The Corpse in the Cellar Read Online Free Page A

Classics edition of
Palgrave’s Golden Treasury
in its blue cloth binding, and a compact Bible, printed in small type on what used to be called rice paper.
    â€˜Hang on,’ I volunteered, and digging into my jacket pocket I produced the book I was carrying:
The Pilgrim’s Regress
by C. S. Lewis. I waved it in Jack’s direction and said, ‘That’s him, you see—the author.’
    â€˜I see,’ said Franklin Grimm very slowly. ‘So you have a book written by this C. S. Lewis and a savings bank passbook belonging to the same man, but no other identification?’
    â€˜I was here last year,’ Jack boomed, becoming slightly annoyed by this farrago of nonsense, ‘when I was passing through on another walking holiday. On that occasion I dealt with the manager. He may well recognise me. If, that is, the same man is still the manager here.’
    â€˜Mr Ravenswood has been here for six years, sir,’ said the teller.
    â€˜That’s the man,’ Jack said with delight. ‘I remember the name—Ravenswood. Just wheel him out of his office, my good man. I’m sure he’ll recognise me.’
    The teller turned and said to the young woman at the typewriter, ‘Is Mr Ravenswood in his office, Ruth?’
    â€˜No, Mr Grimm,’ she replied. ‘He’s down in the cellar doing the quarterly maintenance.’
    The teller turned back to us and said with a smarmy smile, ‘Perhaps you’d care to wait until Mr Ravenswood is available?’
    â€˜Take me down to him in the cellar,’ said Jack in that great voice of his that could fill an Oxford lecture hall. ‘He just needs to take a glance at me and authorise the withdrawal, that’s all.’
    Franklin Grimm suddenly looked undecided. Clearly he felt keenly the superiority of the bank officer over the mere customer, but Jack carried so much authority in his manner and his voice that the teller was now uncertain how far he could take this.
    He reached his decision, coming down on the side of safety. ‘If you’d step through this counter flap, sir, I’ll take you down to Mr Ravenswood in the cellar.’
    As he spoke he stepped out of his teller’s cage and raised the counter flap beside it.
    Jack entered the office behind the counter and followed the teller towards a door in the far wall. Warnie and I glanced at each other and decided, pretty much simultaneously, not to be left behind. So we followed them.
    The young woman looked up, startled by our entry into the sacred ground of the bank’s office. She was too stunned to speak. She just sat there with her mouth open, looking like a cod in a fish shop window—a cod who was clearly waiting for either an explanation or an apology.
    The door at the rear of the office opened onto a steep flight of steps that led down into a dimly lit cellar. In fact, the only light came from a single naked light globe dangling on the end of a piece of flex in the centre of the room.
    â€˜Mr Ravenswood? Sir?’ called out Franklin Grimm. Facing us was a solid brick wall with a large steel vault door set into it. This was standing ajar, and, in response to the teller’s call, a man emerged from the strongroom behind the steel door. He was a large, solidly built man with a puffy, red face. He was wearing a business shirt but no jacket and his tie was slightly askew. As he emerged he was wiping his hands on an oily rag.
    â€˜Yes, what is it, Grimm?’ he growled. But before the teller could reply he saw the rest of us—Jack standing beside the teller and Warnie and me on the stairs.
    â€˜Who are these people? And what are they doing here? Did you bring them down into the cellar? That’s against bank policy!’
    This prompted Grimm to look over his shoulder and become aware of our presence. ‘You two, go back upstairs!’ he snapped. Warnie responded by leaning his elbow on the railing of the stairway, making