The Listening Eye

Chapter 24

ARNOLD BRAY was duly interviewed. He had a room in a poor lodging-house and everything shabby about him. If he was engaged in criminal enterprises, he certainly had not succeeded in making them pay. He had a soft voice, a nervous manner, and a strong family resemblance to his sister. Frank Abbott, who had accompanied Inspector Crisp on this domiciliary visit, found himself sharing Lucius Bellingdon’s inability to accept him as the murderer of Arthur Hughes.

“Mr. Bray, you were in Putney last night, in the High Street.”

Crisp’s bark produced a noticeable access of nervousness.

“Any reason why I shouldn’t have been?”

“We would like to know what you were doing there.”

“I had a bit of business to attend to.”

“Mind saying what it was?”

“Yes, I do. It was private.” His eyes flickered away from Crisp’s hard stare.

“You were seen in the High Street with a man whom we should like to interview.”

“Who saw me?”

“That’s neither here nor there, Mr. Bray. You were seen, and the man you were with was seen. What name do you know him by?”

He certainly was very nervous indeed.

“Look here, what’s all this about? I was in Putney on private business of my own. If you want to know, I was looking about for a second-hand bicycle. Someone told me a friend of his had got one he wanted to sell, and I thought I would have a look at it. He must have given me the wrong address or something, because when I got there I couldn’t find the place and nobody seemed to know anything about it-you know how it is. If I was talking to anyone, it would be when I was trying to find out about this chap’s address.”

If he was making it up as he went along, it wasn’t a bad effort. He obviously thought so himself, because his manner became more confident. Frank Abbott said in an easygoing way,

“What was his name, this chap you were looking for?”

Arnold Bray said,

“Robertson-Jack Robertson.”

“And the address?”

“Well, that’s where the whole thing slipped up. The man who told me about it said this chap with the bike was lodging with some people in the Emden Road. He didn’t remember the name, and wasn’t too sure of the number but he thought it was 79 or 97- anyway something with a seven and a nine in it. So that’s what I was doing-asking whether anyone knew this Jack Robertson.”

Crisp went on staring at him.

“Very much of a wild goose chase, wasn’t it? What was the name of the chap who told you about Robertson and this bike he was supposed to be selling?”

Arnold Bray looked almost smug.

“I’m afraid I don’t know, Inspector. It was just a chap I got talking to in the local.”

Crisp went on asking questions, but they got him nowhere. The moment when Arnold Bray could have been scared into a breakdown was over. Taken by surprise, and undoubtedly shaken, he had managed to produce a story which it was difficult to disprove. They mightn’t believe it, but it was the sort of thing that could easily have happened. It was, in fact, the sort of thing that did happen, and nothing in the interview had brought them, or was likely to bring them, a single step nearer to the man whom Paulina Paine had watched in the Masters gallery.

As they walked away, Frank Abbott said,

“He was rattled all right.”

Crisp barked.

“He’s the kind who always would be rattled if a police officer spoke to him.”

“Yet you say he has never been in trouble?”

Crisp frowned.

“He’s been on the edge of it to my certain knowledge. Hangs about there, I’d say. Some day he’ll go over the edge-then we’ll get him.”

After a minute or two Frank Abbott said,

“What about putting a tail on him? If he’s in with this man we want he’s likely enough to communicate with him-ring up, or go and see him. I’ve an idea we did rattle him more than a little. If he’s in this show at all, it’s as a subordinate, and if he’s the sort I take him for and we’ve scared him, then he’s liable to run to his boss about it. I think it’s worth trying.”

Frank Abbott was right about Arnold Bray being scared. When the two police officers had gone he sat down and put his head in his hands. He had got off this time, but they might come sneaking back-the police had a nasty way of doing that. He must try and remember exactly what he had told them. If there was the slightest slip anywhere, they would think that he had made the whole thing up.

He went over it slowly bit by bit. Someone in the local who had mentioned a bike that was going cheap in Putney. Nothing they could check up on there. And the chap who had the bike to sell… Yes, Robertson. He had hit on the name because of seeing it on a tradesman’s van in Putney. It was the kind of name anyone might have, with a respectable Scotch sound about it. But he had tacked a Christian name on to it. Now what had he got to do that for? Just for a moment he wasn’t sure what the name was. It might have been Jack, or Joe, or Bill, or Jim, or anything.

He sat there and sweated, until all at once it came to him that it was Jack, because what was in his mind was the old tag about “as sure as my name is Jack Robinson”, and at the last minute he had given it a twist and made it Robertson. So that was all right. But he’d have to pass the word that they’d been seen on Friday night. No more Putney for either of them if there was anyone there who could spot them like that and pass the word to the police. And if they weren’t going to meet again in a hurry, then there would have to be some arrangement about the money.

After a bit he went down to the call-box in the station yard. He had to stand and watch whilst a red-faced woman talked at length. A call-box was supposed to be soundproof, but things were not always what they were supposed to be. If the door didn’t quite fit, you might just as well be out in the street.

As he waited for the red-faced woman to finish her conversation he was pleased to observe that he could not hear a word she was saying. When she came out and he took her place it was with a certain sense of confidence that he got through the preliminaries, dropped in the required coins, and pressed button “A”.

The voice that answered was a stranger’s. In response to his “Can I speak to the gentleman who is lodging with you?” it said, “I’ll see”, and faded out.

Waiting there, his nerves got the better of him again. The telephone-box became a trap, shutting him in for everyone to stare at. Why had he got himself into this damned affair at all? It had looked like easy money. Nothing to do but pass on a little information-and look where it had landed him! If he had known, he would never have touched it. It might have been better if he had come clean and told the police what they wanted to know. No, no, he couldn’t do that, but the thought was in his mind. Thirty miles away he heard a man’s step crossing a room and the crackle of the receiver as it was lifted from the table where it had been laid. The voice he was waiting for said, “Hallo!” He heard his own voice shake.

“It’s Arnold.”

“What do you want?”

“We were seen together on Friday night in the High Street. I thought I had better let you know.”

“Who saw us?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who told you we’d been seen?”

“The police. They said I’d been seen talking to someone they wanted to interview.”

There was the beginning of a laugh at the other end.

“Then it was Pegler-I thought I saw him. But he doesn’t know you-I wonder how- Oh, well, I’d better avoid the neighbourhood. I had a chance of rather a good deal, and it ought to have been safe enough after dark. A bit of damned bad luck the old boy happening along. Where are you speaking from?”

“The call-box outside the station.”

“Anybody been tailing you?”

Arnold felt a rush of panic.

“No-no-of course not.”

The other man said, “I wonder-” And then, “What did you tell the police?”

“Nothing-nothing. I swear I didn’t. I said I’d been looking for a man who had a bike to sell and I couldn’t find the address-if I was seen talking to anyone, it would be whilst I was making enquiries.”

“Did they believe you?”

“Why shouldn’t they?”

“Why should they? On the other hand, they can’t prove anything. When they asked you who you were talking to, what did you tell them?”

“I said I didn’t know what they meant-I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, only asking about this man who had the bike to sell.”

“Well, that’s not too bad. Now you just listen to me! You carry on the way we settled it. Get off this line and stay off it. Don’t write, or ring up, or ask any questions. Just stay put in the bosom of your family, and if you get a chance to do what we planned, get on with it!”

“I don’t know that I can stay put.”

“You’ve got to! You’re no use to me anywhere else!”

“Suppose he won’t have me there-”

“Get Ellen to turn on the water-tap-she’s quite good at it. And now get off!”

Arnold Bray said, “Wait-”

“What is it?”

“The money-”

“What about it?”

“I want my share.”

The voice said lightly, “Oh, you’ll get it,” and the receiver went back with a click.

Arnold Bray hung up at his end. The receiver came wet from his sweating palm. The paths of crime had become very alarming to tread.