Close Quarters (5 page)

‘Irregularly,' amended the Chief Constable unhelpfully.

‘Well,' said Pollock mildly, ‘I don't know that you could call it that exactly; it never was meant to be an official investigation, you know-'

‘My knowledge of police procedure is, of course, rusty,' snapped the Colonel, ‘and not to be compared with yours.' With a Serbonian glare he challenged Pollock to agree with him. ‘But I was under the impression that the correct procedure was for the Chief Constable to be consulted before our experts from London were called in.'

‘Unofficial investigation,' mumbled Pollock.

The Chief Constable proceeded to explain at some length his theories (his very ignorant and doubtless ill-founded theories) on the proper observance of police procedure and etiquette. The Dean, though a man whom Colonel Brabington personally admired and respected, had shown questionable taste (Pollock gathered) in having a nephew in the Metropolitan Police Force at all. In his young day constables were constables (correct him if he was wrong) and not public schoolboys playing at being policemen, and even worst taste in bringing the said nephew down behind the backs of the local force.

Things seemed to have reached a deadlock, and Pollock was on the point of playing his final card and asking the Chief Constable whether he proposed to make an official application to have his offending self removed and the matter placed wholly in the hands of the local authorities; he felt convinced that the Colonel did not really want to go as far as that (he might succeed in calling his bluff), and the words were just about to be uttered which would make or mar this very promising case when he observed that the Chief Constable had fallen silent and was glaring at his tie.

‘What year were you up?' he snapped.

‘Twenty-six to ‘thirty-one,' mumbled Pollock.

‘House?'

‘School House.'

‘Ha ha,' roared the Chief Constable unexpectedly. ‘Ha ha, that's very good, very good indeed. Here have I been slating you like God knows what and hauling you backwards over the coals, and I never spotted you were an old boy yourself. I was there, you know. Before your time, of course. In School House myself.'

At this moment Pollock had an inspiration born of some casual and distantly remembered research into the school archives.

‘Of course, sir,' he said, with a suitable blend of deference and surprise. ‘You must be
the
Brabington. The one who broke the half mile record in ‘ninety-six.'

‘Well,' replied the Colonel, highly gratified. ‘I must admit, since you've discovered the fact, that that was me. Couldn't do it now, of course. But sports were sports in those days. None of our damned specialising; we ran every race and jumped every jump on the card. But tell me – is old Marjoribanks still going strong? Wonderful old boy – why, I remember …'

Pollock settled himself down and prepared to swop improbable and disreputable reminiscences – an exercise so dear to the hearts of old boys the world over.

The public school system had proved its worth once more.

Three-quarters of an hour later, when Colonel Brabington had concluded his account of the epic steeplechase which he had won in a snowstorm in ‘ninety-five, he returned regretfully to the matter in hand. Of course in the circumstances it would be perfectly easy to have everything on a regular footing. He suggested that he (the Chief Constable) might phone Scotland Yard and invoke their assistance in the matter of the murder of Appledown, whilst Pollock could phone them simultaneously and request a recognition of his position in the affair in view of the increased seriousness of the case (Colonel Brabington would be only too pleased to send this request if Pollock thought that this would be a sound move).

Pollock thought it would be an excellent move. He thanked the Colonel effusively and withdrew to the nearest telephone booth. He had a second, more private call, to make.

‘Don't say anything to anyone under any circumstances,' had been Pollock's parting injunction to the Dean who had hurried off to morning service at the same time that Pollock had left to play Daniel to the Chief Constable's lion. ‘If anyone misses Appledown, tell them that he's ill in bed, broken his leg – anything.'

Vain are the hopes of man.

In his more than metropolitan ignorance he overlooked the peculiar character of a Close. As a sounding-board it is unique. It outshines even the whispering gallery at St. Paul's. There the lightest whisper is audible to everyone. In Melchester Close they hear things before they are whispered. Thoughts are read. Gestures speak words. Looks are interpreted. The interpretation is then twisted by a dozen busy tongues, and that which no one dreamed of whispering in their inmost closets at dawn is shouted from the house-tops by midday.

The thought, therefore, of keeping anything of a sensational nature quiet was – and the Dean must have known it – purely fantastical. Two large policemen standing at the east end of the cathedral! Stretchers! Ambulances! Flower-pots! Signs and portents. MacFisheries and the Home and Colonial had a protracted round that morning, and by the end of it every house-maid knew, with varying embellishments, that Appledown was no more.

The rumours spread and grew.

A well-known detective from London – something to do with the Dean – someone climbing about on the roof – someone had heard someone else say that the cathedral plate was missing. “Wilder still and wilder ran the shrill alarm.” Appledown had been caught rifling the offertory box, and after a thrilling chase had thrown himself from the roof of the cathedral, practically into the arms of one of the Big Four from Scotland Yard (or was it Big Five?). Anyway, this man had come down in response to an anonymous letter in order to arrest him. The Dean's connection with the business, though well established, was vague. Most people held, with an approximation to truth, that the Scotland Yard detective was the handsome young man who, as everybody knew, was staying with the Dean – being in fact his illegitimate son – whilst there was a small but powerful minority who were sure that the dear Dean had been – or was about to be – arrested as Appledown's accomplice.

The indisputable appearance of both the Dean and the altar-plate at morning service proved rather a set-back to both schools of theorists.

5

FIGURES OF SPEECH

“The one before you is a high official,” returned Wong Tsoi with appreciable coldness. “Were he a dog, doubtless he could follow a trail from this paper in his hand to the lair of the aggressor, or were he a demon in some barbarian fable he might perchance regard a little dust beneath an enlarging glass and then stretching out his hand into the void withdraw it with the miscreant attached.”

E
RNEST
B
RAMAH
–
Kai Lung.

‘Deceased,' said the doctor austerely, ‘died from the after-effects of severe cerebral injury and general shock arising directly from a concussive blow in the cranial area. In other words,' he added, relenting a little as he noted Pollock's puzzled expression, ‘someone hit him on the head and killed him.'

‘And that was the sole cause of death?'

‘What more do you want?' said the doctor, becoming even more unprofessional. ‘If you're looking for the mysterious puncture of a hypodermic syringe or the traces of that hoary old poison-unknown-to-science, you're wasting your time. This chap wasn't strangled, drowned, stabbed, suffocated, or frightened to death by a headless horror. He was killed by a blow on the torus – and what a blow! I don't want to teach you your job, old man, but I should start by ruling out all women, however suspicious their actions or heavily veiled their faces.'

‘Thank you,' said Pollock, ‘we haven't any heavily veiled females yet, but I'll bear your words in mind in case I meet one. Seriously, though, would you say from the nature of the blow that we might rule out any possibility of it having been struck by a woman?'

‘I should say so,' said the doctor. ‘Quite definitely. It was a very hard, heavy blow – a most deliberate stroke. Apart from anything else, the direction of the splintering in the skull would indicate that the striker was as tall, or taller, than the deceased.'

The two men were standing warming their hands in front of the charge-room fire at Melchester police station. Pollock had had a busy morning. Leaving the Chief Constable he had made two telephone calls to London. The first had been a personal one for Chief Inspector Hazlerigg. For though no mere mortal can influence the decisions of the powers that be at Scotland Yard, the probability is that, if suddenly called upon to dispatch a chief inspector into the distant provinces, they will be more likely to dispatch a chief inspector who is handy at the moment and panting with eagerness to be dispatched, than an equally worthy chief inspector who may perhaps be inspecting dog licences in Upper Tooting or even sleeping the sleep of the just in his maisonette in Lower Balham. Which is only another way of saying that it's the dog on the spot that gets the biscuit.

The second call had been longer and more difficult, and had dealt with the vexed question of how an unofficial investigation into anonymous letter-writing could be turned overnight into an official investigation into a murder. However, Pollock had eventually trusted to the good offices of the Chief Constable, and rung off.

He had then, after a great deal of heart-searching, transferred his belongings to the Bear Hotel. The Dean had taken this official gesture in very good part and approved the thought that underlay it.

‘After all,' said Pollock, ‘murder's different.'

And for some time after he had gone the Dean sat at his study staring at the Italian triptych which had once belonged to Canon Whyte. Yes, he thought, murder was different. He was just beginning to realise that.

The doctor was on the point of going when Pollock remembered something he had meant to ask him. ‘Whereabouts is the torus?' he said. ‘Or is it just another name for the skull? You know, when you were talking about the blow—'

‘Scientific accuracy,' replied the doctor, ‘is my middle name. I said the torus and I meant it. It's another name for the occipital bone, which is what your hat sticks on at the back if it's rather too small for your head.'

‘I see,' said Pollock. ‘But look here, how could Appledown get a blow like that if he was wearing a bowler hat?'

‘That's for you to work out,' said the doctor. ‘I hadn't considered it. I don't think it's impossible, if you presume that the blow which did the trick also knocked the hat off. But it must have been a sideways swing; not so likely, I agree. But since you found his hat lying beside him he may have been carrying it all the time.'

‘Or perhaps,' suggested a thick square man with a brick-red face, who had inserted himself into the room at that moment, but appeared to have picked up the thread of the conversation, ‘he raised his hat out of sheer politeness when he saw the murderer was ready to begin.'

The doctor looked a little surprised at this interruption, and Pollock introduced him to Chief Inspector Hazlerigg.

‘So that's that,' said Pollock, extinguishing the stub of his third cigarette.

It had been a long story, starting over an excellent mixed grill in the dining-room of the Bear Hotel; Pollock talked and ate, Hazlerigg ate and listened. A noble Stilton cheese came and went. Pollock consulted his notebook occasionally. Coffee was taken in the lounge. Hazlerigg smoked and listened. Pollock talked and smoked.

‘Do you think,' said Hazlerigg, breaking a long silence, ‘that the writer of the letters is the murderer of Appledown?'

‘Yes,' said Pollock, so firmly that he surprised even himself. ‘I do. I know that there's an almighty difference between a practical joker and a killer, but if the two aren't connected in some way I shall be very surprised.'

‘Three possibilities,' said Hazlerigg. ‘We'd better have them all before we start getting prejudiced. First, a man with some crazy obsession; he starts in by slating Appledown anonymously. This doesn't seem to be having quite the desired effect, so he lays for him and bashes him. Second, someone wants to kill Appledown for good but extraneous reasons and sees this anonymous campaign as useful cover. Third, the two things are quite unconnected, but I must say that I agree with you, on the whole, that that is unlikely on the grounds of probability alone. However, we mustn't sit here gossiping and wasting the ratepayers' money. Let's go and have a look at Appledown's cottage.'

“Artful” Appledown opened the door to them himself. He was, thought Pollock, a disreputable parody of his brother. The family likeness was striking, but where the head verger's white hair had lain in smooth and venerable respectability, Artful's stood in untidy wisps. His eyes were bloodshot and lips petulantly clenched. In deference to the conventions he had torn a strip from an old black umbrella and bound it round his upper arm, but apart from this striking piece of mourning he appeared to be sustaining the death of his only brother with some fortitude.

‘Poor old Dan,' he said, as soon as Hazlerigg had introduced himself, and before he had had time to ask any questions. ‘Poor old Daniel. Little did I think, when I left him at two p.m. yesterday afternoon, that when I returned, to hearth and home at twenty-five minutes after ten precisely this morning I should find him cold and dead. Not that I did find him myself – to put the matter in exact words – but I heard the sad news very shortly after my return. It's a dreadful warning to us all.'

‘Quite so,' said Hazlerigg. ‘Now if you could tell us exactly what you did yesterday, and when you saw your brother last, it would be a great help to us, as you'll appreciate.'

‘It'll be an important statement, I suppose?'

‘Most important,' Hazlerigg assured him.

‘Then,' said the old man with an apologetic leer, ‘it'll be better to have no mistakes about it,' and he pulled a greasy notebook from an inner pocket. ‘Two o'clock – that's yesterday afternoon – left house, having previously prepared evening meal of cold viands and left same handy in the kitchen. Two-fifteen – depart in charabanc with other members of Brotherhood.'

‘Brotherhood?'

‘Christian Works and Self-help (Melchester Lodge),' explained Appledown rapidly. ‘Our fortnightly outing, every other Tuesday. Went to Windsor this time, to see the historic sights. Arrived in Windsor three-thirty. Observed sights, such as castle, celebrated Etonian College, deer park, etc. Started back five-thirty. Arrived Melchester eleven forty-five.'

‘How on earth,' said Pollock, ‘did it take you an hour and a quarter to get to Windsor and over six hours to get back?'

Appledown looked at him pityingly, and Hazlerigg, who had understood that Christian Works and Self-help did not necessarily imply total abstinence, contented himself with saying, ‘But you didn't come home to sleep.'

‘I was not wishful,' said Artful Appledown virtuously, ‘of disturbing my old friend Sergeant Brumfit. I, therefore, slept with a friend in the town, as is my custom on such occasions.'

‘So you've made the trip more than once before?'

‘The Brotherhood arranges an outing on the second and fourth Tuesday of every month,' agreed Appledown. ‘I make every effort to support them – very often I am late in returning and thus spend the night in the town.'

‘And does your brother sit up for you?' asked Hazlerigg.

Artful looked a little confused at this simple question; he scratched his head for a moment or two, and then contented himself with saying, ‘Daniel was a very good brother to me, very thoughtful. If he was to go out himself when I was away, he'd always leave a note saying when he was coming back. Most thoughtful and kind-hearted.'

‘I suppose he didn't leave a note yesterday?' asked Pollock eagerly.

‘Of course he did,' said the old man, turning a beady eye in his direction, ‘as you could see if you had eyes in your head. Pinned up beside the front door. I left it there when I came in – as I said to myself, ‘Never touch anything when the police are about, and then you can't go wrong.''

Disregarding this fresh exponent of detective-procedure, Pollock hurried to the front door. Sure enough, pinned to the lintel was a half-sheet of notepaper; on it, in an untidy scrawl, the laconic (and under the circumstances, singularly untruthful) message.

‘Back soon.' The signature was D. Appledown. Pollock unpinned it carefully and took it back to Hazlerigg.

‘Of course it's my brother's writing,' said Artful scornfully when they questioned him. ‘No one else writes as badly as that.' He hunted out some other specimens of the late head verger's vile calligraphy, and Pollock was inclined to agree with him. Hazlerigg pocketed both note and specimens and piloted the old man back to the main thread of the discussion.

‘You left your brother's evening meal ready for him?'

‘Ham, lettuce, gherkins, military pickle, prunes and cold shape,' interjected Artful rapidly.

‘And it was all eaten when you came back this morning?'

‘Every crumb,' said Artful, ‘except for three prunes,' he added conscientiously. ‘Poor Daniel always had a good appetite. He never had no tea, you see. He'd be over at cathedral getting ready for evening service. Left the house every day at four o'clock regular as clockwork, and back by a quarter to seven. Then we'd sit and smoke and talk until, perhaps, half-past seven, when we could relish a nice supper.'

Hazlerigg consulted Pollock with a glance, but Pollock could think of nothing further.

‘His papers and effects will have to be searched,' said Hazlerigg, ‘though the Lord knows whether we shall find anything helpful. If it comes to that, I don't yet know what we're looking for. I think the local force might do that. I want you to look up Sergeant Brumfit. Make a copy of all the entries in the register yesterday evening. Then find out about the keys of the gates and ask him exactly when he locked up last night and at what time he was on duty himself. And whilst you're about it you might sound him as to his opinion about people climbing in and out of the Close – if anyone really knows whether it's possible he will. I want to see your uncle. You'll probably find me there when you've finished.'

Brumfit made a good witness, and it took Pollock less than a quarter of an hour to collect the information he wanted – mostly of a negative character. The sergeant was positive that no one could possibly get in without him knowing. As to keys, there were only three in existence. There was the same lock on all three gates – a fine new seven-lever Maxwell-Gurnet, fitted less than a year previously. Two of the keys were held by the local police. The Chief Constable had charge of one; the other was entrusted to the policeman whose night beat took him through the Close. The sergeant had the third. The sergeant had locked the gates as usual on Tuesday. The last one (the main gate) he had locked at perhaps two or three minutes after seven. No stranger had come in or out. After seven (Pollock guessed that the upsets of the week before had tightened up regulations in the Brumfit household) the sergeant himself had been on duty the whole time except for twenty minutes when he had been at supper – that would be ten minutes to eight until ten past.

Pollock found Hazlerigg with the Dean, and passed this information on to him, together with a copy of the “in” and “out” entries in the lodge-book. The Chief Inspector glanced at these with an unusually expressionless face and pushed the paper into his capacious inner pocket.

‘Your uncle,' he said, stooping to tickle Benjamin Disraeli, who seemed to have taken a great fancy to him, ‘has kindly offered us the use of the Chapter House; it will be very handy for interviewing possible witnesses.'

‘And you want me to make a statement after Evensong this evening?'

‘Nothing very much,' said Hazlerigg. ‘Just that Appledown has met with an unfortunate accident.'

‘And asking everyone who spoke to him or saw him after Evensong on Tuesday to come to the Chapter house?'

‘That's right,' said Hazlerigg. ‘It'll sound better coming from you. People are always a bit shy at first about making statements to the police.'