All Fall Down

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

All things considered, Bradstreet took Ellis’s news well. Ellis did not trust this time to the telephone, but went to deliver his news in person.

“Yes,” Bradstreet said. “I was afraid something like that might come out. Though, mind you,” he added cautiously, “I think we can exaggerate the importance of it. Even if those two poor souls did take a book or two, it doesn’t follow that they killed him.”

“I know it doesn’t, Bradder. I know it doesn’t. What’s more, I know it’s just the kind of pitfall we as a tribe are very apt to fall into. But I think we’re more likely to fall into it when we’re looking for evidence against someone. Not when we’re doing our level best not to find it.”

“That might work just the same way,” Bradstreet argued. “I mean, just because we didn’t want anything of the kind to come up, we may exaggerate its importance when it does, or even mistake its meaning altogether. Besides, we don’t know who took the books. Yet we’re talking as if it was proved that those two did it. That’s what I mean: we’re prejudiced.”

Ellis gazed at him reverently.

“Bradder, you’re a marvel. For sheer casuistry, I never heard the like.”

“What’s that?” Bradstreet asked.

“Casuistry? Twiddling the facts.”

“Come now, I’m not twiddling no facts.” He had slipped into dialect again: “I’m only saying we don’t know yet how to read ’em. Valuable books have been taken, and other books, less valuable, put in their place. That’s all we know for certain.”

“True for you. And the fact that this supplies a motive for the bumping off of Matt on the day he was bumped off, and that one of the books came from the bedroom of one of the suspects—that goes for nothing, does it?”

“It might mean a lot, and it might mean nothing at all.”

Ellis grinned at him.

“It does my heart good to hear you. When Gilk told me what he’d found, I damned him good and hard.”

Bradstreet picked up the telephone.

“Well, I must get on to the coroner, and put off this here inquest. Better put it off for—how long? Shall we say Thursday? That allows for anything else turning up.”

“You country blokes do things very much your own way, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Either you have the inquest five minutes after the corpse is found, or—what will you do with Matt? Embalm him?”

“I don’t reckon we shall need to do that,” Bradstreet replied, in matter-of-fact tones. “Say we see this Nelder chap to-morrow. We shan’t be back till evening time. That takes us to Tuesday. There may be something in his evidence that we’ll have to follow up. Then that friend of yours, Mr. What’s-his-name——”

“Gilkison.”

“That’s his right name, is it. I get a bit muddled, what with you calling him different things. He may find out something else, while he’s working on the books, same as he found this out. I reckon Thursday will be about right.”

“I bow to you, Bradder.” Ellis blew out a huge sigh. “I’m rotten at the legal minutiæ of a case. Always have been I’ve been spoilt, that’s what it is. Had it all done for me. Been left to do my own stuff in my own way. I need a nanny.”

Bradstreet spoke into the receiver.

“Nattering 104, please.”

“You’re a perfect nanny, Bradder.”

Bradstreet smiled indulgently.

“No chance of luring you up to town, I suppose?” Ellis went on.

“I don’t reckon I should be any use up in those parts. Thank you, all the—— Hallo. Is that Mr. Dobell’s house? Yes, please. Inspector Bradstreet. I’m a countryman born and bred. I should be all thumbs, up in London.”

“No you wouldn’t. You’d be grand. Well—we’ll talk of that later. So long.”

He left the station, and stood for a moment in the road, wondering whether to look in once more at the Baildons’—there was always the pretext of going to see how Gilkison was getting on—or to call on Miss Attwill, or to go back to the hotel. He decided on the last, and had gone fifty yards in that direction, when he stopped again. An instinct, which he could not explain, urged him to go to the Baildon’s. He felt obscurely that, if he didn’t, something might go wrong.

“Ellis, you’re getting jumpy, my lad. It won’t do.”

All the same, he obeyed the prompting, and took the now familiar road: so familiar that it was only by an effort that he remembered how, forty-eight hours ago, he had not known that it existed.

The feeling which made him go to the house was never fully explained, but there was something going on in the Baildon’s front room, and that was an acute conflict in the mind of Paul Gilkison.

Gilkison, when he got back after tea to continue his work, ran into Joan in the garden. She smiled at him, and showed a tendency to engage him in conversation. They exchanged a few obvious remarks about the weather, and came to a full stop. Both stood silent, both smiled, and Gilkison, excusing himself, went indoors and resumed his cataloguing.

Presently he became aware that she was in the passage outside the room. She was hesitating, trying to pluck up her courage to come in. To his keen annoyance, Gilkison felt his face burning, and his heart beating faster, and knew that he was listening with preternatural attention for her to move. He heard no sound, yet he was aware, through what sense he could not say, first, that she was in the door, next that she was in the laneway between the projecting bookcase and the wall: and then she came out into the open space.

He looked up and smiled. Her manner was so awkward that he felt calm and experienced by comparison.

“Did you want anything?” he asked her.

“I wondered if perhaps I could help. I know where most of the books are. I often used to have to get them when father wanted them.”

In a flash he thought, she wants to cover up the substitutions. Yet—how can she? Well, what does she want?

“That’s very kind of you,” he said. “If I get into any difficulty, I’ll come and ask you.”

Fool! now he’d dismissed her, which wasn’t at all what he wanted to do. He smiled again, and, to detain her, said something which appalled him the moment it was out of his mouth.

“Oh, look, Miss Baildon. There is one thing. Do you know where your father kept his first edition of Lakewater? You know—the one with the advertisement that was cancelled?”

Good Lord, he thought, now I’ve done it. I’ve interfered. I’ve spoilt everything. Ellis will be furious with me. So great was his consternation at what he had done, that he did not see the expression on Joan’s face. His ears singing with horror, he heard her voice after what seemed ages, and from far away.

“Lakewater? Yes, he kept it here.”

She went to one of the shelves, and pulled out a book. Mechanically, Gilkison stretched out a hand for it. He dared to look at her, and saw that she was standing still, staring with projecting eyes at the book in her hand.

Before she could speak, there was a quick shuffling sound, the tenor clearing of a throat, and Ellis appeared in the doorway.

“Hallo, hallo, hallo. A helping hand?”

Gilkison lifted to him a face blurred with guilt.

“Miss Baildon was very kindly finding a book for me.”

Ellis paid no attention. He was looking at Joan. Her face was white and blank.

“But,” she stammered, “this isn’t the right one.”

Ellis stepped forward, took it from her, and opened the book.

“Second impression,” he read. “Not what you expected, Gilk?”

“I—I understood Mr. Baildon had one of the first edition with the cancelled advertisement.”

“Yes, but,” Joan said, “this isn’t the other one. I mean, there’s a first edition besides the one with the advertisement. This one isn’t——”

She broke off, staring from one to the other in dismay. Ellis sat down on a table.

“Let’s get this right,” he said, in practical tones. “Gilk—you’re looking for a particular copy of this book?”

“Yes. Yes. The exceedingly rare first with the cancelled advertisement.”

“Right. You couldn’t find it, and you’ve asked Miss Baildon to find it for you?”

“Yes. Miss Baildon came in, just before you did, and very kindly asked if there was anything she could do to help.”

Ellis smiled at Joan.

“Then you, Miss Baildon, went to the place where you expected to find the book, and found this copy in its place?”

“Yes.” She spoke as if she were in a trance.

“That’s a surprise to you?”

“Yes.”

“You say there’s a third copy?”

“Yes. An ordinary first edition.”

“Where was it? In here?”

She shook her head.

“In the little room upstairs. In the front. Above this one.”

“I understand from Gilk here that your father kept his duplicate copies in the same shelf, behind the first copies.”

“Some he did. Not all. Not this one.”

“Why did he keep some here, and not others?”

“I don’t know. There wasn’t any sense in a lot he did,” she added, with something like her old spirit.

“Was this copy,”—he held it up—“in the upstairs front room too?”

She shook her head again, staring at the book. The whites of her eyes, showing huge through the lenses, gave her a ghastly appearance.

“Where was it?”

Her lips worked to frame the words before they sounded.

“In my room.”

Ellis nodded, as if he found that perfectly natural.

“Had it always been kept there, or only lately?”

“I don’t know about always. Ever since I remember. Ever since I noticed it.”

“Your father didn’t at any time ask you to bring it down here?”

She shook her head again. The colour was coming back to her face: she moistened her lips.

“Oh well,” Ellis said easily, “I dare say we’ll find out, in time. I expect there was a lot your father did that you wouldn’t know about.”

She caught at this eagerly.

“Oh yes. He was terribly secretive. Once, when I came back from school early, and went upstairs, I found him in my room, making some changes. At least, I suppose he was. He had a lot of books out on the bed. He screamed at me to go away.”

Ellis nodded again. “I don’t expect you’ve any idea, then, where he would have put the copy we are looking for? The one with the cancelled advertisement?”

The room was tense again, Gilkison dared not look at her: he felt his heart driving the blood into his ears.

After a long pause, she shook her head.

“Perhaps he may have put it in your room, in the place of this copy? Do you mind if we look?”

Without waiting for her answer, he got up, and motioned for her to go ahead. Gilkison sucked in his thin cheeks, blew them out again, stood up, and stretched himself. He had seldom spent a more uneasy five minutes; and he still dreaded what Ellis might say to him when they were alone.

He heard the footsteps overhead; Joan’s room evidently reached half way, the rest of the space above the sitting room being taken by the little room she spoke of. He heard the sliding of the glass shelf, and the note of Ellis’s voice. After a brief interval, the footsteps came down again.

“No tack,” exclaimed Ellis cheerfully, as he ushered the girl in.

“What was in its place?” Gilkison asked.

“Nothing. Just a gap. You can’t see it, till you move the first row. This was in the back row. You’d better have a good look, Gilk, and see if there are any others missing.”

“Yes, I had, hadn’t I?”

“Are the books insured?” Ellis asked Joan.

“I don’t know.”

“We must ask your mother.”

“She wouldn’t know,” Joan said quickly. “She knows even less about them than I do. He used to tell me to get a book, when he wanted it. He wouldn’t trust her.”

“Why wouldn’t he trust her?”

“She didn’t know about the books. She didn’t like them.”

“I can understand that,” Ellis said grimly. “She must like ’em now, however. They’re her inheritance—hers and yours. And, if anyone’s been robbing you, we must nab him.”

“No one would rob us.”

“No one here would—now. They might have robbed your father, though. Anything that was taken before Friday afternoon would have been taken from him, not from you. You don’t remember, I suppose, when you last saw this book, in its place in your room?”

“No. I don’t.”

“It wasn’t recently, anyway. If you’d noticed it in the last few days, you would remember, most probably, wouldn’t you?”

“I certainly haven’t seen it recently.”

“Right. That’s all we can do. How much longer will you be, Gilk?”

“I’d only just come——”

“Glutton for work, isn’t he?” Ellis said to Joan. “I think I’ll use my authority and take him away. A little fresh air, Gilk, fresh air and exercise, to put colour into those pale cheeks of yours.”

“I thought you wanted me to look and see if there were any more books missing.”

“You’ll have all to-morrow to do that. The morning as well, now that the inquest is postponed.”

Joan drew a quick breath.

“The inquest——?”

“Yes. Haven’t they told you? I’m so sorry. It is wretched for you, having it dangling like this.”

“Why have they postponed it?”

“Had to. We’ve found some more evidence. Come on, Gilk. What a time the man takes.”

“What new evidence have you found?”

He jerked his head round, and looked full at her.

“I can’t tell you what it’s worth yet. Inspector Bradstreet and I have to go off to-morrow to interview a man in Devonport. I may be able to tell you more about it when I get back.”

“Do you think the man—killed father?”

“Most unlikely. But he may be able to give us a line on whoever did. That’s all I can tell you, now, and I oughtn’t to have told you that much: so you mustn’t ask me any more questions.”

He took her arm and gave it a friendly shake.

“Good-bye now, and don’t worry.”

“Will you come and tell me if you find out anything tomorrow?”

“All depends what it is. It might be something I’d have to keep secret, and not even tell Gilk. Wretched chaps, we policemen. We’re tied hand and foot. Now, now, what axe you looking so miserable about? I’ll tell you if I can—but I can’t promise. Cheer up.”

She watched them go, standing in the doorway, a tall slim figure with great mournful eyes.

Ellis stumped down the road, his bulging cheeks bright crimson. For the first hundred yards he said nothing. Gilkison dared not speak, for fear of an explosion. Then Ellis saw a tin lying by the side of the road. He took a running kick at it, and sent it in leaping, clamorous career along the tarmac till it bounced into the silence of the ditch.

“Hell!” he said. “What a job. What a bloody, bloody job, I get that poor kid a bit better, and then I have to go and make her worse than ever. She won’t sleep all night, now.”

He turned to Gilkison.

“I couldn’t help it,” he almost shouted. “I had to. It’s a foul split to have in one. No wonder people are afraid of us.”

“Ellis.”

“Eh?”

“She didn’t know that book was gone. She was knocked out with surprise. No one could act as well as that.”

“You mean, she was surprised the second edition was there. The one out of her room.”

“Yes.”

“I believe she was. But it doesn’t at all follow she didn’t know the original copy was gone—the one with the cancelled advertisement.” He swung round on Gilkison. “How did the subject crop up? Did you find her in there fiddling around, or what?”

Gilkison struggled with temptation, and overcame it. He confessed what had happened.

“I never meant to ask the question,” he finished. “It just came out.”

“I know. They do. I never consciously meant to put the wind up the child as I did. The policeman took charge.” He looked at Gilkison. “I had the feeling, after I left the Bradder, that something was going on here. I’d actually started for the pub, and I turned back. Good job I did.”

Gilkison, whose heart had been filled with relief and gratitude towards Ellis for not abusing him, now felt a perverse resentment. Ellis’s assumption that he would have done harm nettled him. To his dismay, he found himself hunting in his mind for some mistake of Ellis’s with which he could retort upon him. He thought of something, but did not at once utter it. Ellis seemed to have recovered his spirits. He was humming, snapping his fingers, and looking about him.

“Oh well,” he said suddenly, “it won’t be for much longer, I hope.”

His face cleared. To Gilkison’s jaundiced eye, it looked complacent. Gilkison took a deep breath, and launched his barb.

“One theory of yours you have had to scrap, I gather.”

“Meaning?”

“If you remember, from some slip of the tongue of Miss Caunter, you inferred that she was in love with Rattray.”

Ellis opened his eyes wide.

“Did I? Oh yes. She nearly called him David. Yes.”

“Well,” persisted Gilkison, “that hardly fits in with the violent jealousy you say she feels towards him, does it?”

“I don’t see why not. It might fit in very well. She used to be sweet on him. Then she gets jealous over Joan.”

“You’ve just made that up at this minute,” Gilkison exclaimed in disgust. “You’re just imagining. That’s all.”

“So are you. Tell me what possible value your remark had towards elucidating the case, and I’ll give it serious consideration.”

He went on humming, quite unruffled. Gilkison tried again.

“Why did you drag me away? There’s a good hour and a half till dinner.”

“We’d given her enough to chew on. I don’t want to leave you any longer with her. You’re too kind-hearted, Gilk. She’d have started pumping you.” He gripped Gilkison’s elbow. “I hate this business just as much as you do, but, for the moment, we’ve got to leave her guessing.”