Answer in the Negative Read online

  ‘Here’s a sample,’ he said, and produced a battered wallet, from which he took a piece of paper. ‘One of the earlier ones. Morningside’s burnt all the others. He said they were indecent.’

  Johnny looked at it. ‘No one thought of fingerprints, I suppose. Why should they, after all, at that stage?’ He took the paper and read. He grinned once, uncontrollably, and then studied the thing carefully. After a moment he asked, ‘Whom did you suspect yourself, Toby?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure. I’m still not sure. I don’t think Pat and Pam have the intelligence or the literary skill. Selina certainly has.’ Toby’s voice was still flat. ‘It seems a little too hot for her, but one never quite knows. But I thought — and I’m still inclined to think — it was probably Michael. He’s quite clever enough, and the ruder stuff didn’t start till after he came. And he and Morningside don’t get on at all.’

  ‘I see. Let me just get another point clear. Which actually started first, the prep school stuff or the ruder rhymes?’

  Toby considered. ‘The prep school stuff,’ he said definitely. ‘I remember because I happened to be with Morningside when the snake popped up, and that was the first incident in this second stage of the campaign. And I think an ink blob appeared before the first of the ruder rhymes, too.’

  ‘Right. Please go on.’

  ‘Well, then the nature of the thing changed again, but gradually this time. The prep school stuff became more serious. Real ink was spilt on Morningside’s pix. Then some of them were torn up. Some of the old glass negs he was working on in his leisure moments were smashed. Then his overcoat was slashed. During the same period the ruder rhymes became ruder still, began to give evidence of an ugly mind, and finally degenerated into obscene letters. Here you are. No one thought of fingerprints on them either, I’m afraid.’

  Johnny took the dirty envelope, drew out a paper, unfolded it, and read it through. He didn’t smile this time.

  ‘Quite so,’ he said. ‘Rather different from the earlier stuff. Cheap paper — rather cheaper than the other — and cheap envelope, both obtainable at almost any stationer’s. Message and name on envelope printed in ballpoint ink, as the rhyme was, but the printing of the rhyme was educated, and this definitely isn’t. Still, that doesn’t mean it was done by an uneducated person. One must deduce, I suppose, that it’s the effort of a well-educated degenerate.’ He paused. ‘All these things were left in Morningside’s office, I gather, and none of them came by post? Yes.’ He restored the paper to its envelope and returned it, with the ruder rhyme, to Toby. ‘But, you know, the police could tell you far more about it than I can. Why not the police, Toby? It wouldn’t necessarily mean publicity.’

  ‘We’re in Fleet Street,’ said Toby. ‘Everything gets around, and we’re not much liked, because we’re more or less a government concern. I had quite enough trouble persuading Silcutt and Morningside to let me talk to you. Morningside agreed because he doesn’t think its respectable to be involved with the police — and because the letters are driving him nearly out of his mind. Silcutt agreed — finally — because of your amateur status. You could be consulted unofficially — a word which covers a multitude of sins. Even so he had to consult someone else about consulting you. He felt he must take it to a higher level. So I suggested he should talk to Camberley, who of course was on the Loughbridge Commission. As the Echo’s Lobby Correspondent, he’s in and out of the building a good deal, and he takes an interest in the Archives. He said we must certainly go ahead. I gather he’s met you. He gave you a very good Press.’

  ‘That was nice of him,’ said Johnny. ‘He doesn’t really know me — he’s an occasional customer of ours. He’s interested in anything we can find on North Africa.’

  Toby nodded. ‘That’s his speciality, of course. Well, Johnny, what about it? Do you think you could help us? We should be quite enormously obliged to you.’

  Johnny didn’t answer at once. He sat frowning at the fire, and Toby waited patiently. He had a curious look of docile resignation — the resignation of a sick person, thought Sally. But his eyes behind his spectacles were anxious.

  Johnny turned abruptly. Sally saw his face change a little. Then he said, ‘All right. That is, if I’m allowed to ask questions within the Archives.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Silcutt expects that.’

  ‘Good. But I take it you haven’t mentioned me to anyone there except Silcutt and Morningside? Then I’d like to sit about for a day or two before anyone else knows what I’m after. Perhaps I could be doing a book on something you’ve got plenty of stuff on.’

  When Toby was really pleased his smile was surprisingly warm and wholehearted.

  ‘That’s grand,’ he said. ‘I’m frightfully grateful, Johnny. The entire collection of Feelthee Peex is at your disposal. We’ve got a lot of French stuff—’ He broke off as Johnny began to laugh. ‘All right, all right. I only wanted to suggest something on your own subject.’

  ‘You’re only making it worse, Toby dear,’ said Sally kindly, and Toby laughed too.

  He left them at half past ten, looking a little younger.

  Johnny went downstairs with him. When he came back to the drawing room, he looked at Sally and said, ‘Do you mind my taking on a job like this?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘I think poison-pens are things that particularly need to be dealt with. But you weren’t going to, were you?’

  ‘No. I thought they ought to go to the police, and it did seem fairly messy. And then’ — Johnny sounded slightly exasperated — ‘I looked at Toby, and he looked exactly as he did when I first saw him after the war — when he was still a kid and still a bit of an invalid — and I said yes more or less without thinking. I hope it wasn’t a mistake.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. Johnny — I’ve been wondering if I couldn’t help you with this. If I’d be any use, that is. You can’t leave the shop all day, can you?’

  ‘No,’ said Johnny, but he looked rather doubtful.

  ‘If you mean you don’t think it would be quite nice for me, that’s really nonsense, darling. I don’t mind.’

  ‘Very well. Thank you, Sally. I’ll tell Toby tomorrow that you’re sitting in on it. I do feel that we should take the simple and obvious course of noting and recording the people who go into Morningside’s office when he’s not there. We may get something that way.’

  Sally nodded. ‘Toby’s in love with this girl,’ she said irrelevantly.

  ‘The one with the attractive name? Yes, I think so. I hope to God she’s not our joker.’

  ‘Is it likely?’

  ‘Probably not. I didn’t ask him what she’s like, because it would only have embarrassed him, and his opinion is obviously valueless, anyway. We shall just have to wait and see.’

  Chapter Two

  On the following morning Johnny spent half an hour in the National Press Archives and came home for an early lunch immediately after it. He and Toby had agreed that, as long as he was merely keeping the place under observation, he shouldn’t use his own name. It had appeared now in connection with three murder cases, and Fleet Street people were more likely than most to recognise it in that context. He appeared as John Heme — an acquaintance of Toby’s, since he had no Fleet Street affiliations and therefore needed some sort of introduction — who was writing a book on English sports. The Archives’ resources under this head were practically unlimited, and he could sit over them for hours on end or keep on asking for attention almost indefinitely; clients were not allowed to browse over the files, and all pictures and cuttings had to be got out by a member of the staff. That was one way of getting to know the staff. Not even Morningside himself was to know yet who the Heldars were. Toby said he was a poor actor and had told him only that Johnny was interesting himself in the case.

  It was impossible to talk about the case at lunch, which was a communal affair involving Nanny and the children, but Johnny told Sally briefly afterwards that Toby had introduced him to Silcutt, who was very fussed about t
he whole thing and very reluctant to discuss it, for fear of its becoming too official. Sally’s assistance, however, was accepted, and she could go along this afternoon. Johnny himself couldn’t; Uncle Charles Heldar had gone down to Kent to look at someone’s library, and he was needed at the shop.

  Sally removed her wedding ring, put on an old tweed coat, flat-heeled shoes, and no hat, and tried to look like a graduate type. Then she borrowed a blue notebook in which Peter had been drawing pictures, caught a bus to Fleet Street, and walked down the busy pavement to the enormous Echo building. There was a window display of good topical photographs. The glass doors in the centre led her into a short hall with lifts on one side, two call boxes on the other, and a reception desk at the far end. The smart young woman at the desk smiled at Sally and said, ‘Yes? Who did you want to see?’

  ‘Mr Lorn of the National Press Archives is expecting me,’ said Sally. Toby was introducing her as well as Johnny; it didn’t matter, he said; he introduced lots of people.

  ‘Sixth floor,’ said the girl. ‘The lift will take you up.’ Sally touched the nearest button and waited, watching the lift’s course as indicated by the illuminated numbers above the doors.

  Presently it came down, and the doors opened. A tall, fair, ruddy man with a thick moustache was finishing a conversation with the lift-man.

  ‘Yes,’ said the lift-man. ‘That was a day and a ’alf, sir. What with the ’eat, and the flies, and Jerry givin’ us everythink but the kitchen sink — oh, well, it’s old days now, sir.’

  ‘Yes, it’s old days.’ The ruddy man had a pleasant, deep voice with some sort of country accent below the surface. He smiled, and then he saw Sally and said quickly, ‘I’m so sorry.’ He came out of the lift, and she noticed that he was unusually straight in the back under his tweed overcoat. His face was vaguely familiar.

  The lift-man was obviously thinking about the old days still; he looked preoccupied as he took Sally up. She saw that his left hand was gloved and incomplete. When they reached the sixth floor, she asked him the way, and he pointed to a passage opposite and told her to go down there and turn to her right.

  The walls of the second passage were hung with framed photographs. Near the end of it, on the left, was another pair of glass doors. The right-hand door squeaked as she pushed it open.

  She walked into a long, wide room furnished principally with dark green steel filing cabinets. The left-hand wall had half a dozen big windows in it, looking out into a well. The nearer stretch of the right-hand wall was broken by three small rooms which stood out into the main one.

  A pleasant-looking girl in an unbecoming green frock appeared from nowhere in particular and looked interrogative and welcoming. Sally said, ‘Good afternoon. Mr Lorn’s expecting me, I think. Miss Merton.’ After four and a half years of marriage her maiden name sounded quite unfamiliar.

  ‘Oh, yes, Miss Merton. He said you would be coming in. This is his office.’ She turned to the first door on the right. ‘Oh, you’re there, Mr Lorn. I beg your pardon.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Toby. He was standing in the doorway of his office. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Merton. I hope we can be of some use to you. It was portraits of the French royal and noble families before 1789, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Sally. ‘And some background stuff, if possible. Paris and Versailles, and the châteaux of the Loire, and so on.’

  ‘Yes. Well, I think we can offer you something. Come along and we’ll see. I asked one of our assistants to leave some stuff out here.’

  On the second door was a notice which said, ‘Mr Morningside’. The third door was called ‘Typists’. Between the two a small table stood against the wall, with a chair in front of it and a pile of pictures on its polished surface.

  Toby settled Sally and begged her to apply to him or one of his assistants if she wanted anything more. Then he murmured, ‘He’s at lunch,’ and went back to his own office. Sally opened the blue notebook and spent a minute or two in an effort to interpret the first drawing in it. Peter’s technique was slightly surrealist. Finally and rather uncertainly she identified the object as a London bus with unusually fierce headlights and radiator, turned over several pages, and came to a blank one.

  She went very slowly through the pile of pictures, making an occasional note. There were photographs of portraits, and original steel engravings, and reproductions of early woodcuts. French social history had always been one of her hobbies, and she found it difficult not to grow too absorbed, the more so since nothing of interest seemed to be happening beside her. Two or three assistants — all women — moved quietly about the composition floor, hunted in the filing cabinets, and talked in low voices to each other or to clients. Clients were taken into Toby’s office or settled, like Sally, at tables. At intervals a typist emerged from her office, releasing for a moment the patter of a typewriter, and went off on occasions of her own. Sally had been there for a quarter of an hour or so when one of these girls knocked on the door of Morningside’s office with a letter in her free hand and, after a moment, receiving no answer, went in, leaving the door open. Sally glanced at her as she came out, and had a brief impression of a tall, golden-haired, chocolate-box type with something quite unexpected in her wide blue eyes which suggested a sense of humour. Pat or Pam, probably.

  Sally returned to her pictures. She was roused a few minutes later by approaching footsteps, evidently in a hurry, and by a violent jar as someone bumped into her table. She looked up in time to see a narrow waist and padded shoulders encased in a black jacket which reached far down over drainpipe trousers of pepper-and-salt tweed. Up above — not very far up — was a bullet head with red hair cut short at the back and brushed into a quiff on top, and a neck which reminded her of Gilbert’s dictum about boily boys.

  The boy disappeared into Morningside’s office. A minute or two later he came out again, revealing a hand-painted tie in the worst possible taste, and said to Sally, ‘Hey! Know where old Morny’s got to?’

  Sally raised her eyebrows. There was a short silence. Then the boy said sulkily, ‘Sorry. Do you know where Mr Morningside is — please?’ It was clear that his manners had been corrected before, possibly by Toby, who was casual only up to a point. The pseudo-American veneer had gone, laying bare the native Cockney. The pale, freckled wedge of a face under the red hair was, Sally noticed, almost handsome in a sullen, faintly eldritch way of its own.

  ‘I think he’s still at lunch,’ she said.

  The boy made a grimace of annoyance, revealing large, untended teeth. ‘Okay. Thanks,’ he said, and went away again. Presumably Teddy, she thought, whose real name was something else.

  A telephone rang in Toby’s office, and she heard him answer it; his door was open.

  ‘Lorn here…You want a dead donkey? I’m not quite sure…Oh, Mr Morningside said he had a dead donkey, did he? Then I expect he’s put it aside for you. He’s at lunch, but if you’ll hold on, I’ll see if I can find it.’

  He limped up beside Sally a moment later, looking a little harassed, but amused. ‘The things people want pictures of,’ he said as he passed her.

  ‘The things you’ve got pictures of, apparently,’ said Sally, and he laughed, and went into Morningside’s office, and left the door ajar. She saw him hunting through piles of pictures which lay in wire trays on a big table under the window. Then he moved out of her line of vision, and she heard him say, ‘Ah!’ He reappeared with a photograph and limped back towards his own office.

  ‘Mr Lorn!’

  It was a woman’s voice, harsh, ugly, too deep. Sally saw her plant herself in front of Toby outside his own door and was astonished that such a deep voice should come from such a tiny creature. She was short and very thin; the only large things about her were her red, bony hands and her enormous brogues. Her small-featured face was pale, and she wore a pince-nez and an indeterminate tweed coat and skirt.

  ‘Miss Quimper,’ said Toby politely, ‘will you excuse me for one moment? I’
ve got someone on the telephone. Come in and sit down, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ve got to go to Mr Morningside’s office,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back, Mr Lorn.’

  She clumped along to Morningside’s door and into the room. She didn’t seem to notice Sally, and like everyone else she left the door open. She moved abruptly about what Sally could see of the office, apparently looking for something on the table and underneath it, and then passed out of Sally’s sight as Toby had done. Then she reappeared and stood suddenly still, her face turned away from Sally and towards the window, and her big, ugly, knotted hands twisting and untwisting into one another. Sally looked instinctively down at her pictures. Then she remembered that she was here to watch people. But there was something acutely embarrassing about this middle-aged woman’s half-naked emotion. Sally was relieved when she heard the flat sound of Miss Quimper’s footsteps on the composition floor and felt her pass close to the little table.

  Toby in his office said, ‘Right. We’ll try to get it round by four-thirty. Yes, the messenger will say it’s for you personally. Not at all. Goodbye.’

  He came to his door. ‘Now, Miss Quimper,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’ The Rectory tradition of courtesy to unattractive women died hard, thought Sally.

  ‘Mr Lorn, I really can’t put up with this any longer. Mr Morningside has been interfering with my boxes of negs again. If they get out of order I’m hopelessly confused, and it takes me half the day to get straight again. Really I can’t go on—’

  Sally saw Toby’s face of acute distress and heard the tears in Miss Quimper’s voice. Toby said gently, ‘Come in and we’ll talk it over, Miss Quimper.’ He stood aside, put a hand on her elbow, and piloted her into his office. Sally was conscious of admiration for him. Then she realised suddenly that she wasn’t his only admirer. She saw a girl’s face on the other side of the row of filing cabinets which ran parallel with the offices. An exquisite oval face, framed in fair hair, with startlingly dark eyes and a curved, wilful mouth. At this moment the eyes were gentle, and as Sally watched the mouth curled into a warm smile. Then the girl turned away.