Читать книгу Tenant for Death - Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark - Страница 8

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Monday, November 16th

“Mr. Harper?”

“Yes, Mr. Browne.”

“I want your attention, please. And yours too, Mr. Lewis.”

“Very good, sir.”

Harper put down the pencil with which he had been playing, and looked with disgust at his fellow employee. Not for the world would he have allowed himself to call Mr. Browne “sir”. Lewis saw the glance and scowled in reply. In every respect but their age and occupation the two young men were utterly dissimilar, and for various reasons they disliked each other cordially. Harper was slim, dark and sharp-featured. Lewis was pug-nosed, fair and heavily built. Lewis took his position and duties seriously. He was satisfied with his employment, which had come to him as the result of much hard labour at night classes and correspondence schools during long years of drudgery as an office boy. His ambition was to qualify himself as an auctioneer, surveyor and estate agent, and his horizon was bounded by a partnership in Inglewood, Browne & Co. Harper, on the contrary, considered himself thoroughly ill-treated by the fate which had thrown him abruptly out of Oxford into what he felt to be an unworthy occupation, and somewhat foolishly, he made no secret of the fact. He could not be induced to look upon his job as anything but a disagreeable necessity, and therefore treated it with a casualness that, combined with his indefinable and quite unintentional air of superiority, caused Lewis perpetual annoyance. In consequence, they avoided each other as much as was reasonably possible, but in a small office they were continually being thrown together and therefore continually jarring on each other.

“No. 27 Daylesford Gardens,” said Mr. Browne. He cleared his throat pompously. “Furnished letting, Miss Penrose to—to—er——”

“Colin James.”

“Thank you, Mr. Harper. To Mr. Colin James. For four weeks, expiring tomorrow. The tenant appears to have vacated the premises before the end of the lease. It is none the less our duty to protect our client’s interests to—ah—the best of our ability. Mr. Harper?”

“Yes, Mr. Browne.”

“You will please take Miss Penrose’s copy of the inventory of contents and check it carefully—carefully with—ah—with the contents. You understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“Making at the same time a careful note of any dilapidations which you may—which you may note.”

“Quite.”

“Mr. Lewis?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will go along with Mr. Harper, and supervise him.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Really, Mr. Browne,” Harper protested, “I think I am quite capable of doing a simple job like that without any assistance.”

“You may think so, Mr. Harper. Unfortunately, I do not. I have observed recently a certain regrettable—ah—laxity in your work. It is most undesirable in our class of business that we should be in any way—ah—lax. That is why I consider it necessary to send you to check the inventory, and Mr. Lewis to check you.”

With a faint snigger at his own attempted witticism Mr. Browne thereupon withdrew to his private office.

The two young men walked to Daylesford Gardens in thoroughly bad tempers. Harper had many reasons for feeling annoyed, among them the slight which had been put upon him and the consciousness that it was quite justified. Lewis, on his side, while pleased that the superior Harper had been “taken down a peg”, disliked being sent out on an unnecessary errand.

At the door, Lewis broke the silence in which they had walked together from the office.

“Have you got the key?” he asked.

“It would have been rather more useful if you had asked that question before we started,” replied Harper coldly. “As a matter of fact, I have.”

They passed inside.

“Have you got the inventory?” said Lewis.

This time Harper made no attempt to reply. He merely pulled a folded paper from his pocket and planted himself with his back to the door.

“You read them out and I’ll check them off,” said Lewis.

Harper shrugged his shoulders wearily, and in a tone of infinite disgust began to read: “Hall and passage. Five and a half yards green lino....”

“Right.”

“Carved mahogany hat-stand.... God, why do people have such things?”

“Right.”

“Ebony-framed wall mirror....”

“Right. No, it isn’t. One corner’s badly chipped.”

“Well, it doesn’t say so here.”

“Then it’s a dilapidation. Mark it down.”

Harper made a note. “Not that it’ll do much good to anybody,” he said, “as the tenant has gone abroad.”

“He had no call to go until he’d settled the dilapidations,” snapped Lewis. “Anyhow, we must protect our client. She’s got a right to claim for it. Put it down.”

“Oh, by all means,” said Harper in his most infuriating manner. “Shall we proceed? Japanese lacquer hanging cupboard....”

The hall completed, they passed to the front room on the ground floor. It was not a large room, but grossly over-furnished, and checking its contents proved a long and laborious affair. Lewis found two further small dilapidations and a cheap brass ashtray which was not in the inventory, and gloated audibly at his own perspicacity. Harper’s impatience became more and more manifest until at last his companion’s conscientiousness was satisfied and allowed him to move on to the smoking-room.

Harper was the first through the door. He stopped in the entrance, and as Lewis was about to follow, held him back.

“Just a moment,” he said gently. “I think there’s something here that isn’t in the inventory.”

The telephone bell rang in the police station which was at the corner of Upper Daylesford Street and the Fulham Road. Sergeant Tapper, who was a conscientious officer, made a note of the time before he answered it. It was 11.31 a.m. He put the receiver to his ear, and at first could make nothing of the message. He heard a succession of gasps, as if the speaker had been running fast. Finally a thick voice exclaimed: “Murder, murder! Come at once!”

“What do you say?” barked Tapper. “Who are you? Where——?”

“I say there’s been a murder——” repeated the voice. There was a moment’s silence, and the sergeant thought he had been cut off. Then a quiet, cultured voice broke in:

“I’m speaking from 27 Daylesford Gardens. Mr. Lionel Ballantine’s body is here. Will you come and remove it, please? .. Yes, certainly I’ll wait for you. Good-bye.”

Tapper leapt from his chair with a speed that would have been remarkable in a younger man. Within a bare half-minute of putting down the receiver he was out of the police station, a young constable at his heels, while at the telephone another officer sent an urgent message to Scotland Yard.

At the door of No. 27 the officers found the two young men awaiting them. Both had the appearance of having recently been through an unpleasant experience. Of the two, Harper was noticeably the cooler. It was he who greeted Tapper.

“Glad to see you, sergeant,” he said. “You will find him in the room at the back. Nothing has been touched.”

They followed the policeman through the hall into the smoking-room. The blind was down and the electric light burning. The contrast to the light of day outside gave a touch of unreality to the scene. There was a moment’s silence, as all gazed at the corpse. Here was no dignity in death, no repose. The sprawled, stiffened figure was like a monstrous marionette, hideous, grotesque, unseemly.

The sergeant bent over the remains for an instant, then straightened himself.

“The divisional surgeon will be here in a minute or two, I expect,” he said. “Not that there will be much for him to do, it seems. Then I’m expecting a senior officer from the Yard. You can keep your full statements for him. Meanwhile I’ll just take down a few particulars.” He produced his notebook. “Names and addresses, please,” he began, and, these transcribed, continued: “Which of you was it that telephoned?”

“I did,” answered Harper. “That is, mine was, I think, the effective message. My friend here actually had the first words, but I don’t think they carried very much weight.”

Lewis went an angry red. “We’re not all of us used to finding bodies about the place,” he muttered.

“That’s all right, me lad,” said Tapper kindly. “Nobody’s going to blame you for being a bit upset at a nasty sight like that. It’s only natural.” He turned to Harper. “And how did you know this was Mr. Ballantine?” he demanded.

For reply, Harper took a newspaper from his pocket.

“Fairly obvious, wasn’t it?” he remarked.

A streamer headline across the front page shouted in large capitals: “RIDDLE OF MISSING FINANCIER: WHERE IS MR. BALLANTINE?” Beneath it was a photograph of a man in early middle age, with a prosperous, conceited, not unhandsome face, dressed in a morning coat, grey top-hat and stock, an orchid in his buttonhole. The caption ran: “Mr. Lionel Ballantine; a photo taken at this year’s Derby.”

The sergeant looked from the photograph to the distorted face of the murdered man, and back again. “That’s him all right, I can see that,” he said.

He pursed his lips and remained silent for a moment.

“What were you two doing here?” he asked.

“Checking the inventory for the leaseholder. Miss Penrose,” put in Lewis, who felt it was time to assert himself. “She had let this place furnished and——”

“She hadn’t let it to Mr. Ballantine, I suppose?” asked Tapper.

“Lord, no! The tenant was a Mr. James. Sergeant, do you think——?”

“I think you two had better get on with your job of checking the inventory,” said Tapper. “We shall know then if anything’s missing from the house, at all events, and by the time you’ve finished I expect there will be someone here from the Yard to hear what you’ve got to say. Be careful, now. Nothing’s to be touched; and if you find anything suspicious, call me at once.”

The young men left the room obviously relieved to be able to get away from it and the atmosphere of violence and horror that pervaded it. The sergeant, after posting the constable at the front door to warn off any intruders, pulled out his notebook and pencil and began to make laborious notes in his round, board-school handwriting. Presently he was interrupted by the arrival of an officer from the police station, who brought with him the divisional surgeon. The latter, a pale little man with a reddish moustache, took little time over his examination.

“Strangulation,” he said briefly.

“How long has he been dead?” asked Tapper.

“It’s difficult to say—two or three days, approximately.”

“Well, we shall have to wait for further orders before we move him. Then perhaps you’ll be able to tell us something further.”

“A message from the Yard has just come through,” put in the newly arrived constable. “Inspector Mallett is coming down immediately. Meanwhile nothing is to be touched.”

“Does he think I don’t know my own business?” grumbled Tapper. “You can get along back to the station, me lad, and if you meet any newspaper men on the doorstep, keep your mouth shut.”

By way of protest he put away his notebook, as though determined that the too officious Mallett should have no further help from him. Consequently, he at once found himself with nothing to do. The surgeon rolled a cigarette and inserted it in a long holder, and settling down in a chair began to smoke with an air of melancholy boredom. Tapper tried to engage him in conversation, but found him little more communicative than Mr. Ballantine would have been. Finally, casting about for something to occupy his mind, he picked up the newspaper which Harper had left behind, and set himself to read the letterpress which straggled above, below and round-about the photographs of Mr. Lionel Ballantine and of the ornate façade of his London offices.

It was a mixture of fact and comment. The facts were brief, for the obvious reason that none were known beyond the all-important one that Mr. Ballantine, leaving his office at the usual time on Friday afternoon, had not been seen up to a late hour on Sunday night, although a large number of persons were extremely anxious to see him. The comment, on the other hand, was voluminous and pointed. It was couched in the careful style that is usually adopted by the press in relation to a man whose prosecution is to be expected but is not yet inevitable. It was artistically contrived to leave every reader under the firm impression that the object of its attention was a fugitive from justice, while cautiously abstaining from anything that might conceivably go beyond the bounds set by the law of libel. Mr. Lionel Ballantine, the newspaper reminded its readers, had for many years been an important figure in the City of London. He was in particular the chairman of the London and Imperial Estates Company, Ltd., a concern with an issued capital of two and a half million pounds. The article went on to remind its readers that the shares in that company, after having made what in a happy turn of phrase it described as a meteoric rise during the early part of the year, had collapsed abruptly in the past few days and were now quoted at one-tenth of their nominal value. The City, it added sagely, was gravely perturbed at the turn of events and the annual report and balance sheet, due in a fortnight’s time, were anxiously awaited. It went on to hint vaguely at repercussions and developments that might be expected. In conclusion, the writer remarked with an air of detachment that would not have deceived a child that it would be recollected that Mr. Ballantine’s name had been mentioned at the sensational trial of John Fanshawe over four years previously.

The sergeant looked up from his reading.

“Fanshawe!” he said aloud.

“Eh?” said the surgeon, spilling his cigarette ash on the carpet.

“He was released from Maidstone the other day, wasn’t he?”

“Thursday.”

“Fanshawe out and Ballantine dead,” mused Tapper. “Quite a coincidence, you might say. Wasn’t Ballantine supposed to have been mixed up in the Fanshawe bank fraud?”

But the surgeon’s interest in the subject seemed to have been already exhausted. Tapper sighed and turned to the football forecasts.