Читать книгу Tenant for Death - Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark - Страница 10

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Tuesday, November 17th

If the disappearance of Lionel Ballantine had been front-page news in the morning papers, his reappearance as a corpse in an obscure South Kensington house was a sensation of the first magnitude. It occupied the posters of every news-sheet in London, quite excluding such minor matters as a Cabinet crisis, a film star’s divorce and an earthquake in China. From morning till night a throng of morbid sightseers blocked the pavement of Daylesford Gardens, to the disgust of its retired but still surviving inhabitants, and gazed with hungry rapture at the commonplace exterior of No. 27. When they finally returned home they were able to feast their eyes on faithful photographs of the same view. One photographer, more enterprising than the rest, had been able to penetrate to the back, and thence to secure a picture of the window of the actual room where the dead man had been found. His effort was rightly considered to be quite a scoop by his paper, which further assisted its readers by marking the particular window with a cross.

The police had been chary in the details which they issued for publication, but news editors and special reporters were not slow to make the most of the material available. Everybody who could conceivably have had any knowledge of the tragedy, not to mention a great many who could not, was pestered by interviewers. Mrs. Brent’s particular friend, making a quiet and quick getaway from No. 34, had the fright of his life when he was held up just outside the house by a determined young man whom he took to be an enquiry agent, but who was in fact merely a reporter thirsting for a personal story from a resident. Jackie Roach, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed himself. Not only did the murder, as he had foretold, stimulate his sales, but for the first and last time in his life, he was himself part of the news he sold. To be shouting: “Special! Murder! All the latest!”—to be thrusting into eager hands papers with your own picture on the front page—to be photographed in the act of doing so by another pressman—to know that that picture would be in tomorrow’s paper, and that tomorrow you might be photographed selling a paper with a picture in it of yourself selling a paper with a picture of yourself—it all fairly went to a chap’s head, more even than the drinks which those reporters kept on standing you every time you thought of something extra for them to put in the story.

Roach had of course given his statement to the police and been warned that he must attend the inquest. In the meantime, he had been told to keep his mouth shut. But it wasn’t in human nature to keep one’s mouth shut when there were so many temptations to open it for the admission of free beer, and Jackie was too honest a man not to do his best to give value for his entertainment. It was wonderful, too, what questions they thought of asking. Things that the police had never bothered him about. For instance, he just happened to mention that he knew Crabtree, Mr. James’s servant, and they fairly buzzed with excitement. When had he seen him last? Where was he now? Jackie was blest if he knew. But his very ignorance, it seemed, was news enough, and on the morning after the discovery of Ballantine’s death, “WHERE IS RICHARD CRABTREE?” was a question which was worth a headline to itself in some newspapers.

Crabtree, in fact, about the time that these same papers were being read at countless breakfast tables throughout the country, was standing rather forlornly in the main street of Spellsborough, a small market town in Sussex. At his back was a gaunt ugly building with the words “County Police” on the lamp over its main entrance. Across the road, in the direction in which he was looking, was a garage, where a heavy motor lorry had just pulled up to refuel, and towards this he directed a look of hopeful interest.

The lorry driver paid for his petrol, cranked the engine and climbed up into his seat. As he did so, Crabtree crossed the road and came up on his near side.

“Going to London, mate?” he asked.

The driver was a pale-faced, fleshy man with a permanent frown of discontent. He looked down at Crabtree with eyes that seemed to twinkle with malice.

“Ye’re just out o’ the lock-up, ain’t yer?” he said, jerking his thumb at the building across the road.

“What’s that got to do with you?” said Crabtree defensively.

“That’s all right,” was the answer. “I’ve suffered from the so-called justice of the ruling classes meself. We of the proletariat ’ave got to stick together. Jump in, comrade. Ye’re welcome to a lift to London—if this perishing box o’ tricks will get so far.”

He crashed the engine into gear and the lorry crawled slowly up the steep street and on to the open downs beyond.

“In Soviet Russia”, observed the driver, “the output of motor trucks ’as increased three ’undred per cent in the larst five years. That makes yer think a bit, don’t it?”

Crabtree, who, if he thought at all, was not accustomed to think of such subjects, contented himself with a non-committal grunt. They continued to drive in silence for several miles before his companion spoke again.

“If yer don’t believe me,” he said, as though the one-sided conversation had never been interrupted, “just take a look at this.” He pulled a newspaper from his pocket. “The Daily Toiler,” he added with reverence in his voice. “Yer can believe what yer reads in the Toiler. It’s the truth, comrade—not just lying capitalist propaganda, like some I could mention.”

An emphatic spit over the side emphasized his contempt for the lords of Fleet Street.

Crabtree took the paper, and glanced without much attention at the small print to which the driver’s grubby finger pointed. The statistics of the special correspondent in Moscow promised little entertainment, and it was not long before he turned to the front page. What he saw there interested him a good deal more. Whatever the differences between The Daily Toiler and its capitalist competitors, its standard of news values was fundamentally the same. Politics may differ, but a murder is a murder all the world over.

“’Ere, ’ullo! What’s this?” he exclaimed.

“That? One of these blarsted millionaires gone to ’is account,” said the driver with gloomy relish. “And serve ’im right, I say! Bloodsuckers, every one of ’em! Each for ’imself and the weakest goes to the wall—that’s capitalism for yer!”

He swung the heavy vehicle round a bend, forcing a cyclist into the hedge. Crabtree, hanging on with difficulty, neither saw nor heard. His whole attention was focused on the printed words before him.

“Twenty-seven Daylesford Gardens!” he murmured incredulously.

He read with difficulty, the words dancing up and down before his eyes to the jolting of the road. Then he saw something which almost caused him to tumble from his seat. From the mass of print one name stood out in heavy, accusing capitals—his own.

“’Strewth!” said Crabtree.

He was still staring at the paper in incredulous dismay when the lorry pulled up with a jerk. Looking up, he saw that they were on the crest of a steep hill. From the radiator cap came a thin jet of steam. The driver switched off the engine.

“Boiling again, as per usual,” he announced philosophically. “Now we’ll just ’ave to wait till ’er ’ighness is pleased to cool off. What’s the matter, comrade?”

Crabtree handed him over The Daily Toiler.

“Just look at that there,” he said. “Twenty-seven Daylesford Gardens—where I was in service. Colin James—the gent I was doing for. And me—the blighters have got me in it too!”

The driver studied the page for some time in silence. Then he took a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it.

“The perlice are anxious to interview”, he quoted, “Richard Crabtree. That you?”

“Yes, that’s me all right, mate, but——”

“Ar!” He pondered in silence for a while, and then: “The perlice, indeed! Well, sooner you than me. We’d best be getting on.”

A few hundred yards farther on the road crossed a small stream. Here he stopped the machine again, and produced a small tin jug, which he handed to Crabtree.

“Just get down and fill ’er up with water, will yer, comrade?” he said.

Crabtree was down at the waterside when he heard the roar of the engine being accelerated. He ran back just in time to see the lorry mount the bridge and disappear in a cloud of exhaust smoke. A voice floated back to his ears:

“I don’t want no dealings with the perlice, thank you, comrade!”

It had begun to rain. He was five miles from the nearest village, and his only possession in the world was an empty half-gallon tin jug.