Knock-Out - ebook

CHAPTER I

IT is difficult to say what it was that first caused Ronald Standish to adopt his particular profession. Indeed, it is doubtful whether it should be called a profession in view of the fact that he worked at it for love and only when the spirit moved him. Case after case he would turn down because they failed to interest him: then, apparently quite capriciously, he would take one up, vanish for a space, and then return as unobtrusively as he had departed to his ordinary life of sport.

That these sudden disappearances proved a little embarrassing to his friends is not to be wondered at. Captains of touring cricket elevens, secretaries of golf clubs, were wont to raise protesting hands to heaven when sometimes, at the last moment, Standish backed out of a match. But having played for his county at cricket, as well as being a genuine scratch man at golf, they forgave him and continued to include him in their teams.

Had he chosen to take up the art of detection seriously there is no doubt that he would have attained a world-wide reputation. He had an uncanny knack of sorting out the relevant from a mass of irrelevant facts, and refusing to be diverted by even the most ingenious red herring. But as he worked for fun and not because he had to, his ability was known to a comparatively small coterie only.

It was on a certain evening in March that, in stage parlance, the curtain rose and discovered him in his rooms in Clarges Street. A cheerful fire was burning in the grate: a whisky tantalus adorned the table. Outside the wind was howling fitfully down the street, drowning the distant roar of traffic in Piccadilly, and an occasional scurry of rain lashed against the window.

The owner of the rooms was standing with his back to the fire, an intent look of concentration on his face. Balanced on one finger was a driver, and it was evident that judgment was about to be pronounced. It came at last.

“Too heavy in the head, Bill: undoubtedly too heavy in the head. You’ll slice to glory with that club.”

His audience uncoiled himself from an armchair. He was a lanky individual whose appearance was in striking contrast to the speaker. For Standish was, if anything, a little on the short side, and his lack of inches was accentuated by the abnormal depth of his chest. He was immensely powerful, but in a rough house suffered somewhat from lack of reach.

“Can anything be done, Ronald?” demanded Bill Leyton. “I’ve only just bought the blamed thing.”

“You might try having a bit of lead scooped out at the back, old boy, but I’m afraid the balance will still be all wrong.”

He put the club back in its bag, that profound look of awed mystery, without which no golfer can discuss an implement of the game, still present in his expression.

“Too heavy in the head,” he repeated solemnly. “And you tend to slice at the best of times, Bill. Damn! Who’s that? Answer it, old boy, will you, and if it’s Teddy wanting me to play tomorrow tell him I’ve gone to Paris for a month and have given up golf.”

The lanky being crossed the room in a couple of enormous strides and lifted the telephone receiver.

“Hullo!” he remarked. “Yes–these are Mr Standish’s rooms. Who is speaking?”

He listened for a moment, and then covering the mouthpiece with his hand, turned round.

“Bloke by the name of Sanderson,” he muttered. “Wants to speak to you urgently.”

Standish nodded, and took the receiver from the other’s hand.

“Hullo! Sanderson,” he said. “Yes–Standish speaking. What now? My dear fellow–on a night like this... Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!”

His voice rose in a crescendo and Leyton stared at him in amazement.

“Can’t you hear me? Speak, man, speak. Hullo! Hullo!” He rattled the receiver rest violently.

“Is that exchange?” he cried. “Look here, I’ve just been rung up by Hampstead 0024, and I’ve been cut off in the middle. Could you find out about it?”

He waited, one foot tapping feverishly on the floor.

“You can’t get any reply, and the receiver is still off? Thank you.”

He turned to Leyton.

“It’s possible that he was called away; I’ll hold on a bit longer.”

But a minute later he gave it up and his face was very grave. “Something has happened, Bill; I’ll have to go to Hampstead. Either he’s ill, or...”

He left the sentence unfinished, and Leyton looked at him curiously.

“What was it you heard?” he asked.

“He had just asked me to go up and see him at once. The last words he said were–‘I’ve got...’ He was beginning a new sentence, and he never completed it. I heard a noise that sounded like a hiss; then came a clatter which might have been caused by the receiver of his machine dropping on to his desk. And there’s been nothing since.”

He crossed to a small cupboard in the corner, and Bill Leyton raised his eyebrows. He knew the contents of that cupboard, and things must be serious if Standish proposed utilising them.

“If you’re taking a gun, old lad,” he remarked, “I suppose I’d better come with you. And on the way there you shall explain to me who and what is Mr Sanderson.”

A taxi was passing the door as they went out, and Standish gave the driver the address.

“Tread on the juice,” he added briefly. “It’s urgent. Now, Bill,” he continued as the car swung into Curzon Street, “I’ll put you wise as to Sanderson. He is a man who occupies rather a peculiar position in the Government. Very few people have ever heard of him: very few people even know that such a job as his exists. He is of Scotland Yard and yet not of Scotland Yard; the best way to describe him, I suppose, is to say that he is a secret service man. Crime as crime is outside his scope: if, however, it impinges in the slightest degree into the political arena, then he sits up and takes notice. His knowledge of things behind the scenes is probably greater than that of any other man in England: information comes to him from all quarters in a way that it doesn’t even to the police. And if he were to write a book the wildest piece of sensational fiction would seem like a nursery rhyme beside it. So you will see that he is a man who must have some very powerful enemies, enemies who would feel considerably happier if he was out of the way. In fact...”

He broke off abruptly, and leaning back in his corner lit a cigarette.

“Go on,” said Leyton curiously.

“I was having a talk with him a few days ago,” went on Standish. “And for him he was very communicative: generally he’s as close as an oyster. It was confidential, of course, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you what it was about now. We must wait and see what it was that caused him to stop so suddenly.”

“So it was that talk that made you bring a gun,” said Leyton.

“Exactly,” answered the other, and relapsed into silence.

Five minutes later the car pulled up in front of a medium-sized detached house standing back from the road. A small garden with a few trees filled the gap between the iron railings and the front door; save for a light from one window on the first floor the place was in darkness.

Standish tipped the driver handsomely, and then waited till his tail lamp had disappeared before opening the gate. The rain had ceased, but it was still blowing hard, and by the light of a neighbouring street lamp Leyton saw that his face looked graver than ever.

“Look at that blind, Bill,” he said, “where the light is. That’s his study, and what man sits in a room with a blind flapping like that? I don’t like it.”

“Perhaps he’s round at the back,” suggested the other.

“Let’s hope so,” said Standish shortly, and walking up the steps to the front door he pressed the bell.

Faintly, but quite distinctly, they heard it ring in the back of the house, but no one came to answer to it. He tried again with the same result: then stooping down Standish peered through the letter-box.

“All in darkness,” he said. “And a Yale lock. Bill, I like it less and less. Let’s go round and see if there’s a light on the other side.”

There was none, and for a moment or two he hesitated.

“Look here, old boy,” he said at length, “there’s something devilish fishy about this show. Strictly speaking, I suppose we ought to get hold of the nearest policeman, but I have a very strong desire to dispense with official aid for a while. I’m going to commit a felony: are you on?”

“Break in, you mean?” said Leyton with a grin. “Lead on, old man: I’m with you. Which window do we tackle?”

“None: a child could open this back door.”

From his pocket Standish produced a peculiar-looking implement, the end of which he inserted in the keyhole. For a moment or two he juggled with it, and then there came a click as the bolt shot back.

“Asking for it, most of these doors,” he whispered, and then stood listening intently in the passage. A faint light filtered down a flight of stairs in front of them, coming from a street lamp on the other side of the house. On their left an open door revealed the larder: next to it the dying embers of a fire in the kitchen grate showed that the servants had been about earlier, wherever they were at the moment.

Cautiously he led the way up the stairs into the hall, where everything was plainly visible in the glare from the glass over the front door. And at the foot of the next flight he paused to listen again. But, save for the howling of the wind, there was no sound.

“Come on, Bill,” he muttered. “Not much good standing here all night.”

They went up to the first story: the room with the flapping blind was marked by the line of light on the floor. And with a quick movement Standish flung open the door, his revolver gripped in his right hand–a hand which slowly fell to his side.

“My God!” he cried. “I was afraid of it.”

Seated at the desk with his back to them was a man. He was sprawling forward with his left arm flung out, whilst his right hand, crumpled underneath him, still clutched the telephone receiver. And from the edge of the desk a little stream of blood trickled sluggishly on to the carpet.

For a while Standish stood where he was, taking in every detail of the room: then he crossed to the dead man and very gently lifted his head. And the next moment he gave an exclamation of horror.

“Great Scott! Bill,” he cried, “the poor devil has been stabbed through the eye.”

It was a terrible wound, and with a shudder Leyton turned away.

“Let’s get the police, Ronald,” he said. “We can’t do anything for him and this ain’t my idea of a happy evening.”

But Standish with a puzzled frown on his forehead seemed not to hear.

“What an extraordinary thing,” he said at length. “Death must have been instantaneous, and therefore if it had been accidental–if, for instance, he had suddenly become dizzy and his head had fallen forward on to one of those spike things you skewer letters on we should see it on the desk. Now there is nothing there that could possibly have caused such a wound, so we can rule out accident. Suicide is equally impossible for the same reason: in any event, a man doesn’t commit suicide in the middle of a telephone call. So it is perfectly clear he was murdered, or killed accidentally.”

“My dear old boy, even I can see that,” said Leyton a little peevishly. “What about my notion of the police? Let’s ring up.” Standish shook his head.

“We can’t do that, Bill. It would mean taking the receiver out of his hand, and everything must be left as it is. You can go to the window, if you like, and hail a bobby if you see one passing: personally I want to try to get at this. Go and stand behind his chair for a moment, will you.”

Obediently Leyton did so, though he was clearly puzzled. “What’s the great idea?” he demanded.

“I’m trying to reconstruct what happened,” said Standish, “and I wanted to see if that light in the wall over there made your shadow fall on the desk. As you notice, it does, which makes it even more difficult. Let’s try it from the beginning. Sanderson was sitting in the chair he is in now, the receiver to his face and in all probability his right elbow resting on the desk. His conversation was perfectly normal: quite obviously he was completely unconscious of being in any danger. He begins a sentence–‘I’ve got,’ and at that moment he is killed in a most extraordinary fashion. ‘I’ve got’–what? That’s the point. Was he going to say–‘I’ve got information of some sort’; or was he going to say–‘I’ve got so and so with me here’? If the first, it is possible that he didn’t know the murderer was in the room: that he was stolen on from behind. But in that event a shadow would have been thrown, and Sanderson with his training would have been out of that chair in a flash.”

“It’s possible,” put in Leyton, “that only the light in the ceiling was on.”

“And that the man who did it turned on that one before leaving?” Standish shook his head. “Possible, admittedly, Bill, but most unlikely. Surely every instinct in such a case would be to turn lights off and not on. However, one can’t rule it out entirely. Let’s go on. Supposing he was going to say–‘I’ve got so and so here’: where do we get then? We wash out in the first place the extreme difficulty of striking such an accurate blow blindly from behind. The man, whoever he was, could have been standing in front of Sanderson or beside him. But even so it’s terribly hard to understand. If you try to stab me in the eye with a skewer I’m going to move damned quick. Even if the man was standing beside him, and did a sudden backhander with his weapon, it seems incredible to me that Sanderson couldn’t dodge it. One’s reaction, if anything is coming at one’s eye, is literally instantaneous.”

“The plain fact remains that the poor devil didn’t dodge it,” said Leyton.

“There is another very remarkable point about the whole thing, Bill,” went on Standish. “Why did the man select the middle of a telephone conversation of all times to kill him? It seems the one moment of all others to avoid.”

“That certainly is a bit of a poser,” agreed Leyton.

“It’s such a poser that there must be a good reason for it, and there’s one that occurs to me. If a man is speaking into a telephone, even one of the desk type like this, he keeps his head still. And that was probably essential for the infliction of this wound. Well–I’m just going to have a look round and see if I can spot anything, and then we’ll go for the police.”

He glanced through the contents of a paper-rack: there was nothing save a couple of invitations and some bills. Then his eyes travelled slowly over the desk. There was not much on it: a tray containing pens; a calendar; an open bottle of Stephens’ ink. In the middle were several sheets of blotting-paper folded together into a pad, one corner of which was stained a vivid crimson–the dead man’s head had fallen there.

“His pockets we had better not touch,” said Standish, “but possibly the waste-paper basket might reveal something.”

But it was almost empty: a torn-up letter, and a small fragment of blotting-paper with an ink stain in the centre of it was the total bag.

“Nothing much in that lot,” he continued. “Hullo! this ink is still damp. And there’s the place on the pad where this bit was torn from. Cheer up, Bill,” he added with a faint smile, “I’ve nearly done. By the way, I wonder where the cork of that bottle is?”

And Bill Leyton exploded.

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