Designs on Life (7 page)

He seated himself on a chair. His mackintosh draped itself in stiff folds around him. “You say you’re absolutely sure?”

“Absolutely sure,” she said. “The water was spouting hard just above it, and I looked down at the mess it was making on the floor, and I
know
there wasn’t any blood there.”

“Indeed! That’s very interesting.” He gave his little giggle, “Playing detectives! Oh dear, if you and I could see ourselves.”

“But that means,” she went on, “that he could only just have been put there. I mean, if he’d been there any time, the blood would have dried, it wouldn’t have trickled out under the door. So someone must have been in the house only just before the water started running. It was just six o’clock when I went into the kitchen to cook the supper and had to stop because of the water coming in.”

“I know what you’re going to say!” he cried. “I know, I know!” He jerked himself forward to the edge of the chair. “You’re going to say that it’s always at six in the evening that Mr. Wragge goes to work.”

She was nodding when they heard feet tramping on the pavement outside, and a rapping on the front door that echoed through the house.

From the time when Superintendent Cust appeared, accompanied by a sergeant, nothing in the house seemed quite so sinister. There was still the darkness, the drumming water, the tomb-like smell of wet plaster, the puddles on the floor. Upstairs in a cupboard there was still the body of a man with his head battered in. But Superintendent Cust had a square face with brown, rubbery skin. He had a square, heavy body and square-tipped, heavy hands. And he had a way of pulling his features together in a bunch with one hand and speaking through the fingers in a voice so smothered by them that it sounded as if he were suffering from a dreadful cold. His presence brought reassurance.

“Good heavens,” he said, “why didn’t you tell us we needed umbrellas?”

“It’s upstairs, Superintendent,” Mr. Shew said, “in an upstairs cupboard.”

“Of course it’s upstairs. What is it, a burst tank?”

“I mean, the corpse is upstairs—the dead man.”

“Oh yes, that. Why don’t you turn the main tap off?”

“I’ve done so. This water is what had already collected in the walls and ceilings. There was no one at home in either of the top floor flats when the pipe, or the tank, or whatever it is burst, so the upper floors had time to become completely flooded before Mrs. Haddow and I were aware of anything amiss.”

“Never seen anything like it,” Mr. Cust said. He pulled nose, cheeks and chin together into a handful and looked round at the sergeant. “Maybe you could do something about it, Bill,” he suggested.

Margaret remarked, “When the plumber comes, I suppose he’ll think it’s his job to investigate the murder.”

Mr. Cust’s eyes came round to her. “You the lady who found the body?”

“We both found the body,” Mr. Shew said quickly. “It was Mrs. Haddow who slipped in the blood, thus drawing our attention to the fact that there was a body there.”

A crash reverberated in the darkness.

“Some more of my ceiling coming down,” Margaret said.

“All right,” Mr. Cust said. “Well, let’s go along up and look at him.”

On the way up the stairs he leant towards Margaret and whispered, “Who is the old boy?”

“He’s Councillor Shew,” she answered, “Chairman of the Baths and Cemeteries Committee.”

He gave a muffled whistle.

He gave another whistle when he saw the body.

“That’s dead, that is,” he said, and after a minute or two, during which his massive hindquarters had concealed most of the cupboard, he added, “Not very long either. Not more than half an hour or so, I should guess.”

Mrs. Shew began, “Mrs. Haddow and I have deduced …”

But the superintendent went straight on, “Who lives in this flat up here?”

“A man called Boyle,” Mr. Shew said. “I believe he deals in electrical apparatus of some sort.”

“And down there?”

“A man called Wragge. He’s a sub-editor on the
Gazette.”

“Oh, works at night, I suppose.”

“Yes, he goes out every evening about six o’clock.”

“Out now?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Cust went up the stairs to Boyle’s flat. He tried all the doors. Finding them locked, he came down to the first floor, tried the handle of the door nearest to him, found that it would open and went in. Margaret and Mr. Shew could hear him moving about inside and caught an occasional glimpse of his light as he flashed it from side to side.

After a moment he called to them, “You said he was out.”

“Yes,” Margaret said.

“Well, come and have a look here.” Mr. Cust’s voice came from the bedroom.

As they approached he flashed his torch at the bed. It picked out the haggard face and limp black hair of the man who was lying across it, the counterpane crumpled under him. His arms were flung out on either side, one knee was drawn up, the foot, in a sock through which most of a toe protruded, resting on the edge of the bed. His mouth hung open. Through it he wasdrawing slow, snorting breaths, while his chest rose and fell laboriously.

“That him?” Mr. Cust asked.

Margaret nodded.

“He often like this?”

“Since his wife left him about three months ago, pretty often.”

“And before that too,” Mr. Shew said.

Mr. Cust gave some directions to the sergeant. A quantity of cold water that was pouring uselessly through the house was deflected for the purpose of sobering up the journalist. It took time. Even when he had been roused, Paul Wragge’s brain seemed to be in a cloud. Recently, whenever Margaret had met him, he had seemed to be in a cloud.

Mr. Cust stood and watched him. When Paul Wragge was sitting up, his head drooping on to his chest, his back a sagging curve, Mr. Cust said, “Been in all day, Mr. Wragge?”

The third time he asked the question he received an answer of sorts.

“Been in? Been—in? I don’t know what you’re … Look here, what the hell’s happening?” Paul Wragge’s eyes shifted, wincing, from one face to another. “Where’s all this water coming from? Why don’t you turn it off?”

“This gentleman says he
has
turned it off,” Mr. Cust said. “Now, Mr. Wragge, how long have you been in?”

“You’re the police,” Paul Wragge said.

“That’s right.”

“I’ve been in all day.”

“Had any visitors?”

“What’s the matter with you? What the hell’s happening? Why are you asking questions? Isn’t a man allowed to get drunk in his own home any more?” Wragge’s hands were kneading at his temples.

“If you don’t mind,” Mr. Cust said, “there’s something I’d like to show you.”

He put a hand under Paul Wragge’s elbow.

He allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He allowed himself, though he walked staggeringly, to be led out on to the landing and up the stairs. He looked where the superintendent’s torch pointed.

Margaret had been trying to keep her nerves in order to deal with this moment. But in her imaginings nothing had been so shocking as what actually happened.

Paul Wragge laughed.

“Whoever would think,” he said in a drawling voice, “that a thing like that could happen to one twice in a life-time?”

Mr. Cust waited. Paul Wragge merely stood there, staring down.

Mr. Cust said, “Have you ever seen this man before, Mr. Wragge?”

There was a slight pause, then the journalist replied, “I’ll tell you something. I’ll tell you something that happened to me years ago. I was a reporter. My first job. I was nineteen. I’d been sent along to the local morgue to get some details about a suicide. The sergeant in charge was awfully bright and breezy, chatted along, told me—”

“Mr. Wragge, have you ever seen this man before?”

“—told me all the gory details I wanted. Then suddenly he whipped the cover off one of the corpses. A girl, quite young. She’d got nice, fair hair. And her throat had been cut from ear to ear. He did it just to see me be sick or faint. Nice chap! I didn’t do either.”

“Have you seen this man before?” Mr. Cust repeated.

Though water was splashing all over him, Paul Wragge showed no desire to move.

“No,” he said.

“Would you swear to that?”

“My bell!” Mr. Shew cried suddenly. “My door bell—didn’t you hear it? The plumber!” He pelted down into the darkness.

“My God, what a lot of water!” Paul Wragge muttered. “Yes, I’d swear to it.”

Mr. Cust said, “I hear your wife left you three months ago.”

“Yes,” Paul Wragge answered.

Thickly through his lingers came Mr. Cust’s next question, “What was the name of the man for whom she left you?”

Paul Wragge’s answer was something very short, very obscene. Margaret turned quickly and went downstairs. She stood in her own hall, fighting off a horrible nausea.

After standing there for a minute or two, she went to the door of the basement and called down, “Mr. Shew, I’m going to make some tea.”

“Oh, that’s really kind of you, Mrs. Haddow, very kind.” He came pounding to the foot of the staircase. “If you really wouldn’t mind. It
is
such a good idea in the circumstances.”

Out of the shadows the plumber appeared and stood at Mr. Shew’s elbow. He was a small man with a grudging voice and a felt hat tipped so steeply over his face that little of it showed but a drooping moustache.

“You got the main tap turned full on,” he said.

“On?” Mr. Shew said. “I turned it off.”

“On,” the plumber said.

“Off!” Mr. Shew cried.

“You may a meant to turn it off,” the plumber said, “but you turned it
on. I
turned it off. Now I’ll go up and take a look in the loft.”

“The top flat’s locked,” Mr. Shew said. “You can’t get in.”

“It’s all right,” Margaret said. “I know how to get in. Come on, I’ll show you.”

She had to repeat the performance of breaking into Mr. Boyle’s flat under the eye of Mr. Cust, who went in with her and the plumber and stood watching while the legs of the plumber disappeared into the roof. Then he started roaming round the flat. Margaret went downstairs again. She fetched the electric kettle from the kitchen and plugged it into the switch in the bedroom. She fetched the rest of the tea-things on a tray and set the tray down on the floor, squatting on the floor herself, as close to the gas fire as she could without being singed. The kettle came to the boil, and she made the tea, pouring out a cup for herself, sitting there with both hands nursing the hot cup. She kept chewing at her lip, pursuing a thought that dodged round the edges of her mind, but would not let her grasp it.

Presently there was a discreet knock at the door. The councillor put his head round it.

“Ah,” he said, “tea!” He came in. “I really think the water isn’t flowing quite so heavily, Mrs. Haddow.”

She agreed, pouring out tea for him.

“The plumber says it’s all turned off now, but the walls and ceilings will take at least an hour to empty. Mrs. Haddow, you’ll never tell anyone, will you
—anyone—
about
my turning the tap the wrong way?”

She smiled absently, pouring out more tea for herself.

“Though of course it wouldn’t have made much difference, would it?” he said. “Most of the damage must have been done already, don’t you think? Listen—I really think it’s getting less every moment. It seems the main pipe burst. The plumber’s seeing to it.”

Margaret spoke abruptly. “Are they going to arrest Mr. Wragge?”

“Well, it does look rather like it, doesn’t it? Of course, I don’t know. But I should think they’d take him along to the police station for questioning.” He eyed her thoughtfully. “Do you—er— happen to know anything about Mr. Wragge’s unfortunate private affairs?”

“Only what he poured out on Michael and me one evening when he was a bit, but not frightfully, drunk.”

“Did he say anything about the—er—the other man?”

“There wasn’t one.”

“Dear me, dear me.” Mr. Shew stirred his tea and sipped a little, those vague cat’s eyes of his behind the pince-nez dwelling on her face.

“You see,” Margaret said in an uncertain voice, as if it were rather hard for her to understand what she was saying herself, “it seemed to be just that that was so awful for him. I mean, that she’d just gone away because she couldn’t stand living with him. She just left him and went back to her old job.”

“And I don’t wonder!”

“No, I suppose not,” she said, and sighed.

“Listen,” he said, “it
is
getting less, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

They sat there, gradually feeling warmer and drier. Bit by bit the swish of water lessened to the pattering of individual drops. Policemen went on walking about upstairs. Their voices sounded on the staircase. Mr. Shew started telling anecdotes.

Presently Superintendent Cust came down and asked Margaret if she had heard anyone leave the house before the water started. She told him that she had had the radio on. Mr. Cust asked Mr. Shew what he had been doing between half past five and six. The councillor said that he had been reading
The Wind in the Willows
to his housekeeper, Miss Pattison, who was ill in bed with bronchitis.

Mr. Cust left them and Mr. Shew went on with his anecdotes.

The deluge was almost at an end. It was only a drip-drip from corners and ceiling cracks, when Margaret heard the sound of a key turning in the front door.

She leapt towards it, calling out, “Michael!”

But the sergeant was there before her and when the door opened it was not Michael Haddow who stood there, but Philip Boyle.

He was a short man, slight and wiry, with stiff fair hair that stood up in a brush. His face was a rather red one, with bushy fair eyebrows, hard blue eyes and a small moustache. His manner, which had the assertiveness and suspiciousness of a man who never forgot his rights, was markedly uncordial. He was wearing a loose tweed overcoat of loud pattern and carried a dispatch-case.

Stepping inside, he started rubbing his shoes on the mat.

The sergeant said, “Shouldn’t bother with that if I was you. Place is in a worse mess than you can make it in. Who is he, miss?” He looked over his shoulder at Margaret.