'But you've never seen him do it?'
'I've seen him on the point of blowing up – then I've made myself scarce.'
'When did you find out about his accident?'
'Oh, that all came out when the police started asking questions. They could see he was nuts, and wanted to know why. Miss Rickerby told them, and then she told us all.'
'You don't suppose he did for Blackburn, do you?'
'Blackburn jumped into the sea, Jim,' said Vaughan, who was now kneeling down and fishing about inside the trunk. '… Or that's what we all tell ourselves in this house. I mean, none of us likes to think we're sharing lodgings with a murderer.'
He lifted a book out of the trunk, and rifled through the pages, as if to make sure they were all properly bound in.
'Well,' I said, 'no-one can say what happened.'
Vaughan stowed the book back in the trunk.
'The lad's got a hell of a job on with that decorating,' I said.
'Well, he's making an apartment, Jim. It's Fielding's idea, and he's persuaded the lady of it. Eliminate the rough element.'
I looked upwards again, following the pipes with my eye.
'Where do they go?' I said, indicating them.
'Up into the floorboards. Up into your room, I expect.'
'But there's only an oil lamp in my room.'
'Well,' he said, 'perhaps there was gas once.'
There had been. The painting in the dining room showed my room the brightest.
'Why would it be stopped?'
'Economy,' said Vaughan with a shrug, and he was now at my side.
'Here's our little friend again,' he said, and he passed me a post card showing a woman – the bicycling woman. Only now she was painting a picture. You couldn't see it because the easel faced away from the camera but you could see everything else. The card came from a new envelope, lately fished from the trunk.
'Who is this bloody woman, Theo?' I said.
'Yorkshire lass,' he said, and he passed me another card.
'Told you she was game,' he said, and she was now sitting on a gate before a meadow and dangerously close -1 would have thought – to a country road. Vaughan said, 'You can tell it's a windy day, can't you?'
'Why put these sorts of picture on post cards?' I said. 'I mean, it's not as if you can post 'em, is it?'
'For collectors,' he said. 'And you can post 'em in envelopes, Jim.'
I glanced over towards his bed. There was a tin of something there. At first I'd taken it for a tin of lozenges, but I now read 'Oglesby's Pilules', and, underneath, 'Oglesby's Pilules are a Certain Cure for Blind and Bleeding Piles'.
'Do you have piles, Jim?' he enquired, seeing where I was looking and holding out another post card. 'Sometimes I can't walk around town. Rather fancy studio shot. I presume that swan is stuffed,' he added, passing me the card.
'Look here,' I said, 'why are you showing me these?'
He stepped back, offended.
'What's the matter, Jim?' he said. 'Has old Fielding warned you off?'
'Warned me off what?'
'Business connection,' he said.
'Eh?'
'You can have the choicest selection from the choicest range. A hundred cards for a quid, Jim.'
'Why would I want a hundred?'
'You can have two hundred if you want. To be perfectly honest, I'm keen to sell the whole stock, hence the special rate. Of course, you're a chum as well – that's the other reason.'
He moved over to the fire, leant on the mantel-shelf, and looked shrewdly at me, or at least I supposed that was the idea.
'But maybe you think rather narrowly of me for bringing them out.'
'You mean me to buy them and sell them on?' I said.
He nodded quickly.
'They go like hot cakes in any engine shed,' he said. 'Sixpence a piece. I've blokes on the Great Northern and the Hull and Barnsley, and they're getting rich at this game, Jim. When the samples are first shown there's a bit of a frost, I'll not deny it. Blokes are shy, as I can see you are, Jim; they're married men, and it's on their conscience a little, but I promise you that after a couple of weeks, when they think back to what they've seen, and turned it over a little in their minds, why… there's a regular rush, Jim.'
'The cards are not legal though, are they?'
'Where?' he demanded, still with the shrewd look.' Where are they not legal? They're jolly well legal in France.'
But then he relented a little.
'The coppers can be a nuisance,' he said. 'But it's small apples to them, Jim. I know that from experience. Would you care for a bottle of beer?'
'Well,' I said, 'what time is it?'
'Quarter to midnight,' he said.
I grinned, for it was a crazy situation. It seemed about a week since I'd come into Scarborough station with Tommy Nugent.
'It's nearly midnight, Jim!' said Theo Vaughan, laying the card package down on the bed. 'I'm not going to mince words! I believe in plain speaking!'
I was curious to see where he'd go for the beer, and in the end – after a bit of head scratching on his part – it was the portmanteau. The bottle opener he found at last in the bottom of the closet.
'I don't run to glasses,' he said, handing over the bottle. 'But you're not the sort to bother. Try giving old Fielding a bottle and no glass and just see what happens!'
'What does happen?' I said.
'Nothing,' said Vaughan. 'But it's the look he gives you.'
'He'll drink it then?'
'He'll drink it all right.'
Vaughan took a pull on his beer, and fell to eyeing me for a while.
'I should just think he will,' he ran on. 'What's the old devil been saying about me? But go on, Jim, I can see you want to question me. Get straight to it. Honesty and trust and plain- dealing – that's the start of any business connection.'
'Did you show your cards to Blackburn?' I said.
That knocked Vaughan, I could tell, for he asked, 'What cards?' and went back to his shrewd look.
'Well,' I said, taking a pull of beer, 'the ones presently under discussion. The ones you've just asked me to question you about.'
At this, Vaughan might have nodded, but it was done too fast for me to be certain.
'The coppers want to know every detail of my dealings with the man, which amount to this: sitting next to him at one supper, during which he was more or less silent; going with him to the Two Mariners, beginning in hopes of conversation and ending in complete silence.'
'But on the walk – in the pub – you did show him the cards?'
'I suppose so.'
Vaughan was pacing now, beer bottle in hand.
'And he didn't take to the cards?'
'You should have seen him when I took 'em out, Jim. Face like bloody yesterday and he said, 'I shall be mentioning this to Miss Rickerby.''
'Oh,' I said.
'Next development, Jim,' said Vaughan. 'The coppers – the Scarborough lot – made a search of the house –
