Death in the dark, p.5
Death in the Dark, page 5
“It’s a tie being here alone,” she said when she came back. “My assistant left last week to get married. I’ll have to get another, but I’m a bit choosy about whom I have.”
“Would I do, Auntie?”
“You?” Mrs. Sturmer looked startled. “You aren’t thinking of leaving the profession, Judy? You’ve never had an accident. Don’t say you’ve lost your nerve.”
“No. But Reuben is going to join up with a different crowd. I wouldn’t care to do that. I’ve always been with him and—and David. I’d like to stay with you for the time being anyway, and I’d be only too pleased to help in the shop.”
“I’ll be glad to have you with me, but I don’t like the idea of you giving up. There wasn’t a better turn of its kind on the road than the Flying Merles. The air is your element, Judy. And you invented some good fresh business. That rose you threw to the audience as you ran out—”
Judy looked pleased. “You liked that? It went down very well, especially when we were travelling with the circus this summer. There’s more scope in a ring than on a stage. The audience is all round you. There was quite a scramble for it sometimes. It was just a bit of fun, and it filled in the time while Reuben was getting his breath after a bit of quick work on the trapeze. But there was a lot of trouble with Lil over that. She wanted to steal it, but as she never did anything but turn a few handsprings on the ground and lounge about at the foot of the ladder it wouldn’t have gone down from her. Anyway David wouldn’t stand for it. David—” her lips trembled. The mention of her brother’s name brought back what she had for a moment forgotten.
“You’re tired out,” said her aunt. “Come along. I’ve got your old room ready. And to-morrow being Sunday you shall have your breakfast in bed.”
Mrs. Sturmer, a wise woman, did not allow her niece much time to brood over her troubles. “You’ve got to learn the business if you’re going to help me,” she said, and Sunday afternoon was spent in the closed shop going through the stock. Every garment was priced in plain figures but on some tickets there were additional hieroglyphics. “This one means that if you think the customer really can’t afford it you can take off anything up to five shillings. This means that it’s not to be tried on. If I wasn’t firm I’d have some of these bouncing girls from the jam factory splitting these flimsy dance frocks. The waist measurements and lengths are written down. I’ll take you with me on a buying trip round about the end of next week, but we’ve got enough on hand at present. There’s a staff dance at Grimley’s next Wednesday and I expect a lot of girls will be in to-morrow and Tuesday. There won’t be much left on that lot of hangers by Wednesday morning. Can you drive a car?”
Judy nodded. She had learned to handle several makes of car the previous summer when the Flying Merles were travelling with a circus. Most of the performers had their own third or fourth hand Fords or Morris or Austin cars picked up in dealers’ yards.
“I’ve got one for my business,” explained her aunt. “We can take turns to drive. My idea was to close down on Wednesday and run over to Holton and see the boy’s lawyer. I’d like to hear what steps he is taking.”
“Oh, thank you, Auntie!” said Judy fervently. There had been moments when she had feared Mrs. Sturmer might take the view that David’s affairs were no longer her concern.
The elder woman answered gruffly. “Nothing to thank me for. Now you help me price this lot of coats.”
They were about to start on Wednesday morning when a young man arrived.
“I won’t keep you long,” he said as he proffered a card. “I’m covering the Holton murder mystery for the Sunday Trumpeter.”
“Mr. Peel said—”
He smiled. “That’s all right. Here’s Mr. Peel’s card. We’ve got the exclusive rights. I just want any photographs you can let me have of the Flying Merles and a short account of your professional career for me to write up. We have to be careful while a case is sub judice, but we’ll be safe with that.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you, Judy,” said her aunt.
“I’ve got to, Auntie. Mr. Peel arranged it. Just a minute.” She ran upstairs and came back with a bundle of photographs and a volume of press cuttings. “There’s a lot of stuff there about our South American tour, and things like that,” she said breathlessly.
“Thanks awfully. And do I tell our readers that you are convinced of your brother’s innocence?”
“Of course I am. Absolutely, utterly, entirely.”
Mrs. Sturmer intervened. “That’s harmless so far, I suppose,” she said grudgingly, “but mind you keep my niece’s present address out of the paper. I don’t want people coming to my place out of curiosity.”
“I can promise you that, madam. It wouldn’t suit our book to have other newspaper men trying to get interviews. Thank you very much, Miss Merle. Good morning.”
When he had ridden away on his motor-cycle Mrs. Sturmer locked the shop door and they got into the car. “The wrong kind of publicity,” she said disapprovingly as she let in the clutch. “I wonder at you, Judy.”
“You don’t understand, Auntie. Mr. Peel explained it to me. We’ve got to have money for David’s defence. A paper like the Sunday Trumpeter will pay hundreds of pounds for the sort of articles that boy will turn out.”
Mrs. Sturmer grunted. “I would have paid what’s necessary. I have my savings.”
“No, Auntie. David wouldn’t have allowed that. You’ve done so much for us in the past. This way is better.”
Mrs. Sturmer’s reply was lost in the grinding of her brakes as she stopped for the traffic lights. Soon afterwards Judy held her breath as they avoided a lorry with an inch to spare. She could have used several adjectives to describe her aunt’s driving, but dull would not have been one of them. But, owing perhaps to a special Providence, they reached Holton without being involved in an accident.
Mr. Peel had just come back to the office from his lunch when they called, and he had them shown at once into his private room. Judy introduced her aunt. Mr. Peel shook hands with them both.
“Sit down, please. I’m glad you’ve come. Merle has mentioned you, Mrs. Sturmer. I could see he has a great affection and respect for you.”
“I brought the three of them up after their parents’ death,” said Mrs. Sturmer. “David was always a good boy. He couldn’t have done this thing, Mr. Peel.”
The lawyer looked thoughtfully at his visitor’s shrewd, weather-beaten face. No nonsense about her, he thought. Reliable from the faded blue Basque beret she wore pulled over her short grey hair to the soles of her sensible brogues. Lucky that the girl had somebody like that to turn to.
He cleared his throat. “I am afraid the weight of the evidence is against us. The bloodstained shoes, the bundle of notes found in his possession, the finger-prints on the silver.”
“What does David say?”
What does David say?”
“His story is that he was wandering about the streets until past one o’clock.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“The question is will any jury accept that?” The lawyer hesitated. “There is one possibility that would give the defence a better chance. It has occurred to me that he may have gone to the Laurels with a companion, and that he was no more than a witness of the crime.”
“You mean he’s shielding somebody?” said Judith, incredulously.
“It does not seem likely to you?” Mr. Peel sounded rather disappointed. He had expected them to jump at this theory. Judith shook her head. “He wouldn’t do that for anyone but me or Reuben. He hadn’t any friends here.”
“Someone perhaps with a hold over him?”
“It sounds a bit far fetched to me,” said Auntie Apples bluntly, “but, of course, there must be some explanation if we could only get at it.”
“I’m afraid we shan’t be able to do much for him if he sticks to his present story.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“I did. He said, ‘There’s a kind of truth that would always sound like lies.’ Then, just as I was leaving him he asked me a very strange question. He said, ‘What was Mr. Fallowes like?’ I knew the old man by sight so I told him. He was of medium height and build, with a pronounced stoop, but active for his age, which was round about seventy, straggling grey beard and moustache and hair worn rather long. He was eccentric, you know, in many ways, and it was said that he hated spending money at a barber’s. Then his eyesight was poor, and he wore dark glasses, and in winter he swathed himself in scarves and shawls. Your brother listened closely to my description, Miss Merle, and then he said, ‘And that’s the one whose body was found? I can’t understand it.’ I said, ‘Hadn’t you better confide in me? But he shut up again like an oyster.”
“If I could see him,” said Judy, “I might be able to persuade him to speak out. I think he was going to tell me what had happened that morning if the police hadn’t come.”
“I was going to suggest that,” said the lawyer. “I should have to be with you, and one of the warders is always present, but it’s a very large room, and he is not supposed to listen.”
She leaned forward eagerly. “Can we go now, at once?”
“I’ll ring up the prison and find out.”
He dialled a number. “Hallo! Mr. Peel speaking. Peel. Is Major Steele engaged? Oh, just a minute . . . yes . . . Merle’s sister is here in my office. Can I bring her round to see him—and another relative, the aunt who brought him up. . . . Well, it might help. . . . I see. . . . Thank you.”
He replaced the receiver on its stand and turned to the two women. “Permission granted for a short interview. I’ll take you along now in my car.”
CHAPTER V
DAISY
David faced his visitors across a table. The warder who had fetched him down from his cell, after pointing out where he was to sit, had withdrawn to the farther end of the long, bare room.
“Good of you to come to see me, Auntie.”
“My dear boy—we want to help you,” said Mrs. Sturmer in her gruffest voice, “but we can’t unless you tell us what really happened that night.”
“Yes, David, do,” Judy pleaded.
He avoided her eyes. “I walked about.”
Judy fired up. “You—you pig-headed old silly. That’s no use. Oh, I could shake you. You’re lovely on the trapeze, my sweet, and your muscles are grand, but you haven’t the brains of a louse. They can prove you were in that house—prove it. Get that. But you didn’t kill that old man. It was some sort of frame up, wasn’t it?”
He was looking at her now. “Judy, you’re clever.”
“Of course I’m clever. I’ve needed to be with a pair of boneheads like you and Reuben. You’ve got into a mess and we’ve got to get you out, but we can’t if we don’t know all the facts.”
“Wait a minute,” he muttered.
They waited while he with his head in his hands, painfully trying to decide on his future course. Mr. Peel cleared his throat once or twice. Mrs. Sturmer twisted her wedding ring round and round. There had been Hans dying in the prison camp, and that railway accident. And now this.
Judy sat very still. Inwardly she was saying a prayer. “Please God—” She could not get any farther than that. She caught her breath as David lifted his head at last.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll tell you.” He glanced over his shoulder. The warder, sitting on a chair by the door, was reading the Daily Mail. “He can’t hear?”
“No, no,” Mr. Peel reassured him.
“Well, then—” He passed his hand across his forehead. In the harsh white glare of the unshaded electric light his young face looked drawn and weary. Ten years older, thought Judy, in a week. “He spoke to me that night. I’d gone across the square to post my letter to Daisy. He asked me to supper. I wouldn’t have gone only that ventriloquist who was at the Brighton Hippodrome had told me about him. He said he was a harmless old fellow and that the grub was jolly good, and that all he expected in return for his hospitality was that you would take the tracts he handed out when you left. You remember the chap, Judy, the Great Baroque. I wish to God he’d never said a word. Then I’d have gone straight home to our digs and I wouldn’t be here. Anyhow I went along with him and he took me into the house. The supper was laid ready in the dining-room. Tinned stuff mostly, but all the best. He didn’t eat anything himself. He was all wrapped up and he didn’t take anything off. I didn’t wonder at that for there was no fire and the place was as cold as a vault. Gloomy, too, with dark red hangings and a lot of that heavy mahogany furniture. There were silver cups and things on the sideboard, things he’d won, rowing and boxing and all that, when he was a young man, and he asked me to lift one of them to guess the weight. I said, ‘I must be going.’ He kept on asking questions, and he didn’t listen to the answers. It seemed as if he was listening for something else. It sort of gave me the willies. Then he said something about life being difficult and a lot of temptations, pi jaw stuff, and handed me what I thought was a parcel of tracts. I thanked him, of course, and shoved it into my pocket and forgot all about it. Then he said would I do him a favour before I went. The sash window in his bedroom had got stuck and he wasn’t strong enough to move it. I said I’d try, and we went upstairs. He opened a door on the first landing and told me to go in first. He was following me and he pressed the light switch. It clicked but the light didn’t come on. He asked me to wait a minute while he fetched a candle and he went away quickly closing the door after him. I’m not a kid to mind being left in a strange room in the dark, but it seemed queer.” He shut his eyes for a moment, and they saw beads of sweat break out on his upper lip. “I waited and listened, and I didn’t hear a sound. Then, as I got used to the darkness, I could make out the shape of the wardrobe and the bed standing out from the wall. There was something black lying on the bed. It—it sort of drew me. I put out my hand and touched flesh. It was cold. I—I—that got me going. I rushed to the door and grabbed the handle. The door was locked. My one idea then was to get out of the house. I made for the window and slipped on a wet patch by the bedside. That’s how I got blood on my shoes. I got out of the window easily enough and slid down the rainwater pipe to the ground. I don’t know what time it was, but I walked about for some while before I went back to my digs trying to calm down and think things out. When I got in I was dead beat, and I just got out of my clothes and slept like a log, and I’d only just woke up in the morning when the police came. That’s the whole truth, so help me God, but who’s going to believe it?”
“I do,” said Judy.
Mr. Peel had been taking notes. “This is a very strange story, Merle,” he said slowly. “It covers the known facts. I mean it accounts for the traces of your presence in the house. But if we accept it the mystery is deepened. The body of Mr. Fallowes was found as you describe it lying, fully dressed, across the bed, in the front bedroom. But you say Mr. Fallowes took you upstairs and left you there, saying that he would fetch a candle, and that when he failed to return and your eyes grew used to the dark you saw the body. According to you the dead man was not Fallowes. Could you describe him?”
“No. It was dark. I—I touched him twice. His hand was cold. The second time I felt something wet and sticky. Blood.”
“And the man who accosted you and brought you to the house. What was he like?”
“Middle-sized and he stooped a good bit from the shoulders. He had an untidy sort of grey beard and hair straggling down over his coat collar. He wore his hat all the time and his overcoat and muffler, and he had dark spectacles, and gloves on his hands. He had what they call a cultured voice, very precise and sort of B. B. C.ish. He seemed a bit nervy and on edge, I thought.”
“Anyone could dress up to look like that,” said Judy.
“Yes, yes, no doubt.” Mr. Peel sounded unconvinced, “but it does not sound very likely that anyone would.”
“It might be somebody in the profession who had been asked to supper some time ago. He might have thought how easy it would be to rob the house. Perhaps he didn’t mean to kill the old man, but when he had he decided to impersonate him and get somebody there so that suspicion would fall on them.”
“You mean that the crime had been committed when the man whom your brother supposed to be Mr. Fallowes invited him to supper?”
“Yes, of course. You heard David say the dead man’s hand was cold. He must have been dead some time.”
The warder, after glancing at the clock, had folded his newspaper. “Time’s up, sir.”
“Very well.” Mr. Peel stood up. “I’ll think this over, Merle, and see what can be done. You’ll appreciate that this story is not likely to be accepted without corroboration. If we can find evidence of the existence of this third person, someone who saw him going to the house or coming from it. Well, try not to worry. We shall do our best.”
“Thank you, sir.” David looked across the table at the two women and tried to smile. “Thank you both for coming.”
Mrs. Sturmer said nothing. Her face was working. She turned away abruptly.
Judy heard a voice that did not sound like her own saying, “God bless you, darling.”
“Judy, I haven’t had a word from Daisy. I hope they’re keeping all this from her. Do you know how she is?”
She shook her head. “I wrote to Mrs. Benson, but she hasn’t answered. I’ll go over and see them if you like.”
“I wish you would. God bless you, Judy, for sticking to me.”
“God bless you.”
The warder touched his arm. They went out together through another door.
Mr. Peel shepherded his charges back to his car. “Very upsetting, very upsetting. You feel it, naturally. Now we won’t talk on the way if you don’t mind.”
The prison was a mile outside the town, past the cemetery and the gas works and just beyond the tram terminus. Judy leaned back and shut her eyes. Auntie Apples was crying, and that in itself was a portent for Mrs. Sturmer did not cry easily or often.
“I’m afraid I can’t give you much more time just now,” said Mr. Peel, as they followed him into his room. “I’ll write and let you know how we get on.” He spoke kindly, but he was obviously anxious to get rid of them.
