Dead Man’s Shoes (24 page)

“Now I ask you. What kind of a murderer was that?”

Carolus paused rhetorically and sipped his whisky-and-soda.

“It does seem funny, now you come to think about it,” said Mrs Gunn.

“Hush,” said Mr Gorringer.

“Yes,” continued Carolus. “What kind of a murderer could this be? A madman? A madman with such a mixture of lunacy and logic in his mind that he could successfully kill his victim and get out of the country, but at the same time leave such a trail of evidence behind him that he would be extradited at once? Or something else? Something far more sinister. A murderer who wished to make his guilt absolutely clear. Who wished there to be no doubt in any one's mind that he, Wilbury Larkin, had killed Gregory Willick. Who took every care to show that he had come with the express purpose of doing it.”

“But why?”

It was Appleyard who asked this, but the question must have been in the mind of everyone following Carolus.

“Yes, Deene,” echoed Mr Gorringer, “why should he do such a thing?”

There was real tension in the room as Carolus looked up to answer.

“Because he knew, with fatalistic certainty, that Wilbury Larkin would cease to exist. That Wilbury Larkin would soon be at the bottom of the sea. As he is, thank God.”

There was silence in the dimly lit and crowded saloon. Then suddenly things happened. A large dark figure was framed in the doorway, and everyone turned to see the man who stood there.

Marylin Sweeny suppressed a scream.

“God!” cried Mrs Roper.

For there could be no mistake about it. Even to those who knew him only by description, it was obvious. The heavy body, the thick spectacles, the high stiff collar, the old-fashioned clothes—it was Larkin. Had there been any doubt, it would have been dispelled by the voice when he spoke.

“If any one moves from his place,” he said, “he'll be dead.”

He had a revolver in his right hand. He raised his left to his glasses as if to remove them.

In that moment a short square figure seemed to materialize behind him, his right arm was jerked up and there was the curious sound, like a volcanic gasp, of a pistol, fitted with a silencer, being fired. A shot splintered the ceiling.

In a moment the man was completely overpowered. Gerard Prosper, who was sitting near the door, had one arm and the man who had entered behind Larkin the other. The revolver crashed to the ground.

Carolus came forward, rather white, but quite calm.

“Thank you, Mr Booth,” said Carolus, for it was the Third Officer who held Larkin's right arm.

Maltby took command efficiently and without fuss.

“Could you send for a couple of the Port policemen, Captain Bidlake?”

Bryce was dispatched. Appleyard went out and came back in a moment with a pair of handcuffs, which Maltby put on without much difficulty.

The remainder of those in the saloon were admirably calm. Perhaps those from Barton Abbess, already a little out of their depth, were too stunned to do more than stare at the big man, who had grown rather limp and helpless. There was a thin smile on Kutz's face. No one spoke, but those who had drinks beside them sipped.

It seemed a very short time before the police arrived. One of them knew Maltby, and he gave them brief instructions.

“Keep him in your lock-up here till I come over. There will be a charge against him presently. Take the usual precautions against possible suicide—he hasn't been searched yet. I'll come over when I've finished here.”

When they had gone, the din of general conversation gradually rose. Like people everywhere who have passed through some tense crisis, these wanted to chatter, congratulate one another, return to normality.

Rupert Priggley came up to Carolus.

“You've had it this time. You'd just said he was at the bottom of the sea.”

“He was.”

“Listen, sir. You've got to pull yourself together and talk your way out of this. You stand to look pretty silly just at the moment. And don't try anything supernatural, for heaven's sake. That was no ghost who was handcuffed and taken away.”

Mr Gorringer seemed no less perturbed, though there was a suggestion of huffiness in his manner.

“So you were misleading us, Deene. I am indeed surprised.”

“I was doing nothing of the sort.”

“But unless my ears deceived me you had just said that this man was at the bottom of the sea. A moment later, hey presto! And here he is with a pistol in his hand.”

“It was a desperate thing to do. But perhaps he was right. It may have been the only thing.”

“It seems to me, Deene, that you owe us all an explanation.” The headmaster tapped on the table. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that Mr Deene owes us an explanation for this extraordinary apparition. He had given us clearly to understand that Larkin was no more.”

“Well, that was him, all right,” said Mrs Gunn. “D'you think I shouldn't know after doing his room and having words with him? That was him as sure as eggs is eggs, the nasty horrible thing.”

“Captain Bidlake,” said Mr Gorringer, “you had Larkin on your ship. Are you satisfied that this was the same man?”

“Quite satisfied. That was Larkin.”

“Yet Mr Deene has told us that he was drowned. Come, Deene. There is some mystery here.”

“You don't mean it?” muttered Rupert Priggley.

Maltby intervened.

“I think I have some inkling of the matter. I rather think that Mr Deene's explanation is going to cover everything. Were you anticipating that interruption, Deene?”

“I thought it a possibility, I must say. I wondered whether he was desperate enough and took me seriously enough, but I suspected it so strongly that I enlisted Mr Booth's aid.” He turned to Captain Bidlake. “I am glad now that I made Mr Booth's acquaintance on that trip to Tangier. He certainly saved my life, and perhaps some others. But the incident has done more than that. I said that my explanation would not be followed by an arrest ‘unless there is any unexpected new development'. There has been. There will be a conviction now, all right. There cannot be anything else. He might have been safe if he had
not risked this intrusion tonight. But it goes with the man's character.

“However, let's talk no more at cross-purposes. I will begin at the other end of the case, as it were, and tell a straightforward story. You need not be in the dark any further.”

“F
IVE YEARS
ago Lance Willick decided to murder his uncle Gregory. He knew that the bulk of that vast fortune inherited from his grandfather was destined for him on Gregory's death—entirely through the fair-mindedness of Gregory, let it be remembered. He had lately seen installed at Barton Place a very beautiful and charming young lady who obviously loved his uncle and was loved by him. He suspected that this might lead to the loss of his fortune.

“Now Lance not only had intelligence, but something almost as valuable—plenty of time. Living in Tangier on an adequate income which his uncle allowed him, he had nothing else to do but plan his crime and carry it out. That is a more important factor than may at first appear, for most crimes are slipshod and hurriedly planned. Lance was in no hurry. I do not know whether he reckoned on a Five Year Plan, or whether it just worked out that way, but he certainly did not intend to do anything carelessly.

“His first step was to create an
alter ego …”

“You'll forgive me making so bold as to enquire, sir,” interrupted Ridge, “but what might that be?”

“A second self. With the utmost care he set about creating the externals of a human being as unlike himself as possible. He was working in the crowd scene of a film at the time—the part, so I was told, of a
large
priest. Someone, presumably, who had to look larger than himself. Now whether Lance took his film work so seriously that he privately spent money on achieving this and afterwards it gave him the idea, or whether he had already decided to create a second self and used the film as an excuse to do so, we shall
probably never know. At all events, his second self was a bigger man than he was.

“How did he achieve this? First of all by the obvious means—boots. He had constructed for himself a pair of boots which by an internal device lifted his heels by at least an inch—a formidable difference in height. Throughout this case there has been a key-note of boots and shoes which has repeated itself. No boots were found in Larkin's cabin. None in his house in Tangier. A pair of boots was purchased in Northleach on the day before the murder and prints of them were found near the scene of the crime. Socker himself found the boots concealed in the undergrowth. One might quote Kipling—boots, boots, boots. But everything is accounted for by Lance's creation and original purchase, probably from a bootmaker in Cadiz, of the specially designed ones.

“Next there was the question of girth, and for this he had the most elaborate padding made. We know by chance that he was in Cadiz for some months before his film work, preparing for it or for his criminal design or for both, so presumably the padding was made there. He could strap it on and remove it fairly quickly, and with the utmost naturalness it made him appear a
large
priest, or a very heavy layman.

“In order to dress this heavy man he went first as himself—as Lance Willick, I mean—to one of the second-hand clothes-shops of Tangier. He was lucky because it is a centre for the used-clothes market and imports thousands of part-worn suits from America every year. Lance chose one for a man larger than himself, judging it or measuring it, so that it fitted his frame plus the padding and plus the added height. This was the suit I found in Larkin's house among later ones. After that he could go, wearing padding and suit, to any tailor and have another made.

“But this left him with a problem. His neck. A small neck rising from that mighty frame would look disproportionate …”

“Ill-proportioned,” interrupted Priggley.

“And he had to think of some way of concealing this. He hit on the idea of old-fashioned high stiff collars such as Mr Pooter might have worn. These fulfilled a double purpose. They concealed his small neck and they made him noticeable. It was one of the things he wanted for his second self: that he should be highly conspicuous, once seen never forgotten.

“But he still had the hardest task—the face. Clearly no tricks of ordinary make-up would be of the slightest use. This was not to be for one occasion, but for years. There had to be a permanent, an easily assumed face different from his own. The difference could not be such that time was necessary for it to appear. He could not, for instance, wait to grow a beard or moustache. And certainly he could not do anything so childish as to assume and discard false ones. In the end he concentrated—wisely, I think—on two things: teeth and glasses. He went to a Cadiz dentist, Dr Fernandez, and for his film part had a special set of teeth made. In due course we shall be able to examine these as Exhibit A or some such nonsense. I believe they were very elaborate, not only in having much larger teeth than his own, but in artificially enlarging the jaw. He has been described as widening out in the lower part of his face, and I think this accounts for it.

“As for his glasses, he chose those thick lenses which magnify the wearer's eye as one looks at him. They change a man's appearance most effectively. But he never seems to have been entirely at ease wearing glasses, and has more than once been described as ‘blinking', even ‘blind-looking'.

“He added some jewellery which as himself he never wore—rings, a tie-pin and a watch and chain which went with the old-fashioned get-up.

“So there was the second self in appearance. But it was a very odd appearance, as the descriptions of many of you
testify. Mr Appleyard described him to Captain Bidlake, who afterwards gave me the excellent description, as ‘everything's too big about him: his great massive chest and shoulders, his eyes when you see them through those thick glases'. And again—‘something unnatural, something not quite human about him'. Mr Smite noticed him ‘because you don't expect to see anyone dressed like that in these parts'. Mickie, the barmaid at the Barton Bridge Hotel, said he was ‘horrible' and ‘gave you the creeps'. Mrs Gunn said he wore the sort of clothes her uncle, who was an undertaker, used to wear, and spoke of the ‘nasty way he had with people' and later said he was a ‘nasty horrible fellow and you could tell he was a murderer', and further ‘he was a nasty sort of man who made you turn queer to look at him'. Mr Habbard said, ‘If ever I saw a murderer that was one.'

“Perhaps the most interesting detail about his appearance came from my friend Eric Luck of Tangier. He was describing his walk. ‘He was a big heavy man, but he tripped along in a very queer way. It was as though he was stalking someone.' Exactly as a man would walk who was wearing artificially constructed boots which raised his heels to give him height. Yes, I think Lance Willick achieved a marvel so far as appearances went. Nobody could, indeed nobody I know of ever has, noticed any similarity between his second self, whom he called Wilbury Larkin, and himself, Lance Willick.”

Mr Gorringer interrupted.

“A short break, I think. Interesting though this is, we must not tire our
raconteur
too much. Perhaps you will take something, Deene?”

“A large whisky,” said Carolus gratefully.

Conversation broke out again. Mr Gusset seemed as thrilled as any member of his Troop.

“You'll
have
to come and give a pow-wow to the Boys' Club,” he told Carolus.

Mrs Roper looked across admiringly.

“Go it, Deene!” she said. “Grand stuff!”

But the respite was all too short.

“Having created an appearance and a name,” Carolus continued, “Lance had to create a character and the circumstances surrounding him. He showed, I think, the same wisdom by making the man a recluse who was often absent for months on end and who refused to make friends with any Europeans. Who, in other words, was seen and not heard. For years people saw the big oddly-dressed man going down to do his marketing, but if they tried to talk to him they were snubbed.