Chapter 11

When Brady and Harold entered the general office at Central C.I.D. it was bustling with activity for no man might reasonably expect to see his bed on a night like this. Brady left Harold on an uncomfortable wooden bench with the Saturday sport’s paper and went in to Chief Superintendent Mallory who was using Grant’s office.

Mallory was shaving with a battery-operated electric razor and reading a report at the same time. His white shirt was obviously fresh on and he looked crisp and alert in spite of the hour.

“I’ve got the girl’s boy friend outside,” Brady said. “Phillips his name is—Harold Phillips.”

“What’s your first impression?”

“Oh, there’s something there all right. For a start, he’s an unpleasant little bastard.”

“You can’t hang a man for that.”

“There’s a lot more to it than that.”

Brady gave him the gist of his conversation with Harold and when he was finished, Mallory nodded. “All right, let’s have him in.”

When Brady called him, Harold entered with a certain bravado and yet his nervousness was betrayed in the muscle that twitched in his right cheek.

Mallory greeted him with extreme politeness. “Good of you to come at this hour, Mr. Phillips. We appreciate it.”

Harold’s confidence received a king-size boost and he sat down in the chair Brady brought forward and gave Mallory a big man-of-the-world smile. “Anything I can do, Superintendent. You’ve only got to say.”

Brady offered him a cigarette. As he was lighting it, there was a knock on the door and Miller glanced in. He was about to withdraw, but Mallory shook his head and beckoned him inside. Miller closed the door behind him and took up a position by the window without a word.

“Now then, sir, just to get the record straight, you are Mr. Harold Phillips of 10, Narcia Place?” Mallory began.

“That’s me.”

“I’m given to understand that you and Miss Grace Packard were engaged to be married. Is that correct?”

“I suppose you could say that in a way.” Harold shrugged. “I bought her a ring a couple of months back, but nothing was really official. I mean we hadn’t set a date or anything.”

“I understand, sir. Now I wonder if you’d mind going over the events of last night again. I know you’ve already discussed this with Constable Brady, but it would help me to hear for myself.”

“Well, as I told Mr. Brady, I had a date with Grace at half-eight.”

“Just one moment, sir. What happened before that? What time did you get home from work?”

Harold smiled bravely. “To tell you the truth I’m not actually working at the moment, Superintendent. It’s my back you see. I had this accident about a year ago so I have to be very careful.”

Mallory looked sympathetic. “That must be difficult for you. You were saying that you had an appointment with Miss Packard at eight-thirty?”

“That’s right. In The King’s Arms, the one near Regent Square on the corner of Lazer Street.”

“And you kept that appointment?”

“I was a couple of minutes late. When I got there she was leaving with two blokes.”

“Who were they?”

“I don’t know—never seen ’em before.”

“Did she often do this sort of thing?”

Harold sighed heavily. “I’m afraid she did. She was sort of restless, if you know what I mean. Always looking for something new.”

It sounded like a line from a bad television play, but Mallory simply nodded and went on, “What happened when you arrived and found her leaving with these two men?”

“I tried to stop her, tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t listen.” Harold flushed. “Then one of them got hold of me—great big bloke he was. He twisted my hand in one of these judo locks or something. Put me down on my face. That’s when the landlord moved in and told ’em to clear off.”

“And what did you do then, sir?”

Harold frowned as if trying to remember. “Oh, had a drink with the landlord—on the house.”

“Did you go straight home afterwards?”

“No, like I told Mr. Brady, I was too upset. I walked around in the rain for a while, then I had a coffee in the station buffet. Got home about half-nine. Me mum was in bed so I took her a cup of tea and went myself.”

Mallory had been making notes. He added a sentence and as he glanced up, Miller said, “Excuse me, sir, I’ve been expecting a message.”

He went out into the main office, picked up the telephone on his desk and rang through to Mallory. “Miller here, sir. He’s lying.”

“That’s certainly nice to know,” Mallory said calmly. “I’ll be straight out.”

He put down his phone and smiled brightly at Harold. “I’ll only be a moment.” He got to his feet and said to Brady, “See that Mr. Phillips gets a cup of tea, will you, Constable? There should be some left in the pot.”

He found Miller sitting on the edge of his desk drinking someone else’s coffee. Mallory sat down in the chair and started to fill his pipe. “Nasty little bastard, isn’t he?”

“He may have his moments, but they must be few and far between,” Miller said. “To start with I’ve seen Harry Meadows, the landlord of The King’s Arms. After the fuss, he offered Harold a drink on the house. Harold told him to get stuffed and went off after the others. Five minutes later he returned full of apologies to claim his free glass.”

“Now why would he do that?” Mallory said thoughtfully.

“Apparently he spent the time trying to pump Meadows. Wanted to know where Faulkner lived.”

“You mean he actually knew Faulkner by name?”

“Oh, yes, he made that clear enough. He’d heard Meadows use it during the argument.”

Mallory grinned like the Cheshire cat, the first time Miller had ever seen him smile. “Well that’s a nice fat juicy lie he’s told us for a start.”

“There’s more,” Miller said. “Grace Packard was on the game. Worked the station until the rest of the girls moved her on a month or two back. According to my informant she had a boy friend who picked up her earnings pretty regularly. The description fits our Harold exactly.”

Mallory got to his feet. “Let’s go back in.”

Harold was half-way through his third cigarette and glanced round nervously when the door opened. “Sorry about that, Mr. Phillips,” Mallory said. He smiled heartily and held out his hand. “Well, I don’t think we need to detain you any longer. You can go back to bed now.”

Harold’s mouth gaped. “You mean you don’t need me any more?”

“That’s right. The information you’ve given us will be most helpful. I can’t thank you enough for turning out at this hour in the morning. It’s that kind of co-operation that helps us beat these things you know.” He turned to Brady who came to attention briskly. “See that Mr. Phillips gets home will you, Constable?”

“See to it myself, sir.” Brady put a hand under Harold’s elbow, looking more avuncular than ever. “Have you home in fifteen minutes, sir.”

Harold grinned. “Be seeing you, Superintendent,” he said and went out of the room like a turkey-cock.

Mallory sat down and put a match to his pipe. “No harm in letting him think he’s out of the wood for a few hours. When we pull him in again in the morning the shock will just about cripple him.”

“You really think he’s got something to hide, sir?” Miller demanded.

“He’s lying when he says he doesn’t know Faulkner by name—that’s for a start. Then there’s this business about the girl—the fact that he was pimping for her.”

“It still doesn’t add up to murder.”

“It never does to start with, Sergeant. Suppositions, inaccuracies, statements that don’t really hold water—that’s all we ever have to work with in most cases. For example, Phillips says that he walked the streets for a while after leaving the pub, then had a coffee at the station buffet. How many people would you say use that buffet on a Saturday night?”

“Thousands, sir.”

“Exactly. In other words it would be unreasonable to expect some sort of personal identification by any of the buffet staff. Another thing—as far as we can judge at the moment, the girl was killed at around half-ten.”

“And Phillips was home at nine-thirty and in bed ten minutes or so later. What was it he said? That he took his mother a cup of tea?”

“Interesting thing about Mrs. Phillips,” Mallory said. “Brady had to kick on the door for a good five minutes before he could rouse Phillips. There wasn’t a bleat from the old girl. In fact Phillips told him she was sleeping like a baby.”

Miller frowned. “That doesn’t make very good sense.”

“Even more interesting was the bottle of Canbutal capsules Brady found on the mantelpiece. A couple of those things and you wouldn’t hear a bomb go off in the next street.”

“Might be an idea to check with her doctor in the morning, just to get a complete picture.”

Mallory nodded. “Brady can handle that.” He got to his feet. “I’m going over to the Medical School now. We’ve hauled Professor Murray out of bed. He’s going to get cracking on the post-mortem just as soon as the Forensic boys have finished with her. You’d better get a couple of hours’ sleep in the rest room. If I want you, I’ll phone.”

Miller helped him on with his coat. “What about Faulkner?”

Mallory shook his head. “I never had much of a hunch about him, not in the way I do about Phillips.”

“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there, sir.”

For a moment, Mallory poised on the brink of one of those sudden and terrible wraths for which he was famous. With a great effort he managed to control himself and said acidly, “Don’t tell me you’re going to solve this thing in a burst of intuitive genius, Miller?”

“Meadows had some very interesting things to say about him, sir,” Miller said patiently. “There’s a pattern of violence there that just doesn’t fit in a man of his background. He uses force too easily, if you follow me.”

“So do I when the occasion calls for it,” Mallory said. “Is that all you have to go on?”

“Not exactly, sir. He had a pretty strange conversation with Meadows one night when he was drunk. Meadows got the impression that he’d been inside.”

Mallory frowned. “Did he indeed? Right, get on to C.R.O. in London. Tell them it’s for me. Say I want everything they have on Faulkner by breakfast. I’ll discuss it with you then.”

The door banged behind him and Miller grinned softly. For a moment there, just for a moment, it had looked as if they were going to clash. That moment would come again because George Mallory was a stubborn man and Nick Miller was a sleeping partner in a business so large that he didn’t need to put himself out to anyone for the sake of keeping his job. Not God or even Chief Superintendents from New Scotland Yard. An interesting situation. He lit a cigarette, picked up Mallory’s telephone and asked for Information Room.