Chapter Twenty-Four
TWENTY-FOUR
Alec and Patrick arrived in Manchester in the small hours of the morning.
It was raining. Patrick wanted to go at once to the Royal Infirmary.
Alec, not entirely disingenuously, persuaded him that his brother would be sleeping and ought not to be disturbed.
Indeed, the hospital would certainly not allow a visit to the ward, and moving Aidan to a private room—let alone to a nursing home—in the middle of the night was not a good idea, was, in fact, a rotten idea.
Rest and peace were what a concussion victim needed most.
He felt only slightly guilty. The truth of his words was not altered by his own intention of disturbing the patient at the earliest feasible hour of the morning. He was not about to permit the brothers to meet before he had taken Aidan’s statement.
They went to the London Road Station Hotel. Patrick went straight to his room. Alec’s day was by no means yet ended.
First, he rang up the Manchester police headquarters.
True to his word, Superintendent Crane had paved the way.
The duty sergeant promised him a car and a detective constable to pick him up at the hotel at quarter past six.
Hospitals were notorious for starting their day ridiculously early.
Alec reckoned that by the time he had worked his way through the bureaucracy and spoken to the almoner and the doctor, Aidan Jessup should be washed, shaved, fed, and as ready for interrogation as he was likely to be.
Assuming he was not inconveniently still unconscious.
This arranged, Alec returned to the reception desk. No one was there, but a sleepy-eyed porter limped over from his post by the door and advised him to ring the bell.
“Thank you, in a minute. Were you on duty last night?”
“Oh aye, that I were.”
“You saw the man who was taken away to hospital?”
“Oh aye. Coom in here lookin’ like death, he did, ’bout this time last night.
Cou’n’t stand up straight and wobbling abaht like a one-legged parrot.
I thought he were drunk as an oyster, but he were dressed like a gent, an’ ‘e gave the porter what brought his bags from the station an ‘alf crown. Gave me another when I lent him a hand. He’d wired ahead to book a room, so Mr. Greaves didn’t—”
“What I did or didn’t do cannot possibly interest this gentleman, Wetherby.
” The voice of authority emanated from a very small man, not much more than a midget, slim and dapper, with only crow’s-feet and greying temples to distinguish him from a boy.
He had appeared through the door behind the reception counter, which hid all but his head until he stepped up onto a stool.
“But it does interest me,” said Alec, producing his warrant card. “Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher of Scotland Yard. You’re the night manager, I take it, Mr. Greaves? May I have a word with you?”
Greaves raised his eyebrows. “A police matter, is it? You’d better come back into the office.”
“Thanks, Mr. Wetherby,” Alec said to the porter, and followed the manager through the door.
An electric fire, occupying a stingy Victorian grate, made the office considerably cosier than the lobby outside.
There was a utilitarian desk, a safe, and a filing cabinet, but two armchairs flanked the fireplace and the fragrance of coffee filled the air.
A pot steamed gently over a spirit lamp on a small table.
“Take a seat. Coffee?”
“That would be very welcome. It’s been a long day.”
As he poured, Greaves said, “The man who was taken ill was a Jessup. The man who arrived with you was a Jessup. I hope the family hasn’t called in Scotland Yard because of any suspicion of skulduggery in this hotel having caused Mr. Jessup’s collapse.”
“Scotland Yard is not so easily called in, I assure you. Does your recollection of his arrival agree with the porter’s?”
“I didn’t hear everything he said, but I’d be surprised if it differed by much. As you can imagine, there’s been a good deal of talk among the staff.”
“Well, then, tell me how you saw it.”
Greaves shrugged. “I’m always at the desk at that time, as when you arrived, because of the express from London.
Mostly businessmen take that train. It’s not unknown for one or two to arrive slightly squiffy, and I can tell you, it’s a delicate balancing act whether to give them a room or not.
We’ve the reputation of the hotel to consider, both the reputation for hospitality and as being a quiet, respectable place.
If they’re not at a noisy stage of inebriation, and if they’ve booked in advance, we let ’em stay, especially if we know them. ”
“You know Aidan Jessup?”
“He’s stayed here for a few days every autumn since I’ve worked here. Nice gentleman, sober and steady as they come, I’d’ve said, but …”
“But last night?”
“Last night, he couldn’t walk or talk straight, seemed sort of dazed, looked alarmingly as if he might be sick at any moment.
You know that greenish look? He complained of a splitting headache.
I did ask if he was ill, but he denied it.
Said he just needed a few hours in bed. He had a hired car and driver organised for nine the next—that’s this morning.
That’s as far as my personal knowledge goes. ”
“Thank you. You’ll be asked to sign a statement later.
Now, off the record, will you tell me what you were told about subsequent events when you came to work this evening?
As far as we’re concerned, this is hearsay, which cannot be used in evidence, but it may help me decide whom else I need to interview. ”
“Can’t you tell me what this is all about? If the hotel is going to be mentioned in the papers in the context of a police enquiry, I’ll probably be blamed for letting him stay, and jobs are few and far between. Forewarned is forearmed.”
Alec wondered if the poor devil, intelligent and well-spoken as he was, had trouble finding jobs because of his diminutive stature.
“It’s highly unlikely the hotel will play much of a part, if any,” he assured him.
“It’s a London affair I’m investigating.
I can’t tell you more, I’m afraid. Go on, please. ”
“There’s not much to tell. I gather the motor-car and chauffeur turned up as expected.
Mr. Jessup had got himself down to the lobby somehow and was sitting huddled up in a chair in his coat and hat, still looking deathly ill.
The driver took one look at him and said he wouldn’t be responsible.
He was afraid he’d find himself out in the country somewhere with a corpse in the backseat.
And the poor gentleman wasn’t even well enough to sit up straight and argue.
So Mr. Hatcher, the day manager, called a doctor and Mr. Jessup was whisked off to hospital, a hotel being no place to care for a sick man. ”
“You didn’t hear what the doctor said was wrong with him?”
“No. Oh, I believe he had a bandaged head. A sticking plaster or some such. No one had seen him without his hat before the doctor examined him.”
Though Alec was no medical man, he’d dealt with the aftermath of enough assault and batteries and grievous bodily harms to know that the worst effects of a blow to the head are often delayed.
The symptoms sounded appropriate. But what on earth had happened the previous afternoon in Constable Circle?
Castellano and Aidan Jessup had hit each other over the head with one or more blunt instruments? It sounded ridiculous.
Had Aidan, at the time, remained sufficiently compos mentis to murder his assailant? Or had he been knocked out, leaving vengeance to his brother?
There was still the remote possibility that Aidan had been injured after leaving home, or, even less likely, after reaching Manchester.
Tracing him among the hordes at St. Pancras was a long shot, but Manchester’s London Road Station after midnight was a brighter prospect.
Aidan’s railway porter must be found and questioned, Alec decided.
Sipping his coffee, he wished it could be postponed till the morning, but the night staff would go off duty and memories would fade.
He swallowed the last drop of coffee, regretfully declined another cup, thanked Greaves, and went to see if the hotel porter happened to know the name of the railway porter.
“Fred Banks,” said Wetherby promptly. “We was in the Manchester Regiment together.”
Alec trudged back into the station. Knowing the name, finding the porter was easy, and he was as willing to talk as his regimental mate.
“Course I remember the gent,” he said, his Manchester accent thick as the industrial city’s soot-laden air. “When the train pulled in, I seen him standing at a door. Waved me over and pointed out his luggage.”
“Was he talking normally?”
“Yes, sir, normal as any Londoner do. Didn’t seem nowt the matter with him, barring he looked tired, which all the passengers do comin’ orf that train.
He stepped down to the platform as I went over to him, and he missed his footing seemingly.
He didn’t fall acos I caught him, but he landed on his feet with a bit of a jar.
He were a mite shook-up, like, that’s all.
It’s only a few inches. Then when I come down with his bags, he were leaning against my barrow, looking sick as a dog. ”
“Did you suspect he might be drunk?”
“No, sir, acos he were all right before. I did wonder was it shell shock. It takes some people funny, and a jar like that might bring it on. Any road, I arst was he all right, and he said, sort of slurred, like, yes, he just wanted to get on to the hotel. So I took him, and I can tell you, I didn’t think he’d make it, for all it’s hardly a step.
But I got him there and turned him over to Jim Wetherby, as is porter at the hotel.
He give me half a crown. A nice gent, and I’m sure I hope he’ll be all right. It’s a funny thing, shell shock.”