Death Knocks Three Times (3 page)

“Yes,” said Crook.

The old man looked delighted. “Now, that’s a most fortunate occurrence. I am writing the only reliable history of World War One. Now, what is your view of the engagement?”

“Bloody,” said Crook. But not, he decided a little later, much bloodier tlian this breakfast.

As soon as he could, he made his farewells and prepared to depart.

“I have your address,” said the old man, looking as if he’d stepped out of one of the early feature films, say about 1911, “and you may be hearing from me at any time.”

“Always at your service,” responded Crook, and stepped thankfully into the Scourge.

B
ACK in London Crook found his hands full. It was an ill wind that blew no one any good, and the ever-increasing list of controls and prohibitions put more and more names on his clientele.

“I wonder if the old boy takes my advice and drowns his nevvy in the bath,” he wondered aloud to Bill Parsons. “Unless Bligh blows the gaff, the poor devil could turn black before any one thought of looking for him there.”

That was Tuesday. On Thursday Bill came in with an early edition of the evening paper.

“Where there’s Crook there’s crime,” said he, reversing the slogan that had sprung up round the lawyer’s name. “Only not quite the way you expected.”

Crook took the paper from his outstretched hand. He skimmed it rapidly. Tragic end to Thirty-Year-Old Romance, he read, and Jilted Bridegroom in Bath. On the day following Crook’s departure from Chipping Magna, the old Colonel had taken his last bath. According to Bligh, he had entered the bathroom as usual about eight-thirty, locking the door behind him. At nine-thirty, alarmed by his master’s non-appearance and receiving no reply to his frantic bawling, the old servant smashed down the door and found the lid of the bath had somehow fallen, killing the old man instantaneously.

Crook put the paper aside thoughtfully. Coincidence played a large part in life, as he well knew. Indeed, he had come across any number of coincidences that novelists, chaps like this Sherren fellow, for example, would never dare use in a book. All the same, it was damned odd. For thirty years the old gentleman had been taking a bath, and there had never been any mishap. Now, following the combined visits of himself, Crook, and Whatsisname Sherren, the old fellow was out for the count. And yet—that lid had been hooked back securely enough a couple of nights ago. If it had got loose it was because someone had deliberately released it. The question confronting the coroner, supposing he had wit enough to reach the obvious conclusion, was who.

Crook was still pondering this point when he received an unexpected visitor in the shape of a police officer.

“The police are making inquiries about a man called Sherren who was found dead in his bath at a place called Chipping Magna yesterday,” the Inspector began, regarding Crook with about as much affection as a communist wastes on a fascist. “Ah, I see you have the paper in front of you.”

“My publicity expert called my attention to it,” explained Crook.

“In the dead man’s diary is a note of your name and address and his servant tells us you were there on Monday night.”

“Monday night at eight,” agreed Crook. “He thought he might be looking me up at some time.”

The Inspector looked sceptical. “You do realize he hadn’t been away from his home for thirty years?”

“Never too late to mend,” suggested Crook. “It occurred to him a little holiday might be a good idea.”

“Any special reason?”

“Do you need a special reason to come to London?” asked Crook, who would have been happy to spend eternity wandering those grimy streets. “By the way, how about the nephew?”

“What about him?”

“I thought he was payin’ a lightnin’ visit on the Tuesday. Or was Bligh pulling my leg?”

“We’ve seen him,” said the Inspector. “He’s a Londoner, too. According to his own story, he can’t help. Arrived Tuesday midday, left Wednesday morning. The old man didn’t take his bath till the evening, so he was all right then.”

“It isn’t the old man, it’s the lid of the bath that matters. It was hooked back all right when I was there on Monday, and you can take Arthur Crook’s word for it, it couldn’t have unhooked itself. You can also, if you like, take ray word for it that I didn’t do the unhooking.”

“Mr. Sherren says he didn’t notice the bath.”

“Don’t see how he could help it,” objected Crook.

“Didn’t notice anything special, I mean. He didn’t take a bath himself, though apparently his uncle told him he could have it on Wednesday morning.”

“Damned patriotic of hira,” said Crook heartily. “I’m a patriot, too, come to that. It seems we both qualify for the Gaitskell Medal. And I must say, from the look of him, I should think Bligh qualified, too.”

“No doubt,” agreed the Inspector. “Now, you’re quite sure the lid was secure when you were there on Monday?”

“Quite. And what’s more, no accident could have torn the lid from its moorings. Strong as the heart of Sir Galahad, they were.”

“And you didn’t experiment in any way with the hooks?”

“Not me. I expect to be paid for trouble, I don’t go looking for it for nothing. You only had to see the thing to realize what a good tombstone it ‘ud make. No, I left it reverently alone, and did my bit of cleaning up in the basin, a nice, elegant affair with pink honeysuckle all around the rim.”

“That’s what Mr. Sherren says, too. Added that he wouldn’t risk his life in the bath, if it meant turning up on the Judgment Day with dirty fingernails.”

“How about Old Man Kangaroo? The malevolent manservant?”

The Inspector grinned suddenly. “He puts his money on you. Thinks you have an experimental nature.”

“Lucky, ain’t it, British justice needs proof before it can clap a chap into the little covered shed?” observed Crook calmly. “Not that I had any motive, but I know that ain’t necessary.”

“There’s another point. Even if the lid was unhooked, why should it come suddenly crashing down? Its weight should have held it in place.”

“No,” said Crook, slowly. “That’s the ugly part of it. The old boy kept his loofah and sponge hooked onto the lid. Quite a natty idea so long as the hooks held. Then he wouldn’t find he’d left the sponge in the basin when he was nice and cosy in the bath. You see what that means? If he snatches at the loofah and starts scrubbing his spine, he’ll pull the lid forward and if it ain’t secure it’ll come crashing down on him before he can do a thing about it. For one thing, sheer shock ‘ud probably immobilize him till it was too late, and even if he did put an arm up to save himself, I doubt if he’d have the strength (in a seated position, remember) to fob it ofiE. It looks to me as though that might be the way it happened.”

“But that’s murder,” ejaculated the Inspector.

“You’re the boss,” said Crook. “If you can prove it, I’ll come to your night school.”

But his face was sober enough. Of course, the old boy had been as crazy as a coot, but all the same he’d had the refreshing flavor of individuality in a stereotyped world. Not Hitler or the present Government would have succeeded in wheeling him into line. It wasn’t nice to think of him in that murderous bath with his handsome, obstinate head stove in.

The Inspector got up. “Thanks for your information,” he said. “You’ll be wanted at the inquest, you know.”

Crook’s face became alert. “Special gas ration? There’s no train service there.”

“Not my department,” grinned the Inspector, “but you’ll man-age.

“Nasty case,” said Crook, drumming his thick fingers on the table-top. “Means, motive and opportunity. That’s your layout, isn’t it? Means—open to all. Motive—your turn to answer that one. I don’t know what the old boy had to leave …”

“Quite a considerable sum,” said the Inspector. “Or so I understand.”

“And the heir?”

“Who do you suppose?”

“Well, not John Sherren. At a guess I’d say Bligh.”

“What makes you pick him?”

“There had to be some incentive to stay in that death-in-life for thirty years. Question is, how much did Bligh know? And John Sherren? He was the only livin’ relative, wasn’t he?”

“Seems like it. This is going to be one of those exasperating cases where there’s no proof anywhere, just one chap’s word against another.”

“With half the community thinking Bligh guilty and the other half plumping for Sherren, and both sides knowing they could handle the case better than the police anyway.”

The Inspector rose.

“Don’t be too modest,” he suggested. “And don’t forget the inquest’s being held tomorrow afternoon.”

“If I was dealin’ with reasonable chaps it ‘ud be enough for me to put in a statement,” grumbled Crook. “I can’t tell ‘em anything.

I knew it was too good to be true getting a bed and breakfast (and, ye gods, what a bed and what a breakfast!) without havin’ a bill for it next morning; but I tell you this. Inspector, I could stay at the best hotel in London for what that bed’s goin’ to cost me, and nothing in it anywhere for Arthur Crook so far as I can see.”

The inquest was being held in the billiard room of the dead man’s house. Bligh had removed the covers and dusted off a few chairs, and the police had moved the body and were in attendance. The coroner, who clearly thought there was something fishy about the affair, elected to sit with a jury. When Crook arrived he found the nephew, John Sherren, already on the premises, having been recalled immediately by a telegram from Bligh, who had had to tramp down to the village post office to send it off. The whole village was set by the ears by the news. The old man had been a mystery in life and now was providing an additional mystery in death. It’s against convention for old soldiers to die in such undignified circumstances. They should either succumb to an aneurism or high blood pressure in bed or be found in the gun room with a bullet through the brain and a revolver firmly clasped in a dead hand. Baths are out, decided Crook, giving the nephew the once-over and not thinking much of what he saw.

John Sherren was a man of about forty, slightly below medium height, with a round rosy face, brown eyes that stuck out a bit, a neat small mustache, hair growing rather thin on top but still a long way from baldness, very tidy, very precise, obviously concerned about the present position. Crook thought him smug in the ordinary way, and the dead man’s phrase “landlady’s pet” came back to him very forcibly. A babe in arms could have told you he was a bachelor and likely to remain one.

The coroner was in no mood to make things easy for anyone. He made it clear from the start that he didn’t like the case, he didn’t like John Sherren, and he didn’t like Arthur Crook. Crook reciprocated at first glance, and thought John did the same.

He had a word with the novelist before the court opened.

“What on earth does he want a jury for?” the younger man inquired. “It’s a clear case of accident.”

“Clear to you, perhaps,” agreed Crook, “but then you’re on the inside, as it were.”

“What else could it be?” continued John Sherren peevishly.

For a novelist, thought Crook, he seemed to be on the unimaginative side.

“There are always three horses runnin’. Accident, murder or suicide.”

“That’s absurd. Why should Uncle James want to take his own life? And if he did he wouldn’t choose this way.”

“You should know. But he was an original old cuss—no disrespect intended—and he might like the idea of bothering his survivors.” But he didn’t really believe that was the solution. You’d want an iron nerve to take a chance like that. It wasn’t even certain you’d be killed.

“As for murder—again-—why? At this particular juncture, I mean. Why not last year or the year before?”

“That’s what the coroner’s here to find out. Hold your horses. They’re goin’ to begin.”

The coroner outlined the situation. Cause of death was not in debate, but the manner in which that death had come about was open to question. They had to decide if it was accident, and if so, whose carelessness was responsible. If it was not an accident there were two alternatives. Either the Colonel had deliberately set free the lid himself or someone had laid a trap for him. The jury would hear the evidence and must give a true verdict in accordance with the facts. There seemed no doubt that the lid had actually been pulled down by the dead man himself; indeed, the loofah, attached by its thick cable, was still in his hand. The head had taken the full force of the blow, and there were injuries to the skull, as well as dislocation of the cerebral vertebrae.

“Means ‘e broke ‘is bloomin’ neck,” muttered one juryman to his neighbor.

“Why don’t he say it plain, then?” said the neighbor in carrying tones.

The coroner then proceeded to call his witnesses. It was going to be a job to show it was suicide, reflected Crook. The old man had no troubles, financial or domestic, and, for his age, he was in excellent health. He hadn’t a morbid temperament, and only a day or two earlier he had remarked to Bligh he saw no reason why he shouldn’t live to a hundred.

John Sherren, in the witness-box, said unhesitatingly that there

was nothing to support a suggestion of suicide. “In fact,” he averred, “he seemed in better spirits than I had seen him for some time. Quarrelsome, too, and that was always a good sign. He spoke of coming to London, getting about before he got into a rut, he called it, or became too old and set to travel. When I reminded him that London would have changed a good deal in the past thirty years, he retorted that he came of a tough generation, not like some of the milk-and-water youngsters of today. He said he hadn’t seen a doctor professionally for twenty-five years, and he hoped it would be another twenty-five before he did.”

That part of his evidence was plain sailing, but he got into a little trouble when he was asked to tell in detail about the quarrel of which he had spoken, and to which Bligh was prepared to give testimony.

“It was quite insignificant,” he said, trying to pass the whole affair off airily. “Violent? No, I should hardly call it that. It was simply that when I warned my uncle he’d find London greatly changed and perhaps hardly the place for an old man he, as it were, blew up. Took offense. Asked me if I thought he was a nincompoop. Or perhaps I was afraid he was coming south to consult his lawyer, but I needn’t worry about that. I should be no worse off, that much he could promise me.”