The Heel of Achilles: A Golden Age Mystery Read online

  A bank balance was growing even after expenditure on new machinery and on improvements. The work was arduous, for the paying out of the £1,000 which would otherwise have gone into the business was a circumstance which obviously had called for rigid economy. The result had been that Jack Porter worked on repairs from early morning until late at night, when he otherwise could have employed a garage hand, or mechanic. Nor could the labour-saving machinery on the market for shortening the time spent on, say, decarbonizing, be afforded; the decarbing had to be done by hand.

  Nevertheless, Jack Porter, seeing his business grow, and the future bright with Mary, sang cheerfully at his work and with the thousand pounds repaid looked with ambitious gaze to a rosy future of prosperity; the Promised Land of his early ambition drew near.

  Until that day when, pausing to watch the procession of the Judge in Kingston, he had come face to face with Sprogson—and found that the past can never be buried.

  So does Chance play its cynical part in the life of a man and a woman. Thus do the Three Fates around the loom and the web of Life disport themselves in wanton and malignant pleasure.

  CHAPTER V

  Jack Porter had been four years in his garage on the Staines By-pass when Sprogson made his first appearance in the village of Thames Pagnall.

  Of the sentence of three years’ penal servitude he had served two years and six months, good conduct having earned him the full remission of two months for each year of sentence. Where and how he had spent his period of ticket-of-leave only the police to whom he had to report, and himself, knew; when he made his way to the Thames-side village, he was free of all regulation to visit the police. He was also free of the name of Sprogson.

  His coming was spectacular. As the last of the race crowds left Hurst Park behind them and entrained at the terminus station for London, Sprogson stepped into the Miller’s Arms.

  “A whisky, landlord—large one, and soda.” His voice boomed over the room. The hum of chatter ceased momentarily as the crowded bar turned to look at the intruder. Sprogson eyed back the stares.

  The Arms was an historic hostelry with a sedate company of regulars, all resident in the place. It was so far at the back of the village that few strangers found it out. Its clientele had little truck with the race crowds, particularly those members of them who appeared in check suits, a flower garden in the buttonhole, and a loud and hearty good-fellow voice. Sprogson sensed the hostility.

  “And a big cigar, landlord, too, and a drink for yourself,” he invited.

  Mine host hesitated. The customer did not appear of the class for which the Miller’s Arms desired to cater. He had, however, no grounds for refusing to serve him—not that grounds are necessary; a publican is not bound to serve anyone entering his house. That he is so compelled is a popular fallacy. He can refuse a man a drink for any or no reason, even for the fact that he does not like the colour of his eyes.

  Quietly the landlord (‘Ted’ to his regulars) poured out the drink, produced the desired cigar, and then poured out a drink for himself. “Good health!” said Sprogson. “And to you,” rejoined Ted.

  “Had a good day at the races, I take it, sir?” he added, with a desire to appear social.

  “Not bad,” Sprogson winked. “Won just over fifty quid. Generally do win. But you have to know something to do that.”

  “Something outside the form book, I take it?” suggested the landlord.

  Sprogson grinned, and winked again. “That’s so,” he admitted. “If you want to make a bit of money, back Philo tomorrow. He hasn’t a chance, they say.” He winked a third time. “I’m putting a pony on it.” He finished his drink. “I’ll look in tomorrow, and we’ll celebrate. By the way—keep that to yourself. Don’t want to spoil the price.”

  Sprogson made his second appearance in Thames Pagnall and in the Miller’s Arms the following night. The fact that the landlord had risked a pound on Philo at Hurst Park and had netted eighteen pounds induced from him a somewhat more cordial greeting to his customer. Ted worked out that if Sprogson had had twenty-five pounds on the horse, he must have won at least £360, even at starting price, and he would probably have got odds, for the betting forecast had given the probable price as twenty to one.

  “Did you do it?” asked Sprogson after he had ordered a whisky and soda and another cigar. The landlord nodded. “Thanks, yes. I had a nice little win.” He broadcast the news to those of his customers in the immediate vicinity; and Sprogson celebrated his and the landlord’s winnings by buying a large round of drinks.

  A company inclined to regard with favour a man with such knowledgeable insight into racing as to tip as a certainty a twenty to one outsider, eagerly sought anything good that might be going at Brighton next day. Sprogson shook his head. “I never bet or advise my friends,” he said, “except on reliable information from the inside. There’s nothing certain at Brighton, but I’ve good friends in the game and there may be something at Birmingham at the week-end. I’ll be there, and if my friends give me the O.K., then I’ll wire the landlord here, and he can pass the news on, for you to get on to it.”

  From that day Sprogson was regarded as an authority on racing. He gave from time to time a number of quiet tips which produced handsome dividends. But not as Sprogson. It was later in the evening of this second visit to the Miller’s Arms, during a chat with the landlord, that he revealed the identity by which the village was to know him.

  “I’d like to settle in this place,” he explained. “I haven’t had a place for some time, and this seems very handy for racecourses, with Sandown, Hurst Park; and Kempton Park on the doorstep and Ally Pally only half an hour or so away. I suppose there isn’t a furnished place going, is there? Somewhere quiet?”

  The landlord thought diligently. “Well, as a matter of fact, Mr.—?” He looked inquiringly.

  “Canley is the name, landlord. James Canley.”

  “Well, Mr. Canley, as it chances, there is a small cottage. The owners are friends of mine and have gone abroad for a year or so. They would be prepared to let the place furnished for that time. It’s a bit isolated. If that doesn’t matter, I think you could do a deal.”

  Canley chuckled to himself. “If it’s isolated, then it’s all the more desirable. I like a bit of peace and quietness at night,” he said. “Where can I find the agents?”

  Canley saw the agents the following day. He guffawed at the request for references. “The best reference I know is six months’ rent in advance,” he rejoined, and paid it over in notes. He went into occupation of the cottage the following week, with Mrs. Skelton, an honest but formidable female, as his daily help and cook.

  Despite his occasional racing tips and the profit from them, Canley was not a popular figure in the village. Nor in the Miller’s Arms, which he frequented most nights. He was dogmatic in his views, rude in his arguments, and apt to dominate all conversation, with little regard to the niceties of debate.

  Again, he was too familiar with the womenfolk of the regulars. There were a number of disputes over his conduct towards women, and on one occasion at least a bout of fisticuffs, in which he retired for several days with a black eye, and a warning of more to come unless he left a certain lady to herself.

  This did not, however, prevent a succession of affairs with a number of young women in the village and the neighbourhood. One of these was concerned with Margaret Harker, a girl of eighteen years. The affair had been developing side by side with another with a woman of more experience and sang froid, and Canley’s ingenuity in keeping the pair apart had been the topic of amused, and somewhat anxious, conversation in the Miller’s Arms. The affair with Margaret Harker was pretty general talk in the village; the only person, seemingly, who knew nothing of it was William Harker. He learned of it through overhearing a conversation over the partition in the canteen of the concrete company for which he worked.

  William Harker was a well-built man of considerable physique, who had been a concrete mixer some fourteen years. He h
eld strong religious opinions, and was a local preacher of some reputation. Curiously enough, this did not affect his pleasure in the cinema or a drink when he felt like it. There were some of the chapel congregations who looked on these practices with a jaundiced eye. William’s reply when the point of view was put to him, was to refer to the making of wine at the marriage feast at Cana in Galilee; it was an argument to which the Band of Hope brigade found no answer. William usually celebrated his victory with another pint!

  It was over one of these pints that William learned of the acquaintance, and certain facts in connection with it, of his daughter and Canley. He confronted his daughter’s accuser and called him by a number of names which would not have passed the elders of the chapel. Then he laid the man low with a heavy blow.

  The man, rising, was about to get clear of the place, when he was halted and told, somewhat belatedly, to prove his words. He made answer that, since everyone in the canteen knew it, he wouldn’t mind. Harker listened to the tale. He looked round at his mates, and in their avoidance of his eyes, he saw confirmation.

  Harker did not go back to the yard; he left the canteen and walked briskly away. A few minutes later he entered the back door of the council house which he occupied. He entered quietly, slipped through the passage from the back door, turned the key in the lock of the front door and put it in his pocket. His wife, coming from the living-room bumped into him as he returned to the kitchen.

  “Good heavens, Will, you didn’t ’arf give me a start,” she protested. “I didn’t hear you come in. Early, ain’t you?” She looked at the clock. “What’s happened? Everything all right at the works?” she added, anxiously.

  Harker removed his boots, white with dust from the concrete powder. “Oh, yes. Everything’s all right, mate,” he replied. He washed his hands at the sink, and glanced at the table. One cup and saucer, he saw, had been used. “Margaret had her tea?” he asked.

  “Yes, she’s upstairs getting washed.” Harker asked no further questions, but listened for the sound he expected. Every nerve in his body was strained and hard, and a dull flush crept up his neck as he heard the stealthy step on the stairway, the hurried rush to the front door—a tug at the handle, and the muffled ‘damn’ as Margaret discovered the door locked, and the key missing.

  Mrs. Harker looked up at the word. “What’s the matter, Margaret?” she asked.

  No answer came from Margaret as she stood, white-faced, in the doorway of the kitchen. She guessed that something had been heard by her father, and since there was no way out of the house now except through the kitchen, she knew that her only chance of leaving the house was by brazening the position out. Her father stood between the sink and the back door, wiping his hands slowly and with elaborate care.

  “Well,” said Margaret. “I must be going now. Shan’t be long.”

  William Harker looked at her bright pink blouse and checked box coat. His gaze passed to her high-heeled platform shoes and silk stockings. It moved again to the brightly painted lips of his daughter, and his eyes blazed.

  “And where are you going, may I ask?” He almost spat the words out.

  “Oh, just out,” she smiled weakly.

  “I said where. Now I’ll have the truth, Miss.”

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Liar.”

  “Will!” gasped his wife. “Please!”

  “Liar!” said William again. Margaret braced herself.

  “I won’t be spoken to like that, by you or nobody else,” she said.

  “Liar!” said William again.

  Mrs. Harker stood up from the table. “Will, that’s no way to be talking,” she protested. “Whatever’s come over you?”

  William pointed to the girl. “Ask her where she’s going,” he said. “Ask her—that dirty little slut of a daughter of yours. Ask her why she’s dressed up like a trollop. Ask her what she does when she leaves this house.”

  There was silence, and William returned to the attack. “You don’t ask her because you don’t want to know. Because you’re afraid to know. Well, I’m not. I do know. So does everybody else round here. Every tattling woman for a mile round talks about her, and the foulest-mouthed men in the place have a name for her. It’s time you opened your eyes, mate, to what sort of girl your daughter is. Now ask her.” He pushed his wife towards Margaret. The girl saw her chance.

  “I’m not going to stop here to be insulted by you, Dad,” she said. “I’m no longer a child, I’m eighteen and it’s time you realized it. I’m going out.” She flung herself towards the door. Harker grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her, and as he released her, suddenly, she over-balanced and fell, catching a cheek on a corner of the table. Mrs. Harker ran towards her. “Will! Will, have you gone mad?” she called.

  “If I have,” burst out Harker, “it’s she that has driven me mad. Even now she wants to brazen out like the jezebel that she is. She won’t tell you where she goes. Well, I will. She’s going with a man I wouldn’t trust my dog with, in his house, too.” He looked at the girl now whimpering in a corner of the room. “You’re no longer a child, eh? You’re eighteen. Well, do you know the difference between right and wrong, ’cause if you don’t somebody’s going to teach you.” He made a step towards the girl.

  “Don’t you hit her, Will. If she’s done anything wrong, we’ll put it right.”

  “Nothing can put it right,” said Harker. “But I won’t hit her. Now listen to me, my girl. I swear before God that if I get my hands on the rat who’s dragging you down, I’ll kill him like I’d kill any other rat. Even if I swing for it.”

  Margaret, looking at him, shrank back and ran upstairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her. Harker watched her go, trembling with the passion into which he had thrown himself. His wife sat at the table crying quietly into her hands, and wondering how the quiet God-fearing man who was her husband could be changed into the demon that he had shown himself during the last few minutes.

  A few minutes passed, only the dripping of a tap and the weeping woman were the sounds heard. Then, putting a hand across his moist brow, Harker sat at the table and tears rolled down his heavy, red cheeks—tears of sorrow and humiliation. All his world had tumbled about him. He who had urged men to mend their ways, had shown them the error of their old ways, he now had a daughter at whom those same men pointed a finger of scorn. He, who had taught see no evil and think no evil was now steeped in the Slough of Despond, with murder in his heart. A great happiness died in those moments and despair was born.

  He rose to his feet, placed a hand on his wife’s shoulders and walked out of the house.

  Many minutes passed before Mrs. Harker crossed to the staircase, and listened for any sound from her girl’s room. As she was considering what she could say to Margaret, the latch of the kitchen door clicked. She turned expecting to see her husband; instead the form was that of Harry Johns, a friend of them both. He smiled.

  “Will in?” he asked.

  “No, Harry. He’s just gone out.”

  “Oh, well, I’ll call again. Maybe I’ll catch him at the allotment.”

  “Harry?” Mrs. Harker choked slightly. “You’ve been our friend for nigh thirty years. You know Will better than any other man knows him. What’s happened to Will?”

  “Oh, nothing, Elsie. He was upset at the works this afternoon, that’s all.”

  “Harry, don’t hide anything. It’s about Margaret, I know. How shall I know what to do if nobody tells me anything.”

  “Yes, Elsie.” Johns was a little diffident. “There was something about Margaret that Will overheard. They said that there he was putting on airs, and being a chapel-goer and a preacher and his daughter going into men’s cottages at night. He heard the man’s name and threatened to kill him. Enough to make a man want to do it, of course. I came along to see him as soon as I could, because Will’s a good man. Where is he now?”

  “I’m frightened, Harry. Frightened,” cried Mrs. Harker. “He went out just now—”
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  “All right, Elsie. Don’t you worry. I’ll go and look for him. He can’t be far away. If we don’t come back for some time, don’t be thinking things. I’ll calm him down.” He patted the back of the woman’s hand resting on his coat, and left the house.

  It was the following morning that Canley was found dead on the railway.

  CHAPTER VI

  Jack Porter opened the letter from Canley in the seclusion of the office of his garage. He read through the words until he knew them by heart.

  “Bring me a hundred pounds to the cottage on Friday night. And don’t fail me. You know what to expect if you do.”

  It was at that moment he decided to kill James Canley.

  It was not altogether a new idea; he had considered it before on several occasions, in fact each time that he had received from Canley requests for a loan, which he knew would never be repaid. On such occasions he had toyed with the idea of ridding himself, and the world, of the man; but the self-suggestion was more in the nature of a mental protest at the demands than as a serious suggestion possible of achievement. It seemed to afford him some degree of satisfaction to think of the secret enmity towards Canley, the strength of which Canley did not recognize.

  Porter had borne in mind the words of Canley at their first meeting after the market-place encounter. The man had said that he had done three years’ penal servitude, and had looked to his £500 share of the jewellery to start him in life when he came out. He realized a certain amount of justice, if somewhat perverted justice, in the expectation. The fact that the share would have been only £150, half the amount realized from the ‘fence’ for the jewellery, seemed not to occur to Canley.