The Doorway to Death Read online

  There was real anxiety in his voice, and that told its own story.

  “I’m here because he made a statement which might later be used in evidence in an important case, and I want to try to be sure that he’s trustworthy. Would you think it possible that he could be influenced to make a statement which wasn’t true?”

  “Between these four walls – yes, he could.”

  “Thank you,” said Roger, and leaned back on an uncomfortable hardwood chair. “Is he in school now?”

  “Yes. But I’m not sure that if you interview him here he would co-operate.”

  “I’d rather be sure he’s here while I go and interview his mother,” Roger said.

  The headmaster’s expression changed.

  “Oh, that’s good. He’ll be here all day; he lives too far away to go home for lunch!” The headmaster stood up as Roger did, and rounded the desk with a hand outstretched. “I hope you won’t think I’ve been unhelpful, and I hope you’ll believe that the boy has quite remarkable abilities. I wish he – and in fact I wish all – boys would look you in the eye as squarely as yours. Very nice lads – and his headmaster has the highest opinion of Martin.”

  Roger smiled. “Nice of you to say so.”

  As he was ushered out by the headmaster in person, he heard a chorus of voices, raised in a song, clear and lovely on the bright morning air.

  As the door of 101 Hadworth Palace Road opened, swing music came cavorting from behind the woman who stood with a hand on the door, looking West up and down. She was in her forties, had brassy hair, big bosom supported tightly from underneath and making the most of cleavage, and a pale-coloured flowered frock. From the radio or the record player behind her there came a roll of drums which must have been born in New Orleans, rising to a kind of triumphant crescendo.

  “Good morning,” Roger said.

  Her eyes were bold yet shifty, and she didn’t move away from the door.

  “Is it about the insurance? Because if it is—”

  “I’d like a word with you about your son, Clive.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Harrison, and moved back a little, as if all tension had gone. She couldn’t find the money to pay her weekly insurance, which might be a pointer to her circumstances. “I suppose you’re another school inspector. I don’t know why you’re always picking on my Clive, he’s a good boy, and a lot more clever than most of them.”

  “I’m told he’s very clever indeed.” Roger smiled, and moved into the hallway.

  “Well, you’d better come in.”

  She wasn’t very gracious, but didn’t want to be too stand-offish, Roger guessed. She was interested in him as a man, probably subconsciously she was already flaunting her body.

  She was like Rose Jensen about the mouth, and had the same eyes, too—

  Realisation of the possible truth came into Roger’s mind like a bullet. She was so like Rose Jensen that they might almost have been sisters.

  Were they?

  Mrs. Harrison led the way into a small front room with a low ceiling. Unexpectedly, it was well-furnished and nicely kept, with the clean, polished look which told of a house-proud woman. Mrs. Harrison was clean and fresh, too, and lightly made up; more wholesome in some ways than the brassy hair and the rather loose mouth had suggested. She looked at him as if not sure whether to smile or not.

  “Well, what has Clive been up to?”

  He ought to tell her he was from the police, but if he did, she would almost certainly freeze up. If he didn’t and she complained, that would be another piece of trouble for him; but nothing like as black as the trouble he was in. He judged her to be pretty shrewd, and not easy to fool for long.

  “He said that he was in Page Street, Elwell, on Monday evening, Mrs. Harrison, and I’ve reason to believe that he wasn’t. Why did he lie?”

  Her colour ebbed. Fright touched her eyes, and she made a woman’s automatic gesture, put a hand at her breast and for a moment held her breath. Roger had this much satisfaction before he saw the change in her expression, and the colour flow back to her cheeks. It was almost startling to see how the sparks leapt to her eyes.

  “I’d like to know who you think you are, calling my Clive a liar! If he says he was in Page Street, then he was, and that’s that and all about it.”

  “Supposing it can be proved that he was somewhere else?”

  “Well, it can’t be, because he was there. My Clive isn’t a liar, and it will take more than a snooping policeman to make me change my mind about that. You think I don’t know who you are, don’t you? Why, I could tell your smooth face anywhere. My Clive’s a truthful boy, and he was in Page Street on Monday night, and I can prove it.”

  Roger watched her.

  Her silence was uneasy, after the outburst; she wasn’t used to people who took what she handed out and didn’t try to throw it back in her face. Her eyes, fine and grey, darted to and fro.

  She might be able to prove what she said about Clive.

  “And I haven’t time to stand here wasting time with you or anyone else.” Mrs. Harrison’s voice was shrill. “I’ve got my housework to do.”

  “Why was Clive in Page Street?” Roger asked quietly. “Had he gone to see his aunt?”

  Mrs. Harrison caught her breath.

  She was no good at all at dissembling, and that was the most hopeful thing Roger discovered. Put her in the witness-box, and she would be like wax in a good counsel’s hand. Here was a witness Samuelson’s stooges ought to have; Samuelson should have been digging up this kind of thing, and not being smart.

  Mrs. Harrison still hadn’t answered, and her breathing was very quick and agitated.

  Then, Roger realised what he should have noticed before: the music had quietened. It was still in the background, but the volume had been turned down; and he guessed that was because someone was listening to this conversation, probably close to the door.

  “You—you’ve no right to stand there asking me questions. I don’t have to answer!”

  “All right, please yourself,” Roger said brusquely, and pushed past her towards the door, going much more quickly than she had expected. He felt it yield. He opened the door, and a man standing close to it moved back hastily. He was a hardy, tight-lipped man whom Roger had never seen before, handsome in his fashion, with dark hair which grew far back on his forehead. He was in shirt sleeves, and wearing braces, as if he was one of the household.

  “Good morning,” Roger said curtly.

  He swung round towards the street door, which was closed, opened it and strode into the street. By then the woman had joined the man in the passage, and they stared at Roger as he moved towards the left; his taxi was at a corner. They didn’t come into the street, and he didn’t spend any time looking round for them, but hurried towards the taxi. He felt quite sure that Mrs. Harrison simply hadn’t known what to answer when he had let her know that he guessed she was the dead woman’s sister. Mrs. Harrison would do whatever she was told, her son would probably do what he was told or paid to do, also – but the woman didn’t know how to cope with unexpected situations.

  Taxi driver Nobb was just sitting.

  “Given up reading?” Roger asked as he climbed in.

  “These papers!”

  “You’re telling me. Nearest telephone kiosk, please.”

  “Oke,” Nobb said; “there’s one on the comer.” He drove only fifty yards and pulled up at a spot, where a telephone kiosk stood empty. Two policemen were standing on the opposite corner, and Roger glanced across, but did not think they recognised him. It was the oddest feeling, to be apprehensive of men on the Force.

  He dialled Whitehall 1212, and when the operator answered, asked in a flat voice which couldn’t be recognised as his own: “Chief Inspector West, please.”

  “He’s not in, sir. Superintendent Cortland is handling his cases.”

  “I’ll talk to Chief Inspector Sloan, please.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  So Jay had passed the case on to C
ortland, a senior man, not to one of the men who might have special sympathy for another C.I. That wasn’t surprising. He mustn’t put Sloan on the spot, but here was a message he had to get over.

  “Sloan speaking …”

  “Mr. Sloan, I’ve a message for you from Chief Inspector West,” Roger said in the same fiat, impersonal tone; it wasn’t likely that Sloan would recognise it. “He strongly recommends that the boy witness, Clive Harrison, be questioned, and that his mother and a man now at the house in Hadworth Palace Road be watched. He thinks it is extremely important.”

  Sloan said sharply: “Who’s speaking?”

  “I’m just passing on a message, sir, and—”

  “If you see West, tell him he’s wanted at the Yard at once,” Sloan said, and there was no doubt about the intensity of his feeling.

  “All right, I will,” Roger promised.

  Two minutes’ talk with Sloan would yield nearly everything he needed to know, but it might be overheard on the Yard exchange, and if it were, could get Sloan into a lot of trouble. Roger rang off. Sloan would pass this message on to Cortland; Cortland was too sound a man to take chances, and would soon get after Clive Harrison and his mother. If it was once established that the boy was lying, it would open the new field of investigation right up.

  “Where to now?” asked the cabby.

  “Henrietta Street, Covent Garden,” Roger replied. “This end of it. Make it as fast as you can, will you?”

  As Roger sat back and the taxi started off, Bill Sloan opened the door of Superintendent Cortland’s office, and saw the big man, in his shirt sleeves and with his hair rumpled and untidy, sitting squarely behind his desk and pulling at a pipe badly burned at one side. At sight of Sloan, he pushed some papers away and asked shrewdly in his deep voice: “Sure it wasn’t West himself?”

  “It didn’t sound like him,” Sloan said.

  “Shouldn’t think he could fool you,” said Cortland, and looked searchingly into Sloan’s clear eyes. Cortland’s eyes, rather dark brown in colour, were opaque-looking and cloudy. His face had an unhealthy, sallow look, his big hands were almost ugly. “Sloan, take a tip from me, will you? Don’t go playing West’s game. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s a damned good copper and probably isn’t wasting his time, but he could be getting himself in really bad with the Assistant Commissioner. You’re known as one of West’s oldest cronies, so don’t you go and put a foot wrong. Apart from anything else, it would be the last thing West’d want.”

  “Thanks,” said Sloan. “I won’t forget. But isn’t there any way to make Jay realise that Handsome’s often worth two or three of us?”

  “No, there isn’t a way, even if it’s true,” Cortland said. “Now, exactly what was this message?”

  Sloan told him.

  “Done anything?”

  “I thought I’d better check with you, first.”

  Cortland hesitated.

  As the senior superintendent, he had to be on Jay’s side. As a man with a reputation for being interested only in his job and in himself and his advancement, he was behaving much better than Sloan had expected, but there would be limits to his helpfulness. He sat scowling, as if at a prospect he disliked, and Sloan sensed a kind of struggle going on in his mind.

  Then he said abruptly: “Okay. Have two men watch this Mrs. Harrison. All the usual routine; must be some reason for West wanting it done. Have someone outside the school and check young Harrison, too. If West thinks he’s lying, it might mean the case against Quist could show some nasty gaps, and we’d better know sooner than later, even if it isn’t what he wants. Get it all done quick, Sloan. Jay’s in another of these damned conferences with the other A.C.s. I want this job in hand before he comes out.”

  Sloan was already at the door.

  “Right!”

  He’d do this job well.

  Cortland worked alone in his office for the next half-hour. Usually a C.I. was with him, but this man’s desk was empty this morning; he was on sick leave. Every now and again Cortland answered the telephone, and at half-past twelve he lifted the receiver again, to hear Miss Foster’s prim and precise voice.

  “The Colonel would like to see you at once, Mr. Cortland, please.”

  “Coming,” Cortland said.

  He stood up, looking heavy and shaggy, suddenly took a small comb from his hip pocket and ran it through his hair, then shrugged himself into his coat, and made sure that his tie was fairly straight. His reputation at the Yard was one of unimaginative soundness, built on a deep, exhaustive knowledge of routine in all its branches. He walked slowly along the passages until he reached Jay’s outer office, and went in without tapping. That was his unspoken disregard for Miss Foster; there was marked antipathy between them.

  “He in?”

  “He would like you to go straight in, please,” the girl said, and flicked a little handle on an office communication machine. “Superintendent Cortland is here, sir.”

  “Right,” a voice sounded.

  Cortland opened the door of the other office after a heavy tap. He closed it behind him while the Colonel signed some papers on his desk. The Colonel pushed these aside, and then sat erect and unmoving, clean-shaven, long-jawed, looking as if he was about to go on parade.

  “Sit down, Cortland.”

  “Thanks.” Cortland chose a wooden armchair.

  “Has anything of particular importance come in while I’ve been with the Commissioner?”

  “Found an old woman over at Ligate, strangled. Division’s asked for Fingerprints. I sent Morgan over,” Cortland said. “Otherwise, nothing much.”

  “Is there any information about West?”

  “Not direct from West, sir,” Cortland said, and passed on the message in his deep voice. “He’s still on the job, anyhow; when he sticks he’s like glue.”

  “I see. What have you done?”

  “Having the boy and the woman watched. I wasn’t sure how long you’d be upstairs.”

  The Colonel appeared to consider this for several seconds, and then he said: “Give me your blunt opinion, Cortland. Is West deliberately staying away from here, or is he following his usual custom – of working entirely on his own in the hope of getting quick and sensational results?”

  Cortland took his time answering, and the expression in the Colonel’s eyes suggested that he had prejudged the issue. Then Cortland said with great deliberation: “I should say he’s keeping away. I should say he’s got a line that he thinks ought to be followed, and he wants to see it through himself. He probably thinks that if he reports here in person or comes in, you’ll suspend him pending an inquiry into what happened last night, and he’d rather get this job finished before he has to be stood off. That’s my reading of it. Don’t think it’s far wrong either.”

  The Colonel looked almost smug.

  “How long has he gone on thinking that he is the only man capable of carrying out specific investigations, Cortland?”

  Cortland took his time again, and then rumbled: “When I first dealt with West – must be ten years ago – I thought he was the cockiest young swine on the Force. Brilliant, but cocky. Couldn’t stand him at any price. He couldn’t stand me much, either. Since you’ve asked, I might as well tell you to your face, sir, I don’t like West. Not as a person, I mean – we’ve rubbed each other up the wrong way too often. But we get along now. If I’ve got a sticky case, I’d rather have West on it than anyone else. He might be a bit high-handed with – with me, f’r instance – but I don’t think it’s intentional, and on routine he doesn’t often put a foot wrong. It’s easy to forget—” Cortland had been speaking more and more slowly, and now his voice trailed off, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to finish.

  Jay wasn’t helping him; Jay sat as if disapprovingly, looking straight into his eyes.

  “What is it easy to forget, Cortland?”

  “Best men we’ve got are all individualists,” Cortland said. “No use keeping ’em on too tight a rein.”


  “Their influence on the general discipline doesn’t alarm you?”

  Cortland hesitated, and then waved his big hands.

  “Never given it much thought.”

  “Ah,” said the Colonel, as if that was exactly the answer he had expected. “I appreciate your frankness and your loyalty to the men under your command. Now”—he was quite brisk—“I want West here, and I want him quickly. I shall give him an opportunity of explaining what happened at his home last night, but in view of the effect of the incident on public opinion, whatever his explanation, I shall suspend him. I’m sure you realise that is inevitable. However, I am reluctant at this stage to do anything which might attract undue attention – from the newspapers, for instance. I propose to ask all Divisions to watch for West, and to request – instruct – him to report here at once. I hope he isn’t likely to refuse to obey a specific instruction.”

  “He isn’t beyond doing even that.”

  “I see,” said the Assistant Commissioner, with acid disapproval. “See that the message gets to the Divisions and of course the Information Room, will you? I will confine this to our metropolitan and the City area; we won’t go to the Home Counties forces yet. Have West report to you, and advise me as soon as he’s here.”

  “Right-ho,” said Cortland, and heaved himself to his feet.