I said, “If your birthday is tomorrow, that makes it September the fourth, doesn’t it?”
Stavro nodded and replied, “Too true.”
I bought him another drink. “Did you ever hear of the Monk Paphnutius?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed. “What makes you ask?”
I said, “Nothing. And as a matter of curiosity, my dear Stavro, did the lady known as ‘The Golden’ have a little scar on her face?”
Stavro, tense as a hungry cat and watching me closely, said, “On her left cheek. What then?”
I answered, “Nothing, nothing . . .”
The waiter, having dealt with his impatient customer, came back with a deplorably soggy portion of pie and, lingering, said, “And that other one, that one with the funny arm. Eh? M’sieur Gino, he didn’t like that one. And look what happened to him, eh?”
“Stavro?”
“That’s it, Stavro.”
“What happened to him, then?”
“It was in the papers. The police was after this man with this funny arm, this Stavro. So he goes to Waterloo Station. So he buys a ticket to Walton-on-Thames. So he puts down a pound-note. So it is a bad pound-note. A counterfeit, a forgery. So one thing leads to another—see?—so in the end, so he runs away, and—bomp! Right! into a motorcar. Smash-bang! . . . no more Stavro. Last thing he says is, ‘So this is my birthday?’ ”
“Ha,” I said. “Bad? A bad pound?”
“Yes, on his birthday. Coffee, sir?”
“No, no coffee. On his birthday, eh?” Before I paid the bill I held a pound-note up to the light. “Will you look the other way while I steal Gino’s spoon?” I asked.
“Take! I give!” said the waiter, looking sideways to be certain that the manager’s back was turned. “What is it? You see something?”
“I never passed a bad note before,” I said. “Keep the change.” The waiter laughed and I, having shaken hands with him, went to catch my train.
THE CREWEL NEEDLE
Certain others I know, in my position, sir, have had “severe nervous breakdowns”—gone out of their minds—took to parading the streets with banners, and what not, shouting Unfair! Well, thank God, I was always steady minded. I could always see the other side of things. So, although I really was unjustly dismissed from the force, I could still keep my balance. I could see the reason for the injustice behind my dismissal, and could get around to blaming myself for not keeping my silly mouth shut.
Actually, you know, I wasn’t really sacked. I was told that if I wanted to keep what there was of my pension, I had better resign on grounds of ill health. So I did, and serve me right. I should never have made my statement without first having my evidence corroborated. However, no bitterness—that ends badly, mark my words. Justifiable or unjustifiable, bitterness leads to prejudice which, carried far enough, is the same thing as madness. . . . I started life in the Army, d’you see, where you learn to digest a bit of injustice here and there; because if you don’t it gets you down and you go doolally.
If I had been thirty years wiser, thirty years ago, I might have been retired, now, on an inspector’s pension. Only, in the matter of an open verdict, I didn’t have the sense to say nothing. I was young and foolish, d’you see, and therefore over-eager. There was a girl I was very keen on and I was anxious to better myself—d’you see?
I was supposed to be an intelligent officer, as far as that goes in the police force. But that isn’t quite good enough. In those days all the so-called intelligence in the world wouldn’t get a policeman very far—seniority aside—unless he had a kind of spectacular way of showing it.
I’m not embittered, mind you. Nothing against the force. Only I ought to have known when to stop.
At first, like everybody else, I thought nothing of. it. The police were called in after the doctor, merely as a matter of routine, d’you see. I was on a beat, then, in Hammersmith. Toward about eight o’clock one Sunday morning, neighbors on either side of a little house in Spindleberry Road were disturbed by the hysterical crying of a child at Number Nine.
At first there was some talk of the N.S.P.C.C., but there was no question of that, because the people at Number Nine were, simply, a little orphan girl, aged eight, and her aunt, Miss Pantile, who thought the world of her niece and, far from ill-treating the child, had a tendency to spoil her; because the little girl, whose name was Titania, was delicate, having had rheumatic fever.
As is not uncommon, the houses in Spindleberry Road are numbered odd coming up, and even going down. The neighbors in question, therefore, were Numbers Seven and Eleven. Spindleberry Road, like so many of them put up around Brook Green before the turn of the century, is simply a double row of brick barracks, sort of sectionalized and numbered. Under each number, a porch. In front of each porch, iron railings and an iron gate. At the back of each house, a bit of garden: they are accessible from front or back only.
Beg pardon—I’ve never quite lost the habit of making everything I say a kind of report. . . . Well, hearing child crying, neighbors knock at door. No answer. Number Seven shouts through letter-box, “Open the door and let us in, Titania!” Child keeps on crying. Various neighbors try windows, but every window is locked from the inside. At last, Number Eleven, a retired captain of the mercantile marine, in the presence of witnesses, bursts in the back door. Meanwhile, one of the lady neighbors has come to get a policeman, and has found me at the corner of Rowan Road. I appear on the scene.
Not to bother you, sir, with the formalities; being within my rights, as I see them in this case, I go in, having whistled for another policeman who happens to be my sergeant. The house is in no way disturbed, but all the time, upstairs, this child is screaming as if she is being murdered, over and over again: “Auntie Lily’s dead! Auntie Lily’s dead!”
The bedroom is locked on the inside. Sergeant and I force the lock, and there comes out at us a terrified little golden-headed girl, frightened out of her wits. The woman from Number Eleven soothes her as best she can, but the sergeant and I concentrate our attention upon Miss Lily Pantile, who is lying on a bed with her eyes and mouth wide open, stone dead.
The local doctor was called, of course, and he said that, as far as he could tell, this poor old maiden lady had died of something like a cerebral hemorrhage at about three o’clock in the morning. On a superficial examination this was as far as he cared to commit himself. He suggested that this was a matter for the coroner.
And that, as far as everybody was concerned, was that, d’you see. Only it was not. At the inquest it appeared that poor Miss Pantile had met her death through a most unusual injury. A gold-eyed crewel needle had been driven through her skull, and into her brain, about three inches above the left ear!
Now here, if you like, was a mystery with a capital M.
Miss Pantile lived alone with her eight-year-old niece. She had enough money of her own to support them both, but sometimes made a little extra by crewel work—you know, embroidering with silks on a canvas background. She was especially good at creweling roses for cushion covers. The needle she favored—she had packets and packets of them—was the Cumberland Crewel Gold Eye, one of which had found its way, nobody knew how, through her skull and into her brain. But how?—that was the question.