The Assize of the Dying Page 4

‘Go ahead! I can wait.’

  ‘Well, I told you it wasn’t so much. But Charlie told me this evening that they’d had a release from the police, too late for tonight’s editions, that a small brooch, believed to be from Zoë’s collection, had been found in a back-street pawnbroker’s shop, somewhere in London. That was all they had. But it’s something, isn’t it? It’s the first glimpse of a lead so far from the jewellery.’

  ‘I rang you up to talk about the very same thing,’ said Malachi, his voice sharpening into eagerness. ‘For once I’m a jump ahead of Charlie. I had a visitor tonight, in fact he’s only just left. A policeman! It seems they’ve been combing all the known fences in London ever since the case broke, and keeping an eye on all the shops that deal in second-hand jewellery. Routine stuff, it’s been going on for months without any result until now. Yes, they’ve found a brooch. It’s one of the least distinctive pieces that disappeared, in that nondescript style they’re using these days for diamonds – I imagine that’s why it was allowed to move on without being broken up, because I dare say you could duplicate this pretty easily around London. Evidently he didn’t think it could be decisively identified as Zoë’s, and maybe it wouldn’t have, but for a peculiarity in the pin. It has a safety catch that sticks badly unless you get it in one exact position, and Zoë’s maid has a good memory for things like that. The police just tried her on it, none too hopefully.’

  ‘And she knew it? Positively?’

  ‘She knew it, all right. Tilted it to the angle she remembered, opened it at once and without hesitation said: “That’s hers!”’

  ‘Then, Malachi – they know who took it to the shop?’ Startled by the rising excitement of her own voice, she suppressed it hastily to a whisper. ‘They haven’t got the man, have they?’

  ‘No luck! Not even a description that means anything.’

  ‘But somebody in the shop must know how the brooch came there!’

  Malachi laughed. ‘He knows all right! I don’t say he knows who the murderer is, because, after all, this thing may have come through a dozen pairs of hands since then. But he knows who brought the brooch to him, all right. Only he isn’t saying! He says he bought it in good faith, from a man he didn’t know and had never seen before, but who gave him a name and address, and seemed perfectly genuine. He supplied the name and address, but of course there’s no such place and no such person. It seems the police have nothing positive on this pawnbroker fellow, though they have their suspicions about him. They incline to think that he must know the man who brought in the brooch, has probably disposed of pieces for him before, and only risked trying to sell the brooch as it stands because it was thought commonplace enough in appearance to get by. But they can’t prove a word, and they haven’t managed to get anything out of him that’s going to help them much.’

  ‘But if it’s a question of keeping out of trouble himself—’

  ‘He isn’t in trouble. That’s the beauty of it. There’s not a thing they can charge against him, and won’t be, unless he gets rattled and does something silly. And by all accounts, he won’t.’

  ‘But simply to cover himself, he must have given them some sort of account of the man from whom he had the brooch.’

  ‘Oh, a detailed account, but not a word of it will be true, of course. A credible description, too! A man of middle age, gentleman, dressed well, but clothes much worn, light brown hair, thinning on top, moustache, military bearing, limp – the ex-officer finding it difficult to compete in the modern world, watching his standard of living go down the slides, and finally coming furtively and shamefacedly into a seedy little jeweller’s to raise money on the first of his wife’s trinkets. They tell me it’s happening to more fixed-income people than you’d think. Even the false address makes sense in that picture. The police seemed to think it was quite an artistic performance on his part. But they don’t believe for a minute that it’s true, and neither do I.’

  ‘Then we’re no further forward than we were before,’ said Margaret, her voice flat with disappointment.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. Once a thread has appeared it must lead somewhere. Mightn’t there be a possibility that the jeweller would talk a little more freely to somebody who wasn’t the police? Supposing he wasn’t involved himself – I mean in anything to do with the actual murder – mightn’t he think it worthwhile picking up a bonus wherever he could find it? I’ve got a hunch that whatever he knew, he didn’t know he was handling the product of a murder. A theft is one thing, but a murder’s another. I’m told these respectable fences prefer to keep as far away from killers as they do from the police. Well, I’m neither. I might get on very well with him, on a purely business footing. It’s worth trying, isn’t it?’

  ‘You mean you’d offer to pay for what he can tell you?’ Margaret sounded doubtful, and for a moment even a little afraid.

  ‘It’s Zoë’s money,’ said Malachi sadly. ‘Can you think of a better way to spend it?’

  ‘No, I suppose you’re right. When are you going to see him? Malachi, the police may be watching his moves.’

  ‘I know. They’ll have to see whatever they see, that’s all. I would have gone tonight, but until I can get to a bank I’ve no cash – not the kind of cash he’d be interested in. I shall go tomorrow.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’ she asked simply.

  ‘Why not? In broad daylight there can hardly be any risk attached.’

  ‘Will you call me tomorrow, then?’ She hesitated, frowning anxiously over the receiver. ‘Malachi, there’s one thing I don’t really understand. The police – they don’t think there’s anything queer about you? Why should they send a man to tell you about this brooch being found? I mean, so promptly?’

  A hollow and strangely unamused laugh echoed in her ear. ‘You forget!’ said Malachi. ‘Along with all the rest of Zoë’s belongings, the brooch is my property now.’

  The back part of the shop was very dark, and the glimmer of the single electric bulb which burned over the counter soon fell behind them. The rich glow of semiprecious stones in the glass cases dimmed with it, the deep colours of amethyst and opal, unfashionable and sumptuous, gave place to a wilderness of miscellaneous junk, beads and bric-à-brac, filmed over thinly with dust.

  It was the first time Margaret had ever seen the inside of a pawnbroker’s shop. It came as a treacherous stab to her belief in the virtues of the present that such an establishment could still show an appearance of prosperity. Dustily and furtively, but with admirable confidence and calm, Mr Fredericks thrived and fattened. The rear shelves of the more withdrawn half of his business were full of pledges. Probably his touching portrait of the retired officer, giving a false name as he hawked his wife’s jewellery, had been drawn entirely from life.

  Mr Fredericks himself was short, thick-set and curiously rural in appearance, with a fresh complexion and an unabashed eye, but the stillness of the rosy face and the steel-bright steadiness of the light-grey eyes were urban accompaniments. Malachi’s calculated candour, complete with names though not with motives, had made no more impact upon that imperturbable front than would the circuitous approach he might more reasonably have expected. He shook his head and made sympathetic noises about the premature death of Zoë Trevor. It had been a fearful shock to him when the police had suggested that the brooch was hers. No such idea had ever entered his head. Well, the thing had been exposed for sale openly on his counter, hadn’t it? What better proof of good faith could a man offer?

  ‘I tell you what, though, Mr Rouault,’ he confided, leaning over the end of his counter until his face was very close to Malachi’s, ‘I can’t believe that poor fellow who brought it in here ever did anything like that, I can’t really. As pleasant a fellow as you could meet round the town these days, and it’s my belief, if they ever do find him, they’ll find there’s more behind it, and he’s being made use of by somebody else.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he is,’ said Malachi, with a hollow smile. ‘But I hardly think they e
ver will find him – do you?’

  Mr Fredericks remained benign; indeed, the most notable thing about him was the quality of his serenity. Among much that was spurious and hardly bothered to cover its artificiality beyond the point of satisfying decency, his placidity was real enough. Whoever was suffering from qualms in the matter of the identity of a murderer, it was not Mr Fredericks. He was not afraid, he was not even uneasy. He felt quite safe, because he knew nothing, or next to nothing, and was shrewdly happy in his ignorance and much too wise to jeopardise it with curiosity.

  ‘He can’t lead us to the man who did it,’ thought Margaret, watching the encounter in silence, ‘because he doesn’t know who he is. The most he can do for us is put us one step on the way; and I believe he’s almost certain already that, if he sells us that much help, it won’t take us far. That’s why he’s so light-hearted about it.’

  ‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure,’ said Mr Fredericks almost reproachfully, ‘how good the police are at their job. I’m glad it’s their business and not mine. I was always a very timid man. Not like you Canadians, Mr Rouault. I don’t believe in asking for trouble.’

  ‘Some people even pay money for it,’ said Malachi, opening a full wallet upon the counter in the shadow of his body. ‘The police don’t approve of that, I’m told. So people who’re connected with the police don’t do it – do they?’

  The calm, opaque eyes assessed the roll of notes with interest. ‘One can never tell what the police will do next, Mr Rouault. They think of the most absurd things. All zeal, no doubt!’

  Malachi waited, unperturbed, for it was clear that the jeweller did not seriously believe the police had had any hand in sending these dangerously direct people to him for information. In a moment or two the scrupulously levelled-out voice said practically: ‘In the back room here I might have something in your line.’

  They followed him into a narrow little workshop, smoky and close from an oil-stove. The door closed softly behind them. Fredericks said: ‘I always do what I can for people. Especially if they’ve been a bit unfortunate. You’ll understand that quite harmless souls have their setbacks with the police sometimes. I don’t believe in penalising them for it over and over again – do you, sir?’

  ‘No. I might even, if I thought the case warranted it, be disposed to lend them a helping hand.’ Malachi detached a fold of notes in an absent-minded manner, and fanned them out on the littered table among the minute tools and emery dust and rouged rags, pinning them down with a tiny netsuke figure which was lying upon a shelf above. ‘I don’t go near the police myself – the appeal to law is the last resort in certain cases, don’t you agree?’

  He turned away with deliberate slowness to look round the room, but he felt the moment when the money vanished.

  ‘Oh, yes, Mr Rouault, I can see that a fellow who had made mistakes could look for a fair deal from you. With most people, it’s once a bad lot, always a bad lot. Take this little thing I was going to show you, now—’ With impressive gravity he placed the netsuke upright in Malachi’s palm, where it sat leering at him obscenely, while its owner looked on with his slight, regretful smile. ‘This poor unlucky fellow I’m thinking about – if he brought me in even so unlikely a little thing as that, the police would be wanting to know where he got it, and hinting at a bit of light-fingered work on the way to it. Or if it was a cigarette-case, say, they’d be talking of picking pockets on a rush-hour train. All because he once got mixed up in a bad misunderstanding with them – case of mistaken identity it was – and couldn’t prove he was somewhere else at the time. So I won’t deny I’ve sometimes helped him out without making any record of the purchase, or letting his name get into it anywhere. I’m all for giving a man fair play.’

  Malachi raised his eyes from the hideous little figure, and encountered the guileless stare without a flicker of an eyelash. ‘An unfortunate like that wouldn’t have anything to fear from me,’ he said, half-smiling. ‘I don’t believe in hounding a man, myself.’

  ‘Well, of course, there are some things you can’t pass over – like murder. The world couldn’t carry on if we went to that extreme of living and letting live, could it? But a mild little fellow like this friend of mine – he wouldn’t hurt a fly, Mr Rouault, I give you my word for it.’

  ‘I’d like to know your friend, Mr Fredericks. I might be able to do something for him. We might be able to do something for each other.’ He put down the netsuke with scrupulous care, on the spot where the notes had lain.

  ‘He’s inclined to be a nervous type – my friend. Appearances have so often been against him, you see.’

  ‘Nobody would be more likely to respect his inclinations than I should. I have a soothing presence.’

  ‘You could inquire for him,’ said Mr Fredericks benignly, ‘at an address I’ll give you in Islington. He has a room over a newsagent’s there. Just go into the shop, and ask for Jody. They’ll understand, if you say you’re from Fred.’ He fished from a drawer in the table an end of soiled notepaper, and from behind his ear a stub of pencil, and wrote delicately, slanting a shadowy smile upward into Malachi’s face as he surrendered the folded slip. ‘You’ll win your way into his confidence, Mr Rouault, I’m sure – just as you have into mine. That’s if his nerves aren’t worse. You never know with nervous afflictions, do you?’

  Margaret thought of a timid little pickpocket sitting shivering in his room over the shop, straining his ears for every approaching footfall, every trill of the telephone, every clash of the latch below, wondering when either the police or someone worse would come inquiring for him. It was all very clear, except the single issue of what Mr Fredericks expected them to be able to get out of him. No doubt he could use money, but dared he market what he knew? And suppose it was really no more than a dip into an unknown pocket on a crowded tube train, as the jeweller had hinted? Suppose he had nothing to sell? Either that, or Fredericks was absolutely sure that he would be afraid to admit to having it. Or, of course, there was the possibility that Fredericks cared nothing at all for his friend’s safety, so long as he himself knew nothing and patently threatened nobody. Jody might well be held to be expendable. But she could not quite believe it. Even a shady business needs to maintain its reputation upon a certain level, and the price had been too modest, as the manner was too light-hearted, for a complete betrayal.

  Malachi took the thought from her mind, as soon as they had put a hundred yards and a sharp street-corner between themselves and the dark little doorway of the pawnshop and were plunging arm-in-arm down the steps of the Underground.

  ‘He’s quite sure we shall draw a blank. It wasn’t even worth holding us off, he’s so sure of it. Jody won’t admit to knowing anything at all. Maybe, for a consideration, he’ll go so far as to tell us what we know already, that he stole some bits of jewellery – somehow, somewhere – and knew nothing whatever about their having anything to do with a murder until today’s papers. Or more likely until Fred sent him a message last night. He won’t know the man he got them from, not even what he looks like. It will have been dark, he won’t even have seen more than the back of his head. He won’t know anything.’

  ‘Still, you’re going to try him, aren’t you?’

  ‘We’ve nothing else to try.’

  ‘No!’ said Jody MacClure, flattening his narrow shoulders against the flowered wallpaper suddenly, as though he were preparing to stand off an attack. ‘I shouldn’t know him again. I never got a good look at him, I tell you. He was one in a big crowd coming out of the Hay-market, and I took good care not to see him too well. What did Fred send you here for? He’d got no right. I can’t tell you nothing. I never saw his face, how could I know him again?’

  Margaret, who had taken no part in the long, low-toned arduous duologue, found herself marvelling afresh at Jody’s air of extreme respectability. He was older than she had expected, probably in the sixties, and had the inexpensive neatness of a blameless clerk, with well-trimmed grey hair, unobtrusive hands and a dep
recating little nervous cough. Nothing about him suggested an irregular way of making a living; only something in the deep grey folds of his worn face, and the alertness of the small brown eyes in their veined hoods, gave him an appearance of being in disguise within this worthy exterior, if not in ambush. It was not at all a disagreeable face. She found herself believing what the jeweller had told them, that, whatever his habits with regard to property, Jody would not hurt a fly.

  ‘I’ve told you, nothing you say here goes outside the room. Never mind what we’re doing; I promise you you shan’t be dragged into it. But you must have noticed something about him. You were near enough to get your hand into his pocket. What was it, his overcoat pocket? No, it was a warm night, he wouldn’t be wearing a coat.’

  ‘It was his left-hand jacket pocket. I was concentrating on what I was doing. I’ve told you all I know. It was on the night of September the third, outside the Haymarket, just as the crowd was coming out after the performance, and he come out with ’em, I’m telling you—’

  ‘And you were hanging about outside. So you must have seen his face!’

  ‘I never did! I worked my way across among the groups, and see him standing there with his shoulder turned to me, just where the stream coming out was going both ways round him, and him with both hands up lighting a cigarette—’ He halted violently, perceiving his mistake.

  ‘So the light of a match or a lighter was directly on his face! But you didn’t see it!’

  ‘His back was turned on me, and it was my chance, while his hands were occupied. I never looked at his face or anything. I just tried his pocket, and that was all I got. You don’t have no call to pick me up like that, I’ve told you all I know.’

  But he had not; that was plain in his vehemence, which at another time he might have been able to control. He had not only seen the elusive face plainly on the night of September the third, but last night after Fred’s messenger had left him he had seen it again, seen it constantly, with perilous clarity, wishing all the time that he could erase it from his mind. The face of a murderer is not a good thing to know too well. Unless, of course, he is already in handcuffs, or at least paraded for identification in the safe custody of the police. Then knowledge might mean security instead of danger.