The Doors Open (14 page)

“Inspector Roberts found that when he was in Potts’ bedroom – which was at the top of the house, on the far side, he could just hear the car engine running in the garage if he listened for it. But Potts was an old man, a bit deaf, and either asleep or very sleepy. Anyway, we may suppose he didn’t hear the car running. If he had heard it he’d have come down to investigate and I think he’d have died just the same.

“When Conlan was confident that the level of the carbon monoxide gas in the garage was high enough – a lighted match would have told him – he switched off the car and signalled to the other chap, who went back to the call box outside Dene village and rang up Potts. When Potts answered the phone – which was in his bedroom, by the way – this chap simply announced that he was the gardener or servant or goodness-knows-what from the big house, and old Mrs Trefusis had been taken powerful bad, and would Doctor Potts hurry over please.

“Well, of course he would. Doctor Potts, as you said, relied on a few special patients, and he couldn’t afford to let them down. He got sleepily into his clothes, walked downstairs, and into the garage. Now I don’t know why he got into the car before opening the garage doors. It was a cold night – possibly the ignition or the choke wanted adjusting. It makes very little difference. Once he was in the car he couldn’t get out. So there he died.”

There was silence for a moment in the room, and then Nap said, “It might have made a difference. I know that carbon monoxide works quickly, and is invisible and odourless and so on. But if he had gone straight across and thrown the doors open, mightn’t he have saved his life? Or if Conlan wanted to keep him in the garage, that would have meant a struggle, which was just what they wanted to avoid.”

“If Potts had gone straight across,” said Hazlerigg, “he wouldn’t have been
able
to open the door. There were four large sliding bolts and Conlan had wedged all of them with little oblong rubber wedges, cut to fit into the space between the top of the bolt and the back stop. Even if Potts had discovered what was blocking the bolts, he could never have worked them clear in time. One of those wedges was left behind. It was absolutely the only mistake they made.”

“If what you say is right,” said Paddy, “it all seems to have been carefully worked out.”

“That’s just it,” said Hazlerigg. “It’s not the sort of thing that could have been arranged overnight. Those wedges might have been faked up on the spot – but the telephone call wasn’t so simple. They’d have to know the names and habits and certain details about the patients to make that bit sound convincing.”

“And they must have known a good deal about his household,” said Paddy. “That he slept alone, and that his bedroom was on the other side of the house, and that you couldn’t hear the car from his bedroom and so on.”

“What about the telephone call,” said Nap. “Has it been traced?”

“Not a chance,” said Hazlerigg. “Seaford’s a full automatic exchange. That’s a pity, because an operator might easily have remembered a phone call at that time of night.”

“Then you haven’t a great deal of tangible evidence–”

“There isn’t a single shred of positive evidence in the whole thing,” said Hazlerigg. “If we dared put those chaps in the dock, a competent counsel would tear it to pieces. He wouldn’t even trouble to call evidence for the defence. He’d just claim that there was no case to answer. And he’d be right. So that’s how it goes. That’s the record to date. Doctor Potts committed suicide – by gassing himself in his own garage. Mr Britten committed suicide by throwing himself in the river.”

Seeing the looks on his hearers’ faces he added with a smile, “It’s all right. I’m not being a defeatist. We shall get them in the end. But this just isn’t the peg we’re going to hang them on.”

“What’s your idea of the future then,” said Nap.

“That’s very difficult. I’m very tempted to tell you to steer clear and keep clear. But that would sound ungrateful after all the good work you’ve put in. Besides, I no longer think that amateur help means nothing but trouble. If ever I did hold that opinion I was cured of it by an experience I once had with Major McCann. I’ll tell you about it some day. And there is a job for you to do. Whatever game Mr Legate is playing, it’s a financial game. And most financial games get played in or near the City. Now you both work there, I think. You, Mr Rumbold, are a solicitor, and you, Mr Carter, a chartered accountant–”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve left the firm of accountants I used to work for–” said Paddy. “I’m with a newspaper.”

“The
Moorgate Press
, of Finsbury Square,” said Hazlerigg with a smile. “We’ve been keeping an eye on you, you see. Now you’re both well placed for this job – better placed than I am in some ways. I want you to keep your eyes and ears open for every mention or hint or whisper concerning Legate and the Stalagmite Insurance Corporation. Report anything you hear to me at once – however trivial it seems. I’ll let you have my private office number. There’ll be someone to take a message at whatever time you ring up.”

“There’s just one thing,” said Nap slowly. “How do we know that what we’re looking for has anything to do with the Stalagmite? Even if Legate and Brandison are involved in it. It may be a private swindle, something outside of the Stalagmite altogether.”

“You’re forgetting Britten,” said Hazlerigg. “He practically told us that the answer could be found in the books of the firm. The whole trouble started, you remember, when he saw some book or record he wasn’t meant to see.”

“Then why not take the bull by the horns,” said Paddy, “and have the books inspected.”

“On what pretext? Do you imagine that the police auditors could find a discrepancy which has escaped the expert eye of Broomfields? I don’t think that this thing is necessarily directly financial at all. Besides, we’ve got to be careful, you know. The Stalagmite are a pretty powerful corporation. Take a look at the names on their board of directors – Lord Stallybrowe, Sir Hubert Fosdick–”

“Nearly seventy and quite gaga,” murmured Nap. “All right – I’m just repeating my fiancée’s opinion of him. He’s her uncle.”

“Very well then – Andrew B Chattell – he mayn’t be in Debrett, but he’s a big name in the insurance world. Charles Bedell Atkinson – he’s on the board of the Home Counties Bank. Sir George Burroughs, the shipping man. Hewson-Collet – he’d have been a KC if he’d stayed on at the Bar. That’s the sort of men you’re up against.”

“I know, I know,” said Nap. “They don’t sound a very likely gang of criminals.”

“Not only don’t they sound like criminals,” said Hazlerigg grimly, “but if we start questioning their business methods and asking for inspection of their books without some very good reason, they’ll sound like trouble. They’ll sound like Questions in Parliament and the Exit of a Chief Inspector.”

“Then we’re back where we started,” said Nap. “The ramp is being worked from the Stalagmite. But that’s not to say the Stalagmite is itself a ramp. What you really want us to do is to see if we can pick up anything discreditable about Legate.”

“That’s it,” said Hazlerigg. “And whilst you’re about it, I think you ought to take a few sensible precautions on your own account. Particularly if you discover anything. It can’t have escaped you that these people are quite wholehearted in their dislike of interference.”

“What do you suggest?” said Paddy.

“Just use your common sense,” said the Inspector, with a smile which robbed the suggestion of its usual offensiveness. “Don’t go out after dark unnecessarily. And that goes for your fiancées as well – though the danger in their case is much slighter. If you must go out after dark, go in pairs. And keep each other informed of where you’re going and what time you expect to be back – that sort of thing. Oh, and I don’t think I should dine in Soho. If there’s going to be a fixture, you might as well play it on your own ground.”

It was, on the whole, two rather subdued young men who left New Scotland Yard and made, without a word being spoken, for Bumpers Fo’c’sle Bar. Here two pints of bitter, and again two more, were disposed of in quick succession.

“Do you feel an overmastering desire to look over your shoulder the whole time,” said Nap, “to see if you’re being followed?”

“I do,” said Paddy.

“Well, you’re right, you are,” said Nap. “That’s Buttonshaw, just come in now. I can see by the look in his eye that he’s dying to tell us his famous story of how he won the Battle of the Ardennes and what he said to the American Brigadier.”

“Come and have a game of squash,” said Paddy.

3

On the following morning Chief Inspector Hazlerigg summoned Mr Gould from Alberts’ Detective Agency to have a few words with him in his room at New Scotland Yard.

Mr Gould obeyed reluctantly. A private detective, working on official sufferance, does not disregard the lightest request of a Chief Inspector. Nevertheless the summons caused him no pleasure at all. And he took certain precautions in obeying it.

First, he paid a visit to his club in Whitehall Court. This had three entrances. The front one in Whitehall Court itself, a side one in Court Street, and a service door into Court Alley. He went in at the front entrance, walked straight through the club and out at the service exit, moved smartly down to the Embankment, under the arch, up Villiers Street, and in at the side entrance to Charing Cross Station. From here he took an Underground train to Waterloo, went out of the main exit and caught a bus which took him back on his tracks, across Westminster Bridge. At the traffic lights at the top of Bridge Street he jumped off the bus and strolled into the Yard by the Cannon Row approach.

“Sit down, Mr Gould,” said Hazlerigg. “Thank you for being so punctual. We are both busy men, so I’ll try not to detain you any longer than I can help.”

“I am always happy to oblige,” said Mr Gould. “The gentlemen of the Metropolitan force and I have always got on very well together.”

“Quite so, Mr Gould. Quite so. And I expect we always shall,” said Hazlerigg. “Sometimes I am asked why, if we have such a competent and efficient police force, we should allow firms of private detectives to exist at all. But that is a point of view with which I have no sympathy. I am convinced that there are different forms of work suited to both of us. We pursue our course, you pursue yours. There is no need for us to interfere with each other.”

“Exactly,” said Mr Gould more happily. He surmised that his original fears had been groundless. The wild thought occurred to him that the Chief Inspector might want a bit of private and confidential work done. Well, why not? Even Chief Inspectors have wives.

“Our dealings with your firm,” went on Hazlerigg, “have always been very happy in the past.”

“I think I may say the same,” said Mr Gould.

“Have you ever heard of Doctor Potts?” said Hazlerigg. The sudden ring of steel was almost audible.

“Have I ever – I beg your pardon. What was that?”

“You heard perfectly,” said Hazlerigg. All affability had gone from his voice.

“Doctor Potts – I seem to know the name–”

“You know the name damned well,” said Hazlerigg. “You made enquiries about him for Lord Cedarbrook less than a week ago. Come man, your memory can’t be as bad as all that.”

“You will realize,” said Mr Gould with an attempt at dignity, “that all enquiries which I make are confidential.”

“That’s what I want to find out,” said Hazlerigg coldly. “Was the result of your enquiry treated as confidential.”

“I don’t quite follow you?”

“Then you aren’t trying. I’ll be even plainer. When you had made those enquiries did you pass the information on to anyone else besides Lord Cedarbrook?”

“No,” said Mr Gould. “I didn’t pass any information on.” Under the grey eyes of the Chief Inspector he was glad, for once, to be able to tell the literal truth.

“I see. Mr Gould, have you ever met a man called Legate?”

This time it was quite obvious that the shot had gone home. Mr Gould tried to speak, failed, and remained for a time dismally silent.

In an instant Hazlerigg had changed his tactics. The affability was back in his voice, and he sounded quite genuinely friendly.

“Why not speak frankly,” he said.

This, as he was well aware, was the first real chance he had had of breaking into the case. Mr Gould knew a great deal of what was going on behind the scenes. He was an actor in the shadow play, of which they, the audience, were seeing only the carefully distorted fragments.

But now Mr Gould was silent – and Hazlerigg guessed at the reason, and came very near to guessing it correctly.

“You know Luciano Capelli,” he said. His voice was still friendly.

“I know of him,” said Mr Gould.

“He’s a dangerous man? An awkward customer? A nasty chap to cross?”

Mr Gould nodded. There was no point in denying the obvious.

“Well let me do my best to assure you,” went on Chief Inspector Hazlerigg very gently, “that I am more dangerous than him. In the long run, far more awkward to cross.”

Mr Gould nodded again. He was in fact between the devil and the deep sea.

But being so placed he decided that the only policy was to say as little as possible.

So Hazlerigg let him go.

April passed quietly.

In the absence of a single positive piece of evidence to connect them with the death of Doctor Potts, Conlan and Bates were dismissed with something bordering on an apology, and returned to prop up the corner of Frith and Old Compton Streets, in the intervals between playing endless games of seven-ball in the pool room underneath the Mogador.

Mr Legate and Brandison continued to serve the Stalagmite Insurance Corporation, each in his respective capacity, and ‘Tiny’ Anstruther announced his engagement to Miss Pocock. The other members of his department subscribed to buy him a silver cigarette box with the crest of the Stalagmite engraved on the lid, and Mr Legate handed him a small cheque with the best wishes of the directors.

Hazlerigg did a lot of work, mostly on other cases, and Inspector Roberts continued to watch Luciano ceaselessly. Possibly to show his appreciation of these efforts Luciano led a model life and sent the Inspector a case of 1926 Champagne Grand Prix on the occasion of his birthday – a present which Inspector Roberts had regretfully to decline.

Lord Cedarbrook remained continuously absent and Cluttersley, for the seventh week in succession, drew the housekeeping money from the bank and placed on the growing pile on the library table yet another unopened copy of
The Times.

Nap and Paddy both worked hard at their jobs and kept their eyes and ears wide open – and learned nothing at all.

And so it went on, until the first week in May, when Paddy, in the course of his daily routine, happened to visit a financial pirate who had his office in a cul-de-sac at the Bank of England end of King William Street.

The pirate, whose name was Stacey Loveless, was a jolly, tubby little man, with a button nose, ruthless light blue eyes, and a nice round bald pink patch on the top of his head. His office was his poop deck and his Spanish Main stretched from Lombard Street to the Stock Exchange. (He does not feature very prominently in this particular story and we will therefore only mention here in passing that he was resourceful, amoral and entirely parasitic, and that no well-ordered Socialist state should have tolerated his continued existence for a moment. He made a very comfortable living out of other people’s mistakes.)

Paddy had often had occasion to visit him and had never found him doing anything very much at all – though once when he himself had been kept late, he had happened to pass Stacey’s office at seven o’clock at night and had seen the lights still on in every window. But then Stacey’s employees were unlikely to complain, since he paid them twice as much as any other employer in the City of London, exacting in return complete silence and discretion about his affairs.

When Paddy had finished his business with him – it was an enquiry about a South American railway which possessed little permanent way, less rolling stock, and absolutely no paid-up capital – Stacey Loveless made his customary suggestion.

“All right,” said Paddy, who was becoming hardened to this aspect of City life. “Where?”

“The Green Boy.”

“OK,” said Paddy. “Only it’s always so infernally crowded.”

“Not if you set about it in the right way,” said the pirate, slamming on a bowler hat and seizing an umbrella as if it had been a cutlass or a boarding axe. “Come on. I’ll be back in half an hour, Miss Greig.”

“No you won’t,” said Miss Greig.

“If that call comes from Newcastle tell them there’s nothing doing,”

“Very well, Mr Loveless.”

“And if Buster calls tell him where I’ve gone.”

“Very well, Mr Loveless.”

“Marvellous girl,” said Mr Loveless. “When she first came I said, ‘Why do you look at me like that? Are you expecting me to seduce you?’ and she said without batting an eyelid, ‘Well, you’re paying me so much more than I’m worth, Mr Loveless, that I couldn’t help wondering’.”

Mr Loveless roared with laughter, dodged in front of a bus, and pushed his way into the bar of the Green Boy.

The place was absolutely crowded and it was only by dint of some pretty ruthless work with his umbrella that Mr Loveless got through to the back. Here he seized Paddy by the arm and pushed him through a door marked “Private. Management Only”. Inside, in a small parlour furnished in the exquisitely uncomfortable style of the 1890s, three men were sitting at a table drinking out of half-pint glasses something which looked to Paddy uncommonly like turpentine.

“Hullo, Stacey.”

“What cheer, soaks,” said Mr Loveless. “Introduce a friend of mine–”

“Pleased to meet you – take a seat – have a drink,” said the man who had first spoken. He was one of the fattest men Paddy had ever seen outside of a circus.

“What is it?” asked Paddy, seating himself cautiously on a black horsehair sofa, crenellated in mahogany.

“Bullocks’ blood,” said a dapper party in striped trousers. “Strong ale and rum – extremely costive.”

“What’s new, Stacey?” said the fat man.

“Nothing you don’t know,” said Mr Loveless with a grin. “Heavy industrials are down. The market remains quiet.”

“You don’t say,” said the fat man. “It must be the weather. The same again all round, please, miss. Have you heard the story that’s going round about the Divorce Court Judge and the lady tightrope walker–?”

No one appeared to have heard the story, which had in fact only been passed for publication by the Stock Exchange that morning. It was therefore duly told and a fresh round of drinks was ordered,

“I hope you’ve all unloaded your cotton,” said a red-faced, military-looking gentleman who had not yet spoken.

“I never carry cotton,” said Mr Loveless – nevertheless Paddy thought he looked interested. “What’s in the wind, Major.”

“Nothing’s in the wind,” said the Major. “Only I see that old Gold is booked to speak at Liverpool tomorrow. You know what he’s like – he can’t open his mouth without taking a running jump at private enterprise. Well, I reckon it’s a dime to a dollar he can’t speak to a Liverpool audience without saying something pretty shocking about cotton. And you know what delicate nerves they’ve got on the Mersey.”

Everyone laughed except Paddy, who had rather lost the point of the conversation, and was trying to calculate whether the one-pound note and two half-crowns which represented his entire liquid assets at that moment would be equal to the strain of paying for five glasses of bullocks’ blood.

Stacey Loveless unwittingly saved the situation by announcing,

“I’m sick of this muck, for God’s sake let’s have some decent bitter.”

The fat man discovered at this point that Paddy was a friend and acquaintance of the celebrated McAndrews and took the opportunity of telling him two new stories about Scotsmen and reciting a limerick dealing with a rather improbable episode in the life of the Dean of Chichester.

Paddy had just finished the laugh which custom demanded, when he heard the dapper party (whose name appeared to be Gordon – though whether this was his Christian or surname was not apparent), say to Mr Loveless: “I fancy Bairsted’s on his way out, Stacey?”

“No fancy about it,” said Mr Loveless. “He’s finished – kaput – done for. The petition’s on the file already.”

“It’s a damn shame,” said the fat man. “It was a perfectly sound set-up and Henry was a perfectly sound chap – he used to be with Impeys, the steel people, you remember.”

“Well, if he was as sound as all that,” said the Major, “why’s he headed for a receiving order? Don’t tell me he’s been got at.”

“Of course he’s been got at,” said Gordon. “It’s the oldest game in the world. They lent him money on his factory – an ordinary mortgage, of course. Very accommodating. Now they’re suddenly asking for their money back. Everyone knows Bairsted could pay if they gave him time. He just happens to be short of capital. You’re bound to lose money in the first year or two at a game like that. I tell you, that business of his is as sound as the Bank of England.”

“It’s all very well,” said the Major. “But if that’s so why doesn’t somebody else take over the mortgage. God knows there’s enough loose money floating round at four per cent these days–”

“No one’s going to lend him a penny at four per cent or forty per cent,” said Gordon. “Not after Stalagmite cancelled his policies. It must have cost them a thousand pounds to buy back the cover. They wouldn’t have done that without inside information.”

“H’m,” said the fat man. “I expect you’re right. They’re a lousy tight-fisted crowd of grasping baskets who’d skin their own grandmothers if they could see a percentage in it – but they undoubtedly know their business.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Stacey.

“What do y’mean, Stacey?” said the fat man.

“Come on, Stacey,” said the Major. “You can’t start knocking the insurance companies. That’s hearsay.”

“What’s on your mind?” asked Gordon.

“Oh, nothing much,” said Mr Loveless. “I was just thinking of the Stalagmite–”

“What’s wrong with ’em,” said the fat man. “Legate knows his stuff. I should have said he was the pick of the bunch.”

“Shut up, Charley,” said Gordon kindly. “C’mon, Stacey, old boy, spill the beans to your pals. What d’you know about the Stalagmite.”

“I don’t
know
anything,” said Stacey Loveless. “So you can all stop looking so confoundedly ghoulish. You’re not going to hear any dirt. It’s just that twice in the last month I’ve got the impression that they were – well, if anyone else had done it I should have used the expression ‘playing the fool’.”

“Seriously?” asked the Major. He suddenly seemed to be several degrees more sober.

“Not seriously enough to shake the sort of credit they’ve got – no. But first of all, I heard at fourth or fifth hand that they put up most of the money for Factory Fitments–”

Gordon whistled. “That’s not playing the fool. That’s just plain dirty,” he said. “Legitimate of course, but dirty.”

“Why?” said the fat man.

“Factory Fitments are the chief competitors – almost the only real competition – to Bairsted Enterprises. They both specialize in the same type of factory equipment.”

“I see,” said the fat man. “Yes, that is a bit Prussian, isn’t it. First they float Factory Fitments, then kick Bairsted’s show downstairs by withdrawing their insurance.”

“All right,” said Stacey Loveless. “That’s dirty but not silly. Now what about this – I also heard from the same source – somebody who got it from somebody who got it from somebody else who got it, I think, from Pip – that the Stalagmite had bought a controlling interest in Syn-ol.”

The information clearly meant nothing to most of those present.

“What about it?” said Gordon.

“They’re quite a good little company.”

“Who says so?”

“Market News
, among others. They gave them a good write-up last month.”

“Then it only confirms my opinion of
Market News
,” said Stacey coldly. “How
can
a concern be sound when its one and only object is the making of synthetic fats from vegetable products.”

“Isn’t that exactly what–”

“Of course it is. The government-sponsored scheme’s started already. What hope in hell do you think a private company would have of operating in competition. They won’t be able to keep their prices in the same street. The stuff they produce will be half the quality and twice the price. Why dammit,” said Stacey, “you might just as well set out to operate a rival Post Office.”

Catching sight of the barmaid he relieved his feelings by ordering a double whisky all round.

“It sounds a bit odd when you put it that way,” agreed the Major thoughtfully. “But it doesn’t mean that they’re tottering.”

“Of course they aren’t tottering. I just said I’d run across two instances recently of them playing the fool. One of them was a bit dirty, but may have been profitable. The other was plain loony.”

“Unless,” said Gordon, “they had reason to believe the official body would buy them out – it’s been done, you know.”

“Maybe,” said Stacey. “And if they’d been a set of mushroom jobbers I’d have believed it. But it just didn’t seem like normal behaviour for one of our biggest insurance corporations. It’s like – dash it, it’s like catching a bishop filling in football pools.”

“So what?” said the fat man. “I knew a Dean once who doubled his stipend in the year Applejack won the Oaks.”

“Charley,” said Gordon, “some of the Deans you’ve known must have been surprising characters.” Paddy found himself in a dilemma.

He knew – indeed, it did not need a great degree of perspicacity to see – that he was near the heart of the perplexity. Gathered together in that room, purely by chance, were four men. None of them had anything directly to do with the matter in hand. But all of them had a very special knowledge and experience of the world he and his friends were investigating. The dapper man called Gordon was, he gathered, an outside broker. The Major was apparently an accountant who specialized in company matters. Stacey, he knew, could be described as a financial operator. The fat man, too, belonged to the circle though he found it difficult to place him. However, he felt convinced that these four men between them could answer all the questions that were puzzling him and his friends. And the deadly part of it was that he simply dared not put a single question – in fact, he hardly dared to show that he was interested at all.

At the moment they were talking shop – and talking it freely, the result of a good many drinks, a strong community of interests and the fact that they could see no reason to be cautious. He knew well enough, however, that one unconsidered word by him would dry them up at once.

There was, moreover, a further complication. He was getting infernally drunk.

Somehow two full glasses of whisky had lined up in front of him and he had a third, half filled, in his hand.

And it was most emphatically a school in which one did not sit out a round.

“In my way of thinking,” said the fat man, “all insurance companies are swindles. It’s like the pools. You pay a lot in and they pay three-quarters of it back. It’s money for old rope.”

“They get stung sometimes,” said the Major. “Look at Rosen-berg’s claim against the UP. That must have cost them a quarter of a million to settle.”