Six Against the Yard Read online

  This proclamation had a curious result. Weinberg had to receive in audience next morning a little wizened man, short in the legs and long in the arms, who was plainly a workman, and ill-paid at that. His manner was guilty of servility: for was he not a poor man talking to the police? But he was obviously full of self-congratulation and self-importance; he had a clue.

  ‘I work as a steeple-jack, Excellency,’ he began. ‘I have cleaned sometimes the great cross on the top of the Cathedral, high up among the little birds. I do not work regularly, more’s the pity; but when there is anything to be fetched down from a height, or to be set straight out of other people’s reach, then folk remember Pedro Zimarra, and they say, ‘Come, he will climb up for us.’ So it was, you see, last night, when the great flag over the Town Hall would not come down, because the ropes were in a tangle, but high, high up! So they sent for Pedro Zimarra; they always do.’

  ‘At what hour?’ asked Weinberg. He always let the other man take his time over an interview, even if he were a hopeless chatterbox; there was no harm in being able to size him up at leisure.

  ‘It should have been taken down as soon as the troops had finished marching past, but it would not come; see, there is a knot in the rope, and they pull and pull, but it will not come. So they say, ‘Send for that worthless fellow Zimarra; he will be in the Café of the Guardian Angels just now; that is where you will find him.’ So I came running from the café, Excellency, and it does not take me long to climb up a building like that. It was just as I was coming down that the clock of the Town Hall went Bim-boom, Bim-boom; you notice that, my faith, when you are within a few yards of it—it almost deafens you. It was half-past ten. That was when I was beginning to descend; and while I was descending, ah! This is where I ask for Your Excellency’s attention.’

  ‘We are coming to the point? I hoped that we should, some time.’

  ‘I was looking across at the little balcony from which the Inspirer of the People had been taking the salute, such a short while ago. And I noticed this—that from the slope of the Town Hall roof you can do what you can do from no other quarter: you can look in through the windows of the chapel, that are set up so high in the wall.’

  Weinberg leaned forward: this was interesting. Yes; it was true that the chapel of the archbishops, a baroque affair, had panelling round it that went up to more than a man’s height; only where the panelling stopped did the windows begin. From the street you would not be conscious of a fire in the chapel until it had already taken hold of the building; from the Town Hall roof, this preposterous little steeple-jack might have seen the first sparks flying much earlier. ‘And you saw?’ he asked impatiently. He was growing tired of this mystery-making.

  ‘I saw, Excellency, a sight altogether edifying. I saw the Inspirer of the people kneeling there and saying his prayers.’

  ‘His what? Come, Zimarra, you know as well as I do that the Inspirer was free-thinking.’

  ‘What do we know? Yes, to be sure I had heard that. It was only a few weeks ago that I said to the parish priest, ‘Father, is the Inspirer of the people a good man?’ And he said, ‘But of course he is a good man.’ So I said, ‘How, then, is it we hear he does not go to Mass? Surely all good people go to Mass?’ And the priest smiled, and said, ‘You should pray for him, Pedro; then perhaps he will go to Mass more often.’ That was good advice, Excellency, was it not? And now, as I sat astride the roof, I knew that the parish priest had been right. I think now that the Inspirer’s angel guardian must have warned him he had a short time to live; so he went into the chapel to say his prayers. That is good; we should all be afraid of an unprovided death.’

  Weinberg stared at the preacher, and twirled his thumbs meditatively; not impressed, it is to be feared, by the sermon, but wondering how on earth this odd creature was deluded into such a mistake, or what object he could have in inventing such a story. Then he asked: ‘He was in the chapel; that is quite possible. But what makes you think he was saying his prayers?’

  ‘Excellency, when I was a little boy I had a great privilege; I used to serve the Mass in the chapel of the Archbishop. And I know well that the altar is at the northern end; while the windows, of course, look out eastwards. I saw the Inspirer of the people a little from behind, but mostly, it will be understood, sideways, from his right. It will be seen, therefore, that the Inspirer had his face turned straight towards the altar. That is good. Moreover, his hands were lifted up as if he was in prayer; not clasped together, but held in front of him, just like the statue of San Taddeo where the tram-lines stop.’

  ‘Well, you saw what you saw. But how? It would have been dark by that time, too dark for you to see into the chapel. Do you tell me that the lights were lit?’

  ‘The electric light, no; but there was light on the Inspirer’s face, for all that. I will tell you what I think; I think the Inspirer of the people had lit a candle to San Taddeo, as we are taught to do when we want to pray for a good death.’

  ‘And you are prepared to swear to all this? Mind you, I do not say that what you have told me is of any importance. But if it should be, you will have to take your oath upon it; and perjury, my friend, can be heavily punished.’

  ‘Do I not know that? I will take all the saints to witness that that is what I saw. Then it occurred to me that I, a common fellow, had no right to sit there watching great people at their devotions. So I came down quickly, and they paid me a little for the trouble I had taken. I am a poor man, Excellency.’

  ‘Go home; I will send for you again. Whether there will be a reward from the State, I do not know; for your trouble in coming here, I will compensate you out of my own purse. But, see here, there must be no gossiping among your friends about what you have just told me. Breathe a word, and there will be no reward, Zimarra.’

  ‘Not a word, I swear it, though I should be as drunk as a pig when his Excellency sees fit to relieve my poverty a little.’ And with a languishing grimace the steeple-jack bowed himself out.

  ‘It’s possible, of course,’ said Weinberg to Almeda, an hour afterwards, ‘that the fellow may really have seen something. For instance, Don Gamba may have lit a candle or two to try the effect of such lighting on the new altar which, I understand, the talented señora carved for him. I am told it only arrived the day before; and it would be natural that he should wish to see how it looked by candle-light, so as to compliment the señora on its appearance. But that Don Gamba was at his devotions—no, you and I will not believe that, General.’

  Almeda lifted his head slowly and cocked it sideways at the Colonel. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I am not quite so positive about that. Mind you, Doa Gamba had given up all that sort of thing since his student days, just as I did myself. We were of one mind in deploring the interference of the clergy in political matters. But he was—what shall I say? He was by temperament a little inclined to superstition. And, although I would not have mentioned it to anybody if this question had not come up, I may tell you this—he was very much unnerved by the Avenger’s threat of burning down his house. Don’t make it a funeral oration, he said, when I agreed to speak at the unveiling of the statue; he was joking, of course; but there was a real anxiety lurking in his eyes. Well, picture to yourself a man like that, who has just reached the summit of his ambition, been perpetuated in bronze for all time, and then finds himself shut in for the night alone, with a mysterious enemy threatening to burn his house down about his ears. Isn’t it possible that the mind of a man in that position would hark back to the superstitious teaching of his childhood? I would not blame him, for one.’

  Colonel Weinberg drew himself up a little in his chair. ‘I think you know, General, that for myself I am of the old way of thinking. Nothing would please me better than to suppose what you suggest. But really, Don Gamba—it would be a miracle, that. However, you will tell me I am acting against my own principles, because I hold that you should never discredit good evidence when it conflicts with your preconceived ideas. Be it so; the fact that Don
Gamba said his prayers, if he did say his prayers, has nothing to do with his murder. All the importance of the story lies, to my thinking, in the fact that a candle or candles were alight in the chapel, for whatever reason, at about half-past ten. That may, possibly, account for the fire breaking out—a candle has been badly set in its stick, falls sideways without being extinguished; a waxed altar-cloth catches from the flame. In that case, you see, the conflagration may have been an accident; and that means …’

  ‘That means, you suggest, that there was no conspiracy beforehand; that one of the party who ran up when the door was broken in saw, quite on a sudden, the opportunity of gratifying some old animosity, fired on the spur of the moment, and tumbled the body out of the window in a panic-stricken desire to conceal his traces?’

  ‘Yes, that is possible; all that is possible. But, General, it does not explain my anomalies. By the way, I have been conducting inquiries discreetly, and I have found a policeman who saw a man coming away from the direction of Don Gamba’s house about nine; it might just be the visitor who left at that hour. But the man’s face was hidden, in any case, because he wore the hood of his cloak up. I don’t think we shall get any further along that line. Well, General, I will do myself the honour of reporting to-morrow.’ And he went off, to enrich the fortunes of Pedro Zimarra, steeple-jack, by a sum equivalent to fifty English pounds.

  But the Chief of Police, in Magnolia, is seldom given a long respite from work. Weinberg was still at luncheon with Captain Varcos, at a restaurant in the Street of April the First, when he was summoned to a fresh interview, and found Almeda awaiting him in high discomposure. ‘I must ask you, Colonel,’ he began, ‘to prosecute your investigations with the utmost rapidity, unless indeed you are prepared to dismiss from confinement the young Englishman, James Marryatt. The Ambassador has been round again this morning; and he hints rather plainly that the incident is causing a hitch in the trade negotiations. The readers of this English rag, it appears, are signing a monster petition to the Government—Bah! What a Press!’

  ‘To tell the truth, General, I shall be glad to see the last of him. Naturally he has to be treated differently from the other prisoners, because he will have a story to tell when he gets out. And that, the Prefect of Discipline assures me, always makes trouble. However, I have thought of a plan by which we might do a little elimination among the persons under suspicion, no later than this afternoon, if you prefer it. No, nothing new; the old psychometric test.’

  ‘Ah, the machine, you mean, which registers reactions while the prisoner replies to a series of word-tests? I thought you did not place much reliance, Colonel, in those methods.’

  ‘In the machine, no. But I have instituted a system by which the person under suspicion stands, while he answers the interrogation, holding hands with a representative of justice. He does not know why this is being done; and, if he is guilty, he is thinking only of the answers he makes, and the impression they will produce. Meanwhile, it is almost certain that he will wince slightly, that his hand will tremble just a fraction, when the words that provoke the guilt-association are pronounced. So we have the witness of the man, as well as the witness of the machine.’

  ‘But a man, like a machine, can report inaccurately; in conveying his impressions, he may exaggerate or minimise them; he may be fanciful, or prejudiced. Surely we must recognise that?’

  ‘It is the very point I was about to raise. In order to eliminate the human inconstant, I was wondering if you, General, could find time to come round to the Hall of Examination, and hold the hands of the suspects yourself? Then, you see, the tell-tale pulses of the malefactor will be reporting direct to the supreme authority.’

  ‘Upon my word, Colonel, you bend all of us round your finger. Yes, I will come; about half-past three, will that suit? Let’s see, it will mean interrogating the Englishman, the priest, Gomez, and the fireman—that is all, is it not?’

  ‘General, I have been rather audacious. I was giving luncheon, just now, to Captain Varcos; and I represented to him that it would be a good thing, for the sake of completeness, if he also submitted to the test. Rather to my surprise, he agreed with alacrity. He knew, he said, that appearances were against him, because he was armed at the time of the fire, and there was no real check on his movements. He would welcome, therefore, any opportunity of establishing his innocence.’

  ‘What! You tame even Varcos, then? Capital; be assured that I will be there punctually. And I have simply to hold the hand of the person who is being interrogated, and observe whether it shakes at all, or fidgets, or grows clammy, when this or that word is pronounced?’

  ‘Exactly. Some of the words, of course, are just padding; it would not do to have them all incriminating. You will find it at least an interesting experience.’

  There is no need to describe the Hall of Examination. It is the only moderately humane part of the Magnolian police system, and is frequently shown to English and American visitors. Possibly the reader has even submitted, by way of pastime, to the ordeal of the psychometric machine. On this occasion, Captain Varcos (at his own wish) underwent the test first; then Marryatt, the priest Sanchez, Gomez the ex-anarchist, and Banos the fireman, in that order. The experiment was somewhat lengthy, for Weinberg believed in thoroughness; the following table, therefore, only gives a section of the actual proceedings. Each person under interrogation had to reply to the word given him by another word, which its associations called up; the word he used was noted down, with his reaction time. Meanwhile the machine buzzed, and his right hand was linked to that of General Almeda.

  VARCOS MARRYATT PRIEST GOMEZ FIREMAN

  Staircase Footstep Carpet Knees Banisters Ladder

  Altar Statue Bride Sacrifice Superstition Cross

  Chapel Balcony Sermon Relic Stench Roof

  Water Rum Works Baptism Boat Hose

  Car Body Smash Noise Juggernaut Wheels

  Fire-engine Brass Alarm Bucket Barricade Rails

  Oil Salad Hair Unction Salad Rust

  Wax Work Candle Candle Honey Candle

  Lamp Fuse Shade Switch Post Glass

  Sentry Revolver Box Prison Blood Salute

  Good night Absence Dormitory Repose Dawn Baby

  Bedroom Basin Oilcloth Window Wall-paper Window

  Chalk White Cheese White Pavement Cliff

  Paint Camouflage Wet Brush Red Red

  Avenger Bluff Clubfoot Angel Justice Danger

  It was impossible, of course, to tell what the machine was making of it all; but certainly the five men answered without the appearance of confusion; stumbling over their words now and again, as we all do when we are in too much of a hurry to react, but not, so far as you could tell, picking one word in preference to another. The General was a little out of temper when it was all over; he was accustomed to long ceremonial performances, but this holding of hands had left him visibly impatient. ‘Well,’ he said, as the last of the prisoners had left, ‘it seems that the test has been a failure.’

  ‘That,’ objected Varcos, ‘depends on the point of view.’

  ‘It was very kind of you to help, General,’ said Weinberg. ‘And you too, Captain.’ He could afford to be polite; he had solved his problem.

  Ex-Supt. Cornish, C.I.D. investigates Father Ronald Knox’s Crime

  MURDER IN UNIFORM

  FATHER RONALD KNOX HASN’T PLAYED FAIR. HIS perfect murder is so, not because the mystery can’t be solved, but because, for political reasons, the crime must go unpunished—at any rate, for the time being. Very possibly retribution will come before very long, in the form of another murder.

  That, at least, is how it seems to me. But perhaps I take a prejudiced view. My work as a detective has been done in a land where the law is no respecter of persons, and the course of justice cannot be deflected by political considerations.
The writer of crime stories is, however, entitled to choose his own setting. Father Knox has chosen one which in certain circumstances might make the task of the police easier, because ‘third degree’ methods, which would never be tolerated in Britain, would be accepted as a matter of course. On the other hand, the condition of affairs in Magnolia would enable certain persons to commit murder, even if the victim were the Inspirer, with impunity so long as there was no direct evidence against them.

  In the present case there is no direct evidence against anyone. Gomez, because of his political opinions, inevitably comes under suspicion. But he and the fireman corroborate each other’s accounts of their movements. The fireman’s political views are unknown. I think it is safe to say that in a country like Magnolia, had he been a member of any of the Opposition parties, or had he even criticised the regime at any time, that fact would be on record. Also, it would be comparatively easy to check up whether he and Gomez were known to each other. It is therefore safe to assume that, as the Chief of Police accepted their story, there was no reason to suppose that the two men were accomplices.

  The main difficulty in dismissing Gomez completely is a psychological one. Would an anarchist take any action because he thought it was ‘his duty as a citizen’ to do so? The central tenet of anarchism is the negation of government, and anarchists repudiate most, if not all, of what ordinary people consider the duties of citizenship. It is not stated whether Gomez was a ‘physical force’ anarchist, but, in a country like Magnolia, he probably was. I suspect, therefore, that Gomez’ motive was murder, and the psychometric test bears this out. ‘Lamp’ to him suggests ‘post,’ ‘fire-engine’ suggests ‘barricade,’ ‘sentry’ suggests ‘blood,’ and ‘avenger’ suggests ‘justice.’ These reactions betray the violent nature of the man and his dreams of ‘red revolution.’

  Nevertheless, I think that Colonel Weinberg is correct in ruling him out. Had he shot the Inspirer, the weapon would almost certainly have been found. It is possible also that, regarding the deed as a laudable one, he would have proclaimed and gloried in it. These facts, combined with the fireman’s evidence, suggest that Gomez arrived too late. The murder had taken place before he came on the scene.