Silence Observed (8 page)

“Heard a shot? It was a deuced clever thing to hear, wasn’t it, when walking in the direction of one of the most noisy thoroughfares in London? Do you mean he heard a bang which might have been any sort of bang?”

“No, sir.” Inspector Parker was respectfully reproachful. “This man happens to have received a good deal of instruction in small arms, and he knew at once that he had heard a revolver shot. He walked forward rapidly, and became aware of the open door of this shop. He paused, and there was a perceptible fume.”

“A what?”

“A smell of gunpowder, sir, if one may speak very roughly. One can’t fire a pistol without a bit of stink.”

“True enough. And then?”

“He entered, and found Mr Heffer here.”

“I see. And what was Mr Heffer doing?”

“According to the constable, sir, he was standing directly behind the dead man, with a revolver held in his right hand.”

“And what was Mr Heffer doing according to Mr Heffer?”

“Just that, Sir John. There is no conflict of testimony at that particular point.”

“That’s something, I suppose.” Appleby turned to the young man. “You confirm that, Mr Heffer?”

“Certainly I do. I’d picked up this revolver, or whatever it was. But I hadn’t yet really looked at it. I was looking, you see, at the old woman. Or rather, at where the old woman had been.”

“Or rather at
that
, all right,” Parker said grimly. “For there was certainly no old woman when the constable entered the shop.”

Appleby had lit a pipe. He had tapped an open packet of cigarettes which the sweating sergeant had inefficiently failed to conceal – with the result that the sergeant, in a great awe, obediently took out a cigarette and lit it.

“Excellent,” Appleby said. “Now we’re really making progress. As only Mr Heffer saw the old woman, only Mr Heffer can tell us about her. Mr Heffer, go ahead.”

“What’s that?” Heffer had started – so that Appleby received the momentary impression that the young man hadn’t been listening. Indeed, it was almost as if he had been listening for something else. “Oh, the old woman. Well, it was pretty queer.”

“A number of things seem to me to be that, Mr Heffer. For instance, it isn’t clear to me why we are all holding a sort of vigil in this not very comfortable shop.”

“Entirely Mr Heffer’s affair, sir,” Parker interrupted. “I invited him to come to a police station and give his account of the matter there. But he refused to budge, unless put under arrest. And I have regarded that as – um – premature. So Mr Heffer has insisted, you may say, on staying put – and on being most uncommunicative as well.”

“A sort of sit-down strike?”

“Well, at least a trial of patience, sir. But perhaps we are going to hear something now.”

“Quite so – about this old woman. But first, Mr Heffer, could you put yourself to the trouble of telling us why you came into this shop at all?”

“Why I came in? Oh, just to look round.”

“At just after six o’clock? You knew it would be open?”

“I just hadn’t thought about it. I wasn’t making a special journey, you know. Just passing.”

“Where from, and where to?”

“Where from?” Again Heffer’s attention appeared to have strayed. “I was coming from the BM, where I’d been doing a bit of reading. And I was going back to my flat, to change and go out to dinner with your wife and yourself. Odd, isn’t it? Here we are in quite a different relationship.”

“Do you commonly spend your holidays in the BM?”

“Holidays?” Heffer was startled.

“I think it’s a fact that, quite recently, you made rather an abrupt decision to begin a holiday due to you? But we might have a little conversation about that later. You came into this shop to look round. Had you ever done that before?”

“Dear me, yes. Often enough.”

“I see. Well, was there anybody else in the street – anybody who might have entered the shop a minute before you?”

“I really can’t say. I can’t say, at all. I wasn’t looking or thinking, you know.”

“Did you hear a shot?”

“I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I didn’t. I can’t have been listening either.”

“Very well, Mr Heffer. You entered the shop. What then?”

“There was this old woman. She was standing looking at Trechmann, who had been shot through the back of the head.”

“Did she look as if she might have done the shooting?”

“Not in the least. She had a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other.”

“Was she agitated?”

“She certainly didn’t seem to be. She turned to me as I came in and said: ‘Shot ’im ’e ’as’.” Heffer paused. “Do I make that intelligible? ‘Shot him he has’ was what was intended.”

“Quite so. And then?”

“She said: ‘Perlice work that is and no cleaning ’ere neither not till they’re through’. And she turned and walked out of the shop and into this inner room. She wasn’t seen again.”

Inspector Parker could be heard breathing heavily. Appleby gave him a restraining glance and then turned again to the young man.

“You realize, Mr Heffer, that you are ascribing a somewhat improbable course of conduct to this old woman?”

“Well, it was certainly surprisingly phlegmatic. Perhaps she was feeble-minded. I hadn’t time to think about it, you know, because the policeman came in from the street a moment later. You’ll be able to settle the point when you find her.”

“If we ever
do
find her,” Parker said. “And if you ask–”

He broke off at a gesture from Appleby. From somewhere in the rear of the premises two sounds were making themselves heard. One was a clanking. The other could be described as a slip-slopping. Their association could conjure up one image only. And this was almost instantly vindicated. A door opened, and there stood in it an old woman. She was wearing carpet slippers, and she carried a pail, a mop, a broom, a contrivance for kneeling on, and a number of dusters. The appearance of the four men revealed to her was something which she seemed to find wholly unsurprising.

“That there Mr Trechmann’s corpus,” the old woman said, “would it ’av been taken to the morguary?”

Parker’s difficulty in the matter of respiration increased. Nor did he seem better pleased when Heffer, without obtrusiveness, rose, tipped a pile of books and papers from a chair, and invited the new arrival to sit down.

“No,” Appleby said. “Not yet. But it won’t be long now.”

“I got to thorough through that there shop, I ’ave.” The old woman, who was plainly gratified by Heffer’s attention, had sat down composedly. “And ’uffkins my name is. ’arriet ’uffkins. And Missus, although in a widowed state.”

“Mrs Huffkins,” Appleby asked gravely, “will you explain to us how you came to leave these premises immediately after having come upon Mr Trechmann’s body?”

“Give it time to settle, was what I said to myself. And I went to the pichers. Mark you, ’
e
was ’ere.” Mrs Huffkins pointed a grubby finger at Heffer. “Gentleman, if ever I saw one, and well able to ’andle the perlice.”

“So you felt,” Appleby asked, “that you could leave it all to him, and you downed bucket and brooms and went off to the cinema? And now, at this late hour, you have simply returned to get on with your job?”

“That’s it, mister. That’s it in a coconut.”

At this the sweating sergeant spoke for the first time.

“Nutshell,” he said. “That’s what she means, sir. Nutshell. Not literate, she isn’t.”

“No doubt you are right, Sergeant.” Appleby paused to get his pipe going again. “Mrs Huffkins, there is one point I must get quite clear. Could this gentleman – whose name is Mr Heffer – have shot Mr Trechmann, withdrawn from the shop, and then given the appearance of just having entered when you first saw him?”

“In course ’e couldn’t.” Mrs Huffkins answered as one who, whatever her intellectual limitations, would make a rock-like and impregnable witness. “It couldn’t ’av ’appened – not in the time between when I ’eard the shot and saw what I saw. Besides, I saw ’im that done it, didn’t I?”

“You
saw
’im that done it?” Once more the sergeant was unable to refrain from interrupting. “You mean you saw ’im that done it a-doing of it, and then you walked out and went to the pictures? Inside, you ought to be.”

“You mustn’t make suggestions, Sergeant, as to where Mrs Huffkins ought, or ought not, to be.” Appleby shook his head seriously. “Although her behaviour, it has to be admitted, was not wholly that of a responsible citizen. Mrs Huffkins, are we to understand that you actually saw Mr Trechmann being shot?”

“I didn’t say that, I didn’t – and you can’t put it on me that I did. As I come in through this ’ere back shop, there was Mr Trechmann with an ’ole in ’is ’ead. And there was someone what ’ad dropped ’is gun on ’earing me, and was out through the other door – the one to the little back stair – just as I came in and caught a glimpse of ’is back. And then in come this gentleman as anyone can see, Mr ’effer, from the street. So it’s none of my business now, I thinks, and I leaves ’im to it.”

There was a moment’s silence. Inspector Parker looked glum. He was seeing, clearly enough, that as the killer of Jacob Trechmann young Mr Heffer would never be worth a night’s board and lodging in a police cell. Heffer himself, who ought to have been looking correspondingly relieved, was in fact paying very little attention again. There was a strained look on his face. And he was reaching into a pocket – Appleby supposed it was to pull out a watch – when the thing happened.

A bell rang. It rang in the room in which this queer conference had been transacting itself. And it was pretty obvious that it had been rung at the front door of the shop. It was the door, Appleby remembered, that he had instructed the constable to secure. Presumably the constable would now answer this summons.

But this didn’t happen. Something extremely surprising happened instead. Jimmy Heffer rose and shouted – shouted with all the power of his athlete’s well-developed lungs.

“Clear out! Run! Run like mad!”

The shout had rung out through the front shop, and clearly reached the ear it was intended for. It was followed by a moment’s astounded silence, and then by a crash which sent Parker and the sergeant hurtling out of the room. Appleby followed. The front shop was precisely as it had been. The dead man sprawled as if in an elaborate demonstration of disregard. But the young constable was sprawling too. In too rapid a dash for the street door he had got entangled with the orrery – a good deal to that delicate contraption’s detriment. He picked himself up as they watched, dashed to the door, fumbled at the lock, was out in the darkness of the street and running. The sergeant followed him. Appleby turned round to find Parker glaring at Jimmy Heffer in a condition of speechlessness. Mrs Huffkins was still in the inner room. Having been accommodated with a chair by a perfect gentleman, she was in no hurry to relinquish it.

“It would appear,” Appleby said, “that we now have the explanation of Mr Heffer’s sit-down strike.” He turned to the young man. “Do you realize the extreme gravity of your action just now?”

“Gravity? Nonsense!” Heffer was blandly incredulous. “These people of yours have been bothering and badgering me for hours. And when that bell rang I jolly well thought they deserved to have their legs pulled.”

“Are you seriously claiming, Mr Heffer, that you don’t know who rang that bell?”

“Of course I don’t. Probably it was a street urchin. But you all rose magnificently to my little joke.”

This was more than Inspector Parker proved willing to take.

“I think you’ll find,” he said, “a magistrate rising magnificently to it too. I regret that I must–”

But at this Appleby interrupted.

“Just a moment, Parker. Here are your men back again. Empty-handed, I think.” He turned to the young constable as he came puffing through the door. “No good?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. Hopeless, once you’re round that corner. Plenty of people still on the street, and plenty of buses to nip on to.”

“And you saw nothing?”

“Just a glimpse, sir, right at the start. Somebody taking the corner at the double.”

“A street urchin, would you say?”

“Certainly not, sir. Long trousers, and carrying a parcel. That’s all I could swear to.”

“A man, in fact?”

“Well, sir, it might be or it might not. Plenty of women in slacks nowadays.”

“Perfectly true.” Appleby thought for a moment.

“Parker,” he said, “I think you’ll find that Mr Heffer is now willing to make a statement of sorts. No doubt it will follow the general lines of our conversation. Get it down – and Mrs Huffkins’ as well – and speak pretty sharply to somebody about not having collected that body. These proceedings have been grotesquely long drawn out, and wouldn’t sound at all well in the Press. The sooner we are all in bed the better.”

Parker was looking balefully at Heffer.

“But don’t you think, sir–”

“No, Parker – frankly I don’t. We can all begin thinking about this again in the morning – and it may well be that Mr Heffer will have to think hardest of all. But we can’t, in my opinion, do anything more now.”

And at this Jimmy Heffer lazily stretched his athletic body, so that Appleby thought what an odd type he was to be curating pictures.

“That’s just what I’ve been thinking for some time,” Heffer said. He made as if to yawn, and then checked himself. “I say,” he said anxiously to Appleby, “you will explain to Lady Appleby, won’t you? I do feel terribly bad about that.”

“Mr Heffer, if you extricate yourself from this affair with nothing more than a broken dinner engagement to feel bad about I shall feel disposed to congratulate you.”

“Oh, I say! I call that rather a narky remark. Perhaps my little joke just now wasn’t in very good taste. Presence of death, and all that” – and at this Heffer gave a nod in the direction of Jacob Trechmann’s body – “but you needn’t hold it against me, all the same.”

Appleby had been preparing to leave the shop. Now he came to a halt near the door.

“Mr Heffer, I think it may well be that you have been guilty of grave folly. But I do
not
think that you are what is known as a silly ass. Spare yourself the effort of trying to appear so.”