John Bingham - A Fragment of Fear

“Is this your car, sir?”

I nodded.

“I’ve been in the police station giving some information.”

“You should have left your sidelights on, sir.”

“Well, it’s under a street lamp. I didn’t think you had to leave sidelights on in London, anyway.”

I knew what he was beating up to, but again the conventions had to be maintained.

“When a car is left on a bus route, the lights must be switched on, sir, whatever other lighting is provided in the street.”

“I didn’t know that,” I lied wearily.

“Yes, sir. Good night.”

“Good night-thank you.”

He trudged heavily into the station. Probably he, too, was tired and bored. I drove round to Stratford Road.

My flat is above an ironmonger’s shop. It suits me, for there is nobody above me, and the buildings on either side consist only of business premises. So when I type late at night I disturb nobody.

The flat is not much to look at from the outside, but it is all right inside, though I say it myself.

There is a large living-room, a large bedroom, and two smaller rooms; one of them I use as a study, and the other is the room Juliet proposed to use as a dining-room, thus leaving no spare bedroom for anybody to stay in, which suited me admirably.

There are one or two quite nice pieces of antique furniture, given me by my father when my mother died, and he decided to live in a Hampshire inn and spend his time fishing and, I suppose, dreaming of the past. But he only survived her two years.

He had also given me a few pieces of Georgian silver, and some fine eighteenth-century sporting prints; though as to the latter, I know that from the moment she saw them Juliet had secretly made up her mind to replace them, no doubt as tactfully as possible.

She also had one or two ideas for new colour schemes when she moved in, but she was discreet enough not to dwell too much on the subject.

Sporting prints or not, and colour schemes or not, it was a good home for a bride to come to.

One is tempted to amend that last sentence, and say that it was a good home for a bride to come to provided she could see it.

I arrived back from the police station at one o’clock, parked the car in an empty space some yards up the road, and walked to my front door and let myself in, thinking that soon the rooms would be alive with Juliet’s possessions as well as mine.

I hate noise, especially abrupt noise, so I always close a door quietly. I closed the street door quietly. The blue stair carpet was before me, and I went up the stairs to the flat, weary but satisfied that up to now I had done all that I could.

About four steps from the top I stopped and stared down at the carpet, and more particularly at about half-an-inch of cigarette ash which lay there.

I stood looking down at the ash.

I never leave my flat or any other building smoking a cigarette, and I never go indoors smoking one. There is a simple explanation for this: the only thing which tastes good in the open air, to my mind, is a pipe. So I stood staring down at the ash. Then I looked up at the door of the flat. I remember noting how the polished wood and the brass knocker gleamed in the light of the stairway.

I climbed the last four steps to the flat. Outside the door I gently switched off the stairs light and listened to my heart beating.

After a while I silently lifted the flap of the letter box. The flat door opened on to a very short hallway, and beyond was the living-room. Off the living-room, to the right, was the study.

I saw nobody, and pondered how much the incident earlier in the evening must have affected my nerves. I lowered the flap of the letter box, feeling rather a fool.

There was nothing left to do now but go in.

Yet I stood listening for a few seconds, regulating my breathing, glad that Juliet could not see me. Then I fumbled in the darkness for the flat key, fingering the keys on the ring, not bothering to switch on the light again, and as I did so a faint, half-stifled cough from inside the flat stilled my movements and breathing. I told myself that noises are deceptive, especially at night, and raised the letter-box flap again.

Whoever it was, he was not in the living-room. But I could see the reflected flashes of his torch as he moved about the study.

I do not think I am more cowardly than the next man, but I may be more cautious and calculating, and possibly more imaginative. I assumed that only one man was inside the flat, and I was tempted, now that the uncertainty was over, to rush in and tackle him. But what if there were two?

Perhaps subconsciously the deciding factor was the thought of my marriage, and common prudence. I tiptoed down the stairs, softly closed the street door, and walked quickly to the telephone booths in Marloes Road. As so often, the first one I entered was out of order, the box refusing to accept a coin. The floor was littered with refuse. I do not know why these booths are so often filthy and out of order.

I swore, flung myself out of the booth and into the other one. This one was filthy, too, but when I lifted the receiver I heard the dialling tone, and thanked heaven that I had four pennies, and that the box would receive them.

I put them in, then realised that you do not need coins to dial “999.” Fearful that the coins might upset the routine, I pressed button “B,” recovered the coins, and then dialled “999,” and got through to Scotland Yard. An impersonal voice said:

“Scotland Yard-can I help you?”

“I want to report-”

“Where are you calling from, please, sir?”

“From the ’phone booths in Marloes Road. My name is James Compton, 274 Stratford Road, Kensington.”

“One minute, please, sir.”

There was a pause of a few seconds. Then he said quietly, almost soothingly: “What is the trouble, sir?”

“There are intruders in my flat. Perhaps you could send somebody round,” I said succinctly.

“One minute, sir.”

I waited. After a short pause, the voice returned.

“We will send a police car round, sir. It should be round in about three or four minutes. Right?”

“Right.”

“Now if you’ll go back to your flat, and wait outside, I expect the police car will be there as soon as you are. Right?”

He spoke soothingly. He was good at his job. Nor was he far out in his calculation. The car was not there when I got back, but it arrived about two minutes later; not with a jangling of bells, as in a chase, but almost noiselessly. It must have free-wheeled the last ten or fifteen yards. It drew up at the edge of the pavement with no more sound than a faint crunch.

There were two uniformed officers, and one plain-clothes detective. They climbed quietly out and stood in a bunch for a moment, looking up at my flat windows. Then they came over to where I stood near the doorway. The sergeant spoke quietly.

“He won’t want to jump from the windows, sir. Too high. Any other way of escape round the back?”

I shook my head.

“Then we should be all right, sir. Perhaps you’ll let us in.”

I let them in through the street door, and switched on the light, and we all trooped up the thick blue carpet. Even though there was no way of escape, save down the stairs past us, we still moved quietly. I do not know why.

I can imagine the sort of report they wrote later:

A thorough search of the flat revealed no trace of an intruder, nor was there any sign of a forcible entry. Occupant stated that nothing appeared to have been stolen or disturbed. In the light of these facts, it seems possible that occupant mistook a cough in the street for that of an intruder. It was noted that the curtains in the room used as a study had not been drawn. It seems therefore possible that occupant mistook the lights of a passing car for those of an electric torch. The police car returned to headquarters at 02–35 hours.