A Gross Carriage of Justice

Chapter 8

Despite the fact that neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor even dark of night, for that matter, were present to stay them — especially since it was eleven o’clock of a sunny September morning — the postal messengers of Her Majesty’s Service still managed to make their appointed rounds, and in the course of doing so, dropped off a missive at the Mystery Authors Club addressed to Timothy Briggs and Clifford Simpson.

Potter, the secretary, frowned as he fingered it suspiciously. In all his years of tenure as secretary, the only other message he could recall any of the three receiving was when the Jarvis award had been given them some months before. He was also surprised to see the name of William Carruthers omitted from the cover of the letter, but this mystery, at least, was resolved for him when he made his way toward their niche in the northeast corner of the lounge. Since Carruthers was missing, and since the letter was addressed to the other two, it was obvious to Potter — who had several minor mystery novels to his credit himself, and who considered himself therefore quite a master of analysis — that the missive had to be from Carruthers, and nobody else.

And no wonder the old man stopped writing, Potter thought, taking pleasure from the concept, considering the awful state of his penmanship — or pencilmanship, rather. Printed, and barely legible, at that. Probably never heard of a typewriter, and wouldn’t be able to solve its intricacies if he had! Must have driven his publisher crazy!

Satisfied with his analysis, and wondering how he might be able to work it into his next opus, he handed the letter over with a sniff and made his way back to his office, noting in passing that the old men had gone back to beer, and that Simpson was back to smoking those tarred bits of rope he used to smoke before. Probably wasted all that lovely Jarvis money, Potter thought with more than a touch of satisfaction, and then smiled as he could visualize himself making good sport of the fact with his coterie when they arrived for lunch.

“Silly ass!” Briggs said, making no attempt to lower his voice as he looked after the secretary with contempt, after which he brought his attention to the letter he had been handed. He turned it over to study it from all sides.

Simpson was leaning forward eagerly. “From Billy-Boy?”

“Not unless he broke his arm and was writing with his left hand,” Briggs said, and then suddenly nodded, his writer’s brain — or ex-writer’s brain, that is — suddenly afire. Old habits die hard. “That’s probably it. He’s probably in some nursing home someplace with a broken arm. Probably couldn’t stand the thought of cucumber sandwiches so he stepped in front of a lorry; it wasn’t the river at all. Or maybe he’s just faking the broken arm, just pretended to be struck by a lorry, to get the food they serve in nursing homes — although,” he said, thinking about it, “that doesn’t make much sense. But he was struck by a lorry on his way here to meet us, yesterday. He was carried to this nursing home, unconscious, and when he came to his senses he knew we would be worried, so he managed to get his hands on a pencil and some note paper, and—”

“How?” Simpson asked, intrigued.

“By getting a nurse’s attention in the emergency area, of course—”

“How?” Simpson was nothing if not a perfectionist where plot was concerned.

“By... by... by pinching her—”

“Where?”

“In the rear. That’s allowable these days,” Briggs said with a snort. “We couldn’t have gotten away with that in a million years; today it’s almost obligatory. Anyway, once he had her attention, he reached over and took the pencil that was clipped to her uniform blouse just where her excessive cleavage started to become interesting. It’s all the rage these days, that sort of stuff, you know,” he said gloomily. “That’s undoubtedly why we couldn’t give our stuff away, even if we were writing. Which, of course, we are not.”

“And the sheet of paper and the envelope?” Simpson asked, intrigued, still back at the nursing home.

“He simply asked her for a sheet of paper and an envelope and she handed them over,” Briggs said shortly, no longer interested in the plot. “Plus a stamp, of course. They have scads of stamps in nursing homes.”

“I’m sorry, Tim,” Simpson said apologetically. Something had been tickling his memory and he finally recalled what it was. “But I already used that plot. Not the pinch in the rear or the excessive cleavage bit, of course, but the man pretending to be struck by a lorry just to be carried to a nursing home where he gets the attention of the head nurse and asks for writing material—”

“So you did!” Briggs said, also recalling the novel. “When he gets the pencil he stabs her to death with it, a pencil she had just sharpened herself at his request. I thought the symbolism was quite profound; for those days, that is, of course. You called the book Up to the Eraser, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Exactly!” Simpson said, pleased that Briggs had remembered. “This nurse had jilted this man when they were mere youngsters in the village of Muggling-in-the-Fields, Berks, and now thirty years later he comes back from Borneo for his revenge. He had been raising garlic in Borneo, and had the habit of checking the tenderness of young garlic by poking it with a sharpened pencil, so when he went into this restaurant after the killing—”

“And they served him with garlic—”

“And he inadvertently poked it with the death weapon—”

“And the garlic turned red—”

“The waiter made a citizen’s arrest!” Simpson beamed. Then his face fell. “Up to the Eraser never did as well as I had hoped for, now that I recall.”

“A lack of appreciation by an unworthy public,” Briggs said commiseratingly. “However, to get back to this,” he said, weighing the letter thoughtfully in one of his little hands, “why on earth do you suppose Billy-Boy went to all the trouble of disguising his handwriting so successfully, when all he had to do was simply telephone us?”

“Possibly the nurse, while amply supplied with stamps, lacked the proper coin?”

“Possibly—”

“But, of course, one could open the letter and find out?”

Briggs nodded. “Not a bad idea.” He slit the envelope with a thumbnail, removed the neatly folded sheet of paper within, and began to read it while Simpson waited anxiously. While the printing might not have given excessive pleasure to any Spencerian, it was quite legible. To Briggs it was also rather startling. “Well, well!” he said softly, his eyebrows rising dramatically, and handed the missive over to Simpson.

Simpson, mystified, put aside the tarred rope he had been nurturing, took the letter, and adjusted its distance from his aging eyes until he was able to focus properly. He read it quickly. “Oh, my!” he said, for the letter read:

There was, not surprisingly, no signature.

“Well,” Briggs said, with an attempt to put the best face on a poor situation, “it’s a good thing he didn’t ask for one pound six shillings tuppence, instead of his ten thousand quid.”

“Why?” Simpson asked, puzzled.

“Because I’ve got one pound six shillings tuppence,” Briggs explained, “and after that I’d be flat.”

“But what shall we do?” Simpson asked desperately. “This is dreadful! Shall we go to the police?”

“And receive one of Billy-Boy’s ears in the next post with an added demand? No,” Briggs said quietly, “that doesn’t seem to be the answer.” Faced with a real crisis, his normal belligerency had disappeared, replaced by a bit of hard thought. He tapped the missive thoughtfully with his forefinger as he studied it carefully. “Cheap paper, cheap envelope, manufactured by the millions, available at any stationers. Printed almost certainly by a right-handed person using his left hand — note the slope of the letters. Undoubtedly wearing gloves, and therefore leaving no fingerprints. By an American, incidentally, considering his language—”

“His language?”

“Of course. You will note that he says ‘bills’ instead of ‘notes’ and uses the word ‘dough’ for money. And he says ‘cops’ rather than ‘police’ or ‘bobbies’. And that rather sophomoric ‘I kid you not.’” Briggs shook his head. “But the most obvious clue to his nationality, I should think, lies in the fact that he refers to Billy-Boy as being fat—”

“But Billy-Boy is fat,” Simpson said. He had been following Briggs’s masterful exposition with bated breath, but he could not help but interrupt in the interest of honesty.

“Of course he’s fat!” Briggs said irritably, “but an Englishman would have been polite enough to say ‘obese’!” He went back to the letter. “So, considering all I have said, the police will be utterly baffled, and since even being utterly baffled takes the police more time than our ransom note allows us, in the interim Billy-Boy could well be killed.”

“I’m sorry I suggested the police. I wasn’t thinking,” Simpson said contritely, and attempted to rectify his error, but with only partial success. “I say, Tim,” he said, coming up with something, “Billy-Boy had to be kidnaped by someone who was aware that we had money. Or, rather,” he added unhappily, “who thought they knew that we had money.”

“Which includes about everyone in the British Isles who can read,” Briggs said sarcastically, “including, apparently, foreigners from our former colonies.”

“True.” Simpson was on the verge of wailing. He had never felt so helpless. “So what can we do?”

Briggs shrugged his small shoulders.

“Why,” he said bravely, “we do the only thing we can do. Tomorrow night I shall be on the eleven-sixteen train from Euston Station for East Westerly, in the last car, with an overnight bag...”

Clarence Wellington Alexander was a bit preoccupied. It had nothing to do with picking up the ransom money, for he had spent much time and thought in consideration of this problem and was sure he had covered all angles. He had selected East Westerly as the best place for the drop because as far as he could determine, nobody ever got off or on the train there, and he had come to the conclusion that the station existed only as an excuse to give employment to the ancient guard, without a doubt a relative of some Personage. In addition, Clarence had spent the past two hours inspecting the deserted platform from a vantage point across the road without sighting any minions of the law, before purchasing a ticket for Glossop-in-Dorp, one station up the line, and thereby gaining admission to the East Westerly platform. By now he was certain that no police were involved. But then he had scarcely expected the slightest difficulty when dealing with three ancient and helpless old men.

And he had his stub to leave the platform with the money when he picked it up; that afternoon he had come to East Westerly from Crumley-under-Chum, the next station down the line, with two passages in his pocket, and surrendered only the single stub, so he was also set in this regard. Reading English mystery stories had its advantages, although why the British Railways complicated their corporate lives with all these ticket stubs was a mystery in itself. Nor did Clarence expect the slightest recognition, or even examination, from the sleepy-eyed guard picking up the ticket stubs at the exit; the man looked as if he wouldn’t notice the chorus line of Oh, Calcutta filing through au naturel with the band playing, even if he were wide awake.

No, picking up the ransom money was not the problem. Clarence’s preoccupation came from wondering what to do with old mustard-suit Carruthers once the ransom was paid. Was it possible to put a big enough scare into the old coot to prevent him from going to the cops if he were freed? It was possible but far from certain; some of these crotchety old buzzards got up on their high horse once hard cash was taken from them. Possibly the threat that one of his dear friends would suffer if he opened his yap to the fuzz? But if old baggy-pants couldn’t be sufficiently threatened when he was in their close custody, what threat would possibly bear fruit once he was tree?

Still, the question of leaving the old man’s two hundred-odd pounds of lard buried in lye under the barn, or dropped down the well — which Clarence was convinced would get any future user of the well drunk for a week, considering the old man’s capacity for booze — also posed problems. For one thing, there was no doubt Harold was becoming more and more enamored of the old buzzard. Certainly, Clarence thought with justifiable irritation, you would think that with the old man into Harold’s pockets for more money than Harold even stood to gain from the caper, Harold would be head and shoulders in favor of scragging the old man, if only for sound financial reasons. But, oddly enough, such was not the case. For some inexplicable reason all Harold had was admiration for the old man. It seems the old coot had apparently once written a novel laid in Chicago, Harold’s home town — although the old buzzard had never even been there — which had been titled Petunias for Miss Blemish, which happened to be one of the two or three books Harold had read in his life, and the only one he had actually enjoyed. In fact, Harold said he had never laughed so much at anything before or since.

Harold’s loyalty to Clarence had never been in question up to now, but it was becoming more and more apparent that this singleness of heart was on the verge of being divided, and just how this would lead to Harold’s co-operation in the elimination of old twinkle-toes, was hard to see. Clarence could, of course, also eliminate Harold, but this scenario was more easily written than produced. Harold had survived San Quentin, Sing Sing, Dannemora, Joliet, and the city of Chicago, and Clarence had a feeling he would probably survive Crumley-under-Chum. Besides, the truth was that Clarence had never killed anyone in his life, other than financially, and he would require Harold’s expertise for this chore. He also liked Harold in his own way; Harold gave him someone to feel superior to.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the approaching train, and he put aside the aggravating problem of William Carruthers in favor of reviewing his precautions in the matter of picking up the ransom, for while he expected no trouble, it was in Clarence’s nature to be prepared for anything. Should the train come to a stop and uniformed figures come storming from it wildly waving police batons and madly blowing whistles, Clarence would assume his normal look of innocence and suggest that possibly they were looking for the tall man with the reddish beard and the cast in his eye who had just jumped from the platform and even now was legging it down the road. And, he promised himself grimly, if that were the case, another letter would go off tomorrow with a couple of old baggy-pants’ fingers in it, after which the fat man could practice shuffling cards with one hand!

But his precautions were unnecessary, his fears unfounded. The eleven fifty-eight train for Glossop-in-Dorp and the other subsequent stations separating East Westerly from North Southerly and the end of the line, came creeping into the station and took its place alongside the platform as if feeling its way in the dark, allowing its doors to be slid back in quite diffident fashion, as if fearing the possible intrusion of passengers. Clarence stood well back in the shadows, watching the doors of the last car. Sure enough, someone was emerging there, coming to stand directly beneath an overhead lamp that cast shadows over the scene. There was no doubt, despite the shadows, that it was the short member of the triumvirate, Timothy Briggs, and that he was, indeed, carrying an overnight bag. But instead of putting the bag down and retreating to the waiting train as per instructions, Briggs continued to stand there like a statue, his small hand gripping the overnight bag tightly, until the train sighed electrically, tucked its doors reluctantly back into their sockets, and slowly crept from the station as if its age made the process painful.

From his position deep in the shadows, Clarence frowned. The action of the small man was not in accordance with the demands of the ransom note. Still, it occurred to Clarence — who was feeling a bit generous in view of the fact that it was all working out without any unwanted interference from the police or anyone else — that senile old men, faced with the necessity of deciphering a message written left-handed, and having to cope with a frightening, mind-boggling problem at a moment’s notice, could easily be forgiven one small mistake. Let him who is without fault cast the first stone, Clarence thought, recalling his early Bible training as well as a few times he, himself, had loused up an easy deal. Besides, it was no insurmountable problem; all he had to do was to relieve the tiny man of the loot in the overnight bag, direct him politely to the east-bound platform, and see him on his way back to London, with a boot in the pants to help him, if necessary.

He waited a moment longer to make sure it really was not a trap of some sort, that the London bobbies had not come up with a midget cop in mufti in the manner of that astute Cleveland Indians manager who had brought a dwarf to the plate, and then called softly from his hiding place.

“Mr. Briggs!”

“Ah!” Briggs walked over, peering into the darkness. “There you are!” His eyebrows rose. “What are you hiding for?”

Clarence chose not to waste time in senseless conversation. “Did you bring the money?” he asked, and reached for the bag.

“Here! None of that! Not so fast,” Briggs said testily, and pulled the bag back quickly. “Watch where you put your hands; that’s how people get their arms broken! First I want to see Billy-Boy Carruthers and make sure he’s in tiptop shape.” He considered Clarence curiously. “You don’t really think I’d hand over the bag to you without being sure of a thing like that, do you? Maybe your mother raised a brood of idiot children, but not mine!”

In the light cast obliquely from the overhead lamp, glistening in reflection from the spectacles covering Briggs’s sharp eyes, Clarence W. Alexander saw that whatever else the old man was, he was certainly not senile. And while he was small, he also appeared feisty, and Clarence himself was no giant. He also was in no mood to start a wrestling match on a railway platform, deserted or not; he had no assurance that the guard inside, while undoubtedly sleepy, was also deaf.

“Just hand over the dough,” he said, putting as much menace in his voice as he could muster, aiming for a tone somewhere between Karloff’s Frankenstein monster, and Lugosi’s Dracula. “Hand it over or your fat friend gets taken apart!”

Briggs, who had never seen either motion picture, looked at Clarence with pity.

“You could use a nasal spray,” he said. “Anyway, we’re wasting time.” He started for the exit, paused, and then looked back with a frown. “Well? Are you coming, or not?”

Clarence gritted his teeth and followed. Somehow this was not the way he had visualized the scene. The two men handed their ticket stubs to the gaping guard and came out into the road. Briggs looked around.

“Where’s your car? I assume you didn’t walk, and you’d have to be pretty stupid to take a taxi for a ransom pickup—” He saw the car Clarence pointed to, and sniffed. “Not much of a car, if you want my opinion. I thought you Americans were up to a bit more in the way of swank. You mean you snatched Billy-Boy in this? Must have been a tight fit, is all I can say.”

He climbed inside, holding the overnight bag tightly in his lap, and waited until Clarence had gotten in and started the engine. Clarence now saw the way things would have to go. Once they were on the road, away from even the few habitations East Westerly boasted, alone in the dark, he would simply pull off the road, take the overnight bag away from the little man, rap him on the skull a few times for luck, and dump him in a ditch. And then be off and running. It was a pity he couldn’t take the time to gag the little buzzard, who certainly liked to talk, but everyone had to make sacrifices at times.

“And no rough stuff,” Briggs advised, correctly reading Clarence’s mind. “You don’t look exactly like Harry Grebs to me, and I’m not quite as helpless as I look. You just do this my way, son, and we’ll get along fine, understand?”

“I understand you’ve got a big mouth,” Clarence said, stung, too irked by the little one’s nerve to use any but his natural voice. “I also understand that I’ve got your fat friend, and if you want to see him in one piece—”

He suddenly stopped. Something else had just occurred to him. He now had his hand not only on William Carruthers, but also on Timothy Briggs. Plus the contents of the overnight bag. He saw now how foolish he had been to limit his demands to only half of the money the old men had won in the Jarvis award. Fortunately he had not told Harold exactly how much he was demanding, and with luck the subject need never arise. He glanced over at Briggs. So the little man wanted to do it his way, eh? Fine. In the morning another letter would go out, this time to Clifford Simpson, and the result would be the other ten thousand pounds the three had picked up. And if the three old coots had to go on the breadline afterward, that was a shame. We all have problems in this life. Play games with him, would they! Still, normal precautions would still be required.

“So you want to see your fat friend, do you?” he said. “In that case I’m going to have to stop and blindfold you, I’m afraid.”

“You’ve good reason to be afraid,” Briggs said tartly, and thrust out his chin. “Try it!”

“I don’t think I’ll need to try it,” Clarence said with a faint smile. He reached over and before Briggs could bring up his hands to ward off the movement, Clarence had plucked Briggs’s spectacles from his nose and tucked them into a pocket away from the little man. “That should do the trick nicely,” he said with satisfaction, “especially at night.” He smiled grimly and settled down to his driving.

At his side, Timothy Briggs, finally silent, sat and thought. Clarence’s little game with the spectacles was meaningless; Tim Briggs had adopted plain-glass spectacles years before to give him a more distinguished look and partially compensate for his lack of height. Nor was it the fact that Clarence was smiling like a cat that had gotten into the fridge; that smile was also easily interpreted. The kidnaper now had two victims in his hands rather than one. No, the question was simply what would Cliff Simpson do when confronted with another letter in a day or two?

Well, Briggs thought bravely, time enough to worry about that when the flag goes down...