‘But you see,’ Stephen concluded, ‘you’ve only my word for much of this. I’m quite certain Peter never confided in anyone else.’
‘Was he alone when he died?’
Stephen looked puzzled for a moment. Then he said, ‘Oh, a death-bed confession? I see. Well, the C.E.M.S. might be able to help there. But I doubt it. By the time they’d got Peter back into hospital, he was in a coma, and never spoke again. His bishop wrote and told us that, when they sent home Peter’s belongings.’
Nigel took down the few names which Stephen could provide, but not hopefully. The threads of this story, as of so much else in the case, went too far back into the past, and the most important ones were broken—Millicent and her parents were dead, Peter Protheroe was dead, Paul was dead.
Nor was Nigel disposed to doubt Stephen’s account of his relationship with Millicent. Unfortunately this account gave no solid ground for a further step in the investigation of the Time to Fight problem. However fond of his nephew Stephen had grown, it was not very likely that he should have tampered with the proof copy, nearly ten years after Paul’s death, to expose the Governor whose ineptitude had caused it. Yet it seemed even more improbable now that Miss Miles had been the culprit. She had wished never to see or hear of Paul again.
‘There are some people,’ said Stephen, as if he had read Nigel’s thoughts, ‘who create the maximum nuisance, in any way that lies to hand, simply because they must assert themselves. They are the truly irresponsible ones.’
‘You’re thinking of Millicent Miles?’
‘Yes. And the same goes for Cyprian Gleed, I’d say.’
‘Both of them vindictive characters.’
Stephen considered the word. ‘Malicious, perhaps, rather than vindictive.’
‘Millicent Miles hated you,’ Nigel reflectively continued. ‘You knew of a shady episode in her past. You told her exactly what you thought of her. You opposed the reissuing of her novels. She could have stetted those libellous passages, on an impulse, with a vague idea of getting you into trouble—and, of course, getting her own back on the author for ragging her in the mess. Several smallish motives adding up to quite a big one. Yes, it’s in character.’
‘But you don’t feel confident about it?’
Nigel soon rose to go. If Stephen were the big fish for whom he was angling—and it seemed wildly improbable now—the bait had not been taken. Not even a nibble.
Chapter 14
Wrong Fount
‘I’M AFRAID THIS isn’t a very convenient time, my dear fellow. I’m up to my neck in—’ Arthur Geraldine gestured towards the neat piles of papers on his desk. The senior partner’s tone was pleasant enough, but his grey eyes had a chill on them.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Nigel, ‘but there’s something I must clear up. It really can’t wait any longer.’
Geraldine sat back, stretching out his arms in front of him, the strong, hairy hands, clenched into fists, resting on the desk.
‘Very well then. What is it?’
‘Why did you tell me you’d never met Miss Miles till your firm took her over?’
Arthur Geraldine’s eyes went chillier still. ‘I don’t like your tone, Strangeways. May I remind you that you are, temporarily, an employee of my firm?’
Ignoring the frigid rebuke, Nigel went on, ‘Miss Miles told me that she had met you many years ago, under rather peculiar circumstances.’ He refrained from mentioning her remark that Geraldine ‘always was a weak man.’
‘I don’t recollect it. But it’s perfectly possible. I’ve met a good many people in my life.’
‘Isn’t it rather odd that she never reminded you of this meeting?’
Geraldine shrugged; but there was a watchful look on his face now.
‘Didn’t she remind you of it?’ Nigel persisted.
Geraldine’s long, thin mouth stretched tighter. ‘Are you suggesting I’m a liar?’
‘There’s no use stone-walling with me, Mr. Geraldine. I have evidence that, when you were a representative of the Daily Sun, you bought a Rockingham dinner service from Miss Miles’s parents in Wimblesham.’
A flush spread slowly over the large brow and bald head. ‘Yes, I did acquire the Rockingham set there, I remember. But I’d no idea it was her parents who—’
The door opened, and Stephen Protheroe trotted in. ‘You left this behind,’ he said, handing Nigel a bottle of nose-drops.
‘Oh, many thanks.’ Nigel absently set down the bottle on Arthur Geraldine’s desk, as Stephen went out again. ‘Did you actually meet Miss Miles when you visited her parents’ house? She was a schoolgirl then.’
‘Ah now, how could I possibly remember that? It was over thirty years ago.’ Geraldine almost crooned it. He had the Irishman’s gift for fluent changes of front; he was all affability and helpfulness now.
‘Miss Miles remembered it all right. Well enough to mention in her autobiography a man she met at that period and gives the pseudonym of Rockingham.’ Nigel slid smoothly off this very thin ice. ‘Did you go to the house often?’
‘Twice at least, I think. It’s beginning to come back, you know. I do seem to remember a girl there—a toothy, intense creature—do you tell me that was Millicent Miles? Well, bless my soul!’ Arthur Geraldine grinned like an amiable shark. ‘Yes, she was mad keen for her dad to take out a subscription to the paper, so she’d get a set of novels I was hawking round—one of those newspaper free-gift schemes to increase circulation.’
‘And did he?’
‘No. I think he must have been on the rocks. Anyway, he told me to call again. The second time, his wife wasn’t there. He asked me what I’d give him for the Rockingham set—I’d admired it on my first visit. I made him an offer, and he jumped at it. But I had to take the service away at once—before his wife returned, I suppose. I remember emptying my suitcase for it. I was carrying round some specimen sets of the novels. I said I’d come back for them the next day. There was a blinding row when I did. Mrs. Miles went for me like a fury. But I had her husband’s receipt for the money, so there was nothing she could do about it.’
Arthur Geraldine’s expression was almost ingratiating, as he added, ‘It’s terribly shocking to look back on, I agree. I fleeced the poor fellow. Collectors have no morality at all, you know. It’s like physical passion. You fall in love with some object, and you’ve got to have it. Besides, I hadn’t much money myself those days.’
Nigel meditated this remarkable statement. It was not the confession itself which was remarkable, but the fact that Geraldine should so gratuitously have made it. ‘And Miss Miles never brought this up, you say?’
‘Never breathed it, I do assure you.’ Arthur Geraldine was positively beaming. ‘I see what’s in your mind, my dear fellow. Blackmail, eh? It was a discreditable episode in my life, I’m not denying it. You can see why I didn’t want it to come out. But I’d not kill the poor woman in order to keep it hushed up.’
Nigel agreed that this was, on the face of it, most unlikely. But why, he thought, have I been able to extract the rotten old stump so painlessly? Geraldine showed no resistance, never challenged my sources of information. Is he flourishing before my eyes that deplorable episode of the Rockingham set, simply to conceal the existence of something far nastier behind it?
‘You gave Miss Miles very favoured treatment here,’ Nigel said to gain time. ‘I’d not have thought her a Wenham & Geraldine kind of author, anyway.’
‘Every publisher has to compromise between his literary standards and his pocket. Besides, Basil Ryle was keen; he rather bounced us into taking her on.’
‘A singularly unfortunate decision,’ Nigel remarked drily, ‘considering that she involved you in a libel action and then got murdered on the premises.’
‘What’s that? You mean it was she who tampered with the proof copy? In God’s name, why?’
‘General mischievousness and particular malice. I know for a fact that she had private grudges against General Thoresby and Stephen Prothe
roe. It’d round it off nicely if she had a grudge against you, or Miss Wenham.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘If, for example she’d tried to blackmail you over the Rockingham set, what would you have done?’
‘Told her to go to hell, of course. But—’
‘Which would have given her a motive for damaging you through your firm.’
‘But I keep on telling you, she never referred to the blasted Rockingham, let alone—’
‘Let alone anything else that happened when you visited her home in 1924?’
Geraldine’s bald head flushed pink again. It could have been, of course, through the effort he was making to repress indignation and anger.
‘Will you please make yourself plain?’ he said, in a constricted, dangerous tone. ‘I don’t like innuendos.’
‘The trouble with Miss Miles is that no one ever knew whether she was telling the truth or romancing.’
‘I asked you—’
‘Yes. She confided in a school friend that a man who came to her house, in the summer of 1924—a man with very thin lips—had attempted a criminal assault upon her. As a blackmailing card, a criminal assault on a schoolgirl, if there was other confirmation of it, would still be fairly potent, even after thirty years.’
Nigel started, as the ruler which Geraldine was playing with snapped in half. ‘You’re talking great nonsense,’ said Geraldine in a muffled voice. Nigel waited for more; but the senior partner, with a preoccupied look, took up a sheaf of papers from his desk. ‘I really must get on with my work now.’
Going upstairs, Nigel sought out Stephen Protheroe again. ‘Sorry to keep pestering you. It’s just this. Mr. Miles went bankrupt in 1924. You met Millicent first in 1925, when she was working in the bookshop. Did she ever invite you to her house? She was still living at home then, I believe.’
‘Yes, I went there once or twice.’
‘They were very hard-up still, presumably?’
‘Not that you’d notice, no. I seem to remember getting the impression that Miles had fallen on his feet somehow.’
‘Miss Miles never discussed his financial affairs with you?’
‘I don’t think so. Apart from a little self-dramatisation as the struggling young genius who had to support her ruined parents.’
‘Which she could hardly do on her wages as a bookshop assistant.’
‘No. It was rather odd, I suppose. Her father had been sacked by his firm, and I’m pretty sure he hadn’t found another job when I first met her. But I really knew very little about that side of her life. We spent most of our time discussing Culture—or rather, Millicent’s contribution to it. Young men are always flattered to have female disciples.’
Arthur Geraldine’s secretary came in. ‘You left this behind in Mr. Geraldine’s room, didn’t you?’ she said, handing him the bottle of nose-drops.
‘Oh, thank you very much.’
‘You seem to be always leaving it about,’ said Stephen. ‘Put it in your pocket, for heaven’s sake.’
Nigel now told him that he wanted a few words with Susan Jones. Stephen rang the head of the Invoice Department, who said he would send her up in a few minutes.
‘You want to talk to her privately?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you’d better use the next room.’
‘I don’t think that’d be quite—’
‘Good heavens, man, it’s not haunted, is it? They’ve cleaned it up,’ said Stephen irritably.
‘Nevertheless, Susan might be a bit squeamish. Could you ask Jean to clear out of the Reference Library for a bit?’
‘Oh, I suppose so. Heaven knows what she does there all day, anyway.’
So Nigel’s second meeting with the blonde bombshell took place at the venue of his first. Susan was nervous, though, this time, and far less forthcoming.
‘Do sit down Susan. Jean said you wanted to see me about something. Sorry I’ve been so long getting round to it.’
‘I’m sure I don’t know—’ the girl began, tossing her head uneasily.
‘Trouble with the boyfriend? Just give the word, and I’ll challenge him to a duel.’
Susan smiled wanly. ‘You’re in with the police, aren’t you?’
‘In trouble with them. Constantly. Why?’
‘I’ve never had anything to do with that lot. You can’t trust them, can you? Beating up prisoners and taking bribes and that. But it’s really what my boyfriend would say, see? He’s refined.’
‘The one who reads books?’
‘Who else?’
‘Well then, what would he say about what?’
‘Besides, Miss Wenham doesn’t like it. She’s ever so fierce on—’
‘Miss Wenham. How does she come into this?’
‘I’m telling you, aren’t I? She doesn’t like we girls going into the packers’ room. But what I say is a girl wants to see a bit of life before she settles down.’
‘And the packers’ room is the place to see it?’
Susan gave him an unexpectedly gamine glance. ‘You’re telling me! Mind you, I wasn’t doing any harm. But it might be mis—mis—’
‘Misinterpreted?’
‘Look what education does for you! You know, you remind me sometimes of David. That’s my boyfriend. My steady, I mean.’
Nigel’s almost limitless patience was nearing exhaustion. But, after several more diversions, he got Susan back on to the main road, to find himself amply rewarded. Last Friday night, she told him, she had a date with ‘one of the gentlemen in the packers’ room.’ She left the Reference Library sharp at 5.30, went down in the lift, and entered the packers’ room. All the other packers had departed by now, and her ‘date’ took the opportunity of the room being empty to embark on some preliminary dalliance—this latter being Nigel’s interpretation of Susan’s coy statement that ‘we chatted awhile before going out.’ After about ten minutes, they turned off the one light still burning there, and opening the door Susan peeped cautiously out—cautiously, because they had just heard the lift-gates closing, and because she had no business to be there, Miss Wenham disapproving of this sort of fraternisation on the premises.
Susan peered out, then, into the passage which led past the lift, the foot of the stairs and the reception-room door to the side-door of the building. The passage was lit at that time of the evening, as Nigel knew, by one low-powered bulb. The light was sufficient, however, to show Susan a man who was just going through the inner swing-doors at the end of the passage towards the street door. She had only seen his back, and that for a moment only, but her description of him was clear enough as far as it went.
‘It was a fairly small man,’ she said. ‘He had one of those duffel coats on like the Teddy-boys have started wearing. Biscuit-coloured, I think. And a dark hat with a wide brim. And he’d got sort of hair at the side of his face—he was turning just a little to get his bag through the swing-door.’
‘What kind of a bag?’
‘Well, you know, a grip-bag. Must have been fair-sized and heavy, because he grunted a little getting through the door with it.’
‘Did Whatsisname—your packer friend—see this chap?’
‘Oh no. There wasn’t room only for me to look through the door.’
‘What did he think about it?’
‘George? I didn’t mention it to him. I never thought anything of it at the time. I mean, I thought it was just someone who’d been visiting one of the partners.’
‘And there was nothing familiar about this chap?’
‘Ooh, he hadn’t time to be familiar—I’ve told you—he was beetling out of the office.’
‘I mean, you didn’t recognise him? His back view didn’t remind you of anyone you know?’
‘N-no.’ The girl’s negative did not sound absolutely firm, but Nigel pressed her no further.
‘What does George say about all this now?’
‘Oh, I’ve not mentioned it to him. It’s none of his business, is it?’
‘In fact, you’ve not mentioned it to anyone?’
Susan, looking a little shamefaced, jerked one shoulder forwards with a petulant movement. ‘Well, I’ve told you, haven’t I?’
‘But the police. They asked if anyone here had seen anything out-of-the-way last Friday evening.’
‘There’s nothing out-of-the-way about a man leaving the building.’
‘Oh my dear Susan, why were you worried about it, then? Jean saw you had something on your mind.’
‘Now don’t you start nattering at me! I’ve had enough worry—It’s what I told you. I don’t want my boyfriend to hear about it, see? Or Miss Wenham.’
‘But you’ll have to tell the police your story.’
‘It isn’t a story!’.
‘Your account of what you saw.’
‘I’m not having anything to do with that lot. We’re respectable people. My dad would tan me if I got mixed up with the police.’
‘Did you ever see Cyprian Gleed, Miss Miles’s son, when he visited the office?’
‘Not that I know of. What’s he to do with it?’
Nigel rose to his feet, and Susan did the same.
‘Look, Susan. Inspector Wright has got to be told about this. I can tell him myself; but it’d come far better from you.’
‘Why not get it over with at once?’
‘He’ll half murder me for—’
‘He’ll do nothing of the sort. The inspector is a very nice man and a friend of mine. I’ll ring him up to fix an interview. And I’ll hold your hand while you talk to him.’
Susan’s expression showed that she did not take the last phrase figuratively. The languishing look was soon followed, however, by one of alarm.
‘But will I have to give evidence in court? I reelly couldn’t.’
‘You may not have to. It all depends. But if you do, you’ll be the star witness for the Crown.’
The words ‘star’ evidently got home. Susan’s huge blue eyes brightened. She saw herself in the witness-box, switching on all her charm. And then there’d be the newspapers.