An Apostle of Gloom Read online

  “Yes you do,” snapped Chatworth. “While Abbott was in your house Lessing arrived and drummed on the piano while a man broke in through a first-floor window, and removed the evidence which Abbott went to find. Don’t lie to me, West. You think that was clever, but it was a mistake.”

  “It’s news to me,” Roger insisted, quietly, “and to my knowledge there was never any evidence in my house which would convict me of accepting a bribe in my life. I don’t know where you got your information, nor how long I have been suspect, but I do know that I think the methods adopted to trap me are disgraceful. You appear to have prejudged me, you’ve denied me the right to enter a defence. My best course, I think, is to refer the matter to the Home Secretary.”

  “Are you trying to frighten me?” growled Chatworth.

  “I am giving you notice of my intention,” said Roger, “which is more than you did for me.” He paused but Chatworth did not answer, he simply sat back and stared at him; the desk-lamp shone on his polished cranium.

  Looking at a man who had often been friendly and with whom he had worked for several years, one whom he had almost regarded with hero-worship, Roger felt a quickening tension. Until then, he had thought it possible – just possible – that Chatworth had deliberately planned to put him in bad odour, so that he could work surreptitiously. The last hope had faded. It should have been killed when he had found ‘K’s’ note, which was proof of evil intent.

  Now he saw the situation for what it was – absurd but highly dangerous. Chatworth was not an ogre, but a reasonable human being whose gruff manner was largely pose. Roger stepped forward and leaned against the desk, both hands planted on it.

  “I know that you must have strong reasons for what you’ve done,” he said, “but you might at least give me the opportunity to answer the allegations. My record at the Yard should entitle me to that, if nothing more. The case must be serious – apart from the ordinary seriousness of accepting bribes – or you wouldn’t have been so arbitrary. You sent to my house believing you would find what you wanted. You failed. Abbott appears to have told you some cock-and-bull story about what happened there, but really, sir, it’s fantastic.” He saw Chatworth going even redder but did not pause. “If I were guilty of anything like this, I wouldn’t be fool enough to keep evidence in my house, and nor—”

  “That’s enough, West,” said Chatworth in a more reasonable tone. “Sit down.” The invitation surprised Roger but he accepted and was further surprised when the other pushed a box of cigarettes towards him. He lit up and Chatworth bit the end off a half Corona. “For the first time I’m beginning to think I might be wrong,” Chatworth went on. “What do you want four weeks’ leave for?”

  “To investigate this affair,” Roger said. “It needs it badly enough!”

  “Ye-es.” Chatworth unlocked a drawer in his desk and drew out a manilla folder. Roger, feeling more at ease, leaned back and drew on his cigarette. The office was quiet except for the rustling of papers as Chatsworth turned them over. Then he glanced up and said sharply: “How do you account for seven payments of two hundred and fifty pounds paid into your account at the Mid-Union Bank, Westminster, during the last three months? Cash payments, always one-pound notes. Where did you get the money?”

  Roger was stupefied. “It isn’t true!” he protested.

  “Now, come, West! I have seen the account, talked to the cashier and the manager. Your wife made the payments.”

  “Nonsense!” said Roger, roundly.

  “Are you telling me that you don’t know what money there is in your account?”

  “I use the Mid-Union Bank only for occasional transactions,” Roger said, “as a supplementary to my main account at Barclays, Chelsea. I’ve sent no credit to Mid-Union for at least six months. Nor has my wife.”

  Chatworth looked at him oddly.

  “Be careful, West,” he said. “Look at that.”

  He handed a bank paying-in book across the desk. It was a small one, with half the pages torn out, leaving only the counter-foils. In a daze, Roger took it and saw that the first entries were in his handwriting – the book was undoubtedly his. He glanced through it, seeing a payment of fifty pounds which he had made in the September of the previous year. From then on – beginning in the middle of January – there were the payments which Chatworth had mentioned. The official stamp of the Mid-Union Bank, with initials scrawled across it, was there and the name at the top of each counterfoil was his.

  Roger turned the counterfoils, his interest increasing. The first shock over, he was able to study the writing and he noticed the regular lettering, it was almost copper-plate writing, such as the man who had signed himself K might have written.

  “Well?” demanded Chatworth.

  “And my wife is supposed to have made these payments?” asked Roger, only to shake his head. “No, sir, it just didn’t happen. Oh, the money has been paid in, they’ve taken a lot of trouble to frame me, haven’t they?” He smiled, looking almost carefree. “I suppose someone representing herself to be my wife made the calls?”

  “The description of the woman in every case is identifiable with your wife,” Chatworth said.

  “The description of any pretty, dark-haired woman with a flair for dressing well would do for that,” Roger retorted.

  “You seem remarkably pleased with yourself,” said Chatworth.

  Roger smiled. “I am pleased, sir! This is obviously one of your main items of evidence. My wife didn’t visit the bank and the cashier will say so when he sees her, so there’s evidence in my favour which even you will have to admit.” He half-regretted the ‘even you’ but Chatworth did not appear to take umbrage. “You’ll arrange for the cashier to see her, won’t you?”

  “Ye-es,” said Chatworth. He leaned back and closed one eye. His pendulous jowl pressed against his collar, only half of which was visible. “You’re remarkably smug,” he remarked, “you could have sent another young woman and be sure that—”

  Roger laughed. “Aren’t you letting yourself be carried away, sir?”

  Chatworth opened his eyes abruptly.

  “What did you say?”

  “If I were to advance a theory like that, without evidence, you would tell me not to be a fool,” Roger said, still on the crest of a wave of optimism. “Someone else paid that money into my account and whoever it was can be found. When she’s found we’ll have the answer to all this – I’ve an opportunity of escaping from the worst, you see! May I ask what other evidence you have?”

  Chatworth said in a strained voice: “West, are you a consummate liar or do you seriously suggest that you have been framed?”

  “Obviously, I’ve been framed,” said Roger, warmly, “and it’s been done very cleverly. I wish I knew just how it had developed; if I’d known from the first I might have prevented it from getting so serious.” He shrugged. “You can’t have any dependable evidence or you wouldn’t have waited so long before taking action. You can’t charge me or you would have done by now. May I have four weeks’ leave of absence, sir?”

  “I don’t know,” said Chatworth, and then shot another snap question. “When did you arrange for Morgan to break into your house?”

  With anyone else, Roger might have given himself away, but for years he had been used to such unexpected questions and he had trained himself never to let Chatworth take him off his guard. His mood changed, however, but he felt sure that Morgan would have made no admissions, so he answered promptly: “I didn’t.”

  “Morgan’s finger-prints were found in your bedroom this afternoon and he was seen visiting you this evening.”

  “There’s no reason why his prints shouldn’t be there,” Roger said, blandly, “he’s visited me often enough.”

  “Do you usually take visitors to your bedroom?”

  “Frequently,” Roger replied. “If I’ve been worki
ng at night I don’t get up very early, and Morgan has been helpful recently on several cases. He’s a very useful man,” he added, quickly, “and as soon as I knew what Abbott was after, I asked him to help me.”

  “Help you to do what?”

  “Find the answer to this,” Roger said promptly.

  “I see,” said Chatworth. He closed one eye again and looked at the ceiling. His fingers, covered with a mat of fair hair, drummed on the polished surface of the desk and Rogers waited with growing tension, at once hopeful and afraid.

  Chapter 6

  THE LADY SO BEAUTIFUL

  “Go on,” urged Mark Lessing.

  “What else did he say?” demanded Janet, breathlessly.

  “Not a great deal,” said Roger, who had told them the story of his interview with Chatworth up to the moment when he had discussed Pep Morgan’s part. “Apparently Pep’s story bore mine out and the denial that you’d been paying the cash in floored him, I think. He was quite reasonable, as far as it goes—”

  Roger grimaced. “In the circumstances, suspension was the only thing, leave of absence wouldn’t do, and he’s right, of course. He gave me the impression that he expects me to get around a bit and will be prepared to listen to the evidence.”

  “So I should think!” exclaimed Janet. “I’ll never like that man again.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Roger. “Those entries, occasional rumours from Joe Leech”—he uttered the bookmaker’s name very softly—”and other indications all pointing towards me, must have made it look pretty black.”

  “I’ll ‘pretty black’ him!” said Janet, warmly, but her eyes were much brighter than when Roger had returned, half an hour before.

  It was nearly midnight but none of them looked tired and there was a kettle singing on the hob and an empty teapot warming by the fire. Roger was sitting back in an easy chair wriggling his toes inside his slippers. Mark was opposite him, and Janet was curled up on a settee between the two armchairs.

  “He didn’t tell you who’s supposed to have bribed you?” inquired Mark.

  “No-o,” admitted Roger, slowly, “he was reticent about that, which probably means that he doesn’t know for certain, but that he thinks the case hasn’t really broken open yet. He didn’t say much more,” he repeated, “but a few generalities suggested that this business is supposed to have been going on since about Christmas, when I hit upon some particularly bright racket and accepted bribes and held my tongue. Abbott’s been working on the case from the beginning.”

  “Abbott!” exclaimed Janet, scornfully.

  “It wasn’t a pleasant job,” said Roger, “and—”

  “You’d find an excuse for Hitler!” said Janet. “There are limits to the spirit of forgiveness.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” interjected Mark. “Better too much than too little, and although no one loves Abbott, he’s good at his particular brand of inquiry. And when the cashier has said ‘no’ about Janet, we’ll feel better. You learned nothing else at all?”

  “Not from Chatworth. Eddie Day gave me Joe Leech’s name and Cornish promised to find the taxi-driver.” He had told them briefly of the note from ‘K’ and his assumptions. “If I can find out where the other passenger went, it might help. We aren’t exactly barren of clues,” he continued, slowly. “The copper-plate writing and the paper—I wish I’d kept the envelope but I was too scared!—the drawing-ink, Joe Leech and the woman who’s paid the cash in, and those five-pound notes. With luck and hard going we’ll get through. I wish—” he paused.

  “If wishing were doing,” murmured Mark.

  “I wish I knew why it’s been done,” said Roger. “That’s one of the things at which Chatworth boggles more than anything else – as anyone would. Why should there be a deliberate attempt to frame me? I’ve been over the possible revenge motives, but Pep’s right, no one’s come out of stir lately who would be rich enough to try it. In any case, it’s too fantastic a notion. Yet”—he smiled worriedly—”there must be a reason.”

  The kettle began to boil and he leaned forward and poured water in the pot, after making sure that the tea was inside this time. There were some sandwiches on a tray, and Mark bit into one, thoughtfully.

  “The reason why,” he murmured. “That seems to be the first thing to discover, Roger. Shall I cast my great mind about?”

  “Not yet, thanks!” said Roger, as if horrified, and when Mark took on an expression of affronted dignity added: “Your first job, if you’ll take it, is to interview Joe Leech. Joe will be smart enough to outwit Pep.”

  Mark grinned. “For that oblique compliment, many thanks! Er—Roger?” He bit again into a sandwich.

  “Yes?” asked Roger, sipping tea.

  “One little thing you might have forgotten,” Mark said, “and it could be significant. I mean, the attempt to bring Janet into this. The first assumption might be that it was just to stiffen the evidence against you, but it might also mean that the whole family is to be involved.”

  Roger frowned. “I can’t think it’s likely,” he commented. “Did I say that Chatworth is going to send Cornish with you to the Mid-Union tomorrow, Jan? I think he’s afraid you will scratch Abbott’s eyes out!”

  He laughed, and the atmosphere, already very much easier, grew almost gay. The tension at the house while Roger had been out had been almost unbearable. It had been broken only by a telephone call from Pep Morgan, who had reported his encounter with Tiny Martin and told Mark that he had gone to the Yard and been questioned. He had been asked whether he had been at Bell Street earlier in the day, as well as to the reason why he had gone that night. Pep, it proved, had answered on similar lines to Roger and had been released with a sombre warning from Abbott to ‘be careful’. Pep, said Mark, had seemed quite cheerful and eager to know when he was to start work. Mark had promised to call him in the morning.

  They went to bed just after one o’clock, and surprisingly, Roger went to sleep quickly, but Janet lay awake a long while, listening to his heavy breathing and to Mark snoring in the spare room.

  Mark was up first and disturbed the others by whistling in his bath. They breakfasted soon after eight o’clock and, just after nine, Mark left for the East End. Roger was tempted to go with Janet to the Mid-Union Bank, but thought it wiser to wait at Chelsea. She left soon after ten o’clock, met Cornish at Piccadilly and received the paying-in book from him and, at the small branch of the provincial bank, made out a credit entry for fifty pounds, in cash, which Roger had taken out of his safe.

  Cornish was nowhere in sight when she paid it in.

  In spite of all the circumstances and her knowledge that she had never been inside the bank before, she felt on edge. The cashier was a middle-aged man with beetling brows; there was something sinister about him, about the tapping of a typewriter behind a partition and the cold austerity of the little bank itself. The cashier peered at her over the tops of steel-rimmed spectacles, counted the notes carefully, stamped the book and handed it back to her.

  “Good-morning, madam,” he said.

  “Good-morning, “gasped Janet, and hurried out, feeling stifled.

  She did not see Cornish immediately, but one of the Yard sergeants was near at hand. She went, by arrangement, to the Regent Palace Hotel and, finding a vacant seat in the public lounge, waited on tenterhooks. After twenty minutes Cornish came hurrying in, smiling cheerfully. Her spirits rose.

  “Hallo, Mrs. West!” Cornish reached her, his smile widening. “You’ll be glad to hear that he has never seen you before!”

  Janet drew a deep breath.

  “Thank heavens for that!” she exclaimed, sitting back and beaming into Cornish’s eyes. “I was half afraid that—” she broke off and forced a laugh. “But I mustn’t be absurd!”

  “I’ve telephoned the Yard, so that’s all right,” Cornish said. “You�
��ll have some coffee, won’t you?”

  “Er—oh, thank you,” Janet said, “but I must let Roger know. I’ll phone from here, and come back.”

  She hurried off; tall, well-dressed and graceful, she attracted the gaze of several men. Roger answered the call promptly and she knew from his sharp ‘hallo’ that he was equally anxious. She wasted no time.

  “Well, that’s item one!” he said, fervently. “Chatworth ought to start feeling ashamed of himself! I was half afraid the cashier—”

  “So was I,” said Janet. “I suppose we’ll imagine significant happenings everywhere until it’s over. I mustn’t stop, darling, Cornish is being very sweet and he’s getting some coffee.”

  “Remind him to find that cabby’s address, will you?” Roger asked. “Good-bye, my sweet!”

  Smiling, he stepped from the telephone to the window and looked out. One of Abbott’s men was still on duty there – they did not intend to take chances. He felt like laughing at them, much happier now that he had a chance to fight back. Once the initial suspicion was gone, the whole organisation of the Yard would support him.

  He hummed to himself as he lit a cigarette and then, frowning slightly, saw a powerful limousine drawing up outside the house. The driver glanced about him as if looking for the name of a house before pulling up immediately opposite Roger’s.

  Abbott’s man, betraying no interest, strolled along the opposite pavement.

  A chauffeur climbed down from the car and opened the rear door. There was a pause before a woman stepped out.

  Roger stared in sheer amazement, she was so entrancingly lovely. She wore a massive fox fur over a tailored suit of black; the morning was bright, although there were occasional clouds, but with the sun shining her hair glistened, black as ebony under her small hat. The gleaming car beyond her, the chauffeur standing to attention, combined to make a remarkable tableau.

  Through the open window, Roger heard her say: “I will go, Bott.”