I was after. I had certainly taken her by surprise, all right. Her face now went several shades paler.

“Dead!” she exclaimed in a sort of horrified whisper.

“Yes.”

“How did he die?”

“He was murdered,” I said, again being purposely brutal.

“Murdered? Oh, why did he do it?”

This was said in a whisper, and I got the sensation of listening to the woman's thoughts. She was probably in no way aware of what she had said, or even that she had said anything aloud. She was merely so horrified at the news that her thoughts were expressing themselves in words, almost without any sort of intention on her part.

“Can you tell me anything, Miss Johnson?” I asked.

She got a grip on herself somehow. “Tell you anything about what?” she asked.

“About Tilsley.”

There was a distinct pause, as if she was collecting her thoughts. I was afraid that the moment of shock was over, and that there was now considerably less chance of getting out of her the sort of information that I deemed likely to be useful.

“I know very little about him,” she said.

“But you paid him a lot of money,” I reminded her. After all, the names of everyone in those little notebooks were connected with large sums of money that had changed hands.

“Me? Oh, no!” This was said with such emphasis and with such open-eyed surprise that I felt, in spite of all my suspicions, that she was telling the truth when she denied having any kind of financial dealings with the dead man.

“But in his accounts he showed considerable dealings with you, Miss Johnson,” I pointed out. “Well over a thousand pounds had changed hands within the last six months or so.”

“No!” This was even more emphatic than her previous denial. “I have never paid John Tilsley a penny. I can't understand my name appearing in his accounts. I met him socially, but only on one or two occasions. I did not know him at all well.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“At a friend's house.”

“In Broadgate?”

“Yes.”

“Could I have the friend's name? This is rather important, you see,” I pointed out. “We are trying to discover what was Tilsley's reasons for coming to Broadgate at all. And it is only by following up all possible connexions here that we can find why he was here.”

“You say
‘we'
are trying to discover things, Mr. London,” she said rather sharply. “Could you tell me who
‘we'
are?”

“Primarily myself and my paper,” I said. “But I have friends at police headquarters, and, naturally, if I find anything worth while which I feel may be of value in solving the puzzle of the man's death, I should naturally feel bound to pass that information on to them.”

“I see.” She seemed again to be digesting this statement, a little puzzled as to what was her wisest response to it.

“Well?” I said, seeing that she now had to be more or less jogged into saying something.

“My friend lives a few doors away from here,” she said. “In fact, he keeps that garage at the bottom of the street. He knew Tilsley in connexion with his business. In fact, I gathered that Tilsley was an agent for some firm of manufacturers—either a car firm or a firm making car components or accessories. I never had the facts, nor, in fact, was I very interested in the details. You see, my friend didn't talk to me much about his business. We were friends in a social sense, if you like; we had no business connexions, since I haven't got a car, and never have had one.”

This seemed sensible enough. But it still didn't explain one obstinate fact—the fact that in Tilsley's little notebook this woman was down as having paid over a thousand pounds in the past six months.

“What is your friend's name?” I asked again, thinking that there should be nothing now to prevent her giving it, since she had already admitted that he was a garage proprietor not far away.

“Foster,” she said. “He is called Timothy Foster, and as I said, he keeps the garage down the street. I am sure that he would be pleased to tell you all that be knows about Tilsley if you go along and see him. Tell him that I sent you, that I suggested you should call on him.”

What she was saying seemed to me to be open enough and friendly enough. Indeed, she was to all appearances perfectly frank and co-operative. But something gave me pause. There was something which she was keeping back. I don't know what it was that made me feel this. I sensed somehow that there was a feeling of tension in the girl's mind. Something had happened since I came into this charming room which did not ring quite true. I thought swiftly over the conversation, trying to make up my mind what it was that made me feel suspicious of the girl. Then I suddenly remembered. When I had told her that Tilsley had been murdered, she had said: “Oh, why did he do it?” The point was, you see, that she had clearly thought of someone as the murderer. At least, that was how I interpreted that remark. And it had been, in a sense, forced out of her under a momentary mental shock.

Afterwards, when she had been able to recover her mental balance, she had been perfectly normal and straightforward, as I have said. But in that first moment the truth of her feelings had come out. Nothing that she could say afterwards could altogether efface that.

And who, I asked myself, was the “he” she had referred to, but this man Foster? Who indeed? Perhaps they were due to get married. Perhaps Tilsley had been blackmailing Foster. Perhaps Maya Johnson knew in actuality what were the deals in which Tilsley and Foster had been involved, and thus jumped to the conclusion that Foster was the murderer. Perhaps…All sorts of wild conclusions came into my mind. I knew that there was little that I could do, for the moment, to solve these problems. And in any case I should have to see Foster, and should then have to go back and do a bit of real hard thinking. But that some part of the mystery would be settled out here near the North Foreland I was becoming increasingly certain.

“Do you think that the dealings with Tilsley which your friend had might account for as much as a thousand pounds in about six months?” I asked. I knew that this was only a kind of verbal fencing, but these were questions that I had to ask, even though the answers to them might be in some sense quibbles and evasions.

“I really don't know,” Maya Johnson answered, opening her blue eyes widely and innocently.

“You don't know?” I repeated, hoping that I made myself sound at any rate a trifle sceptical.

“No,” she said. “You see, Mr. London, as I have already explained to you, I know very little about Mr. Foster's business affairs.”

“Do you think it is possible that Mr. Foster might have used your name in some way in connexion with this business?” I went on to ask.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, your name, as I have said, was used. There's no doubt about that. Otherwise I shouldn't be here.”

“Yes, I see that.”

“It has occurred to me that there may have been some business which your friend Mr. Foster was not too keen to have made public—we all have such things, on occasion—and therefore your name appeared in the deals.” I thought that I had done this with some skill.

She at once agreed with my suggestion. “Yes,” she said, “that is quite possible. Indeed, I think I remember Tim telling me that he had given my address to some dealer, and telling me that I might get an occasional letter, really meant for him, or addressed to him care of me.”