Striding Folly: A Collection of Mysteries Read online

  ‘Quite right,’ said Peter, and filled the glasses again. He found the policeman soothing. True to his class and training, he turned naturally in moments of emotion to the company of the common man. Indeed, when the recent domestic crisis had threatened to destroy his nerve, he had headed for the butler’s pantry with the swift instinct of the homing pigeon. There, they had treated him with great humanity, and allowed him to clean the silver.

  With a mind oddly clarified by champagne and lack of sleep, he watched the constable’s reaction to Pol Roger 1926. The first glass had produced a philosophy of life; the second produced a name – Alfred Burt – and a further hint of some mysterious grievance against the station sergeant; the third glass, as prophesied, produced the story.

  ‘You were right, sir’ (said the policeman) ‘when you spotted I was new to the beat. I only come on it at the beginning of the week, and that accounts for me not being acquainted with you, sir, nor with most of the residents about here. Jessop, now, he knows everybody and so did Pinker – but he’s been took off to another division. You’d remember Pinker – big chap, make two o’ me, with a sandy moustache. Yes, I thought you would.

  ‘Well, sir, as I was saying, me knowing the district in a general way, but not, so to speak, like the palm o’ me ’and, might account for me making a bit of a fool of myself, but it don’t account for me seeing what I did see. See it I did, and not drunk nor nothing like it. And as for making a mistake in the number, well, that might happen to anybody. All the same, sir, 13 was the number I see, plain as the nose on your face.’

  ‘You can’t put it stronger than that,’ said Peter, whose nose was of a kind difficult to overlook.

  ‘You know Merriman’s End, sir?’

  ‘I think I do. Isn’t it a long cul-de-sac running somewhere at the back of South Audley Street, with a row of houses on one side and a high wall on the other?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Tall, narrow houses they are, all alike, with deep porches and pillars to them.’

  ‘Yes. Like an escape from the worst square in Pimlico. Horrible. Fortunately, I believe the street was never finished, or we should have had another row of the monstrosities on the opposite side. This house is pure eighteenth century. How does it strike you?’

  P.C. Burt contemplated the wide hall – the Adam fireplace and panelling with their graceful shallow mouldings, the pedimented doorways, the high round-headed window lighting hall and gallery, the noble proportions of the stair. He sought for a phrase.

  ‘It’s a gentleman’s house,’ he pronounced at length. ‘Room to breathe, if you see what I mean. Seems like you couldn’t act vulgar in it.’ He shook his head. ‘Mind you, I wouldn’t call it cosy. It ain’t the place I’d choose to sit down to a kipper in me shirtsleeves. But it’s got class. I never thought about it before, but now you mention it I see what’s wrong with them other houses in Merriman’s End. They’re sort of squeezed-like. I been into more’n one o’ them tonight, and that’s what they are; they’re squeezed. But I was going to tell you about that.’

  ‘Just upon midnight it was’ (pursued the policeman) ‘when I turns into Merriman’s End in the ordinary course of my dooties. I’d got pretty near down toward the far end, when I see a fellow lurking about in a suspicious way under the wall. There’s back gates there, you know, sir, leading into some gardens, and this chap was hanging about inside one of the gateways. A rough-looking fellow, in a baggy old coat – might a’ been a tramp off the Embankment. I turned my light on him – that street’s not very well lit, and it’s a dark night – but I couldn’t see much of his face, because he had on a ragged old hat and a big scarf round his neck. I thought he was up to no good, and I was just about to ask him what he was doing there, when I hear a most awful yell come out o’ one o’ them houses opposite. Ghastly it was, sir. “Help!” it said. “Murder! help!”, fit to freeze your marrow.’

  ‘Man’s voice or woman’s?’

  ‘Man’s, sir. I think. More of a roaring kind of yell, if you take my meaning. I says, ‘Hullo! What’s up there ? Which house is it?’ The chap says nothing, but he points, and him and me runs across together. Just as we gets to the house, there’s a noise like as if someone was being strangled just inside, and a thump, as it might be something falling against the door.’

  ‘Good God!’ said Peter.

  ‘I gives a shout and rings the bell. ‘Hoy!’ I says. ‘What’s up here?’ and then I knocked on the door. There’s no answer, so I rings and knocks again. Then the chap who was with me, he pushed open the letter-flap and squints through it.’

  ‘Was there a light in the house?’

  ‘It was all dark, sir, except the fanlight over the door. That was lit up bright, and when I looks up, I see the number of the house – number 13, painted plain as you like on the transom. Well, this chap peers in, and all of a sudden he gives a kind of gurgle and falls back. “Here!” I says, “what’s amiss? Let me have a look.” So I puts me eye to the flap and I looks in.’

  P.C. Burt paused and drew a long breath. Peter cut the wire of the second bottle.

  ‘Now, sir,’ said the policeman, ‘believe me or believe me not, I was as sober at that moment as I am now. I can tell you everything I see in that house, same as if it was wrote up there on that wall. Not as it was a great lot, because the flap wasn’t all that wide but by squinnying a bit, I could make shift to see right across the hall and a piece on both sides and part way up the stairs. And here’s what I see, and you take notice of every word, on account of what come after.’

  He took another gulp of the Pol Roger to loosen his tongue and continued:

  ‘There was the floor of the hall. I could see that very plain. All black and white squares it was, like marble, and it stretched back a good long way. About half-way along, on the left, was the staircase, with a red carpet, and the figure of a white naked woman at the foot, carrying a big pot of blue and yellow flowers. In the wall next the stairs there was an open door, and a room all lit up. I could just see the end of a table, with a lot of glass and silver on it. Between that door and the front door there was a big black cabinet, shiny, with gold figures painted on it, like them things they had at the Exhibition. Right at the back of the hall there was a place like a conservatory, but I couldn’t see what was in it, only it looked very gay. There was a door on the right, and that was open, too. A very pretty drawing-room, by what I could see of it, with pale blue paper and pictures on the walls. There were pictures in the hall, too, and a table on the right with a copper bowl, like as it might be for visitors’ cards to be put in. Now, I see all that, sir, and I put it to you, if it hadn’t a’ been there, how could I describe so plain?’

  ‘I have known people describe what wasn’t there,’ said Peter thoughtfully, ‘but it was seldom anything of that kind. Rats, cats and snakes I have heard of, and occasionally naked female figures; but delirious lacquer cabinets and hall-tables are new to me.’

  ‘As you say, sir,’ agreed the policeman, ‘and I see you believe me so far. But here’s something else, what you mayn’t find so easy. There was a man laying in that hall, sir, as sure as I sit here and he was dead. He was a big man and clean-shaven, and he wore evening dress. Somebody had stuck a knife into his throat. I could see the handle of it – it looked like a carving knife, and the blood had run out, all shiny, over the marble squares.’

  The policeman looked at Peter, passed his handkerchief over his forehead, and finished the fourth glass of champagne.

  ‘His head was up against the end of the hall table,’ he went on, ‘and his feet must have been up against the door, but I couldn’t see anything quite close to me, because of the bottom of the letter-box. You understand, sir, I was looking through the wire cage of the box, and there was something inside – letters, I suppose that cut off my view downwards. But I see all the rest – in front and a bit of both sides; and it must have been regularly burnt in upon me brain, as they say, for I don’t suppose I was looking more than a quarter of a minute or so.
Then all the lights went out at once, same as if somebody has turned off the main switch. So I looks round, and I don’t mind telling you I felt a bit queer. And when I looks round, lo and behold! my bloke in the muffler had hopped it.’

  ‘The devil he had,’ said Peter.

  ‘Hopped it,’ repeated the policeman, ‘and there I was. And just there, sir, is where I made my big mistake, for I thought he couldn’t a’ got far, and I started off up the street after him. But I couldn’t see him, and I couldn’t see nobody. All the houses was dark, and it come over me what a sight of funny things may go on, and nobody take a mite o’ notice. The way I’d shouted and banged on the door, you’d a’ thought it’d a’ brought out every soul in the street, not to mention that awful yelling. But there – you may have noticed it yourself, sir. A man may leave his ground-floor windows open, or have his chimney a’ fire, and you may make noise enough to wake the dead, trying to draw his attention, and nobody give no heed. He’s fast asleep, and the neighbours say, “Blast that row, but, it’s no business of mine,” and stick their ’eads under the bedclothes.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘London’s like that.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. A village is different. You can’t pick up a pin there without somebody coming up to ask where you got it from – but London keeps itself to itself … Well, something’ll have to be done, I thinks to myself, and I blows me whistle. They heard that all right. Windows started to go up all along the street. That’s London, too.’

  Peter nodded. ‘London will sleep through the last trump. Puddley-in-the-Rut and Doddering-in-the-Dumps will look down their noses and put on virtuous airs. But God, who is never surprised, will say to his angel, “Whistle up ’em, Michael, whistle ’em up; East and West will rise from the dead at the sound of the policeman’s whistle”.’

  ‘Quite so, sir,’ said P.C. Burt; and wondered for the first time whether there might not be something in this champagne stuff after all. He waited for a moment and then resumed:

  ‘Well, it so happened that just when I sounded my whistle, Withers – that’s the man on the other beat – was in Audley Square, coming to meet me. You know, – sir we has times for meeting one another, arranged different-like every night; and twelve o’clock in the square was our rendy-voos tonight. So up he comes in, you might say, no time at all, and finds me there, with everyone a’ hollering at me from the windows to know what was up. Well, naturally, I didn’t want the whole bunch of ’em running out into the street and our man getting away in the crowd, so I just tells ’em there’s nothing, only a bit of an accident farther along. And then I see Withers and glad enough I was. We stands there at the top o’ the street, and I tells him there’s a dead man laying in the hall at Number 13, and it looks to me like murder. “Number 13,” he says, “you can’t mean Number 13. There ain’t no Number 13 in Merriman’s End, you fathead; it’s all even numbers.” And so it is, sir, for the houses on the other side were never built, so there’s no odd numbers at all barrin’ Number 1, as is the big house on the corner.

  ‘Well, that give me a bit of a jolt. I wasn’t so much put out at not having remembered about the numbers, for as I tell you, I never was on the beat before this week. No; but I knew I’d seen that there number writ up plain as pie on the fanlight, and I didn’t see how I could have been mistaken. But when Withers heard the rest of the story, he thought maybe I’d misread it for Number 12. It couldn’t be 18, for there’s only sixteen houses in the road; nor it couldn’t be 16 neither, for I knew it wasn’t the end house. But we thought it might be 12 or 10; so away we goes to look.

  ‘We didn’t have no difficulty about getting in at Number 12. There was a very pleasant old gentleman came down in his dressing-gown, asking what the disturbance was, and could he be of use. I apologised for disturbing him, and said I was afraid there’d been an accident in one of the houses, and had he heard anything. Of course, the minute he opened the door I could see it wasn’t Number 12 we wanted; there was only a little hall with polished boards, and the walls plain panelled – all very bare and neat – and no black cabinet nor naked woman nor nothing. The old gentleman said, yes, his son had heard somebody shouting and knocking a few minutes earlier. He’d got up and put his head out of the window, but couldn’t see nothing, but they both thought from the sound it was Number 14 forgotten his latch-key again. So we thanked him very much and went onto Number 14.

  ‘We had a bit of a job to get Number 14 downstairs. A fiery sort of gentleman he was, something in the military way, I thought, but he turned out to be a retired Indian Civil Servant. A dark gentleman, with a big voice, and his servant was dark, too – some sort of a nigger. The gentleman wanted to know what the blazes all this row was about, why a decent citizen wasn’t allowed to get his proper sleep. He supposed that young fool at Number 12 was drunk again. Withers had to speak a bit sharp to him; but at last the nigger came down and let us in. Well, we had to apologise once more; The hall was not a bit like – the staircase was on the wrong side, for one thing, and though there was a statue at the foot of it, it was some kind of a heathen idol with a lot of heads and arms, and the walls were covered with all sorts of brass stuff and native goods you know the kind of thing. There was a black-and-white linoleum on the floor, and that was about all there was to it. The servant had soft sort of way with him I didn’t half like. He said he slept at the back and had heard nothing till his master rang for him. Then the gentleman came to the top of the stairs and shouted out it was no use disturbing him; the noise came from Number 12 as usual, and if that young man didn’t stop his blanky Bohemian goings-on, he’d have the law on his father. I asked if he’d seen anything, and he said, no, he hadn’t. Of course, sir, me and that other chap was inside the porch, and you can’t see anything what goes on inside those porches from the other houses, because they’re filled in at the sides with coloured glass – all the lot of them.’

  Lord Peter Wimsey looked at the policeman and then looked at the bottle, as though estimating the alcoholic content of each. With deliberation, he filled both glasses again.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said P.C. Burt after refreshing himself, ‘by this time Withers was looking at me in rather an old-fashioned manner. However, he said nothing, and we went back to Number 10, where there was two maiden ladies and a hall full of stuffed birds and wallpaper like a florists’ catalogue. The one who slept in the front was deaf as a post, and the one who slept at the back hadn’t heard nothing. But we got hold of their maids, and the cook said she’d heard the voice calling “Help!” and thought it was in Number 12, and she’d hid her head in the pillow and said her prayers. The housemaid was a sensible girl. She’d looked out when she heard me knocking. She couldn’t see anything at first, owing to us being in the porch, but she thought something must be going on, so, not wishing to catch cold, she went back to put on her bedroom slippers. When she got back to the window, she was just in time to see a man running up the road. He went very quick and very silent, as if he had goloshes on, and she could see the ends of his muffler flying out behind him. She saw him run out of the street and turn to the right, and then she heard me coming along after him. Unfortunately her eye being on the man, she didn’t notice which porch I came out of. Well, that showed I wasn’t inventing the whole story at any rate, because there was my bloke in the muffler. The girl didn’t recognise him at all, but that wasn’t surprising, because she’d only just entered the old ladies’ service. Besides, it wasn’t likely the man had anything to do with it, because he was outside with me when the yelling started. My belief is, he was the sort as doesn’t care to have his pockets examined too close, and the minute my back was turned he thought he’d be better and more comfortable elsewhere.’

  ‘Now there ain’t no need’ (continued the policeman) ‘for me to trouble you, sir, with all them houses what we went into. We made inquiries at the whole lot, from Number 2 to Number 16, and there wasn’t one of them had a hall in any ways conformable to what that chap and I saw through the letter-box. No
r there wasn’t a soul in ’em could give us any help more than what we’d had already. You see, sir, though it took me a bit o’ time telling, it all went very quick. There was the yells; they didn’t last beyond a few seconds or so, and before they was finished, we was across the road and inside the porch. Then there was me shouting and knocking; but I hadn’t been long at that afore the chap with me looks through the box. Then I has my look inside, for fifteen seconds it might be, and while I’m doing that, my chap’s away up the street. Then I runs after him, and then I blows me whistle. The whole thing might take a minute or a minute and a half, maybe. Not more.

  ‘Well, sir; by the time we’d been into every house in Merriman’s End, I was feeling a bit queer again. I can tell you, and Withers, he was looking queerer. He says to me, “Burt,” he says, “is this your idea of a joke? Because if so, the ’Olborn Empire’s where you ought to be, not the police force.” So I tells him over again, most solemn, what I seen – “and,” I says, “if only we could lay hands on that chap in the muffler, he could tell you he seen it, too. And what’s more,” I says, “do you think I’d risk me job, playing a silly trick like that?” He says, “Well, it beats me,” he says, “If I didn’t know you was a sober kind of chap, I’d say you was seein’ things.” “Things?” I says to him, “I see that there corpse a-layin’ there with the knife in his neck, and that was enough for me. ’Orrible, he looked, and the blood all over the floor.” “Well,” he says, “maybe he wasn’t dead after all, and they’ve cleared him out of the way.” “And cleared the house away, too, I suppose,” I said to him. So Withers says, in an odd sort o’ voice, “You’re sure about the house? You wasn’t letting your imagination run away with you over naked females and such?” That was a nice thing to say. I said. “No, I wasn’t. There’s been some monkey business going on in this street and I’m going to get to the bottom of it, if we has to comb-out London for that chap in the muffler.” “Yes,” says Withers, nasty-like, “it’s a pity he cleared off so sudden.” “Well,” I says, “you can’t say I imagined him, anyhow, because that there girl saw him, and a mercy she did,” I said, “or you’d be saying next I ought to be in Colney Hatch.” “Well,” he says, “I dunno what you think you’re going to do about it. You better ring up the station and ask for instructions.”