Enter A Murderer

CHAPTER XIII Contents of an Iron-Bound Box

How the devil did you know he had this?” asked Nigel.

Alleyn climbed down from his perch, put his hand in his pocket and produced a small key hanging on a long, very fine, steel chain.

“We found this round his neck. It suggested something of the sort to me. These boxes are made by one particular firm and the keys are rather individual. Now let us open it.”

He inserted the little key and turned it twice. The lock gave a sharp click and opened. Alleyn lifted the lid.

“More paper,” said Nigel.

“Yes. Wait a moment.”

Alleyn put the box down on the glass top of the dressing-table. From his pocket he took two pairs of tweezers and, using them delicately, lifted out a sheet of blue notepaper. It was folded. He opened it up carefully, and bent over it. Nigel heard him draw in his breath.

“Don’t touch it,” he said, “but look.”

And Nigel looked. On the paper two words were written over and over again:

“Edward Wakeford. Edward Wakeford. Edward Wakeford.”

Without a word Alleyn went out of the room, returning, followed by Fox, with the newspaper they had found in the trunk. He folded down the heading of the special article and laid it beside the paper on the dressing-table. The writing of the signature was identical.

“Why, in Heaven’s name, did he keep it?” whispered Nigel.

“You may well ask,” said Fox. “Human nature’s very rum, sir, very rum indeed. Vanity, as like as not.”

“Vanitas vanitatum, ” Alleyn murmured. “But not this time, Fox.”

The second paper proved to be another letter. It was signed H. J. M., and began: “Dear Mr. Saint.”

“Hullo!” said Alleyn. “Here’s the ex-footman coming out in a blaze of dubious glory. He mentioned this. It’s from Mortlake. ‘Please find enclosed my cheque for five hundred pounds in settlement of our little debt. The goods have all been disposed of, as per arrangement. The trade in Shantung silk is particularly satisfactory, but I have great hopes of celanese next June when our Mr. Charles comes over. Yours faithfully— ’ Oh, joy, oh rapture, my Foxkin, this is Mortlake himself! It’s a relic of our last little catch. Do you remember? Please to remember, my Fox.”

“I remember all right. Shantung was heroin and celanese was cocaine. We rounded ’em all up except Mortlake.”

“And ‘our Mr. Charles’ was none other than Sniffy Quarles, who got five of the best, bless his little soul. This will just about settle Mr. Mortlake. So that’s what Surbonadier had had up his sleeve for Jacob Saint.”

“Well, sir, I must say it begins to look more as if Saint’s our man. Although you’ve got to admit Trixie’s letter still points my way.”

“Aren’t you both excited?” Nigel observed perkily.

“You must allow us our drab thrills. There’s nothing more in the box.”

Alleyn refolded the papers, using the utmost care not to touch the surfaces. He put them in a black japanned case that Fox produced. Then he shut the iron-bound box, returned it to the wardrobe shelf, and lit a cigarette.

“Bailey had better get to work on the papers,” he said. “There’s nothing else here. I’m going to call on Miss Vaughan. No. Wait a moment I think I’ll ring her up.”

He sat on the bed, nursing his foot and rocking backwards and forwards. An expression of extreme distaste crossed his face. He took up the telephone directory, consulted it, and with a fastidious lift of his shoulders, dialled a number on the bedside telephone. The others waited.

“Is that Miss Stephanie Vaughan’s flat? May I speak to her? Will you say it’s Mr. Roderick Alleyn? Thank you.”

A pause. Alleyn traced his finger slowly round the base of the telephone.

“Is that Miss Vaughan? Please forgive me for bothering you. I am ringing up from Surbonadier’s flat. We intended to go through his papers this afternoon, but I find it’s going to be a very big job. There are some letters.” He paused. “Yes. I realise it is very disagreeable and I think it would be easiest for you if you could meet me here, and should there be any questions I can ask them straight away. That is extremely kind of you. I am locking the place up now and leaving it, but I thought of returning about nine this evening? Could you come then? May I pick you up? Oh, I see. At nine o’clock, then. Good-bye.” He hung up the receiver. “What’s the time?” he asked.

“Five o’clock,” said Nigel.

“Fox — will you take the papers back to the Yard and let Bailey have them? And tell the constable outside he can go.”

“Go!” echoed Fox dazedly.

“Yes, and don’t send anyone to relieve him. I’m staying on here myself.”

“Until nine?” asked Nigel.

“Until nine — or earlier.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “You can get hold of Felix Gardener again. You can tell him the police believe Surbonadier to have written the article in the Morning Express. Ask him if he can give us more information about Surbonadier’s Cambridge days. Anything at all that he can remember. There may be something he’s holding back. He’s feeling jumpy, you tell me. If he’s got the idea we’re suspecting him his natural reaction will be to disclaim any previous relationship with Surbonadier.”

Nigel looked uncomfortable.

“I don’t like the idea of pumping him.”

“Then you are useless. I’ll see him myself.”

“Sorry if I’m tiresome.”

“All amateurs are tiresome. You want to be in on this, but you shy off anything that is at all unpleasant. We had this out before in the Wilde case. You’d much better keep out of it, Bathgate. I should have said so at the beginning.”

“If you can assure me Felix is safe—”

“I can give you no assurances about anybody who was behind the scenes. I have my own theory, but it may be all wrong. It’s by no means cast-iron and a new development might set us off on a completely new track after any one of them, from Gardener himself down to old Blair. You want me to assure you with my hand on my heart that I am not interested in Gardener. I can’t do it. Of course I’m interested in him. He fired the revolver. I might have arrested him there and then. He’s one of the mob, and I’ve got to prove to myself he didn’t plant the cartridges. Like everyone else in the case, he isn’t volunteering information. As an innocent man he’s a fool if he tries to blind the police. He may have a specific reason for doing so. He’s in love. Think that out. If you choose, you may tell him the theory as regards Saint, and if he knows anything about Surbonadier’s past that may throw light on that theory, and cares to tell you, and you are still on the side of justice — well and good. Otherwise I shall have to ask you to regard me as you would any other detective on his job, and to expect to get no information but the sort of stuff you can publish in your paper. Have I made myself intelligible?”

“Abundantly. I can take a snub with as good a grace as anyone else, I hope,” said Nigel miserably.

“I’m sorry you look at it like that. What line do you mean to take?”

“May I think it over? If I decide to pull out, you may be quite sure I shall treat this afternoon’s discoveries as entirely confidential. I promised that, anyway. And I’ll let you see my copy, of course.”

“That’s a very fair answer. Let me know at my flat this evening, will you? Now I must ask you both to go.”

Nigel followed Fox into the passage. At the door he turned and looked back.

“Well — good-bye for the present,” he muttered.

“Good-bye, you old sausage,” said Inspector Alleyn.

Fox told the constable at the entrance to the flat to go off. Then he turned to the still discomfited Nigel.

“I dare say you think the Chiefs been a bit hard, — sir,” he ventured, “but you don’t want to look at it that way. It’s a matter of what you might call professional etiquette. The Chief likes you, you see, and he’s so— so blasted honest, if you’ll excuse me. His job has to come before anything. Don’t you worry about Mr. Gardener. He’s been the cat’s-paw, and nothing else, and if he starts holding back information he’s very foolish.”

“I don’t think he has done anything of the sort,” complained Nigel.

“Well, all the better. If you decide to help us, Mr. Bathgate, I’m sure you won’t regret it and I’m sure Chief Inspector Alleyn will be very pleased.”

Nigel looked at his large, comfortable face and suddenly liked him very much.

“It’s nice of you to bother, inspector,” he said. “I was a bit disgruntled. He made me feel such an ass and — and I do admire him so very much.”

“You’re not alone in that, sir. Well, I must be off. Going my way, sir?”

“I’m for Chester Terrace.”

“And I’m for the Yard. No rest for the wicked. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, inspector.”

Nigel’s flat in Chester Terrace was a short walk from Gerald’s Row. He strode along quickly, still rather miserable over his lecture from Alleyn. He had only gone a couple of hundred yards when a taxi passed him, moving slowly along the kerb as though cruising for a passenger. Nigel automatically shook his head, and then saw that the man had a fare — a woman. As the cab passed him a streamer of light from the street lamp caught her face. It was Stephanie Vaughan. She gave no hint of recognition, and in a moment had passed him. He turned and stared after the taxi. She must have misunderstood, he thought, and is going now to the flat. However, the man drove slowly down the little street, past Surbonadier’s windows, and then turned off to the left and disappeared.

“Rum!” thought Nigel and walked on thoughtfully. “Very rum!” he said aloud.

Back in his own flat he turned on the light and, after further cogitation, decided to try and put himself in a better mood by writing to Angela North, who does not come into this story. She was an ardent admirer of Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn and would know just how raw Nigel felt. Would she suggest he kept in the game? Would she tell him his scruples about “pumping” Gardener were ridiculous? He couldn’t ask her without breaking confidence. Damn it all, what was he going to do? Perhaps he’d better go to the Queen’s in Cliveden Place and have an evening meal. He wasn’t hungry. Alleyn was fed up with him and had made him feel young, and a prig. He knew, Good Lord, that Felix hadn’t murdered Arthur Surbonadier. Why shouldn’t he ask him if—

The telephone pealed shrilly. Nigel muttered and grumbled and took off the receiver.

Gardener’s voice came urgently.

“Is that you, Nigel? Look here, I want to see you. There’s something I didn’t tell you, about Cambridge, this morning. I was a fool. Could I see you now?”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “Yes.”

“Will you come here or would you rather I came to you? How about dining here with me? Will you?”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “Thank you, Felix.”

“Well, don’t change — come along now.”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “Thank you, Felix.”

They rang off. He could have shouted with joy. His problem was solved. He rushed to the bathroom and washed, lavishly. He changed his shirt and brushed his hair. Seized with a desire to acquire a little merit in Alleyn’s eyes, he rang up Surbonadier’s flat He could hear the telephone ringing there and waited for some time, but nobody answered it. Alleyn had gone, after all. He would ring up again later. He seized his hat and ran downstairs. He hailed a taxi, gave Gardener’s address, and flung himself back. Only then did it occur to him that it was very clever of Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn to have guessed that Gardener would be able to tell them something more about the peculiar behaviour of Arthur Surbonadier, during the days when he was an undergraduate. Gradually he was conscious of an idea that edged in at the back of his mind, an idea that was still only half sensed. He examined it now more closely, letting it come up to the front of his consciousness. For a moment he shied round it nervously, but it was insistent, and presently he fell to reasoning it out with logical persistence. Then a great light dawned on Nigel.

“That’s it,” he whispered. “That’s it. Gosh, what a blind fool I’ve been.” And then with complete understanding he thought: “Poor old Felix!”

Meanwhile in Surbonadier’s flat it had grown very dark.