Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 104, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 633 & 634, October 1994

What exactly did she mean: “This is different”?

Isabella had been appalled when he had brought it up.

“Not safe? Your job? But things have been going so well.”

William shrugged.

“Oh, they have. He doesn’t want to get rid of me. But these are hard times, Sis. Everyone knows that. And the job is safe enough, if only I can get hold of the money to invest in the business.”

“What exactly is Mr. Latimer saying?”

“What he’s saying is that he needs me to invest thirty thousand in the business.”

“Thirty thousand!”

“It’s peanuts in business terms. If I can’t get hold of it he’ll have to dispense with my services.”

“But thirty thousand! Where could you get hold of a sum like that?”

He looked at her with his beautiful, steady, blue-eyed gaze. Impossible to mistrust him! Impossible to suspect that there was no job, was no Mr. Latimer, that where he went so impeccably dressed every day was to betting shops and racecourses.

“I thought you might have an idea, Sis.”

“Me? Have access to thirty thousand? You must be joking.”

“There’s Brian’s collection.”

She frowned.

“Collection?”

“All those tapes. All that fifties and sixties memorabilia he’s got stored in his studio and the attic — Elvis’s suits, Ringo’s drumsticks, all that crap. That sort of thing can bring in a fair bit, can’t it?”

“Yes, of course it’s valuable. That kind of memorabilia fetches a packet these days. But he’d never give it up — never. It’s his whole life, poor fish.”

“Greater love hath no man,” intoned William, “than that he lay down his life for his Elvis jockstrap.”

Isabella giggled nervously.

“Well he would, so you can put the collection out of your mind.”

“The ultimate sacrifice could be arranged,” said William. “And then the collection’s yours to dispose of.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, William.”

He leaned forward, intensely.

“I’m serious, Sis. We could kill him — no problem.”

“But we couldn’t, William. We couldn’t!”

“Why not? Think bold, Sis. You don’t have any feeling for him.”

“No, of course I don’t. You know that. All that died years ago. But this... this is different.”

“No it’s not. It’s a seizing of opportunity. Shut the window, Sis. This has got to be discussed seriously.”

She got up and banged down the window. Then she turned and confronted him.

“William, I don’t know how serious you are, but this is not on. I don’t love Brian, but I don’t wish him dead. And anyway, I’m not the murdering type.”

“You don’t have to be. You just have to give me an alibi.”

“But... but...”

“Nothing against a sister alibiing a brother, is there? Not like a husband and wife. I’ll be here with you on that dark night when he’s on his way home from the BBC and something very nasty happens.”

“Stop it, William. There’s the children. They’d be home. They’d know I was lying. I couldn’t face them knowing that.”

“When is half-term? They’re going to France on a school exchange, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you are, then. When is half-term?”

There was a silence. Then Isabella said: “The week after next.”

The houses were beginning to sell. Young marrieds were starting, nervously, to believe the government’s talk about green shoots of recovery and were going to banks and building societies to beg for loans. Some, mostly living with in-laws, were willing to move in even while the houses were surrounded by workers and the impediments of a building site.

Simon was working late one day, collecting overtime pay by finishing the brickwork on a house for just such a couple. It was twilight, and the streetlights had just come on.

Through the growing murk he saw coming down Lime Tree Avenue the buttoned-up figure of the husband (“Cedric,” as he called him). Suit, bowler hat, briefcase, umbrella under his arm. It was the route from the number ninety-three bus stop. One block away from Gordon Road the man slowed to a lingering pace, looking around him and upwards as well. There was a high wall at that spot, a telephone kiosk and a lamp standard whose light wasn’t functioning. Simon saw Cedric look up at the blank space whence the light should be coming, then nod and resume his walk home to number eighteen.

He’s probably meditating a letter to the local newspaper about the council’s negligence, thought Simon. Or a call to the council’s Highways Department. Prat, he thought. He’s the sort of prat who would do that sort of thing.

As the track of Alma Cogan lilted to its conclusion and Brian prepared to put the wrappers on The Heartbreak Hour for another week, his mind was on other things. He was fed up with having his damned brother-in-law cluttering up the house. Did he pay rent? Did he do his bit around the house? The heck he did! He was a leech, a limpet, a dead weight. He’d have to be told to sling his hook.

Isabella would cut up rough, of course. Well, he’d tell her she’d have to choose: her brother or her husband. If it came to the pinch, Brian thought he wouldn’t mind moving out, finding a flat nearer the BBC for himself and his collection.

One of us will have to go, he thought grimly.

Simon Carraway, in the Public Bar of the Dog and Gun, just off Lime Tree Avenue, was bored. He’d gone there with the men from the site after work, had had a very bad pub meal, and the conversation had now switched from the trouble one of his work-mates was having with his wife to the goal-scoring abilities of Ian Wright. Simon was not remotely interested in football. He took up his pint mug, went to stand in the doorway, and turned on his Walkman. Who in God’s name was Alma Cogan? He switched it off and began listening in to the conversation of a party of pensioners round the table next to the door. Someone from the group had died of hypothermia. “Already,” they said, as if it would have been quite acceptable if he had died of it once winter had set in. They began in on the personal habits of the deceased, and Simon found himself shaping a character in his mind.

It was over half an hour and another pint later that Simon saw “Cedric” go past the door. He was suited as usual, and briefcased and bowler-hatted, but Simon noted that today he was not carrying an umbrella. Silly of him, because it had been drizzly most of the afternoon. As he walked on down to the turn-off into Lime Tree Avenue he saw Cedric’s hand go into his pocket. Then he turned and was out of sight. Simon turned his mind back to his pensioners.

It was fifteen minutes later when he drained his glass, raised a hand to his work-mates, and left the pub. Ahead of him, turning the corner into Lime Tree Avenue, he saw a jerkined figure that he thought he recognised. He was halfway to the corner when he heard a cry. Running, swerving round it, he saw two figures grappling, and a bowler hat rolling into the road. The lodger and the husband! Throwing himself into the mass of limbs he got his hand on the jerkined figure, forced his shoulders against the wall, then down onto the pavement. Suddenly he realized he was using very little of his strength, that the body was slipping of his own accord. As he pushed the man’s trunk down against the paving stones, he realized with a lurch of the stomach that his hands were sticky. Satisfied that the man was not going to make off, he ran to the telephone kiosk and dialled 999.

“Police? There’s been a stabbing in Lime Tree Avenue. Send an ambulance too.”

As he stood there looking out into the dimly lit street it occurred to him to wonder where the man in the bowler hat was.

“What do you mean ‘How’s the husband?’ ” demanded the police inspector who came next morning to talk to Simon on the site. “You know how he is. A nasty stab wound to the side, but he’ll survive — thanks to you.”