Death Among the Sunbathers (7 page)

‘I think perhaps you had better not say anything more just now, Mr Curtis,' Mitchell said slowly. ‘I think we shall have to ask you to accompany us, and afterwards you can make a statement if you wish to.'

‘All right,' Curtis said, ‘or now if you like.' He picked up the
Announcer
and laid it on the table. ‘Plain enough what they think,' he said. ‘I wonder if I can have them for libel?... Can you have a paper for libel after you've been hanged for something you didn't do? Sorry. I'm talking wildly.'

He got to his feet again, and as they watched they could see him fighting for his self-control. The struggle was almost as visible, it was a thousand times as fierce, as any of those that in the old days he had been wont to put up in the boxing ring. He said in a new and more restrained and careful voice, speaking to Sybil,

‘Sybil, could you make me a cup of tea – strong?'

She left the room at once, and Curtis turned again to the police officers.

‘It's all right now,' he said. ‘I've been a bit bowled over.'

‘You were at the flat all the time we were knocking and ringing?' Mitchell asked, a little doubtfully.

‘Enough to wake the dead,' Ferris put in.

‘But not the dead drunk,' Curtis retorted. ‘I was drinking yesterday afternoon. After I got back home, I had more whisky, champagne as well. If the place had been blown up, I don't suppose I should have known anything about it. I didn't know anything till about five this morning I heard the phone going, and when I answered Miss Frankland told me something had happened and I must come along at once.'

Sybil came back into the room with the freshly made tea. Curtis gulped it down eagerly, scalding hot as it was.

‘That might account for your not hearing us,' Mitchell admitted. ‘I suppose it's not a thing that often happens, is it? Was there any special reason last night...?'

‘Yes,' Curtis answered. ‘I quarrelled with – with my wife yesterday. I wanted to forget what a fool I had been. I expect you know all about it. It was at the
Announcer
office.'

‘Information we've received,' Mitchell said, is to the effect that certain threats were used and that you produced a pistol, a small automatic. Of course, you needn't say anything about that if you prefer not to, but that's our information.'

‘I don't remember using any threats,' Curtis answered. ‘It's true about the pistol.'

‘Got it now?' Mitchell asked negligently.

‘No. I threw it in the river.'

‘Did you now?' said Mitchell, as he and Ferris exchanged glances. ‘Rather a pity... what made you do that, I wonder? Do you remember what time it was?'

‘I threw it away to get rid of the beastly thing,' Curtis answered. ‘If you want to know, I felt I had made a fool of myself. I knew... I knew it had upset my wife. So I threw it into the river. I don't know the exact time, some time during the afternoon.'

‘Anyone see you?'

‘Not that I know of.'

‘Can you say what calibre it was?'

‘It was a point thirty-two Browning automatic.'

‘The bullet that killed Mrs Curtis was from a point thirty-two Browning automatic,' observed Mitchell.

‘You think I killed my wife,' Curtis said. ‘Well, I didn't... my God, man, I loved her,' he shouted, and for the moment it almost seemed that he would break down altogether. But he recovered himself. ‘That's my affair, not yours,' he mumbled.

‘Sometimes love's a thing that comes into cases of this kind as well as hate,' Mitchell answered, a little sadly. ‘There was a piece of poetry someone made about that once, “Each man kills the thing he loves.” There's times when that's true. If you've no objection, I would like a statement of exactly what did happen at the
Announcer
office, and of your own movements yesterday afternoon. If you would rather wait till you've consulted a solicitor, that's for you to say, of course. But it might help us if you would make it now. There's quite a lot in this case will bear looking into – and time counts.'

‘I didn't murder my wife,' Curtis repeated, ‘but I'll tell you one thing. I'll find out who did and if you don't hang him, I'll attend to him myself.'

He spoke with an extraordinary intensity, so that for the moment they were all silent, silent before that sudden flaming of such fierce resolve. Abruptly Sybil said,

‘That's mother calling – I must go.'

She left the room, and when she had gone Curtis went on more quietly,

‘I'll tell you what happened. Jo and I had had a row. She was always rushing off somewhere, I never knew where or why. I used to sit and wonder; and then I would have a drink to stop thinking, and it only made me think all the more. This girl here, Miss Frankland, is engaged to a chap named Keene. Decent sort of chap, got an art dealer's business in Deal Street, off Piccadilly; his father made a pot of money. Jo was trying to break off the engagement. She wouldn't tell me why. Keene's an attractive sort of fellow, at least girls seem to think so. I suppose I was jealous. I got wondering why Jo was so anxious to stop Sybil marrying him. Then I saw her in the City and Keene was following her. You could see he was following her. She turned into a side street, a yard with no exit. He followed her. It looked as if they were meeting on the sly. I went and had a drink, and later I went to the
Announcer
office and tackled her. I made a fool of myself. Afterwards I felt pretty sick and I thought I would try to get friends again. I went home and she wasn't there, and I went to the garage where she kept her Bayard Seven. One of the men said she had just gone off in it and had asked him about the best way to get to Leadeane. I knew there was a sun-bathing place there she was rather keen on writing up – Lord knows why, sunbathing's stale enough news, but she had got it into her head she would like to do it. I had a motor-bike and I got it out. I meant to overtake her on the way if I could. At a pub I knew she had to pass, I waited for a time. She didn't come, so I thought perhaps she was avoiding me or else had gone another way. I gave it up and went back to the flat – and started drinking. After that I don't remember much more till I woke up to hear the phone going and Sybil calling.'

‘Did you notice any other motor-cyclist on the road?'

‘I suppose so, I don't remember, lots I expect. Why?'

‘None you knew or that you noticed in any way?'

‘No.'

‘Is there anyone Mrs Curtis knew you can think of who used a motor-cycle – B.A.D. make?'

‘None that I can think of specially,' Curtis answered. ‘You left your own motor-cycle at the garage when you got back, I suppose. Do you remember if anyone saw you?'

‘I don't think so. There wasn't anyone about. It is a lockup place I hire. Not that I noticed much; someone may have seen me for all I know. I was feeling pretty sick, too sick to worry about who saw me. I knew I had about done for myself with Jo.'

‘Was it going or returning you threw your pistol in the river?'

‘Going.'

‘Could you identify the place where you threw it in?'

‘No. Along the bank somewhere. I couldn't say within a mile or so.'

‘Did anyone notice your doing that?'

‘I don't know, I don't suppose so. Why should they?'

‘You see,' explained Mitchell, ‘I'm trying to get confirmation of what you tell us. I'm afraid I shall have to ask you–'

He paused. His glance had fallen on the copy of the
Announcer
lying on the table where Curtis had thrown it, the photograph of Jo the most conspicuous feature of the front page. Reproduced from one extracted from Sybil the night before by an
Announcer
man, it had been taken only a few days before, and showed her wearing one of the new fashionable saucer-like hats, worn tilted miraculously over her right ear till it was a wonder how it stuck on at all. Apparently it was the one she had been wearing when she met her tragic end. Like a man entranced, Mitchell stared at this photograph while the other two stared at him and wondered what it was he saw that made him look so strange. Sybil came back into the room, and Mitchell said to her, yet without moving his eyes from the reproduced photograph in the paper,

‘Miss Frankland, have you a photograph of your sister without a hat?'

‘Only rather old ones,' Sybil answered. ‘That's the only one she has had taken for some time. Why?'

‘I wanted to know, I wanted to know,' Mitchell answered twice over, and still he kept his eyes fixed with the same strange intensity on the picture in the paper. He said presently: ‘Miss Frankland, has your sister changed her way of doing her hair lately?'

Sybil shook her head, looking a little as if she thought Mitchell had gone suddenly mad. Ferris seemed almost as bewildered. He was looking alternately at the photograph and at Mitchell, as if unable to understand either. Curtis said with some impatience,

‘What on earth does it matter about the way she did her hair?'

‘Why, it matters this much, Mr Curtis, sir,' Mitchell answered, turning away as if the paper had no longer any interest for him, ‘I was thinking I should have to ask you to come along with us, I was thinking I should have to charge you in face of what you've told us. But if it's true Mrs Curtis has always done her hair that way – why, then, I think you're cleared, unless of course fresh evidence turns up. But at present I don't think I need trouble you any more. Come along, Ferris.'

And the Inspector looked an utterly and hopelessly bewildered man till they were outside the house, when just as they were getting into the car he cried suddenly,

‘My God, I see it now – why, if you hadn't noticed that, sir, Curtis might have hanged.' He added presently, ‘Plain enough once you do notice it – even a description of that photo would be enough for a smart man to see at once what it meant.'

The art dealer's establishment in Deal Street, a turning off Piccadilly, now owned by Maurice Keene, had been founded by his father a good many years previously. After existing in somewhat precarious fashion during the pre-war and war periods, it had suddenly blossomed into huge success during that boom when people believed that peace and prosperity were synonyms. For a time all that was necessary to sell a picture was to have a sufficient stock in hand, and during that period the profits had been very large. Unfortunately, the elder Mr Keene, a little over-excited, imagining these were conditions that would last, much under the influence of what psycho-analysts would probably call a ‘victory complex', had invested practically all those profits, almost all his working capital, indeed, in more pictures, of which nearly all, now that slump had replaced boom, remained in the cellars, insured at a figure far above present-day values. The famous Rembrandt, for example, for which it will be remembered the elder Keene, shortly before his death, gave a large sum at Christie's, and concerning the authenticity of which a sharp discussion raged for a time in the columns of the art journals, still remained on the hands of his son, in spite of the fact that a South American millionaire had once paid a deposit on it. Even so, that square yard of painted canvas represented a capital of seven thousand lying idle.

‘I'd like to burn the lot,' Keene had once said viciously to that rare bird, a customer, who, as it chanced, was Mr Esmond Bryan, the head of the Leadeane Sun Bathing establishment.

One of the sun-bathers, an artist by profession, who had read paragraphs in the papers about Parisian artists exchanging their work by barter for such mundane things as groceries, cutlets, and clothes, had offered Mr Bryan two or three landscapes as payment for his subscription to the Society of Sun Believers of Leadeane Grange, and for suitable bodily refreshment needed during his visits there – for the Leadeane Grange restaurant was famous among those who put food high in the list of the many, many things needing reform. Mr Bryan, by no means devoid of business instincts, even though it was said he carried on his establishment at a loss, had called at Deal Street, to ascertain the value of the proffered works. Keene's bitter and perhaps exaggerated comment had been that he had two large cellars crammed with better work by better-known men, and that work of the quality offered could only be got rid of by giving it away with a pound of tea or else by waiting till the fifth of November, when no doubt material for bonfires would be in demand.

‘Burning, that's all that quality of work is good for in these times,' he repeated, but all the same Mr Bryan, undismayed, made a small purchase, announced his intention of accepting the two pictures offered him as payment for a year's subscription to the Sun Believers, and, in addition, for a shilling's worth of carrot tea and minced potato peel, or of such other vitamin-crammed, blood-purifying, vitality-giving foods as might be on sale in the Grange restaurant, on each visit that the artist made during the year.

Before leaving, Mr Bryan suggested that Keene would do well to pay a visit to the Grange, declaring that he would very likely find fresh clients among the sun-bathers, all of whom, Mr Bryan asserted with fervour, were devotees of beauty, fanatics of all true art and loveliness, and some of them even provided with that vulgarity of superfluous cash so convenient in his vulgar world. But this invitation, though it had been accepted, had so far had no result in the way of sales, though it had increased Keene's appreciation of such things as roast beef and pork chops.

Indeed, customers seemed to be growing every day rarer birds at the Deal Street establishment. On this morning of the day following the tragedy of the Leadeane Road, not one had crossed its threshold. The only visitors had been hopeful artists – tautology, all artists are either hopeful or dead – eager to add a few more to the innumerable canvases stacked in every corner of cellar and shop, various travellers and pedlars, one or two undisguised beggars, and a fashionable young lady selling tickets for a forthcoming charity ball and hinting not obscurely that the custom of herself and of her numerous wealthy and important friends would in the future bear an exact ratio to the number of tickets now purchased.