Читать книгу The Tiger in the Smoke - Margery Allingham - Страница 5

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THE SPOOR It is not easy to tell when enmity first begins, when that force which is part fear, part rivalry, and part the frank urge for survival first springs, but it was on that freezing walk that Charlie Luke caught the first wind of the man who of all his many quarries was to become the chief enemy of his life.

As Amanda had guessed, at that time he was chiefly angry with himself. He was the best of policemen, which is to say that he never for one moment assumed that he was judge or jury, warder or hangman. He saw himself as the shepherd dog does; until he had rounded him up the malefactor was his private responsibility, to be protected as well as cornered. His job was first to locate him and then to bring him in alive, so the fact that he had ignored the terror which he had seen so plainly in the pale face above the grotesque moustache, and had sent Duds Morrison out alone to die, made him furious. It had been a professional slip of the worst kind and he hated himself for making it.

Yet behind his self-criticism there was something more. Just then he had a presentiment, a warning from some experience-born sixth sense, that he was about to encounter something rare and dangerous. The whiff of tiger crept to him through the fog.

The walk itself was an experience. Without old Avril, who knew his parish blindfold, they might never have achieved it. The fog was now at its worst, rolling up from the river dense as a feather bed. It hung between street lamp and street lamp in blinding and abominable folds, and since in that area the architecture is all much alike, and the streets are arranged in a series of graceful curves in which it is easy to walk in a circle in sunlight, the mile from the rectory to Crumb Street might well have been a maze. However, the Canon plunged into it with complete confidence, walking very fast.

As he strode behind his uncle, Mr. Campion eyed the somewhat picturesque figure with affection. Canon Avril’s coat in particular was remarkable, and even famous in its own small way. It might have been designed by Phil May, for it brushed its wearer’s boots and was fastened by a double row of bone buttons, each as large as a small saucer, which ran down in a double line to well below its owner’s knees. Moreover, since it appeared to be cut from a shepherd’s plaid carpet, it had acquired with the years the complete mould of the old man’s form, even to the bulge in his right-hand jacket pocket where he carried his tobacco tin, and he marched along inside it as if it were a shell.

The story about it that Campion knew was that it was often in pawn. Uncle Hubert was notoriously unsafe with money, so Miss Warburton, a pleasant spinster who lived in one of the glebe cottages and devoted herself to the church, had, since his wife’s death, taken complete charge of his private expenditure. She allowed him so much loose change every Saturday, placing the money in the brass box on his study mantelshelf, and she was absolutely adamant. If he overspent in the early part of the week, penniless he remained until payday.

Financially embarrassed parishioners from the poor streets behind the shops knew all this as well as he did, and whenever possible confined their importunities to the week end, but when, as must sometimes happen, some vital need arose at a moment’s notice, there was still just one other way. On these occasions the Canon’s coat was carried through the square in daylight over the arm of the borrower to the little pop-shop on the corner, and old Mr. Hertz paid out forty-three shillings and sixpence on it. It was not worth the money. The Jew never forbore to say so. Thus the whole performance was a penance as well as a relief. Only the old and trusted availed themselves of it, and then only in exceptional circumstances, so that, in certain circles, “it’ll be a case of the Canon’s coat” had become a phrase denoting the end of the tether in money matters.

To do him justice, Avril knew exactly what he was about. He had no illusions and possessed in his own queer way a quality of blazing common sense. Almost always he had to redeem the pledge himself. He did not set up as a charitable institution and was in no respect sentimental, but he was humble, he had charity, and he had friends.

Moreover, in common with many Christians of this classic type, he felt sincerely safer and more at ease when he had given away all he had, like a man passing a ball in a game. In his case the result appeared to be a strange material freedom. He walked, as it were, on the water. The compulsion which demanded his small possessions gave him in return Miss Warburton. It was a splendid exchange.

He took his nephew and Charlie Luke to Crumb Street by a series of short cuts, while they followed him with their fingers crossed. They came upon their goal unexpectedly. A last spurt through a pitch-dark mews brought them into the heart of its murky length, not a stone’s throw from the police station. Here he paused and looked round at them.

“Now, where is this poor fellow?”

“Pump Path,” said Luke promptly. “Up here on the right, past the Feathers.”

Once out of the wilderness of plinth and portico, he knew his own manor as well as any man alive, and he led them swiftly down the dark pavement beside the shuttered shops. It was no night for strolling and there were few people about, but the inevitable group of the under-entertained were lounging round a dark entrance beside the Four Feathers public house. This tavern was of the lesser gin-palace type. It leered at them through the mist, flaunting offhandedly a drab gaiety of tile and trademark, while all along the brass rail which bordered the frosted glass diapering of the saloon window, a row of half heads, grotesquely bisected, were turned to peer at them curiously as they swept by.

As they brushed through the group a gleam of silver appeared in the alley’s dark mouth and a constable saluted as he recognised Luke.

“The trouble’s at the other end, sir, near the Bourne Avenue entrance. You’ll need a torch. It’s very thick in there.”

Luke had already produced one. It had a yellow silk sock tied over it and gave a fairly penetrating beam, but even so progress was difficult.

The stone way was very worn and sloped sharply from each side to an open gutter in the centre, while the high walls which lined it leaned together, their dark surfaces blank as cliffs.

“What a place to die in!” The Chief spoke with disgust.

“Or to live in, of course.” Mr. Campion’s light voice sounded affable. He had just reached the end of the wall and had come upon a crooked wooden fence which would have appeared self-consciously rustic in a Sussex village. Some little way behind it the square of a small window shone orange in the mist.

“Back garden of 37 Grove Road,” said Luke over his shoulder. “Last of its kind. (Hands off our beauty spots.) There used to be a row of ’em over here, but they’ve all been built over, except that one which is kept tidy by the caretaker of the solicitor’s office. It’s quite a sight in the summer. Four marigolds in a fancy flowerpot. The old man has nuisance-by-cats on the brain. Goes down to the station to complain every Friday. I wonder if he heard anything tonight. Look out, there’s a bit of a bend here somewhere.... Ah.”

The torch beam turned and, following it, they came upon the scene of the trouble. It was a dramatic picture. Some resourceful policeman had unearthed one of the old naphtha flares which are the only real answer to fog. Like a livid plume, it spat and hissed above the heads of a knot of men in the chasm, its vigorous smoke trail mingling with the other vapours, making Rembrandtesque clouds above them.

“Chief?” The brisk voice of Sergeant Picot came to them hollowly as his chunky silhouette detached itself from the dark mass.

“Wotcher, George.” Luke was ferociously cheerful as usual. “What have you got there?”

“Quite enough, sir. Can you get by? There’s not much room. The doctor’s here.” This last was clearly in the nature of a friendly warning. They advanced cautiously, the little crowd parting for them.

Duds had died in a hole. In a narrow angle where two walls met there was a space perhaps a foot wide and eighteen inches deep, and into this the body was crammed in a sitting position, the legs drawn up, the chin on the breast. It seemed impossible that any human being should take up so little space. He sat, a heap of unwanted rubbish, and the red shadow which spread out over his sports coat like a bib had crept over his hands and on to the stones. He looked very small and negligible, scarcely even horrible, in the circle of dark heads about him.

Luke squatted down on his heels and the constable brought the flare a step nearer. Picot bent towards his Chief.

“One of our own men found him at six-forty, but he may have been here an hour or more,” he murmured, his heavy-featured face catching the light from Luke’s own torch. “This path isn’t used very much, and anyway, I doubt whether one would have seen him if one was hurrying by.”

“Or stopped if one had. He’s no wayside flower,” muttered Luke, getting up to make way for Mr. Campion. “What was the exact time he left us this afternoon?”

“Well after five, sir. I can’t say for sure. I was hoping you’d have noticed. I came along as soon as I got the report, of course. We’ve had the photographer and made the survey. Here’s the doctor, sir.”

The reminder was scarcely necessary. A steady grumble from the region of the Chief Inspector’s elbow had been audible for some time. Now Luke turned his head towards it.

“Funny how we always disturb you at your dinner, Doc,” he said mildly into the darkness. “I’ve got a parson just behind me. No offence. I only thought you’d like to know.”

The rumbling ceased abruptly and a clipped schoolmasterish voice remarked acidly: “Very good of you to bother about my immortal soul, Chief Inspector. I’m afraid I’d ceased to concern myself about yours. I’ve been waiting here for over half an hour, and of course any sort of examination in these circumstances is quite useless. If you’ll have this sent along I’ll do the P.M. at nine tomorrow.”

“Righto.” Luke did not turn his head. “Just before you go, what is all that? Throat cut?”

“The haemorrhage? Oh no. That’s from the nose. That’s nothing.”

“Get away!” The D.D.C.I. sounded relieved. “It’s natural, is it? Had a nosebleed and just sat down and died?”

“Not unless by so doing he cracked himself over the head with sufficient force to fracture the vault.” The prim voice was smugly amused. “I think that, as you might so easily say yourself, Charles, someone has been ‘putting in the leather.’ I have no intention of committing myself, but I should say that was done with a boot. We shall know in the morning.”

“Can we wash his face?”

“If it gives you any satisfaction. Good evening.” He trotted off and his plump figure was swallowed by the fog.

“Steak and kidney pudding night,” murmured Luke, glancing after him. “I hope she’s kept it hot for him. Can we get this face fit to look at, George?”

“Here, sir?”

“Yes, please. I’ve got someone to see it. Get on with it, old man, will you?” He broke off abruptly as Campion touched his shoulder. Old Avril had come into the circle of light and stood now bowed before all that remained of the wretched Duds. He was uncovered, his tufty untidy hair sticking up like rough grass on his fine head. He was wiping the blood very gently from the face with a great white handkerchief, performing the operation inexpertly but with a certain clumsy care which suggested to the minds of everybody present the same sort of operation performed on a child with a cold. He betrayed no trace of distaste or hesitation and Sergeant Picot for one was frankly scandalised. He made a faint noise in his throat like a startled pheasant and was on the point of intervening when Luke’s hand bit into his arm. The Chief was very still. He stood poised, every sense alert, his eyes snapping and the great kite-shaped mass of his shoulders cut into the picture, lending it new drama.

The Canon continued his ministrations quietly and inexpertly, making a considerable mess of himself. It was clear that along with sin blood had no terrors for him.

“There,” he said at last, apparently to the corpse, and he looked long at the now no longer horrible but dirty and infinitely pathetic face. Presently he pulled the lids down over the dull eyes.

“Poor boy.” All the wastage of Duds’ manhood was expressed and commiserated in unself-conscious regret.

As Avril took up the dead man’s hands to fold them, the jacket sleeves caught his attention and for the first time he became puzzled. He lifted the right arm and ran his hand up to the elbow.

“Some light, please,” he commanded gently, and Luke’s torch shone down for him at once. It fell on a neat leather patch on the elbow and on a smaller one nearer the cuff. It was good amateur work, an Army batman’s job.

“Seen him before, sir?”

The old man did not answer. He finished his task, folded the hands, and rose. He leant over to Luke.

“I should like to talk to you.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Where are you taking this poor fellow? Can we go there?”

“No, sir, we’ll go along to the station, if you don’t mind. It’s just round the corner. The body must go down to the mortuary. The van will be here now.” Luke was firm but respectful and the old man nodded. The two appeared to be in complete accord, Mr. Campion noticed, as if they had known each other a very long time.

“I want that jacket,” said Avril. “I want to take it home.”

“Very good, sir.” Luke did not bat an eyelid. “We’ll have all the clothes, George, as soon as you can, down at the station. Okay?”

Picot stepped back to give an order. The atmosphere of the entire proceedings had undergone an abrupt change. The query had gone out of it and life and bustle had returned.

While Mr. Campion was taking from his uncle the terrible handkerchief, which he appeared to be on the verge of stuffing into his pocket, Luke paused to give the routine instructions. The power of the man became almost frighteningly noticeable at once, as if a truck engine had suddenly started up in the narrow way.

“Detective Slaney there?” he enquired, and hurried on as a compact shadow hurried in out of the dark. “Mrs. Gollie, Bill. You know her well, don’t you? Nip along to the side bar of the Feathers and see what you can pick up. She’ll open her mouth, of course, but if you don’t fall right in you may be able to sort out something from the shower. Keep it as quiet as you can until this lot is out of the way. Detective Coleman.”

“Here, sir.” The young voice just behind Campion was unsteady in its eagerness and a heavy figure brushed past him.

“Look alive, look alive! Zeal, energy, that’s what we want in the C.I.D.! Don’t tread on Exhibit A.” Luke’s irony was ferocious as his smile in the dark. “Now, just down here behind us there’s a low fence with a wicket in it. If you can’t find the wicket climb over the fence. You’ll see a little window all lit up. When you’ve fallen over the graveyard of little images which fill the perishing place, tap on a window and a door will open just beside you. Inside there’ll be the damnedest old man you ever saw, called Creasey. Listen to him, and if you don’t lose your temper you’ll make a good policeman. If you can get him to tell you if he heard or saw anything unusual in this alley between five-thirty and six-forty tonight, you may grow into a detective. He’s sure to have been in. He’s got a bedridden old mother in there who he can’t leave. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right. Off you go. Step on it. Sergeant Branch about? Oh, there you are, Henry. The deceased has got some relations, nice decent little people called Atkins. Mrs. Atkins is a sister. They live in Tufnell Park. I’ve got the address here somewhere. I took it down when I looked him up this afternoon. Yes, here it is: 22 Smith Street. Can you see to that?”

“Right, sir.” The crowd of detectives was thinning and the mortuary attendants had appeared. Luke took Campion by one arm and the Canon by the other and moved them gently round. “We must get back,” he said. “The Boss will be down by this time.”

Avril looked back. “That poor fellow, will they take him home?”

“Well”—Luke was amused—“they tell me Chelmsford’s a modern prison and it’s amazing what they’re up to nowadays, but even so I doubt if they see their old boys off with plumes and four carriages for the mourners.”

“But you said something about relatives.”

“Oh yes, next of kin.” He sounded gloomy. “It comes hard on people like that. He gave the poor woman’s name at his first conviction, I suppose. We never forget. Still, someone’s got to stump up for the box and shovel, if we can persuade them to. The public must be protected. This way, sir. I think you want to talk to me. Did you know him?”

The torch in the hand which was through Campion’s arm happened to slip up at that moment, and the beam played over the fine old face.

“No. He was a complete stranger.” The Canon sounded regretful. “I should have known Martin. I should have known Martin anywhere. He was a strange, distinctive lad. This poor boy was not like him in feature at all.”

There was a moment’s interruption as they came out of the path and found the wider pavement. They were all three walking very fast, all tall men, their heads close together.

“But the jacket,” Luke began, and Avril nodded.

“The jacket was Martin’s, and it came from my house.”

“Did it, by Jove! When? I mean, when did you last see it?”

“I’ve been trying to think. I don’t know, exactly. I’m not very observant. Some weeks ago, perhaps. Perhaps two months.”

Luke pursed his lips for a whistle and changed his mind. They had reached the station and he led them into its austere carbolic-scented interior and through to the C.I.D. room and his own modest office beyond. Even here the fog had penetrated, hanging in the atmosphere like a smoke haze. But the light was quite good enough to show the younger men something they had not noticed before: the Canon was in no fit state to be sent home uncleansed. The only occupant, Detective Constable Galloway, a round-faced young man who was Luke’s clerk, sprang up from his desk at the first glance, supposing no doubt that a murderer had been brought in red-handed, and even Mr. Campion looked startled.

“Yes, well,” said Luke, eying the old gentleman with incredulity, “we’d better continue this in the washroom. Has the Super phoned yet, Andy? He hasn’t shown up yet, I suppose?”

“No sign of him yet, sir. There are one or two items, though. There have been several enquiries concerning Mr. Geoffrey Levett. His secretary is creating. It appears he was speaking at a dinner tonight, rather a big show, and he hasn’t turned up. Both the secretary and Mrs. Elginbrodde suggested he might have contacted you. They seemed very worried.”

The two younger men exchanged glances and then Luke shrugged his shoulders and touched Avril’s arm.

“You’d really better come along with us, sir,” he said, and in the washroom, while they attended to him with considerable efficiency, the interrogation continued.

“Oh no, my dear fellow, it was not years ago.” In his shirt sleeves Avril stood talking to the back of Luke’s neck as the Chief Inspector scrubbed the front of the famous coat with a wet towel. “That particular jacket—one could hardly mistake it—has been hanging in the cloakroom at the rectory for years, but it was there quite recently. It was certainly there when this winter began.”

“How do you know, Uncle?” Campion was running warm water over the old hands, slender, clumsy scholar’s hands whose fine almond nails took care of themselves, and he put a piece of soap in them as he spoke.

“Because I saw it there when I took my heavy coat from over it on the first cold day of the autumn. That was St. Matthew’s Day, the twenty-first of September, very early for cold weather. We old men notice things like that.” Avril took the soap and washed his hands with the obedience of one who was used to tyranny in small matters. He made a long thorough job of it, exactly as he had been taught long ago. It was clear he had no idea what he was doing and his eyes were very grave and thoughtful. “Yes, it was there then. That’s less than seven weeks ago. I always hung something over it, you see, and I looked round for something else to cover it with. There was a mackintosh there and I put that round it.”

“Why?”

The Canon put out his hands for the towel. “Because I thought Meg might go in there and see it. It always reminded me so vividly of Martin. I saw no reason why she should have the same experience.” His glance flickered over to Luke, who was watching him, nodding, his diamond eyes live as coals. Avril echoed his faint smile. “I might have put it away, mightn’t I, folded it and hidden it in my study? But I didn’t, you know. I just left it there and covered it up every time. Queer how the mind plays these little tricks. One isn’t thinking, I suppose. You understand that, don’t you, Inspector? I thought you would.”

Luke’s face grew a shade darker and he laughed, only to become serious again immediately.

“Have another look at it, sir. Best to be sure. You see what it means.”

“Of course I do, my boy, of course I do.” Avril struggled back into his clothes. “Someone very close to us indeed must be involved, and it’s a very curious thing because as I see it this strangely cruel deception is aimed directly at Meg, and I should not have said that anyone who knew her would do it. That’s why I must have that jacket and I must take it home.”

From force of habit he took the lead back to Luke’s room, talking freely, his pleasant voice resonant in the bleak corridors.

“You think you can find out who it was, do you, sir?” Luke got in front just in time to open his own door.

“Oh yes.” For a moment the old eyes met his and he saw there that strange sternness which hitherto he had associated only with the Bench. Its utter ruthlessness shook him once again, as it always did. “Oh yes,” said Avril again, “I shall find out.”

They had been longer than they thought and Sergeant Picot was waiting for them, his horrible brown paper parcel open on a table and each item, neatly labelled, set out upon it. His stolid eyebrows rose as Avril pounced upon the stained and sodden jacket and spread it before them.

“The contents of the pockets is in here, sir,” he murmured to Luke, indicating a second, unopened parcel.

“We shan’t want that.” Avril brushed him aside and concentrated on the garment. “It’s what we used to call ‘loud,’ ” he observed. “The tweed is loud. That’s what Meg recognised, do you see? She sees a great deal of material in her work. She’d forgotten this, but the pattern stuck in her mind and was associated with the boy. Do you see that?”

He pointed to the place where the tailor’s tab had been carefully unpicked on the inside of the breast pocket.

“How extraordinary! Now who in the world would have thought of doing that?”

“Quite a number of our clients, sir. You’d be surprised.” Luke was grinning. “It’s the patches you recognised, though, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” The Canon turned the sleeve over and found them again. “Those two patches. I used to wonder—idly, you know—why there were two. Why not put a large piece of leather over both holes? I know nothing about such things, but it struck me as being most odd.”

“Perhaps the holes were made at different times, sir.”

Sergeant Picot, whose thick dark hair shot out of the top of his head as if he were in a permanent state of shock, decided that his Chief was determined to humour a harmless idiot and attempted to play too.

Avril was unconvinced. “It may have been that, but I still think it would have been wiser to have a single patch,” he said. “However, I can swear to these, that’s one thing. I sometimes feel that all these very small things have a purpose, you know. One mustn’t be precise, and that line of thought leads one to some very strange conclusions, but I do sometimes wonder. Now, if you’ll wrap that up I’ll take it home and find out how it came to be where it was.”

He handed the jacket to Picot and indicated the brown paper.

The sergeant shot a questioning glance at Luke, who nodded.

“I’m going to send George here down with you, sir,” he said. “Do you mind?”

The Canon frowned. “I’d rather do it alone. I shall be dealing with my family. Everyone in the house has lived there so long.”

“Exactly.” Luke was handling him with affection rather than merely with care. “That’s why I want to give you George. He’s my senior assistant, a quiet, discreet sort of man,” he added firmly, eying the sergeant with open menace. “He’s so self-effacing you won’t know he’s there.”

Avril remained dubious. “I should find it much easier,” he said sadly, and Luke hesitated.

“No,” he said at last, “I daren’t. It’s evidence, you see. Got to be produced in court. George has signed for it. He can’t let it go.”

“Very well.” The Canon gave way not only with grace but with generosity. “In that case, Sergeant, you and I must make good friends. Come along. I warn you, though, my dear sir, I fear this may be very painful for you, very embarrassing and painful indeed.”

Picot regarded him blankly, but he was experienced and did what he always did when in doubt, falling back on silent obedience. Nothing could have been more fortunate.

As the door closed behind the unlikely pair Mr. Campion offered Luke a cigarette and took one himself.

“You would have trusted him,” he remarked, “in fact, you are trusting him, quite amazingly. You’re right, of course, but I don’t see quite why you decided to.”

“Don’t you?” Luke was uncharacteristically embarrassed. He thrust long fingers through his hair. “I know that kind,” he said. “There’s not a lot of them and they’re seldom much to do with the church—except there was one old girl I remember who ran a convent down in Leyton when I was a child. She was one and she was religious, wore all the doings.” He made himself a coif with his plaited fingers and lightly sketched in a swinging crucifix. “But it doesn’t follow. The one I got to know best was a dear old bloke who had an eel stall in Paddington Market. They crop up anywhere, you can’t miss ’em. All you know is that you can trust ’em where you wouldn’t trust your Ma. They’ve got to be on the up-and-up, see?”

“Not entirely.” Mr. Campion conveyed that this was a field of police knowledge entirely new to him.

Luke sighed and turned to his desk, where the chits had accumulated.

“Because otherwise they fall flat on their kissers, chum,” he said cheerfully. “Look at ’em. By ordinary standards they’re not safe out. They ought to be starving in the gutter, imposed on by every crook in creation. But are they? Are they, hell! There they go, picking their way like a drunk on a parapet, apparently obeying instructions which no one else can hear. They go barging into filth and it runs off them as if they were lead-glazed. They see all the dirt and none of it shocks ’em. They hand over all they’ve got and yet they never want. All you and I can do is to spot them when we see them. I recognised that old boy the moment he spoke to me. He’ll come back with the truth about that jacket whatever it costs him. He’s got to.”

Campion’s eyes had grown dark behind his horn-rims.

“But who,” he demanded, “who in all that household could have smuggled that jacket out to Duds Morrison?”

Luke was turning papers out on his desk and he spoke without looking up.

“Who could, except the girl?” he said slowly. “Either she, or that new chap of hers, who seems to have disappeared.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I hope so.” He glanced up and smiled. “Perhaps it’s a miracle.”

“Perhaps there’s another card in the pack,” said Mr. Campion.