Death Knocks Three Times (6 page)

Some time later he heard from Mr. Twemlow that a will had been found among Isabel’s possessions, correctly drawn up and witnessed, leaving her personal belongings to Locket and any monies outstanding to her dear nephew, John Sherren. (Under the late Mrs. Bond’s will the daughters’ portions did not come to them absolutely; they might spend the income how they pleased, but on the death of one the interest passed to the survivor.) John’s share of Isabel’s fortune was not a large one; still, even a little ready cash was warmly welcomed, and presently Mr. Twemlow turned up some war bonds that Isabel had bought without consulting the lawyer, and a post office account, and it was agreed that these also were part of John’s legacy. Nice little bonus, thought John, if it isn’t the income I’d half counted on. Sweet of the old dear. And then … Poor Aunt Isabel. Didn’t seem to get much out of her life.

The next news was contained in a letter from Clara to the effect that she was selling the house at short notice and moving into a hotel. Seaview was too big and then Locket was most inconsiderately going to look after a newly widowed brother, who had, declared the irate Miss Bond, no claim on her at all, seeing they had hardly corresponded in twelve years. When John got that news he felt as though a weight had fallen off his shoulders. He had been haunted by the dread that his aunt might take a companion, one of those unscrupulous elderly women so popular in radio drama, who wind their tentacles around the heiress and are discovered, after the funeral, to have Inherited All. He went down at Christmas, as usual, only this time he put up at the Railway Hotel. As he anticipated, his Aunt Clara had already impressed her personality on her fellow guests, and a certain chair, the best, was regarded as hers, and newcomers were warned that she did not care to find it occupied when she came into the lounge. John exerted himself to talk of his own books, and an American offer his agents had managed to get for the latest of them. Miss Bond, however, had no intention of playing second fiddle to the boy she had brought up.

“I can’t imagine why you write the sort of stuff you do,” she observed clearly. “If I had time, I should write like Charles Dickens.”

The next day he went back to London and dug himself in for a few weeks, until he adjudged it time to go north and visit his eccentric uncle. And once again, within forty-eight hours of his return, he was summoned to an inquest and a funeral.

So that made two inquests in the family in a little over six

months. There was only one of the trio left, but she was devilish tough. Quite likely to outlast him, thought John shrewdly and a little dejectedly, unless Providence or someone stepped in. That reflection cheered him a little. She must be worth a pretty penny, and she saved half her income. She had never said anything definite about her will and it was important to know where he stood. He was forty-one and he didn’t trust the Government schemes to provide him with enough for his old age. His standards were too high for democracy. Still, who else was there to inherit? Locket? But no, he was sure Locket was out. There had been a very chill note in Clara’s voice when she spoke of Locket’s “defection.”

No, he decided, no danger in that quarter. Then—who else? Clara wasn’t one of these old ladies who spend half the week in church and the other half having the parish to tea. She told him once she rarely went to church.

“Whenever I see the vicar going up into the pulpit,” she assured him, “I always think how much better I could do it myself.”

“It ‘ud be damned unfair if she did leave the money to anyone else. Family money ought to stay in the family,” he decided.

And he was the only member surviving. Abovit Isabel now—what had Locket thought? However, the case was closed now. The coroner had given his verdict, the funeral was past and the headstone erected. Already most people had forgotten about poor frustrated Isabel Bond.

I
N THE May following the Colonel’s death, John Sherren published a book called One Fair May Morning, which was a detailed account of a hanging in the period between the wars, one of those subtle books that weave back and forth, starting with the condemned man’s march to the scaffold and leaving him standing there shivering for 280 pages while the author traces his life from conception to crime and discovery. He was rather pleased with the title. He thought it was likely to fox the public, who would probably think it was a virginal romance, and so might be persuaded to read something worthwhile against their will. For though, like most people, he knew less than he thought he did, he did know that at a wet weekend, particularly in the country, people will read a Blue Book sooner than nothing, and in the country you can’t go to Sunday cinemas or even Westminster Abbey.

When the book had been out a week, in pursuance of his usual routine, he began the rounds of the bookshops and so in due course he came to Garrods. It was at Garrods that he first set eyes on the Old Party. She was the sole occupant of the elevator into which he stepped to be carried up to the fourth floor, where the library was, and she fascinated him. In her he saw the perfect central character for the kind of book he liked to write. She was a tall, oldish woman, with a long yellow face that had never known rouge, a long severe mouth that had never known lipstick, a big nose diat was the rudder of the whole, brooding eyes that warned you not to try any of your nonsense with her; and her clothes matched her personality. She wore a basin-shaped black felt hat, beneath which her yellow forehead shone like marble, and her gray hair could be seen looped up sternly above the big ears and coiled in an old-fashioned manner on the back of her head; her blouse, what could be seen of it, was black, very sombrely lightened by what used to be called a collarette in stiff while linen; she wore a black silk bow at her throat, and beneath that could be discerned the topmost button of a black woollen cardigan. Her skirt was long and black, her shoes were black and severe with pointed toes. Over everything she wore a loose-fitting brown coat of utility serge, and her fawn gloves were made of wool. She carried a shopping-bag and a shabby black handbag nearly large enough for a portmanteau.

John stood staring and entranced, forgetting all the good manners his aunts thought they had instilled into him. He might use her in one of those serial novels that deal with one person passing from household to household, a governess, perhaps, or a nurse—or, better still, a companion. But, of course, no ordinary companion. She had a fierce appearance, for all the indifference of her dress, a grimness that bespoke a gaunt strength, totally at variance with most people’s conception of a companion. It might be possible to use her as a symbol of death. He distinctly liked that idea. Moving from household to household, death would follow in her wake and, since her motive in each case would be fanaticism rather than any personal gain or glorification—she might destroy the unwelcome element in each household—she would never be suspected. He was so much enthralled by this notion that the elevator reached the fourth floor before he realized it, and the Old Party had disappeared as the gates clashed to again. He alighted hurriedly on the floor above, jumped into a downgoing elevator and reached the library in time to overhear her conversation with the assistant.

There were a good many people standing at the desk, some of whom must have been there before her arrival. But the meek British quality of lining up apparently found no favor with her. Pulling a bright scarlet book out of her satchel she thrust it at the attendant who, to John’s surprise, didn’t say pertly that some people didn’t understand about taking their turn, but accepted the book with a cheerful, “And what did you think of this. Miss Petti-grew?”

“Deplorable,” said Miss Pettigrew, in a voice that matched her nose. “I could have solved the crime far more quickly myselL In fact, I had done so by page forty.”

“It’s going very well,” said the girl in the same cheerful voice.

“In fact,” continued the formidable old woman, “if it were really so simple I should be inclined to commit a murder myself.”

“There was someone on the radio the other day saying murders were ever so simple, really, and the police ought to do something about it.”

“Naturally murder is simple, with weapons on all sides.” Miss Pettigrew sounded contemptuous. “Why writers of detective stories have to employ mysterious poisons or sealed rooms or blowpipes which I understand are not easily to be acquired even at a universal store like this one, when bricks, bread-knives, coal-hammers and pairs of scissors are to be had for the asking and are at least as efficacious, proves my contention that the average murderer is a very foolish fellow. What I intended to imply was diat concealment of crime is nothing so simple as these writers imagine.”

By now several of the waiting subscribers were frankly listening. The Old Party clearly had something, John Sherren decided. He had often heard this type of conversation before, and had always

remained completely unimpressed, but he felt that Miss Pettigrew not only believed in herself, but had the power to make other people believe in her also.

“No,” she continued, taking a book from the assistant’s hand and glancing at the last few pages, “murder is neither so easily conceived nor so successfully committed as these amateurs, these dabblers in criminology, would have one believe. If they were, I, like most people, should probably commit at least one murder.”

“You don’t expect us to believe that. Miss Pettigrew,” giggled the girl behind the counter, with the air of humoring an eccentric customer.

“No?” The old woman’s voice was as sharp as an icicle. “It may surprise you to hear that when I make statements I expect them to be accepted at their face value. You must have lived a singularly narrow or unobservant life if you cannot think of at least one person whom it would be a philanthropic act to destroy. I personally can think of two or three with no trouble at all.”

John Sherren was all this time rooted to the spot in a kind of horrified fascination. He didn’t like the old woman—but he was enthralled by her.

Miss Pettigrew then selected a book without any help or paying any attention to the assistant’s recommendation and moved away.

“She knows her own mind,” observed John to the girl behind the counter.

“She’s a character. She was a governess once and all I can say is, thank goodness I was born in a time when people went to school.”

“What was the name of the book whe brought back?”

“Say It With Blood.” She produced a copy.

Then he remembered why he had come and asked about One Fair May Morning.

“It’s not asked for much,” said the girl, candidly.

John was touched to the quick. “It’s rather above the heads of the multitude, I suppose,” he suggested.

“Well, if you write to please yourself you can’t expect people to pay for it, can you?” she argued reasonably. “Which did you want?”

“I think perhaps I’ll take this.” His grip on Say It With Blood tightened. “I’ve got a bit of a cold coming on and I may have to spent a day in bed.”

He gave his name and address and went away with the book in his hand. He was vaguely troubled. He might pretend he didn’t care what the public reaction to his work was, but the fact remained that if his sales didn’t go up a bit he’d find himself without a publisher for his new work.

The day after he visited Garrods, John Sherren went to dine in Chelsea with some very distinguished people, who all wrote and painted to satisfy some inward urge and whose work was, of course, like his own, over the heads of the public. They lived comfortably on overdrafts and their artistic failures, and John was inclined to envy them. His private income, never very substantial, was now worth considerably less than it had been a few years earlier, and and though his salary at M.I.5. had been extremely helpful, that came to an end with the end of hostilities and the cost of living was rising all the time. As for his books, he was lucky if he broke even at the end of the year, when typing and stationery and postage were accounted for.

During dinner he took advantage of a lull in the conversation to speak of Miss Pettigrew, under the heading of Quaint Old Survivals.

“She comes out of the same era, though not precisely the same world, as my Aunt Clara,” he observed. “She and this old penguin would make a splendid couple. They could be Blimps together, agreeing how radio had vulgarized the world.”

“What did you say she was like?” inquired his hostess. “She sounds to me exactly like an old governess attached to my aunts—a Miss Pettigrew.”

John looked up in amazement. “But that’s who she was. Talk about coincidence. We should never dare use that in our books. She looks a perfect gorgon, by the way.”

“All those old governesses were. They ruled every one with a rod of iron. I believe Granny had to ask for permission to enter her own schoolroom. Fancy her still being alive.”

“Alive and contemplating murder,” amended John.

“If she did, I’m sure she’d pull it off. I’d back her against the entire Home Office.”

That was the second time he heard her name, and, oddly enough, in the same connection—murder.

A
FTER that John really did start his new book and worked at it with commendable zeal for about six weeks. Then he discovered he needed distraction and on the spur of the moment he decided to visit his last surviving relative. Miss Clara Bond. He made all his preparations with his normal spinsterish care; he booked a room at the Railway Hotel, and bought a first-class ticket and packed overnight and made a list of all the details he mustn’t forget and ticked them off as he attended to them, and then destroyed the list in case someone else should find it. And then at the eleventh hour some tiresome fellow rang him up and he just lacked the necessary brutality to ring the fellow off. He was the assistant to his agent, and John wasn’t sufficiently successful to be terse with agents. When at last the fellow rang off, John picked up his bag and hurried downstairs. He’d have to take a taxi now, which he couldn’t really afford—he always traveled first class to Brakemouth to give the impression that he was doing pretty well—and he scanned the street nervously for a vacant one. When he reached the station he sprinted like mad for the platform, but even so the train was just beginning to draw out as he dashed past the ticket collector.