Late and Cold (Timothy Herring) Page 8

  “We was wondering, sir,” said Mrs. Dewes to the president, “if there would be any objection to us keeping a dog.”

  “A dog, Mrs. Dewes? Not such a good idea in London.”

  “Neither is blockings and hangings at dead of night such a good idea, sir, neither,” responded Mrs. Dewes spiritedly.

  “Oh, yes, I’ve heard something of this from Mr. Herring.”

  “I am not what you’d call a nervous woman, sir. Far from it. And Dewes, well, ’e was a Navy man, as you know. But this night prowler, well, ’e’s beginning to get on our nerves, sir. We needs a good night’s sleep, same as everyone else, and we reckon we’re entitled to get it.”

  “Of course, of course. And, if you want to keep a dog, that’s quite all right, I’m sure. You’ll have to feed it, but the committee will pay for the licence. I’m sorry you’ve been disturbed, but don’t you think it may simply be the people next door?”

  “No, I don’t, sir. These ’ouses is solid built. Besides, there’s the footprints, sir. Next door never made those.”

  “Well, get the dog, by all means. Have you an animal in view?”

  “Not to say in view, sir. We ’ad to get your permission first, of course. Without permission,” went on Mrs. Dewes virtuously, “of course neether Dewes nor me would ever persoom . . .”

  “No, no, I see, I see. Well, good night, Mrs. Dewes, and I hope you’ll not be disturbed again. Mr. Herring is staying, I believe?”

  “For which I am truly grateful. Thank you for coming round, sir . . . Oh, thank you very much, I’m sure, sir. That’s very kind of you.”

  “My contribution towards the cost of the dog. Good night, again. Good night, Herring. Let me know how you get on.”

  “Which dog,” said Mrs. Dewes confidentially to Timothy, when she had shown the president out, “will be on the premises tomorrow as ever is. Dewes is bespeaking ’im tonight.”

  She had made Timothy up a bed in the committee room. She took him upstairs to inspect it. He might have known her better, he reflected, than to have envisaged anything makeshift. It was a most respectably comfortable divan, and she and Dewes must have had some difficulty in humping it up the front stairs. She had put her best sheets and pillow cases, a couple of almost new blankets, an eiderdown, and a candlewick bedspread on it.

  “Oh, really, Mrs. Dewes!” he said when, with pride, she displayed it. “I didn’t mean to put you to all this trouble. A mattress on the floor was all I’d thought of.”

  “You could ’ave that in a common doss’ouse, sir. This used to be a gentleman’s residence. I should expect Things to Walk if I let you sleep on the floor.”

  As soon as she left him, Timothy went upstairs and tapped on Marion’s door. Before she opened it, she called out, (nervously, he thought), “Who’s that?”

  “Timothy Herring,” he replied. “Can I speak to you?”

  She opened the door.

  “You?” she said, astonished. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Well, these are Phisbe’s premises,” he protested.

  “I mean, at this time of night.”

  “It’s not, perhaps, the best time to choose for a visit, but it isn’t all that late. I want to speak to you. It won’t take more than five minutes.”

  “Then you’d better come in.” She closed the door behind him and then stood with her back against it. “I did what you told me. I’ve placated Mrs. Dewes,” she said, “but they’re still being unreasonably noisy.”

  “Oh, in what way? I told Dewes not to do his carpentering in the attic unless he can do it in the afternoons. Has he been annoying you again?”

  “It isn’t his hammering. He hasn’t done it at night any more. It’s worse than that. He creeps around and throws the furniture about. I told you about it. I suppose he’s quite right in the head?”

  “What time of night was this?”

  “I don’t know, but I think it must have been well after midnight.”

  “Did the noise alarm you?”

  “Well, of course it did. It isn’t funny to wake up in the dark and hear somebody throwing tables and chairs about. I suppose he must have been drunk.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Dewes.” (He did not say what Mrs. Dewes had told him). “Anyway, whatever it is, there’s no need to worry. I’ll see to things.”

  “Oh, Tim!” She jumped to it quickly. “Then it isn’t Dewes!”

  “Don’t look so scared.”

  “But, of course, I’m scared. It was bad enough before, but, if it isn’t the Dewes, who is it?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m here to find out, if I can.”

  “Did the Dewes ask you to stay?”

  “No, but Mrs. Dewes laid a similar complaint to yours. I think she thought it might be you fooling about.”

  “Oh, Tim, it’s horrible!”

  “Not now I’m on hand. Look here, you’ve got a key. Lock yourself in, if you feel nervous.”

  “I couldn’t do that. I always keep my door open a crack at night, in case Miranda wakes up and wants me. That’s why I heard the noises so clearly. And once or twice, as well as the noises, I’ve thought I heard somebody creeping about the house, but, of course, again, I only thought of the Dewes.”

  “You were probably right. Anyway, lock your door tonight”—he suddenly grinned—“for my sake, if not for your own!”

  She smiled and came away from the door.

  “All right,” she said, “I will. After all, it’s months now since Miranda woke up and called out for me in the night.”

  “Fine. Good night, then, Marion. And don’t worry any more. I’ll soon sort this prowler out. It’s only some poor devil who’s found somewhere to doss down for the night, I expect. Mrs. Dewes will have to turn the key of the back door as soon as the children and you are in from school. That will do the trick, and keep him out.”

  He left her, and stood on the landing until he heard her turn the key. Then he went down to the committee room, where he had left the light on, closed the door, and looked into the built-in cupboards. Then he went out again, having turned off the light. He locked the door and pocketed the key, then he went down to the ground-floor. Dewes had returned, and he and his wife, each with tumbler in hand, were watching television.

  “Oh, don’t bother to switch it off,” he said, as Dewes got up. “I only came down to tell you that Miss Jones also heard furniture being overturned, and isn’t feeling very happy about it.”

  Dewes, who had turned off the television, brought out another tumbler.

  “It’s only beer, sir,” he said, “without you’d prefer some stout.”

  “Beer, please. Thanks very much. Well, here’s to our visitor! I’m curious to know what he’s like.”

  “I’ll rough him up if I catch him,” said Dewes. “Like me to stay on watch with you, would you, sir? Glad to sit up, if wanted.”

  “No, don’t bother. I’ll yell blue murder if I need any help.” He left them at eleven and went up to the committee room. If there was a prowler—and the experiences of Marion and the Dewes did not seem to leave this in doubt—the obvious reason for his presence could hardly have been that which Timothy had suggested. The dead-beats and the down-and-outs do not break into pretentious houses in search of a bed. Either the caller was a lunatic or a criminal. Of these, the former seemed the more likely. The last thing a criminal would do was to make his presence known by throwing furniture about. Nevertheless, Timothy looked round the committee room to assure himself that there was nothing in it which was worth stealing.

  There was a good long-case clock, by Joseph and John Knibb, made in the last quarter of the seventeenth century; there was a large eighteenth-century mahogany break-front bookcase; the president’s chair was in walnut and dated from some time after 1675 but still in the reign of Charles II; the table at which the committee sat was of oak and had been made in the seventeenth century. The only other object of interest was a mirror-frame over the fireplace. It was attributed to Grin
ling Gibbons, but, although a charming piece, it was more likely, Timothy thought, to have been carved by one of his contemporaries, apprentices, or imitators than by the master himself.

  “Trouble is,” said Timothy aloud, “you’d need a furniture van to shift this lot.” He went into the great salon where parties and annual general meetings were held, but the same objection was in force, except that in this room there was a very impressive mahogany and satinwood bookcase, glass-fronted above and with three stout drawers and sturdy cupboards beneath. It was the gift of a friendly American honorary member and had been shipped across from Baltimore. In the glass-fronted top the Society kept on display some of their more easily portable treasures.

  There was the ivory diptych, fourteenth-century French, with its carvings of the Nativity and the visit of the Magi; there was the early fifteenth-century psalter bound, later in the same century, by the Fleming, Jacques or, as he preferred to spell it, Jaques Goutier; there was a fifteenth-century German drinking-horn mounted in silver-gilt, and a silver-gilt chalice of about the year 1300; there was a crozier-head of uncertain date but probably to be assigned to the second half of the fourteenth century; there was a copper-gilt pax of roughly the same time, and another, in silver-gilt, Flemish, dating from a hundred years later.

  “Those could make a haul, I suppose,” thought Timothy, “but only by a collector. The ordinary sneak-thief wouldn’t look at them.” He left the door of the salon wide open, put a couple of the committee’s chairs across the open doorway of the committee room, and went to bed there, but only to the extent of removing his jacket, tie, and shoes. He had changed out of his evening clothes at the club and had come round to the Society’s headquarters wearing an open-necked sports shirt, flannel trousers, and a tweed jacket.

  He was not a heavy sleeper and, trusting that any unusual noise would wake him, he soon dropped off and was dreaming that an air-raid had just begun when he woke with the realisation that what he had heard was certainly a crash, and a crash that had taken place near at hand. Somebody had knocked over the two chairs which he had placed in a strategic position, one balanced on top of the other, across the committee-room doorway.

  He slipped back the light bed-coverings and lowered his feet to the floor. Then, realising too late that he was a long way from the electric-light switch and would have done well to have brought a torch with him, he groped his way to the door, found the switch, and flooded the room with brilliant light.

  He was too late. The only sign the intruder had left was the overturned barrier formed by the two chairs. He put them out of the way and made for the top of the stairs, only to meet Dewes.

  “They’re about again, sir,” said Dewes. “I take it you never saw no one?”

  “Not a sausage!” said Timothy, with chagrin. “I ought to have brought a torch.”

  “Well, I didn’t meet nobody on my way up, sir, so there’s only one way they could of gorn.” He pointed to the next flight of stairs.

  “Stay here, then, while I put on some shoes,” said Timothy, who had the usual human objection to going about in stockinged feet if there were marauders on the premises. When he re-joined Dewes he took the lead up the stairs, switching on the landing lights as he went. On the top floor he almost cannoned into Marion, who switched on the light just as he reached for it.

  “Is anything the matter?” she asked. “I heard a crash.”

  “Yes, so did we. No use to ask whether anybody came up here, I suppose?”

  “I haven’t seen anyone, but I’ve only just come out of my room. Somebody could have slipped up to the attic, I suppose.”

  “Stay here,” said Timothy. “I’m going to have a look at your room.”

  “Oh, but, really . . .”

  “Best do as he says, miss,” said Dewes. “It’ll satisfy everybody, that way.”

  Timothy soon came back to them.

  “I’ll just take a peep at the kids,” he said. “You didn’t go into their room, Marion, did you?”

  “Oh, no. The noise came from somewhere downstairs.”

  “We know where it came from.” He opened the door of the room where the children were sleeping, switched on the light, tip-toed across to the built-in wardrobe, and opened it, looked under the two-tiered bunk where the twins were sleeping, and then returned to the doorway, switched off the light, and, without a word to the others, went into the third room, which Marion used as a dining-and-living-room. He subjected it to the same close inspection.

  “Looks like the attic, sir,” said Dewes. “Think he might be armed?”

  “Go into the children’s room and lock the door,” said Timothy to Marion. “You’d better be with them in case there’s a noise and they get frightened.”

  “But, Tim . . .”

  “Do as you’re told.”

  “Please be careful, then.”

  “Of course.” He turned to Dewes. “Nip downstairs and get hold of the coal-hammer or something, just in case.” He cocked an authoritative eyebrow at Marion and waited until he heard the click of the key on the other side of the children’s bedroom door, then he mounted the narrow stairs which led up to the attic. A slight sound ahead of him indicated, he thought, the presence of the quarry. There was a light-switch at the turn of the staircase. He touched it and then stood still and looked up at the head of the stair. The door to the attic was wide open, but he could see nobody. He said, raising his voice a little above his ordinary speaking-tones,

  “Come on out of there!” There was no response to this invitation. The open door made the unwelcome suggestion that there might be someone behind it. Timothy, with memories of gangster films, was in no mind to be coshed with a sandbag or the butt of a revolver or a piece of lead piping, still less to be slashed across the face with a broken bottle, so he stayed where he was and listened intently. Nothing stirred, ahead of him. Behind him he heard Dewes coming up the stairs.

  At least, he was so sure it was Dewes that he did not so much as turn his head. The blow was quite a heavy one. He fell sprawled across the landing. Dewes, who had had some difficulty downstairs in finding what he conceived to be a suitable weapon, found him sitting up groggily, some three minutes later, holding on to the banisters which guarded the landing from the well of the staircase and trying to work out what had happened.

  “Lor, sir!” said Dewes. “What’s all this?” Timothy’s head throbbed but his brain cleared.

  “Dashed if I know. Someone came up behind me. I thought it was you.”

  “We did ought to ’ave looked in the glory-’ole, sir. That’s what we oughter ’ave done.”

  “The glory-hole? What’s that?”

  “Why, the little cupboard place at the bend of the stairs between the first and the second landin’. It’s where my missus keeps ’er upstairs cleanin’ things. It’s painted white, like the wall, and it lays flush with the wall, too, and ’asn’t got no ’andle, so you’d ’ardly notice it if you didn’t know it was there. That’s where ’e would ’ave laid ’id. I’d like to bet on it.”

  “But, if you knew it was there, why on earth didn’t you look into it, man?”

  “Because, sir, you led and I followed, as in bounden dooty to do.”

  “Well, the chap’s in the attic now, all right, and I’m hanged if I want another clump on the head.”

  “If ’e’s in the attic, ’e’s treed, sir, and we know where ’e is when we wants ’im. My idea would be, sir, to both of us goin’ downstairs, where I will lay in wait on the front-door landin’ with me ’atchet as I found in the woodshed—which, bein’ in London, is a part of the wine-cellar, sir—while you goes along to Mrs. Dewes and gets ’er to look at your ’ead. Then me lord up there can please ’isself what ’e does. ’E can stay put, and wait for the police when we telephone ’em, or ’e can come downstairs and give ’isself up to me and my ’atchet.”

  “Sounds a reasonable plan,” said Timothy, tenderly touching his scalp, “but suppose there are two of them?”

  “
That might be awk’ard, sir, that might. Ah, I know! There’s a door at the foot of these ’ere attic stairs. There ain’t no lock and key, but there’s a ruddy great iron latch as ketches into two slots on the outside of the doorway. There’s a iron ladder and a trapdoor. You can get out on to a flat roof and escape to the end ’ouse in the street if you’ve a mind to but that’s all as you can do.”

  “Then ten to one, that’s what our bird will have done!”

  “Very likely, sir, but we’ve got ’im cold, all the same. ’E couldn’t get down again without ’e went down somebody else’s trapdoor and through somebody else’s ’ouse, and I shouldn’t ’ardly think ’e’d ’ave the nerve to do that.”

  “A desperate man might risk it. Anyway, yours seems the only plan, and I’m going to phone the police.” On the way downstairs he stopped at the door of the children’s room and, putting his lips to the crack of the door, he said quietly, “Marion, mind you stay where you are, and keep the door locked. There’s a dangerous man in the house.” There was no reply. He repeated the message, this time by way of the keyhole. Then he realised that there was no key blocking the hole on the other side.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Marion in Shadow

  Timothy straightened up.

  “That’s funny,” he said. He turned to Dewes, who, hatchet in hand, was waiting at the top of the stairs.

  “Gone to sleep, p’raps, sir.”

  “I hardly think so.” Timothy put his lips to the empty keyhole again. “Marion, answer me! Are you there?” A small, scared voice replied,

  “There’s only us.”

  “Bryn,” said Timothy, urgently, “do you think you could get out of bed and put the light on?”

  “I can reach it from here. It’s a bed-light.”

  “Right. Switch it on, old chap, and see whether you can find the door-key. Is Bron there?”