Sunset Over Soho (Mrs. Bradley) Read online

  The room was next door to that of the Supervising Officer, but was entirely different in character and atmosphere from his. One would not have hesitated an instant, Mrs. Bradley decided, in concluding which was the man’s and which was the woman’s room.

  “I don’t know how much you gathered from the police questioning,” said Mrs. Bradley, “but it seems a clear case of murder.”

  “I know,” the Welfare Officer replied. “And, you know, Doctor, I feel rather terrible when I think how I said I loved mysteries and those sort of horrid things which one usually only reads about. Now it’s close to home, like this, I almost feel as though I’d brought it upon us myself. Godfrey thinks I’m silly, but I do confess to being a little bit superstitious in these matters.”

  Mrs. Bradley said she sympathized entirely with the feeling, but that the theory which produced it must be entirely false.

  “Well, I don’t know,” said the Welfare Officer. “I could tell you some very queer tales … but I expect you’d be able to match them. Hullo, here’s Godfrey come to give you the freedom of the city, or whatever you would like to call it.”

  The Supervising Officer came in. He was slightly annoyed with the police. The Welfare Officer soothed him.

  “And now Doctor Bradley wants to look at everything,” she said, “especially the place where the body was found. I think I’ll come too. She can tell us the very moment she doesn’t want us.”

  They all went down in the lift and walked through the empty dormitory. Mrs. Bradley was reminded of a mediaeval hospital. There was no time to let the mind linger on such imagery, however, and they went out into the area.

  There was nothing more to see than Mrs. Bradley had supposed there would be. She spent about seven minutes down there, then suggested that they might as well return to the top floor. The area itself had, so far as she was concerned, no tale to tell.

  She discussed the affair again, but without any profit, with the officers, whilst they stood in the entrance to the dormitory. Then she interviewed Masters, the Rest Centre furnace-man.

  He seemed able to tell her nothing, and would not admit that his keys were ever out of his possession. Later, Mrs. Bradley discussed him with Pirberry.

  “I’d believe he might know something about it, ma’am,” said Pirberry, “but, the trouble is, he doesn’t admit to a thing. If he were guilty, I should think he’d at least have the sense to tell us he’d lost or mislaid his keys, and leave us to argue that somebody must have taken them and stowed the body away; but he doesn’t admit they’ve ever been out of his possession. That sounds like the barminess of innocence, if you understand what I mean.”

  “The Supervising Officer also has keys,” Mrs. Bradley pointed out.

  “Yes, I know, ma’am, but I think we must rule him out. For once thing, he’s a most respectable gentleman. Well known in art circles, and all his life an open book, as you might say. Whereas Masters is a bit of a mystery. He’s fairly new here. Only been employed the last three months. The old furnace-man went into the Navy. An ex-chief Petty Officer he was. We’re taking up this chap’s references, of course, to see where that will lead, but it doesn’t seem to lead very far. He worked as a gardener in his last place; then he got sacked—he won’t say why, and there’s nothing in his record to tell us. He was on the dole for a bit after that, and then this was going so he applied, and was picked because one of the congregation of the Baptists recommended him and said he understood the heating. Apparently it’s similar to the greenhouse furnace he used to have as a gardener, only on a rather larger scale. Of course, if we could get the old gentleman identified it would be more than half the battle, but I’m afraid he’s too far gone for that, even if anyone came forward and was willing to try, which, so far, nobody has been.”

  “Was there nothing at all to go on? I saw nothing but the remains. Had there been no clothing?”

  “You’re welcome to see Exhibit A, ma’am, but it doesn’t seem to help very much. It’s been a dressing-gown. We’re on the track of where it was bought. Not that that will help much. There are probably dozens like it. Come along, ma’am, and see what you think. I’d be very glad of some help.”

  The dressing-gown was preserved in a sealed glass case.

  “You wouldn’t believe what it smells like out in the open,” said Pirberry with melancholy enthusiasm. Mrs. Bradley could have contradicted this statement, but did not do so. She made a drawing in her notebook of the patterns on the material, and, as she did so, gazed at her sketching with a wild surmise which quickly changed to a feeling of absolute certainty.

  “I can identify this dressing-gown,” she said.

  “You can, ma’am?” Pirberry’s voice betrayed restrained but jubilant surprise. “You mean you know who it belongs to?”

  “I can’t give you his name, but I recognize the dressing-gown, unless it has been described to me very badly.”

  “Oh—you couldn’t swear to it, ma’am, you mean?”

  Mrs. Bradley did not answer this, but suddenly said:

  “How else does one get into the basement besides by using the stone staircase?”

  It proved that there was no other way. There had been a way, in a sense, before the war, because the arches were under the street and the passage which ran past them, and from which they opened like caverns, had been under the pavement and was covered by gratings through which the passers-by along Maidenhead Close, had they chosen to do so, could have looked down upon the area.

  The coffin, therefore, could have been lowered into the passage from the street, supposing the grating to have been removed, but it could not have passed under one of the arches, and, had it been left in the passage, it must certainly have been discovered long before its dramatic appearance after the end of the raid.

  It was true that the Rest Centre had a second staircase, but this merely formed a second exit to the street, and did not descend below street level. It was not even intended as another entrance to the Rest Centre, for it was closed by a panic-bar, and unless this had been left open at any time, the Rest Centre could not be reached that way.

  Mrs. Bradley’s tour of inspection led to one other discovery. This was particularly interesting. The church, which was very large, had an enormous gallery, and this gallery could be reached without previously entering the church, for a door half-way up the staircase communicated directly with it. If a hiding-place had been wanted, one might have been found, Mrs. Bradley thought, in an obscure corner of the gallery. At least, that was her first theory; she rejected it instantly, however, because she felt sure that the cleaners would have been bound to find anything so hidden, and if they had found the coffin-like box they would have reported it.

  Since, on the unimpeachable evidence of the Supervising Officer, the coffin had not been under the arches when the Rest Centre had first been staged in the church rooms, it was not possible at present to say when the coffin had been brought to the building, nor where it had lain hidden.

  In the end she was inclined to suspect that the roof might have been used, at least as a temporary hiding-place, for she noticed that at the top of the lift-shaft there was a small landing from which a ladder went up to a skylight.

  She returned to the inspector to acquaint him with her findings, such as they were.

  Pirberry listened with close attention to Mrs. Bradley’s remarks, and, at the end, nodded his head.

  “I confess I hadn’t got as far as putting the coffin on the roof, ma’am,” he said, “but it did seem to me that it must have been on the premises some time before it got put down into the area. Your idea about the roof is a good one, and could bear investigation. I’ll go up myself and have a look. And I’ll bear in mind about the repairs. Mind you, the whole thing still turns upon the identity of the body. If we could only put a name to the old chap, we might find his murderer pretty easily. What was that about the dressing-gown, again?”

  “I’ll tell you, when you’ve got a your list of suspects,” said Mrs. Bradle
y. “In any case, it’s a story you partly know.”

  Pirberry, who was accustomed to her methods, grinned, and said that he could scarcely bear to wait, and would look at the roof immediately. Mrs. Bradley elected to accompany him, so they sought out the Supervising Officer and told him what they proposed to do.

  The ladder was steep but short. Pirberry went up first, warning Mrs. Bradley to mind his feet. Workmen were busy on repairs. The roof was in several sections, owing to the odd assortment of architecture which now made up the chapel, and each section was divided from the next by a path of leads about ten inches wide, so that it was a simple and perfectly safe matter to tour the roof and gain an impression both of the repairs which were being effected and of any possible repositories for a coffin.

  “It beats me, ma’am,” confessed Pirberry, when he had toured the whole of the terrain, greatly to the detriment of his suit, for there were occasional crags of roof which had to be negotiated and up which it was necessary to crawl by means of ladders or wooden slats. He dusted blackened hands down his blue serge trousers.

  Mrs. Bradley had not attempted to go further afield than the section of the roof which was actually under repair, and which happened to be almost over the trap-door. Here she accosted the foreman and asked when the roof had last been repaired.

  He was unable to tell her, but stated that it would be put down in the chapel accounts, he supposed. An elderly workman, handling tiles, overheard the conversation, and informed her that he reckoned he could put a date to the last job. It would have been just before the war, in May. He had been on the work. It had been a small sort of a do. He reckoned he could show her the very part, if she had a mind to see it. He seemed to feel no surprise at an elderly lady’s interest in tiles and roof-repairs, and Mrs. Bradley had to step the shortest possible distance from where they were standing. The workman walked to the left, in the opposite direction to that taken by Pirberry, and there were the window tops of the offices occupied by the Supervising and Welfare Officers of the Rest Centre.

  “It was these ’ere winders,” said the workman. “Bricks round ’em re-pointed, a lick of paint on the gables, and the slates renewed. There’d been some wild sort of weather, and snow, I seem to recollect, and they was afraid of tiles slipping down in the street and killing somebody.”

  Mrs. Bradley descended the ladder near the top of the lift-shaft, and waited for Pirberry to join her.

  “We’re still confronted with the task of discovering which people could have gained access to the roof without exciting comment,” she observed. “The coffin itself was probably lodged on top of one of those two windows. I think there would be room if it were placed broadside on. It might be visible from below, that is the only thing, but I don’t know whether that would matter, so very high above the street, and the street so narrow.”

  “Of course, we’ve no proof it ever was on the roof,” Pirberry pointed out. “I must have another go at that Masters, and another comb through the register of those who used the Rest Centre that night. But it’s the identity of the dead man we want, ma’am. Once we know that, the rest should follow on.”

  On her way from Maidenhead Close to Gerrard Street Mrs. Bradley met David Harben. He had been, he said, to see the wounded half-breed. He was now almost well enough to be discharged from hospital.

  “And what have you been up to?” he demanded. “Are you still messing about at the Rest Centre?”

  “I have been emulating the devil by going to and fro in the earth, and by walking up and down in it,” she responded.

  “Ah,” he said; he fell into step beside her. “One thing, I seem to be clear of all my troubles, unless the gent who laid out El Piojo has another slap at me. Do you want any help with yours?”

  “Mine are not troubles,” she answered. “I am enjoying a mystery of a body in a box. It was found in the basement area after an air-raid, and there is little doubt it had been moved from another hiding-place, although whether that hiding-place was also in the Rest Centre, or whether it was somewhere else, we do not know. I suppose you would not care to help us.”

  “I’m not interested in murder,” said Harben.

  “Are you not? I thought it had general, if not particular interest. What did you make of the attack on Mr. Piojo? Wasn’t that murderous?”

  “I tell you it was not intended to be an attack on him, but on me.”

  “But even if it was intended to be made on you, it was none the less murderous, was it?”

  Harben did not reply. At the northern entrance to Leicester Square Station they parted. Mrs. Bradley walked up Little Newport Street, and when she was almost at the Gerrard Street end of it, two men lurched out from a doorway, fell towards her, and would have knocked up against her but that she was much too quick for them. She had dodged them, hooked one round the ankle, and left him on his face on the pavement before he could have realized what was happening. The knife in his right hand tinkled against a shop-front. She kicked it ten yards away just as a policeman came up. The other man made his escape.

  “There’s his knife,” said Mrs. Bradley, “if you want it. Please remember me to Inspector Dewey. My name is Bradley.” She added that she would be seeing Mr. Pirberry in the morning.

  The constable, who appeared to be somewhat astonished by her manner and messages, led his prisoner away, and Mrs. Bradley continued on her way home. She was not molested, although she looked sharply round the unlighted vestibule, switching on her torch for the purpose, as soon as she arrived.

  The staircase was old enough to creak loudly on almost every stair. Her fellow-lodgers were, on the whole, peculiar, but they could never move about unannounced. It was one great advantage in a house which, otherwise, had little to recommend it except that it was in the district which happened to interest her at the moment.

  Her flat had been used as club rooms until the beginning of the war, and her agreement included a clause by which she agreed to continue to house the club library. She had met the secretary, and had been invited to make what use she liked of the books. As most of them were valuable modern works on physiology, she was interested, and, on this particular evening, when she had had tea, prepared in the tiny kitchen which boasted little in the way of amenities except for a gas oven, a kitchen table, a cupboard and a sink, she took down one of the volumes and settled herself to read.

  Her sitting-room overlooked the street, and she had been interested to discover that when the windows were open it was possible to hear conversations from the street if there was no motor traffic about.

  Her attention was not wholly engrossed by her book. She was thinking partly of the man who had tried to knife her. She could not say she had recognized him, and yet there was something at the back of her mind which seemed to be trying to work its way to the front.

  She was about to shrug these thoughts away, and immerse herself in a chapter on the ductless glands, when voices below caused her to put down the book.

  She unlatched her sitting-room door and set it ajar, and then seated herself so that she was facing the doorway. The voices passed into murmurings, and the steps began to sound to the tread of heavily-shod feet. She listened. They passed the first landing, from which opened the premises of a family of Jewish tailors; they passed the second landing and the flat where lived the two street-walkers; still they ascended. The stairs creaked, groaned and resounded beneath their tread. A voice—the voice of David Harben—cried loudly:

  “Anyone at home?”

  “In here,” Mrs. Bradley answered. The door opened, and David Harben entered, supporting a badly-wounded man.

  “Another acquaintance of ours; the Spanish captain,” he remarked. He stepped aside, and pushed the captain forward. The poor fellow’s shirt and coat were soaked with blood, and he himself was half-fainting with pain and shock, and the weakness due to loss of blood.

  “Why on earth did you not take him straight to hospital?” demanded Mrs. Bradley.

  “This was nearer. Only happened
in Little Newport Street. Had a fight with his mate this morning at their lodgings, and we think Don Juan laid for him again. Do you think he could possibly stay here? He hates the idea of a hospital.”

  “He could stay here if I had anywhere to put him,” Mrs. Bradley pointed out. “And he could stay here if I weren’t afraid of gangrene, and he could stay here if I were certain we weren’t going to have an air-raid.”

  “I see,” said Harben dispiritedly. He rang up the hospital whilst Mrs. Bradley tended the wounded man.”

  “And now,” said Mrs. Bradley to the Spanish captain, “what happened? I am interested, because I myself was attacked this evening on my way home, and in Little Newport Street. Do you suppose your precious Don Juan laid for me too?”

  “If you please?” said the Spanish captain. Mrs. Bradley grinned.

  “When are you going back to Spain?” she asked. This question the captain could answer.

  “We go—when? There is not a ship,” he said. “My ship I think you know, has been torpedoed. Not torpedoed. Shot to bits. We were rescued. My mate—he is my second sister’s husband’s brother-in-law—is the traitor, I think. There were lights. Blue lights. I have heard.”

  “Germans?”

  “Maybe. We were carrying—I make no secrets—we were carrying rifles. They were for Norwegian patriots. Gun-running. But a good cause. You, who are English, would say so.”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  “Juan Hueza is a villain. You remember—Don Juan, my mate?”

  “The police will deal with him.”

  “You want to know,” said the Spanish captain suddenly, “whether it is Don Juan who has wounded El Piojo as well as myself. It is not. It is other fellows—sailors.”

  “What is the connection between these attacks and the abortive attack on myself? And was the attack on Mr. Piojo intended as an attack on Mr. Harben?”

  “I do not know. I know little of Mr. Harben. I did not know him at all until he was shipwrecked near the beginning of the war. You know of that. We picked him up not far from Gran Canaria. How he comes there I do not know. We landed, rescued from open boats, after my ship is gunned, on the south coast here—ship gone, cargo gone, crew gone, except for Estéban and Jorge and also this fellow, El Piojo.”