No Business of Mine

Chapter Two

Mrs. Crockett was a thin little woman with bright, suspicious eyes and a thin, disapproving mouth.

I could see she didn’t recognize me. She seemed to think I was a newspaper man after a story, and she peered at me from around the half-open door, ready to slam it in my face.

“What do you want?” she demanded in a reedy, querulous voice. “I ’ave enough to do without answering a lot of silly questions, so be off with you.”

“Don’t you remember me, Mrs. Crockett?” I asked. “I’m Steve Harmas, one of Miss Scott’s friends.”

“One of ’er friends, are you?” she said. “Fancy men, that’s wot I call ’em.” She peered at me, then nodded her head. Her eyes showed her disapproval. “Yes, I seemed to ’ave seen you before. Well, you’ve ’eard what’s ’appened to ’er, ’aven’t you?”

I nodded. “Yes. I wanted to talk to you about her. Did she leave any debts? I’ll settle anything she owed.”

The disapproving look was replaced by one of greed and calculating shrewdness.

“She owed me a month’s rent,” she said promptly. “Never expected to get that either. Still, if you’re paying ’er debts, may as well ’ave it. You’d better come in.”

I followed her along a dark passage that smelt of cats and boiled cabbage, into a dark, dingy room crammed with bamboo furniture.

“So she owed money?” I asked, watching the woman.

“Well, no,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. “She always paid up: I’ll say that for her, but she only ’ad the flat on the strict understanding it’d be a month’s notice or a month’s rent.”

“I see,” I said. “Have you any idea why she did what she did?”

Mrs. Crockett stared at me, looked away. “ ’ow should I know?” she asked, anger in her voice. “I didn’t interfere with ’er. I knew nothing about ’er.” Her thin lips set in a hard line. “She was no good. I should never ’ave ’ad ’er ’ere. Bringing disgrace to my ’ouse like this.”

“When did it happen?”

“The night before last. Mr. Cole smelt gas and ’e called me. When I couldn’t get no answer I guessed what she ’ad done — the little fool!” The hard eyes glittered. “Fair upset me it did. Mr. Cole sent for the police.”

“Did you see her?”

Mrs. Crockett started back “Who? Me? Think I want to ave ’er ’aunting my dreams? Not likely. Mr. Cole identified ’er for the police. Ever so considerate ’e is. Besides, ’e knew ’er as well, if not better than wot I did... always popping in and out of ’is room whenever ’e ’ears anything.”

“All right,” I said, taking out my wallet. “Have you a key to her flat.”

“Suppose I ’ave?” she said suspiciously. “What’s it to you?”

“I’d like to borrow it,” I returned, counting pound notes on to the table. Her eyes followed every movement. “Shall we say twenty-five pounds? Ten pounds for the key?”

“What’s the idea?” She was breathing quickly, her eyes overbright.

“Only that I’d like to look around her room. I suppose it’s as it was... nothing’s been touched?”

“Oh, no, the police told me to leave it alone. They’re trying to trace her relatives. Fat chance of finding anyone who’d own ’er, I say. I can’t imagine what’ll ’appen to ’er things. Anyway, I want ’em out. I want to let the flat.”

“Has she any relatives?”

“No one knows anything about ’er,” Mrs. Crockett said with a sniff. “Maybe the police’ll find out something, and it won’t be any good, you mark my words.”

“May I have the key, please?” I said, pushing the little heap of money towards her.

She shook her head doubtfully. “The police wouldn’t like it,” she said, looked away.

“I’m offering you ten pounds to sooth your conscience,” I reminded her. “Take it or leave it.”

She opened the drawer of the dresser, took out a key, laid it on the table.

“It’s people with too much money what gets honest folk into trouble,” she said.

“I’ll put that in my autograph book,” I said, a little sick of her, picked up the key, pushed the notes farther in her direction.

She snatched up the money, rammed it into her apron pocket.

“Don’t keep that key too long,” she said, “and don’t you take anything from the flat.”

I nodded, went out.

I walked up the stairs, paused on the first floor to read the name on the ‘card screwed to the panel of the door: Madge Kennitt. I remembered that Julius Cole had said: “the fat bitch in the lower flat, gloating.” I nodded to myself, walked on up to Netta’s flat. I fitted the key in the door, turned the handle, pushed gently. The door swung open. I entered Netta’s sitting room. As I turned to close the door, I saw Julius Cole watching me from the half-open door of his flat. He raised his eyebrows, waggled his head. I pretended I hadn’t seen him, closed Netta’s door, shot the bolt.

There was a faint, persistent smell of gas in the flat although the windows were open. I looked around the room, feeling sad and a little spooked.

The room hadn’t changed much since last I was in it. Some of the furniture had been shifted around, but there were no new pieces. The pictures were the same: all rather risqué prints taken from American and French magazines.

I had once asked Netta why she had such pictures on her walls. “The boys like them,” she had explained. “They take their minds off me. People who bore me are shocked by them and don’t come again, so they have their uses, you see.”

On the mantelpiece was her collection of china animals. She had about thirty of them. I had given her several. I went over to see if mine were still there. They were. I picked up a charming reproduction of Disney’s Bambi, turned it over. I remembered how pleased Netta had been with it. She said it was the best of her collection. I think it was.

I put the ornament down, wandered around the room my hands in my pockets. I was only beginning to realize that Netta was dead, that I wouldn’t see her again.

I didn’t think I would feel bad about it, but I did. Her death worried me too. I couldn’t believe that she had committed suicide. She just wasn’t the type to quit. Before the war I had been a crime reporter. I’d visited hundreds of rooms in which suicides had met their end. There had been an atmosphere in those rooms which this room lacked. I don’t know quite what it was, but somehow I couldn’t believe a suicide had happened here.

I went over to the light oak writing-desk, opened it, glanced inside. It was empty except for a bottle of ink and a couple of pencils. I looked at the pigeon-holes, remembered them as they had been when Netta and I had been going around together, crammed with letters, bills, papers. Now there was nothing.

I glanced over at the fireplace expecting to see ashes of burned paper. But the fireplace was empty. I thought this odd, pushed my hat to the back of my head, frowned down at the desk. Yes, odd.

A faint scratching at the front door made me start. I listened. The scratching continued.

“Let me in, baby,” Julius Cole whispered through the panels. “I want to see, too.”

I grimaced, tip-toed across the room, into the kitchen. The small-gas oven door was ajar. There was an orange-coloured cushion lying in the far corner of the room. I supposed she had used it when she put her head in the oven. I didn’t like thinking about it, so I went from the kitchen into her bedroom.

It was a small, bright room. The big double divan took up most of the space. There was a fitted wardrobe near the bed, a small dressing-table by the window. The room was decorated in green and daffodil yellow. There were no pictures, no ornaments.

I closed the door, stood looking down at the bed. It had memories for me, and it was several minutes before I walked to the dressing-table and looked at the amazing assortment of bottles, beauty creams, grease-paints that were scattered on the powder-covered glass top. I pulled open the drawers. They were full of the usual junk a girl collects: handkerchiefs, silk scarves, leather belts, gloves, cheap jewellery. I stirred with my forefinger the necklaces, bangles, rings in the cardboard box. It was all junk, and then I remembered the diamond bracelet and the diamond scarf-pin of which she had been so proud. I had given her the bracelet; some guy-she never told me who-had given her the pin. I looked through the drawers, but I couldn’t see them. I wondered where they had got to, if the police had taken them for safe custody.

Then I went to the wardrobe, opened it. A subtle smell of lilac drifted out of the wardrobe when I opened the door: her favourite perfume. I was struck by the emptiness in the wardrobe. There were only two evening dresses, a coat and skirt and a frock. At one time the cupboard was crammed with clothes.

There was a flame-coloured dress which I remembered. It was the dress she wore the night we first decided to sleep together. The kind of dress a sentimental guy like me wouldn’t forget. I reached for it, took it off the hanger, and as I pulled it out I realized that something heavy was hung up inside the dress.

My fingers traced around the shape of the thing: it was a gun. I opened the dress, found a Luger pistol hanging by its trigger guard from a small hook sewn inside the dress.

I sat on the bed, holding the dress in one hand and the Luger in the other. I was startled. It was the last thing I should have expected to find in Netta’s flat.

There were two obvious things to notice about the gun. It had a deep scratch along its barrel, and on the butt was a scar as if something had been filed off the metal; probably the name of the owner. I sniffed at the gun, had another shock. It had been fired, although not recently. The smell of burned powder was faint, but distinct. I laid the gun on the bed, scratched my head, brooded for a few minutes, then got up, went back to the wardrobe again. I opened the two drawers in which Netta used to keep her silk stockings and undies. Silk stockings had been one of Netta’s passions. During the time I had known her I had never seen her wear anything but real silk hose. She had laid in a stock just before the war, and a number of American service men, and myself for that matter, had kept her stock up. I turned over the garments in the drawers, but I couldn’t find any silk stockings.

I stubbed out my cigarette, frowned, wondered if Mrs. Crockett had been up here and had taken them, or if the police had been tempted. Silk stockings were almost unobtainable, and the temptation was easy to understand. There should have been at least a dozen pairs. When I last saw her-two years ago-she had thirty-six pairs. I know, because one night, when she had asked me to get her some, I had turned her drawer out and counted them to prove to her she didn’t need any more. Yes, she should have at least a dozen pairs, if not more. Where were they?

I decided to search her flat. I had been trained during my years as a crime reporter to take a house to pieces so that it wouldn’t show. It would be a long, dull job, but somehow I felt it would pay dividends.

I went through each room carefully and systematically. I left nothing to chance, even unwinding the blinds, feeling along the pelmets, taking up the carpets and sounding the floors.

In the bedroom by the fireplace I found a small recess in the floor, under a loose board. It was obvious that something had been kept there, but it was no longer there. In the bathroom, wrapped around the toilet roll I found eight five-pound notes. In the sitting-room between a picture of one of Varga’s lovelies and the back of the frame were eight more five-pound notes. At the bottom of a jar of cold cream I found a diamond ring. It looked a good diamond, and the setting was platinum. I hadn’t seen it before. It was an odd hiding place, but then so were the hiding places of the five-pound notes.

I went into the kitchen, and after a painstaking search found at the bottom of the flour bin, buried under the flour, a foolscap envelope. I drew it out, dusted off the flour and read the address on the envelope, written in Netta’s big, untidy hand:

Could this be a sister? I wondered, feeling the bulky envelope between my fingers. It seemed full of papers, and was heavy.

The whole business seemed to me odd. I was uneasy, suspicious. I didn’t know what to make of it all.

I satisfied myself that there was nothing of further interest in the kitchen, went back to the sitting-room.

I laid out on the table all the things I had found. There was the Luger pistol, the diamond ring, the sixteen five-pound notes, and the letter addressed to Anne Scott.

Why should a girl commit suicide when she possessed eighty pounds and a diamond ring? I asked myself. What other trouble apart from money could have made Netta do away with herself? I couldn’t imagine anything bad enough. In fact, I was now as sure as I could be that she hadn’t committed suicide. Murder? Well, if it wasn’t suicide, it had to be murder. It couldn’t have been an accident. Accidents didn’t happen quite like that.

I lit another cigarette, brooded. I’d have to discuss this with the police. I remembered Inspector Corridan of the Yard. He and I had been friendly when last I was in London. He had taken me around to the various haunts of petty criminals, and the material I had collected with his help had made a good article for the Saturday Evening Post.

Corridan was just the man to consult and I immediately reached for the telephone.

After a delay, Corridan came on the line.

I reminded him who I was, and he remembered me.

“Glad to hear from you again, Harmas,” he said. “You’re lucky to have caught me. I was just going home.”

“Are you in a hurry?” I asked, glancing at my wrist watch.

It was nearly nine o’clock.

“Well, I want to get home. Is it anything urgent?”

“Interesting rather than urgent,” I said. “I want your advice, and perhaps help. It’s to do with a girl named Netta Scott who committed suicide the night before last.”

“Who did you say?” he asked sharply.

“The girl’s name is Netta Scott. She used to be an old friend of mine. Frankly, Corridan, I’m not satisfied that she did kill herself.”

There was a pause, then he said, “Well, I have nothing special to do tonight. What do you suggest?”

“Suppose you meet me in half an hour at the Savoy?” I said. “If you’d make inquiries about the girl, it might simplify things. Any details may be useful.” I gave him Netta’s address, and he promised to have the information, and hung up. That was one of the things I liked about Corridan. He was never surprised at anything, never asked a lot of unnecessary questions, and was always willing to be helpful no matter how busy he was or how late the hour.

I put the gun, envelope, ring and money in my various pockets. Satisfied I hadn’t missed anything, I turned off the light, opened the front door, stepped on to the landing.

Julius Cole had brought a chair into his little hall and was sitting there smoking, with the front door open, waiting for me.

“Why didn’t you let me in, baby?” he asked, smiling his secret smile. “You had no right to be in there yourself.”

“Go bowl a hoop,” I said, went on down the stairs.

“Don’t run away, baby,” he said, sliding off his chair and coming to the head of the stairs. “What’s it like in there?” He sniggered. “Did she have pretty things? I suppose you’ve been through all her clothes. I wish I’d been there.”

I kept on, without looking back.

Mrs. Crockett answered my rap on her door.

“You’ve been up there long enough,” she snapped, taking the key I handed to her. “You ’aven’t taken anything, ’ave you? Most particular the police were about leaving everything as it was.”

I shook my head. “It’s all right,” I said. “Has anyone been in there since she died... I mean anyone except the police? Mr. Cole for instance?”

She shook her head. “No one, but you, and I’m sure I didn’t ought to ’ave...”

“There were some silk stockings... they don’t seem to be there,” I interrupted. “Do you know anything about them?”

“What should I want with silk stockings?” she snapped. “Course I don’t!”

I thanked her, made noncommittal noises, walked up the narrow stairs to the front door.

In the street I paused for a moment to look at the house. A light burned in Julius Cole’s flat: the rest of the house was in darkness. I wondered about Madge Kennitt, decided she didn’t fit in the picture; anyway, not for the time being, began to walk in the direction of Cromwell Road, fifty yards or so ahead of me.

The street was lit by only three lamps, one at the top, the other at the bottom and the third halfway between the other two. It was dark, and there were deep shadows, otherwise I shouldn’t have been so easily surprised.

I heard a patter of feet behind me, felt a sudden premonition of danger, ducked, jumped aside.

Something very hard hit my shoulder, brought me to my knees. I flung up my arm, staggered upright and again jumped back. I caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure of a man holding what seemed to me to be a tyre lever above his head. He slashed wildly at me. I heard the lever whistle past my face, stepped in close, and belted the guy in the ribs with everything I had. He dropped the tyre lever, reeled back, his breath coming out of him like a punctured balloon.

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” I demanded, crowding him.

I could see him now. He was a little runt, young, slim, underfed. I couldn’t see much of his face except that he was pasty. His clothes were shoddy, and his hat like a sponge full of grease.

Before I could collar him, he darted out of my reach and went down the street like a streak of lightning.

I stood looking after him, listening to his light footfalls. My shoulder ached and I was a little scared.

“For crying out loud,” I muttered to myself, looked uneasily up and down the street, ran hurriedly towards the lights of Cromwell Road.