24 - Killer Dolphin, page 18
"I suppose so," he said. "Immediately after. Winty Meyer for one. I've been working in a T.V. show and there's been a lot of carry-on about calls. In the event of any last-minute changes I arranged for them to ring this theatre and I've been looking in at the office after the show in case there was a message."
"Yes, I see."
"Last night, though, I didn't go round because the telly thing's finished. And anyway I was bound for Dessy Meade's party. She commanded me, as you've heard, to fetch my guitar and I lit off for Canonbury to get it."
"Did you arrive at Miss Meade's flat in Cheyne Walk before or after she and her other guests did?"
"Almost a dead heat. I was parking when they arrived. They'd been to the little joint in Wharfingers Lane, I understand."
"Anyone hear or see you at your own flat in Canonbury?"
"The man in the flat overhead may have heard me. He complains that I wake him up every night. The telephone rang while I was in the loo. That would be round about eleven. Wrong number. I daresay it woke him but I don't know. I was only there long enough to give myself a drink, have a wash, pick up the guitar and out."
"What's this other flatter's name?"
Harry gave it. "Well," he said cheerfully. "I hope I did wake him, poor bugger."
"We'll find out, shall we? Fox?"
Mr. Fox telephoned Harry's neighbour, explaining that he was a telephone operative checking a faulty line. He extracted the information that Harry's telephone had indeed rung just as the neighbour had turned his light off at eleven o'clock.
"Well, God bless him, anyway," said Harry.
"To go back to your overcoat. Was there a yellow silk scarf in the pocket?"
"There was indeed. With an elegant H embroidered by a devoted if slightly witchlike and acquisitive hand. The initial was appropriate at least. Henry J. was as pleased as punch, poor old donkey."
"You liked him very much, didn't you?"
"As I said, he was a good bloke. We used to have a pint at the pub and he'd talk about his days on the river. Oddly enough I think he rather liked me."
"Why should that be so odd?"
"Oh," Harry said. "I'm hideously unpopular, you know. I really am disliked. I have a talent for arousing extremes of antipathy, I promise you. Even Mr. Conducis," Harry said, opening his eyes very wide, "although he feels obliged to be helpful, quite hates my guts, I assure you."
"Have you seen him lately?"
"Friday afternoon," Harry said promptly.
"Really?"
"Yes. I call on him from time to time as a matter of duty. After all, he got me this job. Did I mention that we are distantly related? Repeat: distantly."
"No."
"No. I don't mention it very much. Even I," Harry said, "draw the line somewhere, you know."
CHAPTER 8
Sunday Afternoon
What did you think of that little party, Br'er Fox?"
"Odd chap, isn't he? Very different in his manner to when he was annoying his colleagues. One of these inferiority complexes, I suppose. You brought him out, of course."
"Do you think he's dropped to the obvious speculation?"
"About the coat? I don't fancy he'd thought of that one, Mr. Alleyn, and if I've got you right I must say it strikes me as being very far-fetched. You might as well say--well," Fox said in his scandalized manner, "you might as well suspect I don't know who. Mr. Knight. The sharp-faced lady Miss Bracey, or even Mr. Conducis."
"Well, Fox, they all come into the field of vision, don't they? Overcoat or no overcoat."
"That's so," Fox heavily agreed. "So they do. So they do." He sighed and after a montent said majestically, "D'you reckon he was trying to pull our legs?"
"I wouldn't put it past him. All the same there is a point, you know, Fox. The landing was very dim even when the safe was open and lit."
"How does that interior lighting work? I haven't had a look, yet"
"There's a switch inside the hole in the wall on the circle side. What the thief couldn't have realized is the fact that this switch works the sliding steel front door and that in its turn puts on the light."
"Like a fridge."
"Yes. What might have happened is something like this. The doors from the circle into the upper foyer were shut and the auditorium was in darkness. The thief lay doggo in the circle. He heard Jay and Miss Dunne go out and bang the stage-door. He waited until midnight and then crept up to the door nearest the hole in the wall and listened for Jobbins to put through his midnight report to Fire and Police. You've checked that he made this call. We're on firm ground there, at least."
"And the chap at the Fire Station, which was the second of his two calls, reckons he broke off a bit abruptly."
"Exactly. Now, if I'm right so far--and I know damn well I'm going to speculate--our man would choose this moment to open the wall panel--It doesn't lock--and manipulate the combination. He's already cut the burglar alarm off at the main. He must have had a torch, but I wouldn't mind betting that by intention or accident he touched the inner switch button and, without knowing he'd done so, rolled back the front door, which in its turn put on the interior lighting. If it was accidental he wouldn't realize what he'd done until he'd opened the back of the safe and removed the black velvet display stand with its contents and found himself looking through a peephole across the upper foyer and sunken landing."
"With the square of light reflected on the opposite wall."
"As bright as ninepence. Quite bright enough to attract Jobbing's attention."
"Now it gets a bit dicey."
"Don't I know it."
"What happens? This chap reckons he'd better make a bolt for it. But why does he come out here to the foyer?" Fox placidly regarded his chief. "This," he continued, "would be asking for it. This would be balmy. He knows Jobbins is somewhere out here."
"I can only cook up one answer to that, Fox. He's got the loot. He intends to shut the safe, fore and aft, and spin the lock. He means to remove the loot from the display stand but at this point he's interrupted. He hears a voice, a catcall, a movement. Something. He turns round to find young Trevor Vere watching him. He thinks Jobbins is down below at the telephone. He bolts through the door from the circle to this end of the foyer meaning to duck into the loo before Jobbins gets up. Jobbins would then go into the circle and find young Trevor and assume he was the culprit. But he's too late. Jobbins, having seen the open safe, comes thundering up from below. He makes for this chap, who gives a violent shove to the pedestal, and the dolphin lays Jobbins flat. Trevor comes out to the foyer and sees this. Our chap goes for him. The boy runs back through the door and down the central aisle with his pursuer hard on his heels. He's caught at the foot of the steps. There's a struggle during which the boy grabs at the display stand. The polythene cover is dislodged, the treasure falls overboard with it. The boy is hit on the face. He falls across the balustrade, face down, clinging to it. He's picked up by the seat of his trousers, swung sideways and heaved over, his nails dragging semi-diagonally across the velvet pile as he goes. At this point Hawkins comes down the stage-door alley."
"You are having yourself a ball," said Mr. Fox, who liked occasionally to employ the contemporary idiom. "How long does all this take?"
"From the time he works the combination it needn't take more than five minutes. If that. Might be less."
"So the time's now--say--five past midnight"
"Say between twelve and twelve-ten."
"Yerse," said Fox and a look of mild gratification settled upon his respectable face. "And at twelve-five, or -ten or thereabouts Hawkins comes in by the stage-door, goes into the stalls and has a little chat with the deceased, who is looking over the circle balustrade."
"I see you are in merry pin," Alleyn remarked. "Hawkins, Mr. Smartypants, has a little chat with somebody wearing Jobbins's new coat which Hawkins is just able to recognize in the scarcely lit circle. This is not, of necessity, Jobbins. So, you see, Harry Grove had a point about the coat."
"Now then, now then."
"Going too far, you consider?"
"So do you, Mr. Alleyn."
"Well, of course I do. All this is purest fantasy. If you can think of a better one, have a go yourself."
"If only," Fox grumbled, "that kid could recover his wits, we'd all know where we were."
"We might."
"About this howd'yedo with the overcoat. Is your story something to this effect? The killer loses his loot, heaves the kid overboard and hears Hawkins at the stage-door. All right! He bolts back to the circle foyer. Why doesn't he do a bunk by the pass-door in the front entrance?"
"No time. He knows that in a matter of seconds Hawkins will come through the auditorium into the front foyer. Consider the door. A mortice lock with the key kept on a hook behind the office. Two dirty great bolts and an iron bar. No time."
"So you're making out he grabs the coat off the body, puts it on, all mucky as it is with blood and Gawd knows what--"
"Only on the outside. And I fancy he took the scarf from the overcoat pocket and used it to protect his own clothes."
"Ah. So you say he dolls himself up and goes back to the circle and tells Hawkins to make the tea?"
"In a croaking bronchial voice, we must suppose."
"Then what? Humour me, Mr. Alleyn. Don't stop."
"Hawkins goes off to the Property Room and makes the tea. This will take at least five minutes. Our customer returns to the body and re-dresses it in the coat and puts the scarf round the neck. You noticed how the coat was: bunched up and stuffed under the small of the back. It couldn't have got like that by him falling in it."
"Damn, I missed that one. It's an easy one, too."
"Having done this he goes downstairs, gets the key, unlocks the pass-door in the front entrance, pulls the bolts, unslips the iron bar, lets himself out and slams the door. There's a good chance that Hawkins, busily boiling up on the far side of the iron curtain, won't hear it or if he does won't worry. He's a coolish customer, is our customer, but the arrival of Trevor and then Hawkins and still more the knowledge of what he has done--he didn't plan to murder--having rattled him. He can't do one thing."
"Pick up the swag?"
"Just that. It's gone overboard with Trevor."
"Maddening for him," said Mr. Fox primly. He contemplated Alleyn for some seconds.
"Mind you," he said, "I'll give you this. If it was Jobbins and not a murderer rigged out in Jobbins's coat we're left with a crime that took place after Jobbins talked to Hawkins and before Hawkins came round with the tea and found the body."
"And with a murderer who was close by during the conversation and managed to work the combination, open the safe, extract the loot, kill Jobbins, half kill Trevor, do his stuff with the door and sling his hook--all within the five minutes it took Hawkins to boil up."
"Well," Fox said after consideration, "it's impossible, I'll say that for it. It's impossible. And what's that look mean, I wonder," he added.
"Get young Jeremy Jones in and find out," said Alleyn.
When Harry Grove came out of the office he was all smiles. "I bet you lot wonder if I've been putting your pots on," he said brightly. "I haven't really. I mean not beyond mentioning that you all hate my guts, which they could hardly avoid detecting, one would think."
They can't detect something that's nonexistent," Peregrine said crisply. "I don't hate your silly guts, Harry. I think you're a bloody bore when you do your enfant terrible stuff. I think you can be quite idiotically mischievous and more than a little spiteful. But I don't hate your guts: I rather like you."
"Perry: how splendidly detached! And Jeremy?"
Jeremy, looking as if he found the conversation unpalatable, said impatiently: "Good God, what's it matter! What a lot of balls."
"And Winty?" Harry said.
Meyer looked very coolly at him. "I should waste my time hating your guts?" He spread his hands. "What nonsense," he said. "I am much too busy."
"So, in the absence of Charlie and the girls, we find ourselves left with the King Dolphin."
As soon as Harry had reappeared Marcus Knight had moved to the far end of the circle foyer. He now turned and said with dignity: "I absolutely refuse to have any part of this," and ruined everything by shouting: "And I will not suffer this senseless, this insolent, this insufferable name-coining."
"Ping!" said Harry. "Great strength rings the bell. I wonder if the Elegant Rozzer in there heard you. I must be off. Best of British luck--" he caught himself up on this familiar quotation from Jobbins and looked miserable. "That," he said, "was not intentional," and took himself off.
Marcus Knight at once went into what Peregrine had come to think of as his First Degree of temperament. It took the outward form of sweet reason. He spoke in a deathly quiet voice, used only restrained gesture and, although that nerve jumped up and down under his empurpled cheek, maintained a dreadful show of equanimity.
"This may not be, indeed emphatically is not, an appropriate moment to speculate upon the continued employment of this person. One has been given to understand that the policy is adopted at the instigation of the Management. I will be obliged, Winter, if at the first opportunity, you convey to the Management my intention, unless Hartly Grove is relieved of his part, of bringing my contract to its earliest possible conclusion. My agents will deal with the formalities."
At this point, under normal circumstances he would undoubtedly have effected a smashing exit. He looked restlessly at the doors and stairways and, as an alternative, flung himself into one of the Victorian settees that Jeremy had caused to be placed about the circle foyer. Here he adopted a civilized and faintly Corinthian posture but looked, nevertheless, as if he would sizzle when touched.
"My dear, dear Perry and my dear Winty," he said. "Please do take this as definite. I am sorry, sorry, sorry that it should be so. But there it is."
Perry and Meyer exchanged wary glances. Jeremy, who had looked utterly miserable from the time he came in, sighed deeply.
Peregrine said, "Marco, may we, of your charity, discuss this a little later? The horrible thing that happened last night is such a black problem for all of us. I concede everything you may say about Harry. He behaves atrociously and under normal circumstances would have been given his marching orders long ago. If there's any more of this sort of thing I'll speak about it to Greenslade and if he feels he can't take a hand I shall--I'll go to Conducis himself and tell him I can no longer stomach his protégé. But in the meantime--please be patient, Marco."
Marcus waved his hand. The gesture was beautiful and ambiguous. It might have indicated dismissal, magniloquence or implacable fury. He gazed at the ceiling, folded his arms and crossed his legs.
Winter Meyer stared at Peregrine and then cast up his eyes and very, very slightly rolled his head.
Inspector Fox came out of the office and said that if Mr. Jeremy Jones was free Superintendent Alleyn would be grateful if he could spare him a moment.
Peregrine, watching Jeremy go, suffered pangs of an undefined anxiety.
When Jeremy came into the office he found Alleyn seated at Winter Meyer's desk with his investigation kit open before him and, alongside that, a copy of The Times. Jeremy stood very still just inside the door. Alleyn asked him to sit down and offered him a cigarette.
"I've changed to a pipe. Thank you, though."
"So have I. Go ahead, if you want to."
Jeremy pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch. His hands were steady but looked self-conscious.
"I've asked yon to come in," Alleyn said, "on a notion that may quite possibly turn out to be totally irrelevant. If so you'll have to excuse me. You did the decor for this production, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"If I may say so it seemed to me to be extraordinarily right. It always fascinates me to see the tone and character of a play reflected by its background without the background itself becoming too insistent."
"It often does."
"Not in this instance, I thought. You and Jay share a flat, don't you? I suppose you collaborated over the whole job?"
"Oh, yes," Jeremy said and, as if aware of being unforthcoming, he added: "It worked all right."
"They tell me you've got a piece of that nice shop in Walton Street and are an authority on historic costume."
"That's putting it much too high."
"Well, anyway, you designed the clothes and props for this show?"
"Yes."
"The gloves for instance," Alleyn said and lifted his copy of The Times from the desk. The gloves used in the play lay neatly together on Winter Meyer's blotting pad.
Jeremy said nothing.
"Wonderfully accurate copies. And, of course," Alleyn went on, "I saw you arranging the real glove and the documents on the velvet easel and putting them in the safe. That morning in the theatre some six months ago. I was there, you may remember."
Jeremy half rose and then checked himself. "That's right," he said.
Alleyn lifted a tissue paper packet out of his open case, put it near Jeremy on the desk and carefully folded back the wrapping. He exposed a small, wrinkled, stained, embroidered and tasselled glove.
"This would be it?" he asked.
"I--yes," said Jeremy, as white as a sheet.
"The glove you arranged on its velvet background with the two documents and covered with a sheet of polythene fastened with velvet-covered drawing pins?"
"Yes."
"And then from the panel opening in the circle wall, you put this whole arrangement into the cache that you yourself had lined so prettily with padded gold silk. You used the switch that operates the sliding steel door in the foyer wall. It opened and the interior lights went on behind the convex plate-glass front of the cache. Then you shut the back door and spun the combination lock. And Peregrine Jay, Winter Meyer, Marcus Knight, young Trevor Vere, Miss Destiny Meade and Miss Emily Dunne all stood about, at your suggestion, in the circle foyer or the sunken landing and they all greately admired the arrangement. That right?"
"You were there, after all."
"As I reminded you. I stayed in the circle, you know, and joined you when you were re-arranging the exhibits on their background." He gave Jeremy a moment or two and, as he said nothing, continued.
