Murder Must Advertise

Chapter XVI. Eccentric Behaviour of a Post-Office Department

The Chief-Inspector voiced this opinion to Wimsey the same evening. His lordship, whose mind was still divided between detection and the new Whifflet campaign, which had taken clear shape during the afternoon, was curt with him:

“Mare’s nest? Then what knocked Puncheon out? A kick from the mare’s heel?”

“Perhaps Mountjoy merely got fed up with him. You’d get fed up yourself if you were pursued all over London by a Puncheon.”

“Possibly. But I shouldn’t knock him out and leave him to his fate. I should give him in charge. How is Puncheon?”

“Still unconscious. Concussion. He seems to have got a violent blow on the temple and a nasty crack on the back of the head.”

“Um. Knocked up against the wall, probably, when Mountjoy got him with the cosh.”

“No doubt you’re right.”

“I am always right. I hope you are keeping an eye on the man Garfield.”

“He won’t move for a bit. Why?”

“Well-it’s odd that Mountjoy should have been snuffed out so inconveniently for you.”

“You don’t suppose that Garfield had anything to do with it? Why, the man was nearly killed himself. Besides, we’ve looked into him. He’s a well-known Harley Street man, with a large West-end practice.”

“Among the dope-maniacs, perhaps?”

“He specialized in nervous complaints.”

“Exactly.”

Parker whistled.

“That’s what you think, is it?”

“See here,” said Wimsey, “your grey matter isn’t functioning as it ought. Are you tired at the end of the day? Do you suffer from torpor and lethargy after meals? Try Sparkle-tone, the invigorating vegetable saline that stimulates while it cleanses. Some accidents are too accidental to be true. When a gentleman removes his tailor’s tab and takes the trouble to slice his hatter’s imprint away with a razor, and goes skipping, for no reason at all, from Finchley to South Kensington Museum in his dress suit at unearthly hours in the morning, it’s because he has something to hide. If he tops up his odd behaviour by falling under a train without the smallest apparent provocation, it’s because somebody else is interested in getting the things hidden, too. And the more risks somebody else takes in the process, the more certain it is that the thing is worth hiding.”

Parker looked at him and grinned quietly.

“You’re a great guesser, Peter. Would you be surprised to hear that you’re not the only one?”

“No, I shouldn’t. You’re holding something out on me. What is it? A witness to the assault, what? Somebody who was on the platform? Somebody you weren’t inclined to pay much attention to? You old leg-puller, I can see it in your face. Out with it now-who was it? A woman. A hysterical woman. A middle-aged, hysterical spinster. Am I right?”

“Curse you, yes.”

“Go on, then. Tell me all about it.”

“Well, when Eagles took the depositions of the witnesses at the station, they all agreed that Mountjoy had walked several paces past Garfield and then suddenly staggered; that Garfield had caught him by the arm and that both had fallen together. But this female, Miss Eliza Tebbutt by name, 52, unmarried, housekeeper, living in Kensington, says that she was standing a little way beyond them both and that she distinctly heard what she describes as a ‘dreadful voice’ say, ‘Punch away, you’re for it!’ That Mountjoy immediately stopped as though he had been shot, and that Garfield ‘with a terrible face,’ took him by the arm and tripped him up. It may increase your confidence in this good lady when you hear that she is subject to nervous disorders, has once been confined in a mental home and is persuaded that Garfield is a prominent member of a gang whose object is to murder all persons of British birth and establish the supremacy of the Jews in England.”

“Jews in England be damned. Because a person has a monomania she need not be wrong about her facts. She might have imagined or invented a good deal, but she couldn’t possibly imagine or invent anything so fantastic as ‘Punch away,’ which is obviously her mishearing of the name ‘Mountjoy.’ Garfield’s your man-though I admit that you’re going to have some difficulty in fixing anything on him. But if I were you, I’d have his premises searched-if it isn’t too late by now.”

“I’m afraid it probably is too late. We didn’t get any sense out of Miss Tebbutt for an hour or so; by which time the heroic Dr. Garfield had, naturally, telephoned both to his home and to his consulting room to explain what had happened to him. Still, we’ll keep an eye on him. The immediate matter of importance is Mountjoy. Who was he? What was he up to? Why did he have to be suppressed?”

“It’s pretty clear what he was up to. He was engaged in the dope traffic and he was suppressed because he had been fool enough to let Puncheon recognize and follow him. Somebody must have been on the watch; this gang apparently keeps tabs on all its members. Or the wretched Mountjoy may have asked for help and been helped out of the world as the speediest method of disposing of the difficulty. It’s a pity Puncheon can’t talk-he could tell us whether Mountjoy had telephoned or spoken to anybody during his dash round town. Anyhow, he made a mistake, and people who make mistakes are not permitted to survive. The odd thing, to my mind, is that you heard nothing of any visit to the flat. You’d rather expect the gang to have made some sort of investigation there, just to make sure. I suppose those servants are to be trusted?”

“I think so. We’ve made inquiries. They’ve all got good histories. The commissionaire has an army pension and an excellent record. The valet and chambermaid are highly respectable-nothing whatever against them,”

“H’m. And you’ve found nothing but a packet of cigarette-papers. Handy, of course, for wrapping up a grain or so of cocaine but, in themselves, no proof of anything.”

“I thought you’d see the significance of the cigarette-papers.”

“I am not yet blind or mentally deficient.”

“But where is the dope?”

“The dope? Really, Charles! He was going to fetch the dope when friend Puncheon butted in. Haven’t you yet grasped that this is part of the Milligan crowd and that Friday is their day for distributing dope? The Milligans get it on Friday and give house-parties on Friday night and Saturday, when it goes into the hands of the actual addicts. Dian de Momerie told me so.”

“I wonder,” said Parker, “why they stick to one day? It must add to the risk.”

“It’s obviously an integral part of the system. The stuff comes into the country-say on Thursdays. That’s your part of the story. You don’t seem to have done much about that, by the way. It is taken to-somewhere or the other-that night. Next day it is called for by the Mountjoys and sent on to the Milligans, none of whom probably knows any of the others by sight. And by Saturday the whole lot is pushed out and everybody has a happy week-end.”

“That sounds plausible. It certainly explains why we found no trace of anything either in the flat or on Mountjoy’s body. Except cigarette-papers. By the way, is that right? If Mountjoy has the cigarette-papers, he ought to be the one who distributes to the addicts.”

“Not necessarily. He gets it himself in bulk-done up as Bicarbonate of Soda or what not. He divides it into small packets and parcels them out-so many to Milligan, so many to the next retailer and so forth; when, or how, I don’t know. Nor do I know how the payments are worked.”

“Glad to hear there’s something you don’t know.”

“I said I didn’t know; not that I couldn’t guess. But I won’t bother you with guesses. All the same, it’s rather surprising that Garfield & Co. left that flat alone.”

“Perhaps Garfield meant to go there afterwards, if he hadn’t got knocked out.”

“No; he’d not leave it so late. Tell me again about the flat.”

Parker patiently repeated the account of his visit and the interviews with the servants. Before he was half-way through, Wimsey had sat up in his chair and was listening with fascinated attention.

“Charles! What imbeciles we are! Of course, that’s it!”

“What’s what?”

“The Telephone Directory, of course. The man who brought the new volumes and took the old away. Since when has the Post Office taken to getting both new volumes out at once?”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Parker.

“I should think it was, by Jove. Ring up now and find out whether two new volumes were sent round to Mountjoy’s address today.”

“It’ll be a job to get hold of O.C. Directories at this time of night.”

“So it will. Wait a moment. Ring up the flats and ask if anybody else received any Directories this morning. My experience is that even Government departments do these things in batches, and don’t make a special journey to every subscriber.”

Parker acted on this suggestion. After a little trouble, he succeeded in getting into touch with three other occupants in the same block as Mountjoy’s flat. All three gave the same answer. They had received a new L-Z volume about a fortnight previously. The new A-K volume was not yet due to be issued. One man went further. His name was Barrington, and he had only recently moved in. He had inquired when the new A-K volume would be out with his new ’phone number, and had been told that it would probably be issued in October.

‘That settles it,” said Wimsey. “Our friend Mountjoy kept his secrets in the telephone directory. That great work contains advertisements, post-office regulations and names and addresses, but particularly names and addresses. May we conclude that the secret nestled among the names and addresses? I think we may.”

“It seems reasonable.”

“Very reasonable. Now, how do we set about discovering those names and addresses?”

“Bit of a job. We can probably get a description of the man who called for the books this morning-”

“And comb London’s teeming millions for him? Had we but world enough and time. Where do good telephone directories go when they die?”

“The pulping-mills, probably.”

“And the last exchange of the L-Z volume was made a fortnight ago. There’s a chance that it hasn’t been pulped yet. Get on to it, Charles. There’s more than a chance that it, too, was marked, and that the markings were transferred at each exchange from the old book to the new one.”

“Why? Mountjoy might easily have kept the old marked set by him.”

“I fancy not, or we should have either found it or heard about it from the manservant. The stranger came; the two current volumes were handed to him and he went away satisfied. As I see the plan, the whole idea would be to use the current volume, so as to rouse no suspicion, have nothing to conceal and provide a convenient mechanism for getting rid of the evidence at short notice.”

“You may be right. It’s a chance, as you say. I’ll get on to the telephone people first thing in the morning.”

The tide of luck seemed to have turned. A morning’s strenuous work revealed that the old directories had already been dispatched by the sackful to the pulping-mills, but had not, so far, been pulped. Six workers, toiling over the weekend among L-Z volumes collected from the Kensington District, brought to light the pleasing fact that nine people out of ten marked their directories in some way or another. Reports came pouring in. Wimsey sat with Parker in the latter’s office at Scotland Yard and considered the reports.

Late on Sunday night, Wimsey raised his head from a sheaf of papers.

“I think this is it, Charles.”

“What is it?” Parker was weary and his eyes blood-shot with strain, but a note of hope was in his voice.

“This one. A whole list of public-houses in Central London have been ticked off-three in the middle of the L’s, two near the end of the M’s, one in the N’s, one in the O’s, and so forth and so on, including two in the middle of the W’s. The two in the W’s are the White Stag in Wapping and the White Stoat off Oxford Street. The next W after that is the White Swan in Covent Garden. I would bet any money that in the new volume that was carried away, the White Swan was duly ticked off in its turn.”

“I’m not quite sure what you’re driving at.”

“I’m making rather a long cast, but I suggest this. When the stuff comes up to London of a Thursday, I think it is taken to which ever pub. stands next on the list in the directory. One week it will be a pub. with a name in A-say the Anchor. Next week it will be a B-the Bull & Dog, or the Brickmaker’s Arms. The week after that, it will be a C, and so on to W,X,Y,Z-if there are any. The people who have to call for their dope wander into the pub. indicated, where it is slipped to them by the head distributor and his agents, probably quite without the knowledge of the proprietor. And since it never comes twice to the same place, your pretty policemen can go and talk parrots and goats in the White Swan till they are blue in the face. They ought to have been at the Yellow Peril or the York & Lancaster.”

“That’s an idea, Peter. Let’s look at that list again.”

Wimsey handed it over.

“If you’re right, then this week was W week, and next week will be X week. That’s unlikely. Say Y week. The next Y after the last one ticked is the Yelverton Arms in Soho. Wait a minute, though. If they have been taking them in alphabetical order, why have they got right down to the end of the M’s in one case and only to WH in the other?”

“They must have been through the W’s once, and be starting again.”

“Yes-I suppose there are quite a lot of M’s. But then there are hundreds of W’s. Still, we’ll try it, Peter, any way. What is it, Lumley?”

“Report from the hospital, sir. Puncheon has come round.”

Parker glanced through the report.

“Much what we expected,” he said, handing the paper to Wimsey. “Mountjoy evidently knew he was being followed. He put through a telephone call at Piccadilly Tube Station, and started off on a wild scamper across London.”

“That was how the gang came to be ready for him.”

“Yes. Finding he couldn’t shake Puncheon off, he lured him into the Museum, got him into a quiet corner and laid him out. Puncheon thinks he was slugged with a weapon of some kind. So he was. He did not speak to Mountjoy. In fact, this report tells us nothing we didn’t know, except that, when Puncheon first saw him, Mountjoy was buying an early copy of the Morning Star from a man outside the office.”

“Was he? That’s interesting. Well, keep your eye on the Yelverton Arms.”

“And you keep your eye on Pym’s. Do remember that what we want is the man at the top.”

“So does Major Milligan. The man at the top is very much sought after. Well, cheerio! If I can’t do anything more for you, I think I’ll tootle off to bed. I’ve got my Whifflets scheme to get out tomorrow.”

“I like this scheme, Mr. Bredon,” said Mr. Pym, tapping his finger on the drafts submitted to him. “It has Breadth. It has Vision. More than anything else, Advertising needs Vision and Breadth. That is what determines Appeal. In my opinion, this scheme of yours has Appeal. It is going to be expensive, of course, and needs some working out. For instance, if all these vouchers were cashed in at once, it would send up the cost per packet issued to a figure that the profits could not possibly cover. But I think that can be got over.”

“They won’t all be cashed in at once,” said Mr. Armstrong. “Not if we mix them up sufficiently. People will want time to collect and exchange. That will give us a start. They’ve got to look on the cost of the thing as so much advertising expenditure. We shall want a big press splash to start it, and after that, it will run itself quite happily in small spaces.”

“That’s all very well, Armstrong, but we’ve got to think of ourselves.”

“That’s all right. We make all the arrangements with the hotels and railways and so forth and charge our fee or commission on the work. All we’ve got to do is to average the thing out so that the claims won’t amount to more than their estimated appropriation, for the month. If the thing goes big they’ll be willing enough to increase the appropriation. The other thing we’ve got to do is to see that each coupon bears more or less the same actual cash value, so as not to get into trouble with the Lottery Act. The whole thing comes down to this. How much of the profit on each shilling packet are they prepared to spend in advertising? Remembering that this scheme, if properly put through, is going to sweep every other fag off the market for the time being. Then we make our coupons up to that value minus an appropriation for the opening press campaign. At present their appropriation is sixty thousand and their sales… have we got that report on sales?”

The two directors plunged into a maze of facts and figures. Mr. Bredon’s attention wandered.

“Printing costs… see that they have a sufficient distribution… bonus to the tobacconists… free displays… tackle the hotels first… news-value… get the Morning Star to give it a show… no, I know, but there’s the Boost Britain side of it… I can wangle Jenks… reduce overheads by… call it £200 a day… Puffin’s aeroplanes must be costing them that… front page splash and five free coupons… well, that’s a matter of detail…”

“In any case, we’ve got to do something.” Mr. Armstrong emerged from the argument with a slightly flushed face. “It’s no use telling people that the cost of the advertising has to come out of the quality of the goods. They don’t care. All they want is something for nothing. Pay? Yes, of course they pay in the end, but somebody’s got to pay. You can’t fight free gifts with solemn assertions about Value. Besides, if Whifflets lose their market they’ll soon lose their quality too-or what are we here for?”

“You needn’t tell me that, Armstrong,” said Mr. Pym. “Whether people like it or not, the fact remains that unless you continually increase sales you must either lose money or cut down quality. I hope we’ve learnt that by this time.”

“What happens,” asked Mr. Bredon, “when you’ve increased sales to saturation point?”

“You mustn’t ask those questions, Bredon,” said Mr. Armstrong, amused.

“No, but really. Suppose you push up the smoking of every man and woman in the Empire till they must either stop or die of nicotine poisoning?”

“We’re a long way off that,” replied Mr. Pym, seriously. “And that reminds me. This scheme should carry a strong appeal to women. ‘Give your children that seaside holiday by smoking Whifflets.’ That sort of thing. We want to get women down to serious smoking. Too many of them play about with it. Take them off scented stuff and put them on to the straightforward Virginia cigarette-”

“The gasper, in fact.”

“Whifflets,” said Mr. Pym. “You can smoke a lot more of them in the day without killing yourself. And they’re cheaper. If we increase women’s smokes by 500 per cent-there’s plenty of room for it-”

Mr. Bredon’s attention wandered again.

“-all right, date the coupons. Let them run for three months only. That will give us plenty of duds to play with. And they’ll have to see that their stockists are kept up to date with fresh goods. By the way, that makes a selling point-”

Mr. Bredon fell into a dream.

“-but you must have a good press campaign as well. Posters are good and cheap, but if you really want to tell people something, you’ve got to have a press campaign. Not a big one, necessarily, after the first big bang. But a good, short, snappy reminder week by week-”

“Very well, Mr. Bredon.” The creator of the Whifflet scheme came out of his doze with a start. “We’ll put this up to Whifflets. Will you see if you can get out some copy? And you’d better put a few other people on to it as well, Armstrong. Ingleby-it’s rather his line. And Miss Meteyard. We want to get something out by the end of the week. Tell Mr. Barrow to put everything else aside and rough out some really striking displays.” Mr. Pym gave the signal of dismissal, and then, as a thought struck him, called Bredon back.

“I want a word with you, Bredon. I’d almost forgotten what you were really here for. Has any progress been made in that matter?”

“Yes.” The Whifflets campaign receded from Lord Peter Wimsey, dying along the distance of his mind. “In fact, the investigation is turning out to be of so much importance that I don’t quite know how I can take even you into my confidence.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Mr. Pym. “I am employing you-”

“No. There’s no question of employment. I’m afraid it’s a police job.”

The shadows of disquiet gathered and deepened in Mr. Pym’s eyes.

“Do you mean that those earlier suspicions you mentioned to me were actually justified?”

“Oh, yes. But it’s a bigger thing than that.”

“I don’t want any scandal.”

“Possibly not. But I don’t quite see how it’s to be avoided, if the thing comes to trial.”

“Look here, Bredon,” said Mr. Pym, “I don’t like your behaviour. I put you in here as my private inquiry agent. I admit that you have made yourself very useful in other capacities, but you are not indispensable. If you insist on going beyond your authority-”

“You can sack me. Of course. But would that be wise?”

Mr. Pym mopped his forehead.

“Can you tell me this,” he inquired anxiously, after a silence in which he seemed to be digesting the meaning of his employee’s question. “Do your suspicions point to any particular person? Is it possible to remove that person promptly from our staff? You see my point. If, before this scandal breaks-whatever it is-and I really think I ought to be told-but so long as we can say that the person is no longer on the staff, it makes a difference. The firm’s name might even be kept out of it-mightn’t it? The good name of Pym’s means a great deal to me, Mr. Bredon-”

“I can’t tell you,” said Wimsey; “a few days ago, I thought I knew, but just lately, other facts have come to my knowledge which suggest that the man I originally suspected may not be the right one. And until I know definitely, I can’t do or say anything. At the moment it might be anybody. It might even be yourself.”

“This is outrageous,” cried Mr. Pym. “You can take your money and go.”

Wimsey shook his head.

“If you get rid of me, the police will probably want to put somebody in my place.”

“If I had the police here,” retorted Mr. Pym, “I should at least know where I was. I know nothing about you, except that Mrs. Arbuthnot recommended you. I never cared for the idea of a private detective, though I certainly thought at first that you were of a somewhat superior type to the usual inquiry agent. But insolence I cannot and will not put up with. I shall communicate at once with Scotland Yard, and they will, I imagine, require you to state plainly what you imagine yourself to have discovered.

“They know it.”

“Do they? You do not seem to be a model of discretion, Mr. Bredon.” He pressed his buzzer. “Miss Hartley, will you please get Scotland Yard on the ’phone, and ask them to send up a reliable detective.”

“Very well, Mr. Pym.”

Miss Hartley danced away. This was meat and drink. She had always said there was something funny about Mr. Bredon, and now he had been caught. Pinching the cash, perhaps. She dialled the switch-board and asked for Whitehall 1212.

“Just one moment,” said Wimsey, when the door had closed upon her. “If you really want Scotland Yard tell her to ask for Chief-Inspector Parker and say that Lord Peter Wimsey would like to speak to him. Then he’ll know what it’s about.”

“You are-? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought it might raise difficulties about the salary and prove embarrassing. I took the job on because I thought advertising might be rather good fun. So it is,” added Wimsey, pleasantly, “so it is.”

Mr. Pym put his head into Miss Hartley’s room.

“I’ll take that call in here,” he said, briefly.

They sat mute till the call came through. Mr. Pym asked for Chief-Inspector Parker.

“There is a man here on my staff, calling himself-”

The conversation was a brief one. Mr. Pym handed the receiver to Wimsey.

“They want to speak to you.”

“Hullo, Charles! That you? Have you established my credit? All right… No, no trouble, only Mr. Pym feels he ought to know what it’s all about… Shall I tell him?… Not wise?… Honestly, Charles, I don’t think he’s our man… Well, that’s a different question… The Chief-Inspector wants to know whether you can hold your tongue, Mr. Pym.”

“I only wish to God everybody could hold his tongue,” groaned Mr. Pym.

Wimsey passed on the reply. “I think I’ll risk it, Charles. If anybody is going to be slugged in the dark after this, it won’t be you, and I can look after myself.”

He rang off and turned to Mr. Pym.

“Here’s the brutal fact,” he said. “Somebody’s running an enormous dope-traffic from this office. Who is there that has far more money than he ought to have, Mr. Pym? We’re looking for a very rich man. Can you help us?”

But Mr. Pym was past helping anybody. He was chalk-white.

“Dope? From this office? What on earth will our clients say? How shall I face the Board? The publicity…”

“Pym’s Publicity,” said Lord Wimsey, and laughed.