Close Quarters (20 page)

‘Go on,' said Hazlerigg, ‘this is most interesting.'

‘Well, it's no good. I've thought from then till now, on and off. I think it was something I saw but failed to understand. It made me so confoundly nervous – now don't laugh – that I got an unpleasant feeling half-way through the first film (it was a murder film too) that perhaps someone might be murdering Appledown. Possibly all those anonymous letters had something to do with it But, anyway, I determined that whoever else was implicated I wasn't going to be. I made quite a fuss – I don't suppose they've forgotten it yet.'

‘They remembered all right,' said Pollock.

Hazlerigg tried hard to imagine what all this would sound like to a jury, and then fell back on his notes.

‘I'll read out exactly what you said to me about that evening. Here it is. “I looked up and saw Appledown crossing the road. He must just have left the cathedral. By the time I got up he had gone indoors, but I saw the light go on in his front window and immediately afterwards his shadow jerking about on the blind.” That's as you remember it?'

‘Quite right,' agreed Prynne.

‘Then who had drawn the blind down?' said Hazlerigg, ‘and when?'

There was a longish pause in the Chapter House whilst a number of theologically sharpened minds concentrated on this point.

‘I mean,' went on Hazlerigg slowly, ‘that Appledown had left the house in broad daylight, at four o'clock in the afternoon and hadn't been back. His brother left even earlier. And up to the time of Appledown's supposed return the house had been empty. By this time it was almost dark – inside the house it must have been pitch black. You've seen that room, full of gimcrack tables and furniture. Can you suggest any single logical reason why a man should go into it, feel his way across it, pull the blind down, and then – and not till then – go back again to the door and switch on the light? Except for the real and very obvious reason that we know of now – that he daren't risk being recognised. An old figure in hat and coat tottering up the path is one thing – easy to make a mistake about him. But a man standing facing you in a lighted window; that's quite a different proposition.'

The Dean turned to Prynne.

‘That is what you saw, I take it?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Prynne. ‘No doubt about it. The blind was down when the light came on. The first thing I saw was the light go up, and then the shadow against the blind. It wouldn't be easy to make a mistake about a thing like that. If Appledown had turned the light on and then walked over to the window and drawn the blind it would have presented a very definite and different sequence.'

Hazlerigg thought again about the jury and reflected that crime in the Close had certain compensating features. He did not see Prynne easily shaken under cross-examination.

‘Well, we've nearly done now. I've told you how I think Halliday first plotted the thing, and then how he elaborated it. But I still doubt most sincerely whether we should ever have got near our man if it hadn't been for the really desperate piece of bad luck which he experienced over those letters.'

He turned to Pollock.

‘You remember I told you once that our only real chance would be if something went wrong for the murderer and he lost his nerve?'

Pollock nodded.

‘That is exactly what had already happened. Something had gone wrong with a vengeance. Something so unfortunate that Halliday must have seen the hand of Providence in it. He had that sort of mind.'

The Dean said, ‘I guess it was something to do with John Brophy, but I can't even begin to see where he came into it. Please go on, Inspector.'

‘Appledown,' continued Hazlerigg, ‘as I said a moment ago, had taken certain safety precautions against Halliday. He had written an account giving the details of Halliday's sins and lodged it in some safe and accessible place. He had further threatened that if Halliday showed fight he would straightaway inform you of the existence of this reading matter, asking you not to investigate it unless and until something should happen to him of a violent and untoward kind. You might, of course, have felt bound to override your verger's wishes – in any event the situation would have been very awkward for Halliday.

‘Now I fancy that Appledown knew pretty well who was behind the anonymous letter campaign – though he didn't, of course, see why it was being done. I think he took it all at its face value and imagined that Halliday was trying to get him the sack. The fact that the whole thing coincided with Halliday's vacation rather increased his suspicions, and as incident followed incident he got furiously angry. More than probably he had it out with Halliday the moment the latter got back – told him the thing must stop at once. I can imagine him patting his pocket and saying that if the attacks didn't stop he had a letter for the Dean which would soon settle matters.

‘That threat, as we can imagine, didn't worry Halliday – his plans were well matured. But I should think that after killing Appledown he took the precaution of running through his pockets and his desk too, later that night, and I dare say it worried him to find no letter there – though not too seriously, at first.

‘He was far from guessing the truth – that Appledown had already sent the letter. He had sent it that evening. Just before Evensong something must have happened to arouse his suspicions; I cannot at the moment divine what it was.'

‘Do you suppose,' said Bloss, ‘that he might have overheard Halliday telling the chorister to give him that message about the engine-shed door?'

‘It's an idea – but I think on the whole it's unlikely. If Appledown
had
overheard it, he would never have risked going near the place. He was pretty nervous of Halliday, you know—'

‘Et pour cause,'
agreed Prynne.

‘Whatever his motives may have been we have a number of witnesses – choristers – that Appledown gave Brophy the note and asked him to “drop it in” at the deanery. Brophy put it in his pocket and again we've plenty of witnesses that he stepped out of the line (they remembered it because it was a breach of rules) on his way to choir practice that night at seven o'clock, and dropped “a note” in at your door, Mr. Dean.'

The Dean saw light.

‘I had an idea the handwriting was familiar – developed sort of writing for a thirteen-year-old. But then he was a rather grown-up sort of boy – signed J. B., too.'

‘And liberally covered with his finger- and thumb-prints on both paper and envelope.'

‘But I still don't understand,' said Prynne. ‘The letter you received, Mr. Dean, had nothing to do with Halliday or his goings-on …'

The Dean felt glad that he at last could enlighten a colleague.

‘The letters, I take it, had got mixed up in Brophy's pocket. He unwittingly retained the note Appledown had entrusted to him and dropped one of his own composition in at my front door.'

‘Surely,' said Canon Fox, ‘if I recollect the letter you did get on that occasion, it was rather an unusual missive for a boy to be carrying round in his pocket.'

‘Not at all,' said the Dean. ‘I expect he had a packet of them. Dr. Smallhorn, you remember, told us that the boys had started a great game of passing anonymous notes and that sort of thing, influenced no doubt by what was going on round them in the Close. Excuse me, Inspector, please go on.'

‘I'm glad you saw the point so easily,' said Hazlerigg. ‘because you'll appreciate now how quickly Halliday jumped to the right conclusion, once he heard about the note you had received that night. From then on he knew that there was more than a strong possibility that John Brophy was walking about – maybe quite unconsciously –
with a most damning exposé of the whole business in his pocket.

‘When he saw the original J. B. Note – I think you showed it to him after your tea-party, sir – he was then absolutely sure of what had happened, and his reactions became correspondingly more vigorous.

‘He made no less than four attempts to get it back – not including, of course, the fifth, which he made yesterday afternoon after the suggestive little conversation which we forced him to overhear in Dr. Smallhorn's hall. Only by that time, as I said, the note was in our hands.

‘His first shot at getting it was pure burglary. He broke open the outer door of the school buildings and searched Brophy's private desk. Having drawn blank there, he tried again and called in on Mrs. Meadows while that worthy woman was at work in the linen-room. Helping her fetch and carry gave him plenty of opportunities to search Brophy's Sunday suit and spare suit. I saw him doing it, though it didn't register particularly at the time. However, still no luck.

‘It was immediately after that, at the tea-party, that most of the really deadly things in this case happened. First of all I heard from Dr. Smallhorn about the boys' habits of passing notes to each other. Halliday, as a master, knew about it already, of course, but he can't have been best pleased when I came to share the information.

‘Then afterwards you, Mr. Dean, showed Halliday a copy of the J. B. note. No one can blame you, by any stretch of imagination – but that act was actually the cause of John Brophy's death.'

Catching a glimpse of the Dean's face, Hazlerigg wished he had put this rather more tactfully, and hurried on.

‘The next night Brophy and another boy were late back from cathedral, and they came over separately. Halliday was waiting for them. I don't suppose that he meant to kill the boy, but it is of course a matter of great delicacy, even for a professional, to stun without killing. And I think it hardly affects the moral blame, whether he intended to kill him or not.'

‘Or the legal,' observed Mr. Scrimgeour with some satisfaction.

‘When Brophy was down he searched his pockets quickly – and drew blank yet again. But he wasn't quite done yet. He had an evening class to take at the school, so he hurried in and, on the pretext that he had lent Brophy his Bible, he quite openly searched his school-desk – did it in front of the whole class. And still he found nothing. Actually, by the way, the letter was in a book on a shelf, at the head of John's bed. I think that's all.'

‘Then Halliday made up the whole story about the attack on himself outside my house,' said Trumpington. ‘He certainly did it very convincingly.'

‘Possibly – but there is another explanation there. I think someone was on the look-out for Halliday – had seen him go to the deanery, had crept to the door and heard him talking to the Dean after the party. Had bided his time outside, determined to serve him out a little of his own medicine.'

‘Artful,' exclaimed Pollock. ‘Is that who you mean?'

‘I think it's probable,' said Hazlerigg. ‘Artful is a truculent old man, and family affection aside he can't have enjoyed seeing his income cut off. There's no need to press the point, however. We don't intend to make it part of our case, and if Halliday raises it in defence he is open to the imputation of having invented the whole story.'

‘I think I can enlighten you on one point,' said Bloss. ‘By a curious coincidence I stumbled, a few months ago, on the facts which probably formed the basis of Appledown's blackmail of Halliday. I will let you have them'—his limpid gaze swivelled round the assembly—‘afterwards.'

‘Quite so,' agreed the Dean hastily. ‘No sense in unnecessary revelations at this point. We've got Miss Halliday's feelings to consider, amongst other things.'

As the morning service-bell began to sound overhead, Hazlerigg climbed to his feet.

‘I've told you all this,' he said, ‘and I know that it's as much in your interests as it is in mine to keep quiet about it. In return I want every scrap of information you can give me. I've never faced a more difficult case.'

‘Perhaps if Halliday had stopped after his first murder,' said the Dean, ‘you wouldn't have found us so keen, but as it is … well, I'll speak for everyone, and say that you can rely on our discretion – and our help.'

‘Thank you,' said Hazlerigg. ‘And it's with the profoundest respect that I must differ over that last proposition. When I find myself thinking that way, as I sometimes do, I remember those meticulous rehearsals which Halliday made with the hat and the raincoat. When a man reaches that stage of God-like detachment, he really is too dangerous to live.'

For nearly an hour after the others had gone, Hazlerigg and Pollock worked quietly over the papers, sorting, listing, and docketing the case to be presented. The rhodamine powder – the early anonymous letters – the walking-stick which they had taken that morning from where it stood quite openly in Halliday's hat-stand. The ferrule to be measured against the plaster-cast of those sixteen little holes in the ground behind the engine-shed. Might not microphotography match it up further with the tiny splinters found in John Brophy's hair? And the inside of the bowler hat. There was a possibility, but no more, that a hair or two of Halliday's might still be found there – unlike him, though, not to have remembered to wipe it.

And so it went on.

Pollock got up to stretch his legs and wandered out into the cloisters. Quietly he opened the door of the south transept and stepped inside. From where he stood he could see the faces of the clergy and choir framed by the iron trellis screen behind the pulpit. They were singing the anthem – part of Twelfth Ecclesiastes to Steggall's lovely setting – and had reached the treble solo with which it ends:

Remember now thy Creator, in the days of thy youth. In the days of thy youth.

The canary notes went up and up, higher and higher into the dim roof of the cathedral.

Pollock tiptoed out.

He felt an overmastering desire for a steak – done red – and a pint of milk stout.

Since it was the summer of 1937 he got both without difficulty.