Dead Man’s Shoes (15 page)

“That was soon disproved.”

“Not for a few days, actually. The police appear to have been a bit slow this time. But it did come out, of course, that they wanted to interview him and that he had been staying at the local hotel at the time.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He couldn't deny that he'd been down to Barton Abbess, but he still denied violently that he had had anything to do with the murder. Then he suddenly said, ‘I'll go home and prove it, what's more.' ”

“That surprised you?”

“Not altogether. I still didn't really think Larkin had done it. I was still pretty weak and if you've ever had gastric flu you'll know that I didn't much care at that time who had murdered poor old Gregory.”

“Yes. I've had it. I know the sensation.”

“Larkin insisted on going home by sea. That is one of the more puzzling points to me. He had flown out and back last time. Why should he suddenly insist on going in a slow cargo-boat? I have wondered whether he was already thinking of suicide. Or giving himself a means to commit it if he wanted. However, there it was. He had to wait five days for the
Saragossa
and in the meantime I felt much better and decided to go home myself. I got an air passage and left on the evening before he did. So of course I had been in London some days when the
Saragossa
arrived.”

“You were still on friendly terms with Larkin?”

“As friendly as we had ever been. Ours was never an intimate friendship. We were both residents of Tangier, and both dependants of Gregory's. That's all, really.”

“But you still didn't suspect him strongly enough to feel uncomfortable with him?”

“I was never anything but uncomfortable with Larkin,
I'm afraid. But I really couldn't believe he'd murdered Gregory.”

“What finally convinced you?”

“I'm not sure that I am convinced. But his suicide does make it look like it.”

“The note he left was only typed. It might have been put there by anyone.”

“But surely he must have confided in someone on that ship? A man doesn't make up his mind to commit suicide without telling someone, I believe.”

“He did, yes. He chose the man who would talk least whatever happened. The Second Mate. A man called Kutz.”

“I remember him. Oh, he told him, did he?”

“Yes. He told him that he had murdered Gregory Willick and was going to kill himself.”

“Then surely that settles it?”

“You'll think I'm never satisfied, Willick. I admit that would be enough for most people, particularly as I believe Kutz is speaking the truth. But there's something I don't like about it. There's something very odd about the whole thing.”

“In what way ‘odd'?”

“It's too obvious. In places too idiotically obvious. I feel as though I was being dragged along by the evidence,
forced
to believe my eyes and ears and reason. All I've got against this overpowering case is an instinct and the fact that I've noticed one or two inconsistencies.”

“I see what you mean. The police seem to have accepted it, though. They're not fools.”

“No. There was a CID man on
the Saragossa
coming out.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. Chap called Maltby.”

“I wonder what he wanted.”

“Oh, it was a different case. He told me they've written this one off.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Oh yes. Why not? It probably suits them.”

“But not you?”

“Not me. I want to get at the truth.”

Willick paused a moment.

“Good!” he said at last. “I hope you do. You said there were one or two little inconsistencies?”

“Nothing much. Larkin carried plenty of clothes but no spare shoes. He took the trouble to leave a suicide note, yet typed it and did not sign it, thus making it almost worthless. He apparently had no friends or relations in the world and was going home specially to murder Gregory, yet he waited five days before going to Barton Abbess. He booked in under a false name, yet left his passport unlocked for anyone to see who he was. There may be others, but those come to mind.”

Carolus felt that Lance Willick was looking at him very fixedly.

“Now you come to put it like that it
is
strange, isn't it?”

“One other I've just remembered. He was a strict teetotaller, yet one night he not only got drunk but invited an apprentice to drink with him.”

“I think I can explain that,” said Willick. “He antagonized everyone, deliberately if you like, but he was human enough to have sudden fits of loneliness and self-pity. That may have been what happened that night. The poor wretch broke down. He was going home either to fight a case or confess. Who knows? He just couldn't take it and swallowed some whisky and wanted to talk.”

Carolus shook his head.

“No. It's not as simple as that. He had no drink from the steward. He must have brought it aboard with him. He kept it locked in one of his suit-cases.”

Lance Willick was staring incredulously at Carolus.

“That's extraordinary,” he said at last. “Now is there anything else I can tell you?”

Carolus openly referred to some notes.

“Yes,” he said. “I should like to have more accurate details of Larkin's arrival here. Where did he come from?”

“Paris, I believe, but I forget now why I think so. He never said.”

“Can you remember the actual date?”

“By chance I can. It happened thai that Spring a film was being made here and they wanted every available Englishman for a crowd scene. I'd never done anything of the sort before, but I did about six days' work with them. I even had to speak two words, which were ‘We protest!' I remember Larkin's arrival because it was during those six days, and they were in March.”

“Good. Lucky you can pinpoint it.”

“D
O YOU
suspect Lance?” asked Rupert Priggley next morning.

“He could have done it,” Carolus said. “As far as I know yet he's got no absolute alibi and more motive than anyone. He left here on the Thursday morning before the murder, he says, for Cadiz. He could, so far as we know, have flown, reached London Thursday night, gone down to Barton Abbess on Friday or Saturday and been back here on the Monday. On the other hand we shall probably find his Cadiz alibi is impeccable.”

“What about my theory that he bribed Larkin to do it?”

“No,” said Carolus. “It doesn't hold water. In the first place he would never have trusted Larkin. Then if Larkin had done it on those terms he wouldn't have obligingly gone back to England but when he found he could be extradited he would have made a bolt for it. Moreover Larkin's whole behaviour at Barton Abbess was wholly against it.”

“I suppose it was. What are you going to do today?”

“Willick's coming here presently to take me to see Larkin's house. It is exactly as he left it, apparently, and may be most interesting. You'd better go to the beach.”

“All right. I'll see what talent there is.”

Willick drove up in a large American motor-car like a mediæval dragon and said he would drive Carolus up to the Kasbah but they would have to walk from there. The streets in the Moorish quarter, it appeared, were too steep and too narrow for vehicles and Larkin's house was in the depths of it.

Carolus asked if there were many Europeans living in this ancient picturesque and crowded
medina.

“Not so many now,” said Willick. “A few years ago there was quite a craze for it. American artists and so on. I must say I find it rather an affectation. But not with Larkin. He spoke the language of these people.”

“You don't?”

“Not a word. I speak Spanish and French, and as all the Moors talk one or the other it's as much as I need. But Larkin liked to hob-nob with them. He was even reputed to have some financial dealings with them of rather a shady sort. But that may be nonsense. Tangier is full of the most fantastic stories about its residents. Another one they told about Larkin was that he was in Germany throughout the war.”

They were descending a steep hill by a narrow cobbled road, passing little Moorish shops and tall windowless houses. The street was noisy with the playing and shouting of the beautiful Moorish children. Presently Lance Willick led Carolus by an even narrower street, a mere passage-way. It was like walking through a narrow canon between cliffs of plastered house-wall, unbroken by anything except iron-bound doors on the street.

“Would you describe this as a dangerous quarter?” asked Carolus.

“Only in the minds of visiting journalists whose editors apparently never get tired of the same boring nonsense about smuggling, dope, crime and vice in a city where everyone carries a knife. I've no doubt you would read in London of the perils of the
medina,
but it's far quieter and better behaved than the King's Cross area, for example, or the Elephant and Castle, not to mention Soho.”

“That I can well believe.”

“I'm going to leave you at Larkin's house,” said Willick, “because I want to get to the bank before it closes. But I daresay you'd prefer, anyway, to poke about on your own.”

“It's kind of you to have brought me.”

“I hope you'll come to my house afterwards for lunch. You can walk from here—it's in a district called the Marshan, which adjoins this. Here's the address. I'll expect you about one?”

With a large key Lance Willick unlocked a narrow door which was in a doorway with a broken arch. It was studded with iron-headed nails and heavily bound with iron. It creaked as it opened into a dark interior.

Carolus entered and stood quite still for a moment trying to grow accustomed to the semi-darkness. It appeared that the only light came from a glass skylight which stretched right across the central well of the house.

Lance pointed out some objects of glass and pottery on a shelf beside him.

“These are Larkin's collection. Museum pieces, some of them.”

He picked up a beautiful glazed earthenware bottle.

“That's Turkish,” he said. “Sixteenth century. That bowl is Amol, about four hundred years earlier.”

“Larkin was evidently a connoisseur,” said Carolus.

“He was. Well I'll leave you here.”

Lance handed Carolus the key.

“Lock up when you leave,” he said; “there's some quite valuable stuff here. In fact I've been trying to trace Larkin's sister to know what she wants done with it. Happy hunting.”

Carolus heard the creak of the door and its slam, but no more. So heavy was it that no sound of retreating footsteps came from outside.

There was something eerie about this hushed and shadowy house. He soon began to see about him, but even then he felt as though he was in a cavern after coming from the brilliant morning sunshine outside. He had heard that Moorish houses were constructed almost without windows, yet when he saw the reality and stood in deathly silence and gloom in a dead man's home he was conscious of an
unnaturalness, something macabre and perhaps evil in the atmosphere.

There were two rooms on the ground floor, the fairly large one in which he stood now and a room which was divided from it by tall double doors. But in front of him was an alcove, and this was evidently used as both kitchen and dining-room. Upstairs was a small bathroom and a bedroom which looked as though it was never used.

Having made a preliminary survey, Carolus began to examine the objects around him. The large room was furnished in a pseudo-Moorish style with low divans, low round tables and endless ornamental shelves crowded with bric-à-brac. Here was the Aleppo glass which Lance had mentioned and some interesting pottery.

Carolus went through the double doors and stood for some time looking about him in what had been Larkin's bedroom. He opened the cupboard and took down one of Larkin's plain dark suits, which he examined minutely. After a moment he took off his own jacket and put the dead man's jacket on, examining the effect most carefully in the mirror. He looked for the maker's name and found the suit had come from an American department store. The others in the cupboard had been made by a Tangier tailor. He went on to the shirts and the old-fashioned starched collars, of which several were here.

He then did a thing which would have brought him a gibe or two from Rupert Priggley if the boy had been there. From his pocket he brought out a tape-measure and very carefully made a number of measurements: the neckband of the shirt, the collar, the approximate waist measurement of a man wearing Larkin's trousers, and several other calculations. All these he noted down.

He then began to look for a pair of Larkin's shoes. There were none to be found in the bedroom and Carolus went through the rest of the house without success. He did not seem puzzled by this, and as soon as he had satisfied himself
that here, as in the cabin of the
Saragossa,
none were to be found he went to the bathroom and looked at the contents of the small cupboard.

He came back to the central room and sat down. Again he was conscious of the curious brooding atmosphere, as though he were under observation. What was wrong with this house? he asked himself. There was something seriously wrong, something which he could not define. The least superstitious of people, Carolus refused to believe that it was in any sense haunted, even by the memory of a man who had murdered and killed himself. No, it was something real, something visible, probably right under his nose if he could have the wit to perceive it. He looked about him again as though he expected to see a cross hung upside down or a wax figure stuck with pins.

Certainly the house was not haunted by Larkin. Perhaps that was exactly what was wrong—it ought to have been, if things were what they seemed. There should have been some relic, some mark of the man as he had heard him described, and there was nothing. In all the house there was nothing written by hand. In a drawer of the table was some typewriting paper, of which he took a sheet, but not a word was written anywhere.