Weekend with Death (11 page)

Mrs. Perkins made a vaguely sympathetic sound.

“Ah well, dear, you're bitter—and no wonder, the way you were treated. But there's all sorts. You depend upon it, they've had a quarrel, and he come here on the way to his office in the hopes of making it up. A bit of a facer for him, poor fellow, to find them all gone off and no address, which I can't say I hold with myself. Suppose we was to be murdered in our beds, or the house burnt down—it stands to reason we ought to know where we could get word to Mr. Cattermole. We
did
ought to know where he is, and that's a fact.”

“He doesn't want to be bothered,” said Thompson—“and I don't blame him.”

Henry Templar proceeded to his office, and in due course went out to lunch at his club, where he was joined by a friend of the name of Blenkinsop.

Mr. Blenkinsop, who was a year or two older than Henry, was the secretary of an Under-Secretary. It being Saturday, there was time for conversation as well as food. Mr. Blenkinsop was discreet, but not so discreet with Henry as he would have been with most other people.

Henry was never quite sure how the murder of Emily Case came up, but all in a minute there it was, and Blenkinsop was saying,

“The inquest's on Monday, I see, but they'll ask for an adjournment. There's something behind it, you know.”

Henry said, “Is there?” and hoped that he said it in his usual tone.

Blenkinsop nodded.

“Oh, obviously. I wonder who the girl was.”

“What girl?”

“The girl who was with her in the waiting-room of course. There's something there. Why doesn't she come forward?”

“People don't like getting mixed up in a murder case.”

“Silly of her,” said Blenkinsop briskly. “That morbid shrinking from publicity only results in attracting it. Nobody would have noticed her if she had come forward at once. Now everyone wants to know who she is.”

It was perfectly true. Henry's annoyance with Sarah deepened. If she had taken his advice—Women never did take advice. They asked for it, but when they got it they chucked it away and did what they had all along made up their minds to do. He nodded and said gloomily,

“Girls don't reason. I expect she panicked.”

Blenkinsop went on talking about Emily Case. It wasn't any use trying to deflect him, because when he wanted to talk about anything he talked about it. All you could do was to abstract your mind and wonder whether the club Stilton had definitely deteriorated, or whether it was merely your own palate.

Presently Blenkinsop appeared to have talked himself out. Putting sugar into his coffee, he produced a name like a rabbit from a hat.

“Blechmann—did you ever hear of anyone called Blechmann?”

Henry said, “No,” and then wasn't sure. “Ought I to have heard of him?”

“I don't know—I just wanted to see if there was any reaction.”

Henry said, “I don't think so—” There was just a trace of doubt in his voice. “What's it all about anyhow?”

Blenkinsop put his elbows on the table and leaned across it.

“Look here,” he said, “do you remember when we were at Interlaken in July?”

“How do you mean, do I remember? Of course I remember.”

“Well, what I really mean is, do you remember old Bloch?”

“Of course I remember him.”

Blenkinsop edged nearer.

“Well, that gets us started. What do you remember about him?”

“Look here,” said Henry, “I want to know what all this is about.”

Blenkinsop gave an impatient sigh.

“I'll tell you in a minute, but I want you to say your piece first. Suppose it was a matter of life and death, and you had to make a statement—suppose you had to describe old Bloch—just what exactly would you say?”

“In a statement to the police?”

“If you like to put it that way.”

“Is this a statement for the police?”

Blenkinsop's shoulder jerked.

“It might be. Go on—what would you say?”

Henry looked at him and considered. Something was certainly up. Blenkinsop had the air of a terrier at a rat hole—stubbly reddish hair bristling, small grey eyes alert and bright. He said,

“Well, he passed as a Dutchman—but as you're taking so much interest in him, he may have hailed from over the Rhine.”

“I don't want speculation—only what you yourself observed.”

Henry nodded.

“All right. As far as I came across him—and that wasn't any more than you did—he was just what he purported to be, an amiable middle-aged professor of entomology who had spent a good deal of his time in the Dutch East Indies. I suppose you don't want me to describe him?”

“Yes, I do. Go on.”

“Sounds silly to me. You saw just as much of him as I did. Well, I should put him down at fifty-one or fifty-two—about five-foot-eleven—thickset and heavy—large, pale, flattish face—good teeth—deep voice—strong, very ugly hands.… I think that's about all.”

“Hair? Eyes? Colouring?” Blenkinsop jerked the words at him one at a time.

“Well, I said he was pale—what more do you want? Eyes nondescript—hazel to grey—nothing you'd notice much anyway. Hair grey and rather long—but it was a wig, you know.”

Blenkinsop took him up with energy.

“I know? How should I know? I didn't anyway. But what's more to the point is, how did
you
know?”

Henry laughed, partly at all this much ado about nothing, and partly at the recollection of old Bloch's head emerging egg-like from the bushes. He said,

“I know because I saw him without it. He tripped up and went head first down a bit of a slope into some bushes and came up bald as the back of your hand.”

“You never told me.”

“Well, as a matter of fact he asked me not to give him away. He was horribly put out and begged me not to mention it—said he'd lost his hair in Java, and that it was impossible for a man of science to keep his end up, especially with students, who he assured me were a race of devils, if they had any excuse for regarding him as an object of ridicule.”

Blenkinsop said abruptly,

“Had he any eyelashes?”

“No—I don't think so. He wouldn't have if he'd lost all his hair like that.”

“Blechmann was bald—no hair at all—no eyebrows, no eyelashes.”

“So are dozens of other people,” said Henry. “Anyhow, who's Blechmann? Your turn now—I'm through.”

Blenkinsop drank his coffee at a gulp and pushed the cup away.

“Well, here you are. A man in the Foreign Office asked me if I wasn't at Interlaken in July, and when I said I was, he wanted everything I could tell him about Bloch. It seems they think he was Blechmann.”

“I'd take more interest if I knew who Blechmann was.”

“Well, that's just what they would like to know. Ostensibly he's a Belgian from the Eupen district, and actually he's a German agent, and a very clever one at that. He can pass as Belgian, Dutch, Swiss, or English. At the moment—look here, Henry, this is very hush-hush—they think he's over here, and they'd very much like to get their hands on him. The idea is that he's come over on Fifth Column business, to organize what you might call an extensive news-agency for transmitting weather reports and other information useful to the enemy.”

“Why do they think he's Bloch?”

“I don't know, but they do. Your story about the wig rather bears it out. And here's something I didn't tell you. When I was in Paris in October I saw a man ahead of me in the street whom I took for Bloch. The light was bad, and I only had the back view to go by—a kind of silhouette, if you know what I mean. But I thought it was Bloch—something about the set of the head and the heavy shoulders—and when I caught him up it was a Frenchman with a little pointed beard and a flourishing moustache.
But he hadn't any eyelashes
. Now what my man wanted to know was this. Was there anything about Bloch which he couldn't disguise—besides the lack of eyelashes? And when I said I couldn't think of anything, he asked me who I had with me at Interlaken, and said I'd better find out whether you'd noticed anything I hadn't.”

Henry was frowning. He said,

“His hands—I'd know them anywhere—beastly, ugly hands—thick through—fingers like a bunch of bananas. I'd know them anywhere. But look here, I should have thought he'd stick out a mile over here, because though his English was perfectly fluent, he'd any amount of accent.”

“I'll tell you something,” said Blenkinsop. He pushed his face right into Henry's. “I said he was ostensibly a Belgian from Eupen, but he isn't one really. My man says they're practically sure he's English, and that's what makes him so dangerous. He used to call himself Paul Black when he was over here. That is to say, they can't prove it, but they're morally convinced that Black, and Bloch, and Blechmann are all the same man, and that that man was English born.”

“And what do they think he's calling himself now?”

“They haven't the faintest idea,” said Blenkinsop.

CHAPTER XIV

In the kitchen of no. 12 Bank Street Mrs. Perkins and Thompson had finished their midday meal and were enjoying a nice cup of tea. The old-fashioned range gave out a warm, glowing heat, and a savoury smell of rabbit curry hung in the air. When the sound of the telephone bell made itself heard it was received without enthusiasm.

“If it was me I'd let it ring,” said Mrs. Perkins comfortably.

But Thompson got out of her chair with a jerk.

“If I don't go, it'll be Miss Cattermole to say she's left something. Such a to-do we had getting her off—worse than ever, though you wouldn't think she could be. And if I do go, as like as not it'll be Mr. Templar or some such, going on about that address. And if I haven't got it I can't give it to him—well, can I?”

But when she took up the receiver and put it to her ear, it wasn't Henry Templar. It was Mr. Cattermole all right, and a good deal sharper and more to the point than he sometimes was.

“Is that you, Thompson?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, will you please listen. I have come away without some papers which I had promised to post to a friend. That is to say, Miss Marlowe was to have sent them off for me yesterday, and she seems to have forgotten to do so. Can you hear me all right?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“From what she tells me, I am afraid that the papers have been mislaid. I cannot understand how it has happened—she is usually so careful. But there it is, and I have had to ring up my friend and let him know. He is naturally a good deal put out, and as he attaches considerable importance to having the papers today, he suggested that he should come round to my house and look for them.”

“I could do that, sir.” There was a note of offence in Thompson's voice.

“To be sure—to be sure. But you might not know when you had found them. No, Mr. Green had better come round—in fact I have already accepted his kind offer. This is just to tell you that he has my authority, and that you can allow him to make a thorough search. It is most unfortunate that Miss Marlowe should have no idea what she did with the papers, so you must just allow Mr. Green to go on looking until he finds them. Is that quite clear?”

“Yes, sir—quite clear. Is it your wish that I should stay in the room with the gentleman while he does his looking?”

“Oh, no, that will not be necessary—not in the least. He will ring and let you know when he is finished.”

“Did you say the name was Green, sir?”

“Yes, Green—Mr. Frederick Green. That will be all.”

Thompson went back to the kitchen with a grievance.

“I suppose I can find anything as well as a Mr. Never-heard-of-him-before Green! And if it was my house, I wouldn't want a strange gentleman here there and everywhere, turning things inside out. Queer goings on, that's what I call it.”

Mrs. Perkins drained the teapot into her cup.

“Well, queer he is, and no getting from it. And what you want to worry yourself for, Lizzie, I can't think. Saves you a lot of trouble, this Mr. Green coming and looking instead of you, and all the rooms as cold as ice. If it was me, I'd be thankful I could stay in the warm and get on with that comforter you're supposed to be knitting for your cousin Hetty's eldest that you told me might be called up any minute now. You'll get a nice piece done over the week-end if you set to it. I'm in my fourth sock for my niece Ethel's husband, and I reckon to get the two pair done in time to take them round tomorrow afternoon.”

Mr. Green arrived at a quarter to three—a small, brisk gentleman in a blue serge suit and a bowler hat. Behind horn-rimmed spectacles his eyes were very sharp indeed. He wore a black overcoat and carried an umbrella and a brown attaché case. Thompson disapproved of his shoes.

She came back into the kitchen and told Mrs. Perkins that he was the right one for the job and no mistake about it. “Nosey Parker written all over him—read anyone's letters as soon as look at them. If Miss Marlowe's got any lying about that she wouldn't want read, well, I'm sorry for her. But I've got my orders—he's to go where he likes and poke his nose wherever he pleases, and no one to keep an eye on him. But I tell you this—orders or no orders, he doesn't go into my room without I'm there.”

It was not the first time that Mr. Green had searched a house. He knew all the likely places in which to look for papers which somebody wanted to hide, and all the unlikely places too. He ran those sharp eyes of his over mattresses and pillows to see whether there was any sign that one or the other had been unpicked. An inch or two of different cotton, a seam sewn by hand instead of on a machine, and he would have had it unripped before you could say knife. Had the dust under the edge of a carpet been disturbed? Was there anything fastened to the under side of any table, chair, bedstead, or other article of furniture? And so forth and so on. He made a very thorough job of it. Short of taking down the wall-paper and taking up the floor, he went through the house with a tooth-comb, working methodically from the top to the bottom.