In the Teeth of the Evidence (18 page)

    ‘That’s different,’ replied Mr Podd, rather irritably. ‘We are only asking for our due reward. He’ll think so when he sees the book. Let’s see: “A first payment of £250” – no, hang it! that sounds like hire-purchase. Wait a minute. “I only ask for £250 – now – but The Time Will Come when you will pay me more” – no – “pay up in full” – that’s crisper. We’ll push this round to both addresses.’

    He wrote the letters and dictated a chapter of a new book. ‘It will be wanted quickly when the first one gets going,’ he observed. ‘We shall hardly be able to turn them out fast enough. It will be a great strain, no doubt.’

    ‘Oh, but you have so many wonderful ideas, Mr Podd. And I don’t mind working extra.’

    ‘Thank you, Miss Robbins,’ said Mr Podd, condescendingly. ‘You are a good girl. I don’t know what I should do without you.’ He tossed back the Napoleon lock. ‘Have you got your note-book? Take down this.
The Corpse in the Sewer
. Chapter I. The Smell in the Scullery. “Anne,” said Mrs Fletcher to the cook, “have you been throwing cabbage-water down the sink?” “No, ma’am,” replied the girl, pertly, “I should hope I know better than that –” That gives the right domestic touch for the opening, I think.’

    ‘Oh,
yes
, Mr Podd.’

    Mr Podd was lunching with a literary friend named Gamble. He did not very much like Gamble, who was one of those people who are quite spoilt by a trifling success. Gamble’s novel
Waste of Shame
had, for some reason, achieved a sort of fluky popularity, and the incense had gone to his head. He was frequently seen at publishers’ parties, had made a witty speech before Royalty at a literary dinner, and now made a foolish pretence of possessing inside knowledge of everyone in the publishing world. One could not afford not to know Gamble, but he was very trying to his friends. Humphrey Podd looked forward to the day when he would be able to patronise Gamble in his turn.

    ‘Look!’ said Gamble, ‘there’s Ramp just come in. That fellow’s cracking up. Got the willies. You can see it in his face.’

    Mr Podd gazed at the publisher – a thin, dark, fretted face and a pair of nervous hands that picked unceasingly at a roll of bread.

    ‘Why?’ asked Mr Podd. ‘He’s all right, isn’t he? His stuff sells, doesn’t it?’

    ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the
business
,’ said Gamble. ‘You’re all right there, if you’re thinking of placing anything with him. No – it’s something quite different. Don’t let this go any further, but I shouldn’t be surprised if there was an explosion in that quarter before very long.’

    ‘Explosion?’ repeated Mr Podd.

    ‘Well, yes – but I oughtn’t to say anything. I just happen to know, that’s all. One gets to hear these things somehow.’

    Mr Podd was annoyed. He would have liked to hear more, but he was determined not to encourage Gamble.

    ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘as long as the firm’s all right, that’s the main thing. Chap’s private life is none of my business.’

    ‘Private – ah! there you are,’ said Gamble, darkly. ‘From what I hear, it won’t stay private very long. If some of the letters come into court – whew!’

    ‘Letters?’ asked Mr Podd suddenly interested.

    ‘Hell!’ said Gamble. ‘I oughtn’t to have said anything about that. It was told me in confidence. Forget it, will you, old boy?’

    ‘Oh, certainly,’ said Humphrey Podd, annoyed with himself and with Gamble.

    ‘He’s beginning to sit up and take notice,’ announced Mr Podd to Miss Robbins. And he repeated Mr Gamble’s conversation.

    ‘Oh, Mr
Podd
!’ exclaimed Miss Robbins. She fiddled nervously with her typewriter ribbon. ‘Mr Podd!’ she burst out, uncontrollably, ‘you don’t suppose he – I mean, you never know, do you? And he might be angry.’

    ‘He’ll forget it, once he sees the book,’ said Mr Podd.

    ‘Yes, but – just imagine! I mean, he might have really done something. Perhaps he’s getting frightened – I mean – you’ll think I’m awfully silly.’

    ‘Not at all, Miss Robbins,’ said Humphrey Podd.

    ‘Well, I mean – suppose there’s a dark secret in his past life –’

    ‘That would be an idea,’ cried Mr Podd, excitedly. ‘Wait a minute – wait a minute! Miss Robbins, you’ve given me the plot for a new book. Here! take this down. Title:
A Bow at a Venture
. No, dash it! I’ve an idea that’s been used before. I’ve got it:
An Arrow o’er the House
. Quotation from
Hamlet
: “That I have shot my arrow o’er the house and hurt my brother.” Plot begins. Somebody – call him Jones – writes threatening letters to – say, Robinson. Jones means it for a joke, but Robinson is frightened to death because, unknown to Jones, he really has – call it, murdered somebody. Make it a woman – female victims always go down well. Robinson commits suicide and Jones is prosecuted for blackmail and murder. I’m not sure if frightening a man to death would be brought in murder, but I expect it would. Blackmail is a felony, and if you accidentally kill somebody while you’re engaged in felony, the killing is murder, so it might come in that way. I say, this idea of mine is going to be good. Wash out
The Corpse in the Sewer
– I never thought a lot of that. We’ll get going straight away on this one. Jones thinks he has covered his tracks, but the police – no, not the police – they’re baffled, of course. The detective. Let’s see; I think we’d better use Major Hawke again for this one. He’s my best detective, and if readers get keen on him in
The Time Will Come
they’ll want to hear about him again – Hawke gets on the scene of the letters. It’s difficult, because of course they’ve all been posted in different places, but –’

    Miss Robbins, her pencil staggering over the paper as she struggled to follow Humphrey Podd’s disjointed speech, gave a little gasp.

    ‘Hawke traces the paper, of course – where purchased, and so on. And the ink. Oh, yes – and we can have a thumb-print on one of the envelopes. Not Jones’s – his
fiancée’s
, I think, who has posted the letters for him. She – yes, she’s a good character, but hopelessly under the influence of Jones. We’ll think that out. Better marry her off to somebody nicer in the end. Not Major Hawke – somebody else. We’ll invent a decent chap for her. There’ll be a good scene when she is frantically burning the evidence while the police hammer at the door. We must make her overlook something, of course, or Jones would never get detected – never mind, I can think that out later. Court scene – that’ll be good—’

    ‘Oh, Mr Podd! But does poor Jones get hanged? I mean, it seems very hard lines on him, when he only meant it for a joke.’

    ‘That’s where the irony comes in,’ said Mr Podd, ruthlessly. ‘Still, I see what you mean. The public will want him saved. All right – we’ll stack that. We’ll make him a bad character – one of those men who trample over women’s hearts and laugh at their sufferings. He gets away with all his real crimes and then – here’s your irony – does himself in over this one harmless joke on a man he quite likes. Make a note, “Jones laughs once too often.” Must get a better name than Jones. Lester is a good name. Everybody calls him “Laughing Lester”. Fair, curly hair – put that down – but his eyes are set a little too close together. I say, this is shaping splendidly.’

    ‘And about the letter to Mr Ramp,’ suggested Miss Robbins, with some hesitation, when the main lines of
An Arrow o’er the House
had been successfully laid down. ‘Perhaps you’d rather I didn’t post it?’

    ‘Not post it?’ said Mr Podd, amazed. ‘Why, it’s a beauty. “The Time Will Come – and it is later than you think.” Post it, of course. Ramp’s got to be roused.’

    Miss Robbins obediently posted the letter – with gloves on.

    It was not till the arrow-headed hands on Mr Podd’s clock-face had reached 11.45, and the message had taken the form, ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow’, that it occurred to him to test the victim’s reaction personally. The idea came to him at 11.45 precisely, in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. With a hoarse chuckle, which caused a passing messenger-boy to turn round and stare at him in amazement, he plunged headlong down the subway and into a public call-box in the rotunda. Here he obtained the number of Mr Ramp’s office.

    The female voice that answered said that Mr Ramp was engaged, and inquired the name of the caller. Mr Podd was prepared for this, and said that the matter was strictly private and very urgent. Further, that he would not feel justified in giving his name to anybody but Mr Ramp. The girl seemed less surprised and less obdurate than Mr Podd might have expected. She put him through. A sharp, worried voice said: ‘Yes? yes? yes? Who’s that?’

    Mr Podd lowered his naturally rather high tones to an impressive croak.

    ‘The Time Will Come,’ he said. There was a pause.

    ‘
What
did you say?’ demanded the sharp voice, irritably.

    ‘The Time Will Come,’ repeated Mr Podd. Then, prompted by a sudden inspiration, he added: ‘
Shall we send the proofs to the Public Prosecutor?
’

    There was another pause. Then the voice said: ‘I don’t know what you are talking about. Who is it speaking, please?’

    Mr Podd laughed fiendishly, and rang off.

    ‘And why not?’ said Mr Podd to Miss Robbins. ‘People are always sending advance proofs to Prime Ministers and literary critics. The Public Prosecutor’s opinion ought to be as good as anybody’s. Make a note of it.’

    Two days passed. The daily missive now bore only the ominous word: ‘Tomorrow.’ Mr Podd dictated three chapters of
An Arrow o’er the House
right off the reel and went out to tea with a friend, leaving Miss Robbins to pack up the top copy of
The Time Will Come
and dispatch it, per post, to Mr Milton Ramp.

    It was a raw and foggy day. Cold, too – Miss Robbins stoked up the stove in Humphrey Podd’s studio, for her fingers were numb with note-taking. As she stepped into the Square, with the manuscript under her arm, she shivered, and pulled her fur more closely about her neck.

    On her way to the post office she had to pass the news-vendor at the corner of the Square. The scarlet lettering on the placards he held made a splash of brightness in the gloom and caught Miss Robbins’s eye. With a sudden leap of the heart she read the words: London Publisher Shot.

    The manuscript slipped from her grasp. She picked it up, fumbled hurriedly in her bag for a penny, and bought a copy of the
Evening Banner.
She opened it, standing by the Square railings. A heavy splash of soot-laden water dripped from an overhanging tree upon the crown of her hat. At first she could not find what she was looking for. Eventually she discovered a few smudged lines in the Stop Press column.

    ‘Mr Milton Ramp, the well-known publisher, was found shot dead in his office today when his secretary returned from lunch. A discharged revolver lay on the floor beside him. Mr Ramp is said to have been worried of late by domestic troubles, and by the receipt of anonymous letters. The police are making investigations.’

    The manuscript under Miss Robbins’s arm seemed to have grown to colossal size. She looked up, and caught the eye of the newsvendor. It was an unnaturally bright eye, like a hawk’s. It made her think of the chapter in
Murder Marriage
where Major Hawke had disguised himself as a newsvendor in order to watch a suspected house. She hurried back to the studio. As she bolted up the front steps, she glanced nervously back. Through the fog, she made out a dim and bulky shape advancing along the other side of the Square. It wore a helmet and a water-proof cape.

    Humphrey Podd’s studio flat was on the top floor. Miss Robbins took the three flights at a run, dashed to cover and locked the door after her. Peeping out from behind the window-curtain, she saw the policeman speaking to the newsvendor.

    ‘Thank goodness,’ thought Miss Robbins, ‘I hadn’t posted the manuscript.’ She tore off the brown paper and gaspingly extracted the covering letter that bore Humphrey Podd’s name and address. The top sheet of the manuscript followed it into the fire. Then she sat trembling. But not for long. There was the carbon copy. There were her shorthand notes. There was the story itself, which bore the unmistakable marks of Humphrey Podd’s authorship. With a sick presentiment of disaster, Miss Robbins remembered that Major Hawke – that inspired detective – figured, not only in
The Time Will Come
, but also in
Murder Marriage
, which had been submitted to Mr Milton Ramp only three months ago. Mr Podd had said that publishers never read his manuscripts – but could one count on that? Some secretary, some hired reader, might have glanced at it, and nobody who had ever encountered Major Hawke could possibly forget him and his eccentricities.

    Miss Robbins looked out of the window again. The policeman was advancing with his stately tread along the near side of the Square, and glancing up at the windows. He approached the house. He stopped. With a terrified squeak, Miss Robbins rushed to the roaring stove and crammed the manuscript in – top copy – carbon – note-book – pulling the chapters hurriedly apart to make the mass of paper burn faster. What else was there? The plot-book – that must go too. Her hand shook as she wrenched the pages out. And— oh, she had nearly forgotten the most damning evidence of all – the green paper. Mr Podd had said that detectives could always trace the purchase of paper. She fed it desperately to the leaping flame, flinging the pen and the bottle of red ink after it for good measure, and piling fresh coal and coke on top of it.