The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum
March 28, 2024, 02:02:15 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
News: Here you may discover hundreds of little-known composers, hear thousands of long-forgotten compositions, contribute your own rare recordings, and discuss the Arts, Literature and Linguistics in an erudite and decorous atmosphere full of freedom and delight.
 
   Home   Help Search Gallery Staff List Login Register  
Pages: 1 ... 5 6 [7] 8 9 10
 61 
 on: March 12, 2024, 05:56:51 am 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Saturday August 26th

ANNE had once, to her extreme discomfort, spent a Christmas holiday in a sporting household in the West of England, where, Sundays apart, non-hunting days were shooting days, and vice versa. She could not ride and had a violent dislike for shooting. Moreover, if while she was there the rain ever stopped for a single moment during the hours of daylight, it must have been when she was not looking. In consequence, while she had succeeded in forgetting most of that disastrous holiday, and in living down what could not be forgotten, one impression remained ineffaceable. It was the memory of long afternoons in the drawing-room, watching the rain splash against the windows, listening to the click of her hostess’s knitting needles as they inexorably compiled yet another pair of sensible shooting-stockings, waiting for tea until the men came in.

She had an absurd sensation of being back in Devonshire just now, as she lay curled up on a sofa, trying to read a book. Despite the fact that there was no fire in the grate and that outside was full daylight instead of the gloom of a winter afternoon, she could not rid herself of the feeling that she was once more “waiting for the men to come in” from the day’s sport, and that at all costs, tea must be kept for them. They might be in at any moment now, their silly white breeches splashed all over with mud, and with a sickly certainty she foresaw that Johnny would be still utterly absorbed in that ghastly Bendish girl, discussing saddle-sores and overreaches, eternally, eternally, and never once noticing . . .

“Damn! Am I going quite off my head?” she said to herself, and sat up on the sofa. It is humiliating to find oneself so vividly remembering what has been so firmly forgotten. She was alone in the house, her mother having gone out soon after lunch. There was not the smallest reason to suppose that Stephen would be home before dinner, if then, and Martin might not choose to come back at all. Detection---if this absurd amateur business could be called that---didn’t keep fixed hours like pheasant shooting or fox hunting, and it was ridiculous to imagine that anything worth speaking of could be done in an afternoon.

At all events, it was time to think of getting herself tea. She got up, and as she did so, noticed lying on the floor the paper recording the results of her investigations in the telephone directory. She picked it up, and reflected somewhat guiltily that it was not very much to show for an afternoon’s work. She put it away with the list of suspects compiled at the end of the conference and then stood quite still for a full half-minute, thinking. That half-minute was the sum total of time given that day to the consideration of the matter which she had told Martin needed thinking out. When it had elapsed, the fact was still there, unchanged---perfectly obvious, perfectly inexplicable---a solid little chunk of reality lodged uncomfortably in her mind. And she remained as perversely determined as ever that for the present it should be shared by nobody else.

She was finishing her first cup of tea when a loud pounding on the door knocker made her start. So the men were back already, or rather one of them. Martin, of course. Stephen had his latchkey, and any other visitor would have rung the bell in the ordinary way. Martin preferred the knocker. Merely to put his finger on a bell push was too tame a method of announcing his presence. She ran to the door to let him in.

“Any tea left? Good!” were his first words, as he plumped down on the sofa beside her.

As she poured him out a cup, it was all that she could do not to ask him whether they had had a good day and where they had killed.

“You’re back earlier than I expected,” she said. “Have you---did you manage to find out anything, Martin?”

Martin popped a small scone into his mouth. He looked thoroughly self-satisfied.

“Depends what you mean by finding-out,” he said with his mouth full. He chewed, swallowed, and then observed, “I’ve seen Mr. Jones, anyway.”

“What?”

“Rather. Charming old gent with a beard. He was very friendly. Wanted me to stay to tea. But I thought I’d rather come back here.”

“Martin, what on earth are you talking about?”

He laughed expansively.

“It was really rather fun,” he said, “and as easy as falling off a log. I’ll tell you exactly what happened. I beetled off to Parbury Gardens, and it turned out to be one of these big blocks of flats, with the names of all the tenants written up in the hall below, just to make things easy for the chap who tells the maid he’s an old friend of the family and then when he’s inside tries to insure your life---you know the sort of thing. Well, I looked at the list of names and the first thing that my eagle eye spotted was that the name opposite No. 15 wasn’t Jones at all. It was Peabody---Mrs. Elizabeth Peabody. I always think there’s something a bit bogus about any woman who calls herself Mrs. Elizabeth anybody, but that doesn’t necessarily prove that she goes about in hotels under the name of Jones. Still, one never could tell, and there was always an odd chance that the Peabody might have let the place to Jones and nobody had bothered to alter the name. So I decided on a spot of finesse. I rang a bell marked ‘Caretaker,’ and after a longish time a small boy appeared. I asked him whether Mr. Jones lived at No. 15. He looked at me rather as if I was half-witted and said that Mrs. Peabody lived there. He didn’t actually ask me whether I could read, but that was what he seemed to imply. I said, oh, I was sorry, but I thought Mr. Jones lived there. Then he seemed to take pity on my innocence and volunteered that a Mr. Jones lived at No. 34, on another staircase. I said Thank you so much and he said Not at all and that was that.”

He devoted himself for a few moments to his tea. Anne poured him out a second cup and murmured, “Yes, darling?”

“Well,” Martin went on, vigorously wiping crumbs off his face with his handkerchief, “there were still two possibilities, of course, (a) Mrs. Peabody might have been staying at Pendlebury as Mrs. Jones. (b) The detective fellow might have made a mistake in the number, and our Jones might be the one living at No. 34. (a) looked rather a stinker. I was loitering on the doorstep, wondering how I could lead the conversation round to Peabody, after all my interest so far had been in Jones, when I had a bit of luck. The boy was just going to slink back into his cubbyhole, after pointing out the way to No. 34, when a delivery van stopped at the door, and a fellow got out with a heavy-looking parcel in his arms. And it was addressed, very plainly, to Mrs. Peabody. Just for something to say, I remarked to the boy, ‘Ah! A parcel for Mrs. Peabody!’ It must have sounded a pretty imbecile remark to make, but it turned up trumps. He said, ‘That’ll be one of her books.’ I said, ‘It looks a jolly heavy book,’ or words to that effect. Then he said, ‘She has to have special sorts of books,’ and suddenly I saw the light. ‘Braille?’ I said. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Books for blind people, you know.’ Just to make sure, I asked him, ‘Is Mrs. Peabody blind?’ and he said: “That’s right. It’s a shame, ain’t it?’ Well, I thought after that, I needn’t worry about point (a) any more, so out I went.”

“Darling, that was frightfully clever of you!”

“Well, it was luck as much as anything, of course,” said Martin modestly.

He waited for her to contradict him, but with feminine perverseness she merely said: “Well, that left point (b). He turned out to be the old gentleman who asked you to stay to tea, I suppose?”

“Yes. It was all rather amusing. What happened was this . . .”

But Anne seemed indisposed to listen to further details.

“He wasn’t even ‘M. Jones’ at all, I suppose?” she interrupted.

“As a matter of fact, he was T. P. M. Jones. I thought there was just a chance he might be the right chap, so I----”

“Anyhow, he obviously wasn’t. And I don’t expect Elderson would have made a mistake about the number.”

“Oh, yes. So what we are left with is that the address in the book was a fake, and for all we know, the name, too. It’s odd, though.”

“I don’t see anything odd about it. Just what I expected. Simply a couple out on the loose----”

“I know. That isn’t what I meant. I’ve never done it, so I’m not sure, but do couples out on the loose usually put real addresses in the hotel book?”

“Of course not, silly! They put in a fake address, just as this one did.”

“But that’s just the point. It was a real address---not their own, of course, but somebody else’s. It seems such a funny thing to do. Or perhaps I’m wrong. Tell me, Martin---you’ve had lots of experience. What used you to put in hotel registers?”

Martin had gone a warm pink.

“Oh, I dunno,” he mumbled. “Just anything that came into my head, I suppose.”

If Anne noticed his embarrassment, she was cruelly unfeeling about it.

“Anything that came into your head,” she repeated. “Yes. I suppose that is what one would do. And the anything might be either a purely imaginary address or a real one. But if it was a real one, there must have been something to make it come into one’s head---some association, don’t you see, that made one think of that particular address rather than any other. So I can’t help feeling that we haven’t disposed of the Joneses just by finding out that they didn’t live at 15, Parbury Gardens. If they didn’t, one of them, at all events, probably had some reason for writing it down in the hotel register rather than---than Plane Street, Hampstead, for instance.”

“This is all a bit deep for me,” Martin observed.

“Oh, no, it isn’t. You’re quite sharp, really, and you know it.”

“Anyhow, I don’t see that we can do any more about the Joneses.”

“Neither do I. But it’s unsatisfactory, because of course we haven’t really eliminated them at all.”

“Personally, I don’t think they were ever worth troubling about. They were simply a couple out----”

“Yes, Martin darling, you’ve said that already. You do repeat yourself a lot, you know.”

“Sorry, Annie. Let’s forget them. Do you know, I can think of quite a lot of things I haven’t repeated nearly enough lately.”

And Martin proceeded to repeat them, with a warmth and variety that did him credit.

At the end of a quarter of an hour, a key was heard in the latch of the front door.

“That’ll be Mother,” said Anne, disengaging herself. “Martin, you’ve made my hair in a foul mess. And do go and wipe that powder off your coat.”

But it was not Mrs. Dickinson, but Stephen. He came into the room looking bored and tired. From experience, Anne knew better than to start firing off questions at a man who had obviously not “had a good day.”

“Would you like some tea?” she asked. “It won’t take a minute to make a fresh pot.”

Stephen shook his head.

“Is there any whisky in the house, d’you think?” he asked.

“There’s half a decanter in the dining-room, if you haven’t drunk it already. It’s all there is, because I know Mother said she wasn’t going to order any more till----”

“Till we touch the insurance money, I suppose. What a hope!”

“Well, why don’t you order in some for yourself? After all, you’re the only one who drinks it.”

“Oh, yes, I can order it, all right. Only my credit happens to be a bit low just now.”

“I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” remarked Martin unexpectedly. “But will they come when you do call for them? I say! That really is rather neat, don’t you think?”

Stephen gave him a disgusted look and went out of the room. He returned a moment or two later with a full glass. Sitting down, he drank off about half of it in silence. Then he said abruptly:

“Well, I’ve got rid of Davitt, anyhow.”

“Got rid of him?” Anne asked.

“Eliminated him, expunged him, wiped him out. Do I make myself clear?”

“Don’t say that, Stevie!” Martin protested. “Davitt, the man of mystery, my own selection! I can’t bear to see him go!”

Stephen took no notice of him.

“So far as I can see the man is perfectly genuine and has no more to do with Father’s death than---than the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

He emptied his glass, and put it down beside him.

“How about Jones?” he said, turning to Martin.

Martin was opening his mouth to repeat his history, when Anne cut in.

“But Stephen, aren’t you going to tell us about Davitt?”

“I’ve told you. He’s a wash-out.”

“But you can’t leave it just like that. What did you do? How did you find out? You must tell us something!”

Stephen frowned in a bored manner which, in Anne’s experienced eyes, concealed an excited awareness of the interest he was creating.

“Well, if you won’t take my word for it,” he said grudgingly, “here goes.”

He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and addressed the picture-rail on the opposite side of the room.

“Hawk Street is a depressing place. How anybody can contrive to live there I can’t imagine. It’s tucked away behind Garmoyle Street, and that’s tucked away behind Theobald’s Road. It’s all little two-and three-storied dirty brick houses with aspidistras and lace curtains in the ground floor windows. You know the sort of thing. Practically every house lets apartments, and a good proportion of the lodgers are foreigners, I should say---students, refugees, and so forth.”

“Funny that a chap living in such a poor-class neighbourhood could afford to stay at Pendlebury,” said Martin.

Stephen nodded.

“Just what occurred to me,” he said. “Well, I found No. 42, and it was just like all the others, only perhaps a little dingier. It had the usual card in the window, impinging on the vegetation, to say that there were apartments, or at any rate an apartment, to let. That made it easy, of course. I rang the bell and an amiable old body came to the door. She was what I believe is known as ‘motherly’---not my type, exactly, but I shouldn’t be surprised if she was the answer to the lodger’s prayer. I shall never know for certain, unfortunately. You see, I thought if the worst came to the worst, and Master Davitt seemed worth while investigating, I could take a room in the house and try a little sleuthing at close quarters. I asked the old dame if I could see her apartment and in I went. The room was pretty grisly, but I suppose it might have been worse. It was perfectly clean, anyway. Then I asked her if she hadn’t a front room to let---the one she showed me looked out on the cat-run at the back. No, the front room was let. I didn’t ask her outright who it was let to, but she was the nice, gossipy sort of landlady---quite a good type for the learner-detective to practice on---and in next to no time she told me that the room had been occupied these last two years by a steady young man of the name of Davitt. From then on she proceeded to disgorge without any prompting all that she knew of the said steady young man. Which was quite a lot.”

Stephen paused dramatically. His air of boredom had disappeared and he was evidently enjoying his own recital.

“Disregarding inessential details, what it amounted to was this: He is a clerk in a big City firm---she is a bit vague about it, but they appear to be stockbrokers. He is all alone in the world, except for an aged mother in Glasgow, whom he goes to see every Christmas. Very quiet, very shy, no girl friends, and pays his rent regularly. (That, of course, was the most important thing about him. There was a sort of Go Thou And Do Likewise look in her eyes when she said it that impressed me a lot.) The only thing that distresses her about him is that he never goes out anywhere in the evenings, but sits indoors all the time writing. And that is the clue to the whole of the great Davitt mystery. He’s by way of being an author of genius. Whether his genius runs to epic poetry or plays or soap advertisements, she couldn’t tell me. Personally, I think a man must have genius of a remarkable order if he can find anything to write about, sitting in a front room in Hawk Street and never poking his nose outside to see what the world is like. But that’s by the way. Of course, his genius isn’t recognized as yet, not completely recognized, I should say, because a month or two ago he did achieve a bit of recognition. He won a prize. Naturally, my thoughts turned at once to Football Pools, but it was nothing so banal. It was a prize offered by a literary magazine---quite a lot of money, she told me. I imagine it was ten or twenty pounds. And what did I think he did with it? By this time, I could have told her but it seemed more satisfactory to let her tell me.”

“You mean he spent his prize money on staying at Pendlebury?” Anne asked.

“No less. It seems a pretty footling thing to do, doesn’t it? His only use for what he had won by his writing, apparently, was to go away somewhere quiet and do yet more writing. He had a week or so of holiday due to him about then, and he couldn’t do anything better with it than that. Rather pathetic, I thought. It seemed to me that he might just as well have saved his cash and stopped at Hawk Street all the time, but I forgot to mention among the charms of the neighbourhood that it’s a favourite by-pass for heavy stuff going to and from the big railway stations, and I quite appreciate what she meant by his wanting somewhere quiet. So there he stayed, right up to the last minute of the last day of his holiday, and came back, I was not surprised to hear, looking as pale and tired as when he started.”

“But why did he have to take all his meals in his room?” Anne asked.

“Same thing. He didn’t want to be disturbed in his writing, or the meditations incidental to his writing. Time and again Mrs. Thing---I never found out her name---had to drag him downstairs by the scruff of his neck to his supper, he was that taken up by his work, you wouldn’t believe. I suppose to have his meals---even Pendlebury meals---brought up to his room three times a day must have been the seventh heaven to him. Poor devil! I don’t expect he’s ever heard of cacoethes scribendi, but he’s got it pretty badly.”

He ended his story, and then added after a pause: “Well, that’s all there is to it. I shook the dust of Hawk Street off my feet as soon as I could, once I’d got what I wanted. I said I’d let the old woman know about the back room. She’ll have to wait a long time before she catches me down there again, though.”

Nobody said anything for a moment or two, and then Martin said: “You didn’t get hold of the name of the stockbrokers, I think you said?”

“No. It didn’t seem to matter much.”

“I was just wondering. Suppose it turned out that Vanning was a stockbroker----”

“Well----” Stephen began, with a shrug that showed what he thought of the suggestion.

“He’s not,” Anne put in. “At any rate, if he is, he doesn’t live in London, or anywhere near it.”

“Lots of stockbrokers live at Brighton,” Martin said.

“My good Martin,” said Stephen, exasperated, “if you want to pursue this ridiculous hare, why don’t you get hold of a list of members of the Stock Exchange and find out for yourself?”

“Quite right, Steve, I hadn’t thought of that. Silly of me. Apologies and all that.”

“And now,” said Stephen, turning to his sister, “who is Vanning, what is he? I hope the Directory has been useful.”

“It all depends what you call useful,” said Anne. “This is what it says.”

She fetched the little document which she had compiled and handed it to him. Stephen read:

Vanning, Alfred & Co., Ltd., Fruit Mrchts., Covt Gdn. W.C.2.

Vanning, Alfred E., Osokosi, Watling Way, Strthm.

Vanning, Chas. C., Grngrcr, 42, Victoria Ave., S.W.16.

Vanning, K. S. T., Barrister-at-Law, 2, Nisi Prius Row, Temple, E.C.4.

Vanning, K. S. T., 46, Exeter Mans., S.W.11.

Vanning, Mrs., 94b, Grosvenor Sq., W.1.

Vanning, Peter, Artist, 3, Hogarth Studios, Kingfisher Walk, S.W.3.

Vanning, Thos. B., Grngrcr, 85, Brick St., N.1.

Vanning, Waldron & Smith, Chtrd Acctnts, 14, Gossip Lane, E.C.3.

“Quite amusing in its way,” he remarked. “Observe how Alfred E., no doubt the big noise of the firm at Covent Garden, establishes his younglings in the retail trade to the north and south of him! Wait a bit, though---perhaps they’re only nephews. He seeks higher things for his son, and sends him to the Bar.”

“Where does the artist come in?” said Anne.

“Oh, he’s obviously a sport from the parent stock, who sickened of the sight of whole oranges in crates, and went off to paint half ones on dishes instead. But I can’t quite work in Mrs. Vanning. Grosvenor Square clashes rather with Osokosi, don’t you think? Perhaps----”

“The point is, it seems to me,” said Martin heavily, “does any of this help us to find J. S. Vanning?”

“Not in the least. I suppose we could solemnly go through everyone on the list and try to find if any of them is harboring a son or brother with the initials J. S., but it seems a waste of time when we’ve got another line on him through Parsons.”

“Just what I thought. Well, the upshot of the day’s work is, we’ve knocked Davitt off the list---subject to what I said about stockbrokers---and Vanning and Jones are left much where we found ’em.”

“Jones!” said Stephen. “I forgot. You haven’t told me about him yet.”

And Martin did tell him, with all and more than all the elaboration with which he had already told Anne. Soon the two men were comparing notes on their experiences and arguing like old hands as to the merits of different methods of detective inquiry. To Anne, sitting bored and tired between them, it was all very reminiscent of after-tea conversation in Devonshire. . . . “What you want to do, old man, is to drive the Long Wood first, and put three guns forward, with a stop in the hollow.”---“It’s no good, my dear chap, with the wind in the South---they simply break back over the boundary fence every time.”---“’f course, if you’d only taken my advice last year and cut another ride through the larch plantation. . . .” If it hadn’t been for the consciousness of that nagging little fact, ever present at the back of her mind, she would have gone fast asleep.


 62 
 on: March 12, 2024, 05:31:00 am 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Saturday, August 26th

STEPHEN finished his reading and looked round at his audience. Anne, from her foot-stool, was regarding the carpet with an air of intense concentration. Martin was making notes with a stubby pencil on the back of an old envelope. He continued to do so for some moments after Stephen’s voice had ceased, and then looked up.

“May I have a look at the blighter’s plan of the course, Stevie, old son?” he asked.

Stephen handed him the plan, and Martin gave it a cursory glance through his thick spectacles.

“Thanks,” he said, giving it back. “Well, we’ve got all the doings now, haven’t we? I plump for Davitt, myself. Room next door and all, he’d have heard the girl knock on your guv’nor’s door. Then all he had to do was to pop out and bung the stuff in the tea-pot. It’s an open and shut case, I think. Don’t you think so, Annie?”

Anne said, without looking up:

“There seem to have been a lot of odd people in that hotel. What about Vanning and Parsons? Parsons was a bad sleeper---he may very well have had Medinal with him. And then there are the Joneses----”

“Nothing odd about them. Just a couple out loose on the spree. It would have been much odder if there hadn’t been a pair like that in a country hotel at the week-end. No, put your shirt on Davitt, the man of mystery, first favourite in the murderer’s stakes. What do you say, Steve?”

“I think you will be making a great mistake if you start theorizing at this stage,” said Stephen pedantically. “To begin with, you have got to consider all the evidence, and not simply what I have just read you.”

“But that is all the evidence, ain’t it?” said Martin.

“Not entirely. There are two other matters which may have some bearing on the problem. To begin with, here is a bit of ancient history which Mother told me the other day. Rather a nasty bit of history, I’m afraid.”

He bit his lip and coloured slightly.

“Come on, Steve, don’t be shy!” Martin guffawed. “Out with the old family skeleton!”

Stephen related, as briefly as he could, the gist of the letters which his mother had shown him two days before.

“I may add,” he concluded, “that Mother’s guess turned out to be perfectly right. I have been to Somerset House, and there is no doubt that the woman in question is this same Frances Annie March.”

During the recital, Anne remained silent, still apparently in contemplation of some private problem of her own. Martin, however, was regrettably vocal. His appreciation of Mr. Dickinson’s lapse was quite unrestrained in its expression.

“Who’d have thought the old man had so much blood in him?” was his final comment on the disclosure. “That’s Shakespeare, or something like it. But seriously, Steve, does this get us any forrarder? Unless you’re going to say that Frances Annie and the injured Richard are really Mrs. Whatnot-Blenkinsop and her son. Is that what you’re after?”

“At the moment I’m merely after facts,” said Stephen stiffly. “That happens to be one of them. Now here’s another. Perhaps you’ll think it more important. There was someone in the hotel that night whom Father thought he recognized.”

He repeated what he had learned from the inspector of the man whose appearance had interrupted their conversation in the lounge. Martin showed little interest.

“That doesn’t cut much ice with me,” was his verdict. “Lots of chaps make mistakes like that. Only the other day I slapped a bloke on the back in the street, and it turned out I didn’t know him from Adam. Most embarrassing. Besides, if this fellow was somebody staying in the hotel, why should your father have only seen him that once and not before or after? It was probably just a local who had blown in for a drink.”

“Or,” said Anne slowly, “or it was somebody who didn’t want to be seen again. Somebody who had ordered a meal downstairs and changed his mind when he saw that Father was in the place. Mr. Jones, in fact.”

“Um,” said Martin, visibly impressed. “Um!” He relit his pipe and said no more for a moment or two. “All the same,” he added, after reflection, “I still think Davitt is the man. With Jones as runner-up, perhaps. But I don’t for the life of me see why a fellow should want to take a girl with him on a murdering expedition. I’m dam’ sure I shouldn’t---not even you, Annie.”

“Perhaps----” Anne began, but Stephen interrupted her.

“This is getting us nowhere,” he said impatiently. “We haven’t a ha’porth of evidence to put before the Insurance Company to convince them that any of these people are guilty of the murder. All we have shown so far is that, as Anne says, there were an odd lot of people in the hotel. Also that there was an opportunity for somebody to put an overdose of Medinal in the tea-pot before it reached Father. And that’s not enough, by a long way.”

“Perfectly right,” said Martin. “No use wasting time gassing about these chaps. We’ve got to follow them up and try to find out something about them. This is where the sleuthing starts. Give us our marching orders, Steve.”

“To begin with,” said Stephen, “we’ve got some addresses to go on. Two of them are in London---Davitt and the Joneses. Then there are the Howard-Blenkinsops in Lincolnshire, and the Carstairs at Brighton. Vanning’s address we don’t know, except that he’s somewhere in London, and Parsons is somewhere in Midchester. Presumably we could get at him through his club.”

“If my club porter gave my address to a casual inquirer, I’d have his hide off,” Martin observed parenthetically.

“When we find Parsons, we can find Vanning,” Stephen went on. “If he is willing to help us, which he may very likely not be.”

“Need we bother about these people?” Martin asked. “When we’ve got Davitt and Jones sticking out a mile? It seems to me obvious that these other chaps couldn’t have had anything to do with it.”

“It is anything but obvious,” Stephen retorted. “I agree that we know nothing about them at all. That doesn’t mean we ought to leave them out of account altogether. As for Parsons and Vanning, there is one very significant fact about them, which you seem to have overlooked.”

“Meaning?”

“Simply this. Parsons booked both rooms. The room he booked for Vanning was the room that, as it turned out, Father slept in. It was next door to his own. Can we be sure that Parsons knew of the change? Father had something sent up to his room last thing at night. So did Vanning---do you remember the report says he was surprised to hear next morning that he had got up and had breakfast?---isn’t it quite possible that he poisoned Father by mistake, thinking----”

“Thinking that a pot of tea was a bottle of whisky, I suppose,” Martin interrupted with a horse laugh.

“If you’re going to make a silly joke of the whole thing----” said Stephen crossly.

“I’m not, really, old man. I think it’s all too frightfully subtle for words. Just exactly what you called getting us nowhere just now.”

At which point the tension was mercifully relieved by the gong sounding for lunch.

+++

In the afternoon the conference was resumed in a quieter mood.

“Obviously, we want to start with the nearest people,” said Martin. “That is, Davitt and Jones. First question: Do we try our own hand or get Elderson to do the dirty work for us?”

“We employed Elderson only because I didn’t want to be seen at Pendlebury,” said Stephen. “So far as the start of our inquiry goes, I think we should keep it in our own hands. We can fall back on him if the business looks like getting beyond us.”

“Right. Second question: What line exactly do we take? I mean, it’s all very well to talk about making inquiries, following people up and so forth, but unless you’re a bobby, you can’t just go to a chap’s house and say: ‘Oh, Mr. So-and-so, I’m told you were staying at Pendlebury the other day. Did you by any chance happen to murder an old gentleman called Dickinson while you were there, because if so, I want your blood?’ At least, I don’t see myself doing it.”

“I propose to use my own common sense in the matter, and take whatever line seems best in the circumstances. I certainly don’t intend to interview any of these people directly, until I have found out something about them, unless there’s absolutely no other line of approach.”

“I see---just nose around a bit, make oneself sweet to hall porters and landladies and so forth. Then get an interview by pretending you want to sell something, or that you’re a long-lost brother from Fiji, or something of that sort. It ought to be rather a lark. Now, third and last question: Do we go out in a pack after the stuff, or do we split up, one lion to a Christian, so to speak?”

Anne broke her silence to say: “For goodness’ sake, Martin, don’t let you and Stephen go out on this business together. You know you’d simply be bickering the whole time.”

“I think we had better see what we can do individually, to start with, at any rate,” said Stephen. “We can join forces later if necessary.”

“I dare say you’re right. It’ll save time, too. Then all we have to do now is to split up our quarry. Can I have first stab at Davitt? After all, I spotted him first.”

“I’d rather thought of trying Davitt myself first,” said Stephen at once.

“But hang it all, he was my selection! Look here, give me Davitt and you can have the Joneses, both of them.”

“I think,” Stephen answered very quietly, “that I’d better have Davitt, if you don’t mind.”

“Toss you for it!”

“You are a hopeless pair of idiots,” said Anne wearily. “Look here, I’ve got it all worked out for you. Stephen will begin with Davitt and Martin with Jones. Then if neither of those leads to anything, Martin will drive me down to Lincolnshire and I shall see what can be done with Mrs. Howard-Blenkinsop. She sounds as if she might amuse me, and anyway that will be a woman’s job. While we are doing that, Stephen can go down to Brighton to find out what he can about Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs. We can leave Parsons to the last, because Midchester is such a long way off. Now for Heaven’s sake go away and get on with it, and try not to make greater asses of yourselves than you can help.”

“Thanks for these kind words,” said Martin. “But what about you, Annie? Aren’t you going to come along with me and help stir up the Joneses?”

“No, I am not. I’ve got other things to do here.”

“What other things?”

“It doesn’t seem to have occurred to either of you that the quickest way to find Vanning’s address may be simply to look him up in the telephone directory. It’s an out-of-the-way name, and it oughtn’t to take long to make a list of all the Vannings. Then we can try them out and see if we can spot the right one.”

“Not a bad idea, that,” said Martin. He squinted at her for a moment and then added: “That’s not all, Annie. You’ve got something else up your sleeve.”

“I never said so.”

“What is it?”

“Just something that occurred to me, that’s all. Something very obvious, really, but not at all pleasant. I want to think it out.”

“Well, you might give a fellow an idea----”

“Oh, why can’t you let me alone!” she flashed out suddenly, and then, as suddenly, her anger evaporated. “I’m sorry, Martin, but this business has really got me down.”

“Of course, old girl, I understand,” Martin said. He patted her shoulder clumsily. “I vote we get going straight away,” he said to Stephen.

“We’d better keep a record of what we’re doing,” Anne remarked.

She went to the desk and, taking a piece of paper, wrote down the list of names from Elderson’s list, leaving a space opposite each which it was hoped would be filled by the details ferreted out by each investigator. When she had done so, she sat for a moment staring at her own work.

“Funny, that!” she murmured.

“What is funny?” asked Stephen.

“Nothing. Only . . .” She came out of her abstraction suddenly. “Oh, do get out, both of you!”

They went, Stephen silently shrugging his shoulders at his sister’s moods and fancies, Martin apparently unimpressed, and humming under his breath what he conceived to be the tune of “We’ve Got to Keep Up with the Joneses.”


 63 
 on: March 12, 2024, 04:42:45 am 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Saturday, August 26th

THE three days which Jas. Elderson had allowed himself to complete his inquiries at Pendlebury were past. The first post on the morning of the fourth brought only bills and circulars to Plane Street. Stephen and Anne looked at each other silently and disgustedly across the breakfast-table. There was no need for words. The fellow had let them down. The moment when they would be able to do something towards the investigation of the mystery was once more postponed, and for how long? Each of them realized for the first time how great the strain of waiting had been, and how insufferable was the prospect of bearing much more of it.

“Of course,” said Anne, speaking for the first time that morning, “I always thought three days was rather a short time to allow himself. But if he found it wasn’t enough, he ought to have given us an interim report---something to go on with, at least.”

“Um,” said Stephen, and said no more.

Immediately after breakfast he went out, asking Anne to await his return at the house. The weather had broken, and a gusty south-west wind was driving thin showers of rain before it. The skirts of his mackintosh wrapped themselves around his trouser legs in an embrace that became progressively damper and more affectionate as he walked. It was a depressing day, and even the warm synthetic air of the Underground was welcome in contrast to the outside world.

Stephen had to ring twice at the door of Jas. Elderson’s office before receiving any answer. When at last the door was opened, he found himself looking into the large grey eyes of a totally unknown young woman. She was undeniably good-looking, tall above the average, and somewhat dauntingly self-possessed. For a moment, recollecting the uncouth and grimy office-boy who had received him on the last occasion, he wondered whether he had stopped at the wrong landing, and he endeavoured to look past her to reassure himself by reading the name upon the door. He was aware as he did so that she was observing his embarrassment with a certain calm amusement.

“Do you want anything?” she asked, just as he had made up his mind that he was right after all. Her voice, without being particularly cultured, was quiet and pleasing.

“Is Mr. Elderson in?” said Stephen.

“I’m afraid he’s not available today,” was the reply. “Monday, I expect. In fact, I’m sure he’ll be available all Monday.”

“I particularly wanted to see him today,” Stephen persisted. “Do you know where I could get hold of him, perhaps?”

She shook her head.

“Not today,” she repeated. “Perhaps I can help you. What name is it?”

“Dickinson.”

Her face cleared.

“Oh, Mr. Dickinson! Have you come about the Pendlebury matter?”

“Yes. Mr. Elderson promised me his report this morning, and I haven’t had it. He knew that it was extremely urgent, and I----”

“Will you come inside?” she said, and stood on one side to let him pass. She closed the door behind him and then said: “If you don’t mind waiting here a moment, I’ll see whether it is ready for you.”

Stephen waited in the narrow little hall while she went through into the passage within. Presently she returned, with an odd expression on her face which he tried in vain to interpret.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to come in here to help me,” she observed, and led the way into the office.

Mr. Elderson was sitting at a table littered with sheets of paper. His arms were spread out in front of him and his head was pillowed on his arms. He was breathing deeply and from time to time uttering a loud snore. A completely empty whisky bottle was beside him and a glass lay broken on the floor. The stench of spirit and stale tobacco smoke lay heavy upon the air.

“You see,” said the young woman, calmly, “the trouble is that he’s sitting on a lot of the papers. And he’s too heavy for me to move. If you wouldn’t mind lifting him up a bit, I could slide the chair out from underneath him and get them, and then put it back again.”

Under her tranquil influence it seemed the most ordinary operation in the world. With his left hand pressing on Mr. Elderson’s back and his right hand heaving at Mr. Elderson’s fleshy thighs, Stephen contrived to shift him upwards and forwards just enough to allow her dexterously to disengage the chair, sweep from it the warm and crumpled papers upon the seat and replace it before Stephen’s aching muscles gave under the strain. During this process, Mr. Elderson muttered a few inarticulate words of protest and as soon as it was completed was sound asleep once more.

“Thanks,” she said. “I think I’ve got it all now.” She gathered up the sheets from the table and added them to those recovered from the chair. “I’ll just arrange them in order. Luckily he always numbers his pages. Shall I put them in an envelope for you?”

“Yes---please do,” Stephen gasped. “But is it---I mean, how do you know---is it all right, I mean?”

She paused in the act of licking the flap of a large square envelope.

“All right?” she asked. “Oh, the report, you mean. Yes, that will be all in order, you’ll find. He never starts on that”---she nodded towards the bottle on the table---“until he’s finished the job. It’s a kind of reaction, you see. The only trouble is that when he starts he never knows where to stop. That’s why . . .” She shrugged her shoulders and left the sentence uncompleted. “He got back pretty late from Pendlebury yesterday and must have been working here nearly all night.” She held out the envelope to him. “Here you are, Mr. Dickinson,” she said, in a tone that seemed to indicate some haste to be rid of him. “I’m sorry you’ve had the trouble of coming down here.”

Stephen took the envelope and stuffed it into the pocket of his mackintosh.

“Thank you,” he said. “But”---he looked once more at the sprawling creature at the table---“are you going to stay on here alone? I can’t get you any help or anything?”

Her mouth straightened into a hard, narrow line.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I shall be quite all right. Let me show you out.”

On the doorstep, Stephen said: “Well, goodbye, and thank you for helping me, Miss---er---Miss----”

“Elderson,” she said sharply, and shut the door.

+++

As he had expected, Stephen found Martin with Anne when he returned home. They were in the study, Martin deep in the arm-chair in a cloud of acrid smoke, while Anne crouched at his feet on a foot-stool in an attitude of adoration.

“Morning, Steve,” said Martin without getting up. “Nuisance about this detective feller. Annie’s just been telling me.”

“Did you manage to see him?” Anne asked.

“Oh, yes. I saw him all right,” said Stephen.

“What had he got to say for himself?”

“He hadn’t exactly a great deal to say for himself. But I’ve got his report.”

Martin, as Stephen feared he would do, greeted the news with “Good egg!” and added, “Does it amount to much?”

“That,” said Stephen, “is what we are now going to see.”

He produced the envelope, still sealed, and began to open it. To his extreme annoyance he found his fingers trembling as he did so and for a moment or two he fumbled helplessly with the flap.

“Yes,” observed Martin, watching him. “It is rather an excitin’ moment, isn’t it?”

Stephen, once more caught unawares by his prospective brother-in-law’s penetration and annoyed by finding himself its victim, frowned hideously and at last succeeded in tearing the envelope and removing the contents. Written in a large copper-plate hand that flowed generously over sheet after sheet of ruled foolscap paper, these proved at a glance that Miss Elderson’s account of her father’s habits was correct. There could be no doubt that they were the work of a man who, at the time of writing them, was stone-cold sober. He smoothed out the pages where they had been crumpled by the pressure of their author’s large posterior, cleared his throat, and began to read.

The document was headed in the starchy official manner that was no doubt a relic of the author’s police service: “ ‘To Stephen Dickinson, Esq. From Jas. Elderson, private inquiry agent. Re Occurrence at Pendlebury Old Hall Hotel, Markshire.’ ” It continued, in numbered paragraphs:

“ ‘1. Pursuant to your instructions of the 22nd inst., I proceeded forthwith to Pendlebury Old Hall Hotel, arriving there at approximately 8.30 p.m. I registered in the name of Eaton, and, the hour being somewhat late to commence prosecuting inquiries, occupied myself during the evening with familiarizing myself with the hotel staff and ascertaining the geography of the place.’ ”

“Funny phrase, that,” remarked Martin. “I don’t suppose he means the same thing as we generally mean by it, eh, Steve?”

“Shut up, you ass,” said Anne softly.

“ ‘2. During the succeeding two days, I succeeded in interviewing all the members of the hotel staff who appeared likely to be of any assistance, in inspecting the hotel register and obtaining their comments upon the same. I prolonged my stay at the hotel for the purpose of taking a statement from one important witness, the waitress Susan Carter, who was on her holiday and only returned to work on the morning of the 25th inst. I found all the persons interviewed quite willing to give me all the information within their power. The explanation of this fact, which was contrary to my anticipation and to past experience in like matters, appeared to be due----’

“Lord! What English this blighter writes!” said Stephen, breaking off. “Damn all board schools!”

“Don’t be a prig,” said Anne. “Go on.”

“ ‘---appeared to be due to their mistaken belief that I was acting in the interests of the British Imperial Insurance Company. It transpired that a representative of that concern had already visited the Hotel and made inquiries with a view to possible litigation. By representing to the persons concerned that the interests of the establishment coincided with those of the Company in suppressing any further publicity attaching to the death of the late Mr. Dickinson, and, as I have reason to believe, by a lavish disbursement of funds, the representative had succeeded in securing their whole-hearted co-operation. I thought it wise not to undeceive the persons in question as to my identity and was accordingly able to secure the maximum of information with the minimum of outlay (as to which, see Exes sheet, forwarded to Messrs. Jelks & Co., pursuant to instructions).

“ ‘3. The only other preliminary matter which I should mention is that on the last day of my residence at the Hotel an individual whom I have reason for thinking to be a plain-clothes detective of the local constabulary also arrived and commenced to make inquiries, which I was able to ascertain were related to the matter in question. In consequence of the facts set out in Para. 2, above, the personnel of the Hotel were unwilling to give the individual whom I have mentioned any assistance, but I am unable to state precisely what form his inquiries took or how far the same were successful.’ ”

“The insurance blokes haven’t wasted much time, have they?” Martin observed. “But what are the police poking about for? I thought you said, Steve, that they wouldn’t touch this thing with a barge-pole?”

“I hope I never said anything so banal,” answered Stephen curtly, preparing to read on.

“But wait a bit,” said Anne in some excitement. “This is important, isn’t it? If the police are making inquiries, doesn’t that look as if they weren’t satisfied with the inquest verdict after all?”

“Whether it’s important or not,” said her brother crossly, “do you want to hear what this man has to say? Or shall I take it away and read it to myself?”

After which little display of temper, the reading continued without further interruption:

“ ‘4. The hotel consists of three floors only, having been originally constructed as a private residence. The guests’ bedrooms are all accommodated on the first floor, the ground floor rooms being sitting-rooms and the second or attic floor comprising the apartments of the chambermaids and waitresses. There is also an annexe for additional accommodation. I formed the impression that business at the establishment was not brisk, for the annexe was wholly unoccupied at the time in question, and of the eleven bedrooms in the main building two were vacant. I append a sketch-map showing the position of the various rooms, all of which, it will be observed, open off a central corridor, which runs the length of the house.

“ ‘5. On the night of the 13th August, to which I was directed to confine my attention, the following rooms were occupied, as under:

“ ‘No. 1. Mr. & Mrs. E. M. J. Carstairs, of 14, Ormidale Crescent, Brighton. Arrived on the 12th August by car; left on the 14th after lunch. A middle-aged couple. The only details that I was able to obtain concerning them were that Mr. Carstairs was interested in local antiquities, and delayed his departure in order to obtain a rubbing of the brasses in Pendlebury church.

“ ‘No. 2. Mrs. Howard-Blenkinsop, of The Grange, North Bentby, Lincs. Arrived on the 5th August; being met at the station by the hotel conveyance, left on the 19th August. An elderly lady, presumed to be a widow. Well known in the hotel, where she makes a habit of staying for a fortnight in each year, though not always at the same time of year. Mention of her name caused some amusement to the staff. I gathered that her character was in some degree peculiar, and the head housemaid went so far as to say that “she acted unusual for a lady.” So far as I was able to determine, the imputation was that her behaviour was not altogether consonant with her social status, but I could find nothing against her character.

“ ‘No. 3. Mr. P. Howard-Blenkinsop, of the same address. A young man, understood to be the son of the above. He seems to have been of a quiet and retiring disposition. The head waiter expressed the opinion that he was “a natural,” which I ascertained to be a local expression, reflecting on his mental qualities and not on his legitimacy: I gathered that during his stay he did little or nothing all day, beyond keeping his mother company and reading light literature.

“ ‘No. 4. Mr. & Mrs. M. Jones, of 15, Parbury Gardens, London, S.W. 7. Arrived on the evening of the 13th August by car; left on the morning of the 14th. A young couple. Opinion in the hotel seemed divided as to whether they were on their honeymoon or not married at all. It was agreed that their behaviour was “lover-like.” The reception clerk recollected that the girl giggled a good deal while the register was being signed. I could not obtain any exact description of either, except that she was, in the words of the chambermaid, “a flash little thing” and he was “nothing much to look at, but acted like a gentleman.” I formed the opinion that this referred to the size of her gratuity. I ascertained that they reached the hotel at about 8.30 p.m. while dinner was being served, and had some cold food sent up to their room on a tray about 9.0 p.m. The waitress who served them remembered the occasion particularly well, because of the extra trouble involved. She also recollected that they breakfasted in bed next morning, at about the time that the disturbance occasioned by the death of Mr. Dickinson was at its height.

“ ‘No. 5. Vacant.

“ ‘No. 6. Mr. J. S. Vanning. See as to this gentleman, remarks re Mr. Parsons, below.

“ ‘No. 7. Mr. J. Mallett. I am instructed that this individual is already known to you.

“ ‘No. 8. Vacant.

“ ‘No. 9. Mr. Robert C. Parsons. Arrived for tea on the 13th by cab from the station; left on the morning of the 14th. A middle-aged man. He is particularly well remembered by the office staff for the reasons following, viz.: He had reserved accommodation by letter, asking for a room with two beds and a single room, adjoining if possible. Room 9, which is a double room, and No. 11, next to it, had accordingly been reserved for him. Some surprise was therefore expressed when he appeared by himself. He explained that he suffered very badly from insomnia, and had found that he could obtain some relief by changing from one bed to another during the course of the night; hence his desire for a double room. The other room, he said, was for a friend who would be joining him later. The reception clerk remembered that when she asked the name of the friend he was unable or unwilling to give it, but merely said that he would be mentioning his (Mr. Parson’s) name. Mr. Parsons was shown his room and No. 11, adjoining, which is the best single room in the house. He expressed himself as pleased with them. A little later, however, Mr. Leonard Dickinson arrived at the hotel, on foot. He was of course well known to the management, having stayed there on numerous occasions. It was also understood that whenever he visited the hotel, room No. 11, if not occupied, should be kept for him. Indeed it had happened in the past that guests had been asked to change their rooms to suit Mr. Dickinson, who was, it is alleged, apt to make difficulties when crossed in any way. In this instance, No. 11 not being actually occupied, Mr. Dickinson was installed there, and on Mr. Parson’s guest arriving (by car, shortly before dinner), he was put into No. 6, being the only vacant single room. The guest registered in the name of J. S. Vanning, and the only address given was London. Mr. Parsons similarly gave no address, other than the town of Midchester. I was, however, able to get a sight of his letter reserving the rooms, and this was written on the note-paper of the Conservative Club of that city. There seems no doubt from what I was told that Mr. Parsons was in poor health. More than one witness remarked on his pallor and nervousness. As to Mr. Vanning, I could obtain no particulars whatever. He does not seem to have had any noticeable features at all. I should add that the two persons in question did not leave the hotel together. Mr. Vanning breakfasted early and left soon after 8 a.m. Mr. Parsons did not come down till later and seemed surprised and upset that his friend had already gone. It was pointed out to him, however, that Mr. Vanning had settled his own account. I was unable to ascertain whether this fact reassured him or not.

“ ‘No. 10. Mr. Stewart Davitt, of 42, Hawk Street, London, W.C. Arrived the 10th August, by train and hotel conveyance; left on the 14th by the same. This gentleman was described to me by one of the staff as “the mystery man.” It appears that from the time of his arrival up to his departure he did not go outside the hotel, and, indeed, only rarely left his room. He is said to have explained that he was engaged upon work of a vitally important character and needed absolute rest and quiet. All his meals were served in his room. I was told that he was “a nice-looking young man,” but could obtain no further particulars of his appearance. On the evening of the 13th, he asked for his account, and said that it would be necessary for him to catch the earliest fast train to London from Swanbury Junction, some eight miles away. This involved his leaving the hotel at approximately 6.30 a.m. the next morning, which he duly did, being driven to the station by the car attached to the hotel. In view of the decidedly unusual circumstances attending this person, I endeavoured to obtain further particulars concerning him, but without success. I was unable to ascertain anything re his work, about which, it seems, he was extremely reticent. It is to be presumed that it was of a literary nature.

“ ‘No. 11. Mr. Leonard Dickinson.

“ ‘6. The above information comprises all that I was able to ascertain re the matters to which my instructions were confined. I took the liberty, however, of pursuing my investigations somewhat further, with a view to discovering any matter which might throw light on the death of the deceased. I therefore venture to append the following.

“ ‘7. The deceased retired to bed on the night of the 13th August, at approximately 10.45 p.m. Before doing so, he went to the reception office and asked (a) that a pot of china tea with a slice of lemon should be sent up to his room in about a quarter of an hour’s time, and (b) that his breakfast should be served to him in bed the next morning at 9.0 a.m. (a) was duly performed; it was when he was called next morning prior to (b) that his death was discovered. Death was found to be due to the deceased having swallowed a quantity of Medinal overnight. These matters were, I am given to understand, investigated in the ordinary way at the inquest, the assumption being that the deceased took the fatal dose in the tea. This remained an assumption only, due to the fact that the teapot and cup had been removed and washed before the fact of death was discovered. It seemed to be a reasonable one, however, and I deemed it desirable to proceed upon the basis that it was correct, the question being whether anybody other than the deceased could have inserted the poison in the tea.

“ ‘8. I accordingly proceeded to question the two persons who seemed most likely to assist on this question, viz. Miss Rosie Belling, chambermaid, and Miss Susan Carter, waitress (whom I have already mentioned, supra, Para. 2). Miss Belling was not very helpful. All that she could say was that at approximately 8.15 a.m. on the morning of the 14th August she went into room No. 11 and removed from it the tray with the teapot and cup upon it. Mr. Dickinson having given orders for breakfast in bed at 9.0 a.m., she would not normally have gone into his room at that hour, but for the fact that, several other guests having demanded tea in the morning, there was a shortage of tea-sets, following an accident on the staircase two mornings before. On this occasion, seeing the deceased apparently still asleep, she merely removed the tray and went out again without attempting to disturb him. On returning, shortly before 9.0 a.m., to inquire whether he was ready for breakfast, the fact of his death was ascertained, by which time the teapot and cup had been washed and used by another guest.

“ ‘9. Miss Carter’s evidence at the inquest was confined to the fact that she took a tray up to the deceased’s room on the night in question. In answer to my inquiries, however, she was able to describe her movements in very much more detail. It appears that this particular evening was an unusually busy one for her, so far as work upstairs was concerned. For besides taking the tea-tray to No. 11, she also had to take up dinner as usual to Mr. Davitt (No. 10), supper to Mr. and Mrs. Jones (No. 4) and hot water, sugar, lemon, and whisky to Mr. Vanning (No. 6). In fact, she had somewhat of a grievance re the amount of fetching and carrying that had to be done, especially in regard to No. 4, for it appears that these persons, having originally ordered a meal downstairs, changed their minds at the last moment. So far as I was able to ascertain, she visited the bedroom floor of the hotel four times during the course of the evening, as follows:

“ ‘8.15 p.m. Taking dinner to No. 10.

“ ‘9.0 p.m. Taking supper to No. 4, and removing dinner-tray from No. 10.

“ ‘10.0 p.m. Removing supper-tray from No. 4.

“ ‘11.0 p.m. Taking tea to No. 11 and hot water, etc. to No. 6.

“ ‘10. I asked Miss Carter whether she had observed anything unusual in the manner of the deceased on bringing him his tea, and in reply she stated that on that occasion she had not seen him at all, but had only heard his voice. She explained that from her previous experience of the deceased, upon whom she had waited during several former visits of his to the hotel, she knew him to have a particular distaste to the presence of anybody, particularly any female, in his bedroom when he was, or might be, incompletely attired. Accordingly she merely knocked at the door, informed him of the fact that his tea was awaiting him and went away, leaving the tray in the corridor. Asked whether she had followed the same procedure in the case of Mr. Vanning she professed difficulty in recollecting the same, but finally stated that she was of opinion that on her knocking at his door he had himself opened it and taken the tray from her hand.

“ ‘11. In view of the obvious significance of the facts stated in Para. 10 above, I deemed it advisable to inquire as to who of the residents in the hotel were in their rooms at the time when the tray was left outside No. 11. Miss Carter, having ascended to the first floor from the kitchen premises by the service staircase, was unable to state who was still in the lounge or smoking-room on the ground floor, and apart from Mr. Vanning, she saw nobody on the first floor at that time. One of the bathrooms was being used as she passed along the corridor, but she was unable to say which it was. The remainder of the staff were uncertain in their recollection on the point, but by collating all the evidence available, I was able to arrive at the conclusion that the following were at 11.0 p.m. almost certainly in their rooms:

Mr. Vanning.

Mr. Dickinson.

Mr. Davitt.

Mr. & Mrs. Jones.

Mr. Parsons.

“ ‘The following were in all probability in their rooms:

Mr. Howard-Blenkinsop.

Mrs. Carstairs.

Mr. Mallett.

“ ‘As to the remainder, Mrs. Howard-Blenkinsop sat on in the lounge after her son had gone to bed, endeavouring to finish a game of patience, and Mr. Carstairs, after retiring at the same time as Mrs. Carstairs, shortly returned again to the lounge, where he gave some assistance to Mrs. Howard-Blenkinsop in her game. I was able to ascertain positively that the lights were extinguished before midnight, and that these two individuals were the last to retire.

“ ‘12. With regard to the management and staff, I was unsuccessful in obtaining any information to the detriment of these. The deceased appears to have been regarded as an asset to the establishment rather than otherwise, and I could not find any evidence suggesting that a motive was present for procuring his death so far as they were concerned. They appeared to be a respectable body of individuals, though in some respects deficient from the viewpoint of efficiency.

“ ‘13. The above concludes my inquiries at Pendlebury Old Hall Hotel, and I await further instructions.

“ ‘(Signed)

“ ‘Jas. Elderson.’ ”

 64 
 on: March 11, 2024, 12:11:12 pm 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Tuesday, August 22nd

“JAS. Elderson, Private Inquiry Agent,” said the notice in dirty yellow lettering on the dirty brown door. Stephen, as he stood collecting his breath on the landing after his climb up the steep staircase, tried to picture what manner of man Jas. Elderson would prove to be. He had never consciously set eyes on a private inquiry agent, but he imagined that a man could hardly be engaged in such a calling without having something more or less sleuth-like in his appearance. A lean, ferrety face, a sensitive nose that quivered slightly at the tip, small, beady eyes and a generally sly, cunning demeanour made up his idea of what a free-lance detective ought to be. If he did not expect to find all the features of his ideal compounded in Mr. Elderson, he did at least look to see some vestige of what he took to be the insignia of the profession. He would probably have been extremely nettled to be told, as was the fact, that his mental image was merely a reincarnation of the illustrations to a serial in a schoolboy’s magazine which he had devoured with gusto some fifteen years before.

The reality, as might have been expected, was a disappointment. Mr. Elderson proved to be a large, bluff individual with a loud voice and a self-confident manner. He had a good-looking face, slightly blurred in outline, and his general appearance vaguely suggested a policeman gone to seed. There was nothing particularly surprising in the latter fact, since it was only a few years ago that he had left the Force; whether the circumstances of his retirement were in any way connected with the faint aroma of whisky which made itself felt as soon as he began to speak was his own secret.

He greeted Stephen in tones that contrived to blend the obsequious with the hearty, and proceeded, as he put it, “to take Mr. Dickinson’s instructions.” Stephen found, however, somewhat to his annoyance, that Mr. Jelks had already told him in general terms what would be required of him, and the only instructions that he found it necessary to give were devoted to confining Elderson’s already ambitious programme. The delight with which the fellow had welcomed an investigation into a case of suspected murder was ludicrous and even somewhat pathetic.

“This is something like, Mr. Dickinson,” he repeated several times, rubbing his beefy hands together. “This is something like!”

He did not specify what it was like, but it was easily to be gathered that the attraction of the case to him lay precisely in the fact that it was utterly unlike the dreary round of private detective’s ordinary activities.

“If there was anything fishy about the people at that hotel,” he went on, “I can promise you I’m the man to find it for you. You’ve come to the right place, sir, I can tell you that! And when it comes to a question of following up inquiries, well, sir, you may not credit it to look at me, but I can make myself to all intents and purposes invisible---virtually, morally, in-vis-ible, sir!”

At various points in the monologue Stephen endeavored to interrupt, but always without success. At last, however, he contrived to interpose: “I’m not at all sure, Mr. Elderson, whether you understand exactly what I am instructing you to do for me.”

“But surely,” Elderson protested, “I’m to be allowed a free ’and in me plan of campaign? Believe me, sir, when you employ an expert it’s the only thing to do---a free hand.” (The aspirate emerged triumphantly this time in an aura of spirits.) “Subject, of course, to your approval in the matter of exes. And I’m always most careful on the question of exes, that I can assure you.”

Exes? Stephen blinked once or twice before he realized what was meant.

“We can discuss the question of expenses later,” he said. “The point is that I am only instructing you to do one specific thing, which for various reasons I can’t undertake myself. The plan of campaign, if there is one after you have done it, is my own business.”

“Very good, sir,” said Elderson, crestfallen, “if you wish it, of course. Theirs not to reason why, as Shakespeare says. At the same time, I should have thought----”

“Please don’t undervalue what I am asking you to do,” said Stephen swiftly, determined not to relinquish his hardly won grip on the conversation. “Your work in the first place, Mr. Elderson---I can’t answer for the future---will be confined to ascertaining who was in the hotel the night that my father died, under what names they stayed, the addresses they gave, what rooms they occupied, and anything else about them that can be found out. Also any useful observations you can make about the staff at the place. I shall want a report on these matters as soon as possible----”

“Time is of the essence, sir; yes, I quite appreciate that,” said Elderson, smacking his lips over the phrase, which meant no more to him than it did to his client. “Of the essence---absolutely. I can start to-day. Now on this question of exes, sir . . .”

That all-important point having been discussed and satisfactorily settled, Stephen prepared to go. Before he left, however, he was subjected to one last appeal.

“I do ’ate working in the dark, sir. Don’t you think you could let me in on this a leetle bit more? If you follow what I mean, sir?”

“We are all working in the dark. That’s exactly why I have had to come to you.”

“But couldn’t you just give me a line, sir, on the way you want things to turn out? I mean, for instance, Motive. You’ve considered that point, no doubt, sir. I presoom there was some motive for somebody to do away with the gentleman. If you could let me have a wrinkle or two on what’s in your mind, then I should know the sort of somebody I’m wanted to find, and save us both a lot of trouble.”

Motive! It was impossible not to realize that Elderson had put his finger on the weak spot in the whole project. But if he was to be of any use, it was clearly inadvisable to make him a present of the fact.

“I can’t say anything about that at the moment,” Stephen said with his hand on the door. Then a sudden thought struck him. “One moment,” he added. “There is another matter which I should like you to look into and deal with in your report. Please be very careful to find out whether anybody on the night in question, or thereabouts, changed his room.”

The speed with which Elderson saw the relevance of the remark did a good deal to raise him in Stephen’s estimation.

“I take your point, sir,” he said. “I take your point. If there was anything of that kind going on, and if the room where the gentleman was put away was the one that was changed, it does open up vistas, so to speak, doesn’t it, sir?”

After which Stephen walked out into the street. Elderson had been confident that his report would be ready within three days. It seemed a short enough time for the work, unless the man was a good deal more efficient than he appeared, but long enough in all conscience to wait. He turned into the first cinema he came to, and spent the first half-hour of those three days aimlessly contemplating records of events which seemed almost as fantastic and unreal as the mission that had brought him to Shaftesbury Avenue.

+++

The time passed more quickly and with less strain than any of the family might have feared. Stephen saw comparatively little of Anne and Martin, and this was on the whole just as well. Since the interview with the Insurance Company’s representative, he had re-established a modus vivendi with his sister, and they had relapsed into the easy-going relationship which had characterized their lives hitherto. A union that dates from the nursery is not easily dissolved. It can survive quarrels and explosions calculated to wreck nine marriages out of ten, possibly if only because the parties to it can take so much more for granted and are so much more ready to recognize what is forbidden territory. So far as Anne was concerned, her relations with Martin were clearly labelled, “Trespassers will be Prosecuted,” and while Stephen kept to his side of the fence no questions were asked. She had not forgotten his attitude towards his future brother-in-law---it was not in her nature to do so---but she was quite capable of putting the cause of dissent away at the back of her mind, and behaving thereafter as if it did not exist. She gave no indication whether she had ever so much as mentioned the subject to Martin (what they did talk about when they were alone together was one of the problems that Stephen could never resolve), and Martin’s manner to him was no more and no less cordial than it had been before. At the same time, a state of peace that depends on ignoring the existence of a cardinal fact is at the best an insecure affair and it was natural enough that the persons concerned should have agreed by common consent not to endanger it by too close association. Whether at Anne’s instigation or not, Martin had suddenly developed a passion for what he described as “jaunts” into the countryside. Every morning his squat, tubby two-seater, looking strangely characteristic of its owner, would carry her away from Plane Street, to deposit her there again late in the long August evening, tired but bright-eyed, and with a strong smell of pipe tobacco clinging to her clothes. It was an arrangement that solved the problem of filling in the period of waiting very satisfactorily for two out of the three.

Engaged couples, in any case, are never supposed to feel, or at all events to admit that they feel, any boredom so long as they are together. Stephen, who was not engaged or likely to be, had resigned himself to a period of more or less unrelieved idleness and depression. But on the day following his call on Mr. Elderson, he unexpectedly found an outlet for his energies. He was sitting after breakfast, gloomily running over the financial columns in the morning paper, when his mother came into the room.

“How are the stocks and shares this morning?” she asked.

“Pretty mouldy,” he mumbled.

“Have you been gambling again?” The matter-of-fact way in which the question was put robbed it of offence. Actually, Mrs. Dickinson disliked her son’s habit, and the dislike was a matter of common knowledge to them both. They did not refer to it more than was necessary, and the present inquiry was recognized as a mere request for information.

“A bit, yes,” he answered.

“Talking of gambles,” she went on, “I rather wanted to talk over this question with you.”

It was unnecessary for her to say which question she meant. Since the production of the letter from Mr. Jelks on the evening after the funeral there had been only one question in the family, overshadowing every other.

Stephen put down his paper reluctantly.

“Must you, Mother?” he said. “And what has it to do with gambling, in any case?”

“Well, it is a gamble, isn’t it?” she answered good-humouredly. “A very big gamble indeed, with a lot of money at stake. I imagine that is why it appeals to you. But what I wanted to ask you in particular was this: Why do you think that anybody should have had any interest in murdering your father?”

Stephen groaned.

“That’s what they all keep on saying! I think that---but look here, Mother, this isn’t a question I feel like discussing with you, of all people.”

“But after all, why not?” said his mother placidly. “If everybody is asking the question, why shouldn’t I? You know, Stephen, you have started this hare, and you can’t complain of anybody else chasing it. As I told you before I feel that all this concerns you much more than it does me, and that is why I have allowed you to take your own course in the matter of the Insurance Company. At the same time, I can’t help being interested in what is going on, and I have been thinking over it a good deal, just as an abstract problem. I’ve been glad to have something to occupy my mind.” She smiled at him, and added: “You mustn’t be shocked at me. It’s only natural.”

“No, I’m not shocked exactly,” said Stephen. “Only I----”

“Only you wish I wouldn’t talk about it. It seems to me to come to very much the same thing. Well, I’m sorry, but I intend to talk about it. If I am to accept, even for the sake of argument, that somebody has murdered my husband, it is of some importance to me who that somebody is. You don’t feel like enlightening me, Stephen?”

“It isn’t that I don’t feel like enlightening you, Mother, exactly. But at this stage, I am a bit in the dark myself.”

“Are you, really?”

Something in his mother’s voice made Stephen look up sharply. For a moment he suspected that she was laughing at him. But her face remained quite serious.

“In that case,” she went on, “it might be rather helpful to talk it over with someone else. Now, for instance, taking a detached view of the matter, suppose this was a case of murder---a clear case of murder, I mean, with a verdict of ‘person or persons unknown’ at the inquest---who do you suppose the police would begin by suspecting?”

Stephen looked at her vaguely.

“I dunno,” he muttered.

“Come, come, Stephen! Where are your wits?” She was speaking to him now in exactly the same tones that she had employed, years ago, when he was stumbling over his first reading lessons. “The first people the police always suspect in such cases are the family.”

“But good heavens, Mother, you don’t mean----”

“The family,” she repeated. It was now, at least, clear that Mrs. Dickinson was giving her somewhat disconcerting sense of humour free rein. “Especially, of course, the widow. Seriously, Stephen, I can’t help feeling a little glad that I was away at Bournemouth all the time. I, at all events, have a very satisfactory alibi.”

“Mother, I hate to hear you talk like this!”

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Dickinson heartlessly. “It’s good for me. After the widow, I suppose, come the rest of the immediate relations. You and Anne are safe enough it seems, with Klosters doing duty for Bournemouth in your case. Then there’s Martin. Is he provided with an alibi, too?”

“Really, I’ve no idea. I haven’t asked him.”

“Well, I’m not suggesting that you should. It might not make for good feeling in the family, and I’m old-fashioned enough to think that of more importance than quite a lot of money. But it is the kind of question the police would ask, isn’t it? Then, I suppose, if Martin satisfied them, they’d go on to the rest of the family. I’m not so sure about that,” she added doubtfully. “Do they include brothers and cousins?”

“Where they are like Uncle George or Robert, I should be in favour of including them every time. Not to mention Uncle Edward, and The Holy Terror. Would you like me to start around cross-examining them straight away?”

“Perhaps on the whole it would be wiser not to. Let’s suppose, though, that the police have seen all these people, and asked all those questions, and found nothing. They are still looking for the person with the motive to commit the crime. Where do they look next?”

“That depends on the kind of man who was murdered, I should imagine.”

“The kind of man---exactly! So they have to set to work to find out what kind of man he was. They may have a good deal of difficulty doing that---almost as much difficulty as you would have in asking inconvenient questions of your Uncle George. Perhaps we have an advantage over them there, though.”

“What is all this leading up to?” asked Stephen, who was evidently now at last genuinely interested.

His mother, as always, still preferred the oblique approach.

“What kind of man would you say your father was?” she asked.

It was not a very easy question to answer.

“Well, I don’t suppose anybody could call him a very friendly bloke,” Stephen said at last.

“But you wouldn’t have thought him the sort of person to have many enemies---mortal enemies?”

“No, certainly not, so far as I know.”

“So far as you know,” she echoed softly. “I suppose that’s as much as any of us could say---so far as we know. Perhaps it’s rather a reflection on our life as a family that we can’t go further than that. But at all events one could hardly expect the police to know more than we do on that point, if as much. They would find that he was retired and living on his pension, so that there was no question of anybody wishing to remove him out of rivalry, or wanting his position, or anything of that kind. They would find no evidence of quarrels or disturbances---outside the family, and we have dealt with them---to make any one anxious to take his life, so far as we know---that is, so long as we have known him. That is right, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“So our imaginary police,” Mrs. Dickinson went on, “would have to go further and further back in their searches, if they had the means to. And that is where I say we have the advantage over them.”

Mrs. Dickinson pursed her lips and her hand went up in the familiar automatic gesture to her hair.

“How much do you know about your father’s early life?” she asked.

“Nothing at all. Except for a few reminiscences about Pendlebury, and they seemed to date mostly from his childhood, he never told me anything about it. That was one of the rather uncanny things about Father---he seemed to be so self-contained, so to speak. One felt he was living in a vacuum.”

She nodded.

“Exactly. And do you know, Stephen, you may think me a strangely incurious person, but I knew hardly any more than you did.”

“Oh!” said Stephen in disappointment. “I thought you were going to tell me something useful.”

“I am. Something interesting, at any rate. How far it will be useful to you I don’t know, but I fancy that the police we have been imagining would have thought it worth listening to. The point is, you see, that I know rather more about it now than I did when he was alive.”

She rose and went to her desk. From a drawer she took out a thick bundle of letters, held together by elastic bands which had grown slack with age.

“I found these last night,” she explained, “put away among your father’s things.”

Stephen glanced at them. He noticed that the letter at the top of the pile was still in its envelope, and that this bore a penny stamp with King Edward VII’s head upon it.

“This looks like ancient history,” he observed.

“Very ancient history, some of it. I told you we should have to go a long way back, didn’t I? But if you take the trouble to go through it, as I have, you may find that it has some bearing on quite recent history. At any rate, it will be an occupation for you. I’m afraid you are finding the present rather a dull and anxious time.”

“Have you been inventing all this just because you thought I wanted something to do?” he asked in some annoyance.

Mrs. Dickinson smiled.

“It is good for you to have something to do, you must admit,” she said. “And at the same time these things may be of real help to you. I think, in any case, that they are matters that you ought to know about. When you have read them, come and talk them over with me, and I dare say I shall be able to explain anything in them which you don’t understand.”

Stephen took the letters away to what had been his father’s study. He sat down at the ugly great desk which loomed over the ugly small room and began to read. He was still reading when the gong went for lunch.

“Well?” his mother asked when they met at table.

“I’ve read them nearly all.”

“Yes?”

“And this afternoon I’m going to read them again. I think it’s all rather horrible, but I suppose I must go through with it.”

Mrs. Dickinson raised her eyebrows at her son’s evident disgust, but did not allude to it.

“Do, dear,” she said amiably, then changed the subject.

Late that afternoon she went into the study. Stephen was just putting the letters back again into the bands that had contained them. He looked up when she came in but said nothing.

“Well,” she said, sitting down in the room’s only arm-chair, “did you find the letters interesting?”

“Interesting?” Stephen made a face. “I thought them disgusting.”

“Really, Stephen,” said Mrs. Dickinson, “it is a pity that you are such a puritan. It makes you so---so ungrown-up. This sort of thing is all perfectly natural, you know. I sometimes think if you were a little more normal in these ways you wouldn’t gamble so much.”

“If by normal,” said Stephen loftily, “you mean behaving in a thoroughly beastly way----”

“No, of course I don’t. I mean taking a reasonable interest in the other sex, which is just what you never do. The moment you see a girl becoming in the least friendly you drop her like a hot potato. There was that nice Downing girl, for example. However, that isn’t what I came in here to say. Tell me what impression you got from your reading.”

“Really, Mother, I’d much rather not discuss these things with you.”

“Nonsense! Of course you must discuss them. If you’re afraid to talk about it, I’m not. What do these letters amount to, in any case? Simply that your father as a young man had an intrigue with a young woman, that there was trouble about it with his father and that he threw her over at a rather awkward moment for her. Then she had a child, in the inconvenient way in which these women always do seem to have children, and your father duly paid up for him until he was sixteen---which I believe is as long as the law can compel anyone to pay in such circumstances.” She laughed softly. “It was just like him, you know, to fulfil his strict legal liability and no more.”

“It’s a pretty disgraceful story,” said Stephen hotly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Perhaps it is. It is certainly a very old one. The child---it was a boy, wasn’t it?---must be about ten years older than you.”

“That means that Father was still paying for him long after he married, without saying a word to you about it!”

“That was just as well, perhaps. I might not have been quite so philosophical about it then as I am now. But we’ve only told half the story so far. The letters start again quite recently, after a long interval, don’t they?”

“Yes, and this time they are from somebody who calls himself, ‘Your injured son, Richard.’ ”

“Your half-brother, Stephen.”

“Please don’t rub it in. I suppose those letters are the reason why you wanted me to read the whole bundle. They seem to be in the nature of threats to Father. Apparently he claims that he has only recently discovered his parentage, that he is down on his luck, and thinks that he has a right to some assistance from Father.”

“Exactly. And he expresses himself somewhat violently when he finds that he is not going to get any.”

“Well, I suppose it is just possible that all this might be of some use, except for two things. The injured son doesn’t give an address, except a Post Office in London, and we don’t know his name. He merely says, in one of the letters, ‘I have taken my mother’s name.’ And her letters are signed, not very helpfully, ‘Fanny.’ ”

“That was just where I thought I might be able to help you,” said Mrs. Dickinson.

“Good Heavens, Mother! You don’t mean to say that you know this woman?”

“Not exactly. But I have an idea who she is. Do you remember your uncle Arthur’s will?”

“Yes, of course I do. What has that got to do with it?”

“Simply this. The woman to whom half the money was to go after your father’s death was named Frances Annie March.”

“But why on earth should Uncle Arthur want to benefit Father’s old mistress?”

“It sounds a peculiar thing to do, doesn’t it? But then Arthur was rather a strange man---as most of the Dickinsons were, I’m afraid. He had so often said that he meant to keep the money he had made in the family, that I feel it would be quite like him, when he fell out with us, to see that it went to the illegitimate branch. He would feel that he was keeping his word and injuring us at the same time.”

“But that’s no more than guesswork. Just because the woman’s called Fanny, it doesn’t prove that she’s the same one.”

“No. But if you look at some of the earlier letters, the affectionate ones, you’ll find that they are signed, not ‘Fanny,’ but ‘Fannyanny.’ If you’ve had the misfortune to be christened Frances Annie, ‘Fannyanny’ is just the kind of nickname you would acquire, don’t you think?”

Stephen looked at his mother as if he were seeing her for the first time.

“You ought to have been a detective,” he said.

“At all events, if the imaginary police we were discussing just now had found out what we have done, I think they would consider it a clue worth following up. So I can only suggest that while you are waiting for any information that that man in Shaftesbury Avenue can collect for you, you should do what you can to investigate the identity of Frances Annie March.”

Stephen rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“These letters establish the date of Richard’s birth, more or less,” he said. “I suppose Somerset House will do the rest. I’ll go there first thing tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’ll keep this to ourselves. We needn’t say anything to the others unless there turns out to be something in it.”

So it was that after all Stephen found plenty of business to occupy him during the ensuing two days.


 65 
 on: March 11, 2024, 11:49:23 am 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Monday, August 21st

THE front door of the Dickinsons’ house in Plane Street closed softly behind the departing visitor. The parlourmaid who had let him out walked back through the hall to her own domain below stairs. When the sound of her footsteps could no longer be heard a perfect silence reigned for a moment or two throughout the house. Then the little group of people congregated in the drawing-room looked at one another, drew each a deep breath and felt free to talk once more.

“Well!” said Anne, with a yawn of sheer nervous exhaustion.

“Stephen,” said her mother, “you---you have surprised me very much.” She seemed conscious of the inadequacy of her words. “I mean that . . .” She gave it up. “Of course, I am sure you only said what you thought was right,” she concluded.

“Extraordinary business altogether!” said Martin solemnly. “Don’t know that I like the sound of it very much. You certainly gave us all a bit of a shock, Steve. Didn’t he, Annie?”

Stephen Dickinson stood in the middle of the room, his face a little flushed, his hair a little disordered, his expression half triumphant, half bewildered. He looked rather as an amateur conjuror must look who has successfully produced a rabbit from his hat and is wondering where on earth to put the animal. Except for a momentary twinge of pain when he heard himself addressed as “Steve,” he paid no attention to what the others had said. Instead he turned to the only person present who had not yet spoken and said:

“What are your views about it, Mr. Jelks?”

Mr. Herbert Horatio Jelks, of Jelks, Jelks, Dedman and Jelks, solicitors of Bedford Row, did not reply for a moment or two. He had a pale and placid face, of the type that gives confidence to clients, and his broad forehead, made broader by incipient baldness, gave him an air of wisdom and reliability. But baldness, like death, often strikes before its due time, and he was in fact a quite young and inexperienced lawyer, the junior partner in his firm and the third and last of the Jelkses reading from left to right. Just now behind his mask of expressionless sagacity was a distinctly troubled mind. The exigencies of the long vacation had left him the sole representative of his firm, and the load of responsibility was at this moment sitting heavily upon his shoulders.

“My views, Mr. Dickinson?” he said in the plummy baritone that went so well with his delusive aspect of maturity. “Well, really I---ahem! I think you are taking a great deal upon yourself, I do indeed.”

Anne came quickly to her brother’s rescue.

“Please don’t think that any of us were going to listen to what that man said,” she put in. “We were all quite agreed about that.”

“I quite understand that you are all unanimous in refusing the Company’s offer,” Mr. Jelks began.

“I should hope so,” Anne interjected.

“And yet it was a very reasonable one, to my mind, generous, even. The return of the premium plus four per cent---it is quite a considerable sum, substantially over thirteen hundred pounds.” He let the figures linger lovingly on his lips as he pronounced them. “Thirteen, getting on for fourteen---hundred---pounds.”

“The insurance was for twenty-five thousand,” said Stephen shortly.

“Quite, quite. I appreciate that. And as I was saying, the offer was rejected. You were within your rights to do so, though of course that may have consequences, serious consequences. And I had already gathered that that was likely to be your attitude. What I had not appreciated, and I think it came as a surprise to everybody else in this room, was that Mr. Dickinson was about to make the allegation that his father was---that in fact----”

“That he was murdered,” said Stephen, in a tone expressive of his contempt for a man who could not call a spade a spade.

“Precisely. I think I am right, my dear young lady, in saying that the suggestion came as a shock to you?”

There are, it may be presumed, girls who like being addressed as dear young ladies by pseudo-elderly solicitors. Anne was not one of them. She flushed and said awkwardly, “Yes, I suppose it did.”

Mr. Jelks felt that he was getting on well. None of the other partners, he thought, neither his father nor uncle, not even that ferociously efficient fellow Dedman, could have handled the situation better.

“In that case,” he went on, sawing the air impressively with one hand, “you will appreciate what I meant when I said just now that your brother had taken----”

“Yes, we all understand that,” said Martin. “Point is, it seems to me, what do we do now?”

There was a pause in which Mr. Jelks struggled to find words. In the absence of any very definite thoughts, he found the search difficult.

“I mean to say,” Martin went on in his thick, unattractive voice, “the insurance chappie who has just gone out was very positive that it couldn’t be accident. Steve here, who’s read all the evidence and we haven’t, agreed with him. We thought he’d sold the pass---didn’t we, Annie? Then he came out with murder and gave us all a bit of a jump. Can’t say I like the idea very much myself. Suicide in the family’s bad enough, but murder’s a long sight worse. Personally, I’d be in favour of giving the whole show a miss. Yes, I would, Annie, honestly. And I’m sure Mrs. Dickinson doesn’t like the notion either. But of course I see Steve’s point of view. Since it can’t be accident and it mustn’t be suicide, it’s got to be murder. That’s how he looks at it, and of course I see his point. As I’ve said already.”

The solicitor turned to Stephen.

“Does that fairly indicate your attitude?” he asked.

“More or less,” was the reply. “And I know what you are going to say. ‘The wish is father to the thought.’ Well, perhaps it is. But the thought is there, just the same. You see, we none of us ever really believed that Father killed himself. Did we, Anne?”

“I didn’t, anyhow,” said his sister.

“Very good. Therefore, as Martin puts it, it’s got to be murder.”

Poor Mr. Jelks, whose practice had hitherto lain in the quiet reaches of conveyances and settlements, felt utterly at a loss.

“In that case---if you really think---” he stammered---“I should have thought the police----”

“The police are no good to us, at this stage at any rate. I’ve seen one policeman already, and I can tell you that. For that matter, we may never have to get so far as proving the case against anybody. I mean, criminal proof isn’t the same thing as civil proof, is it?”

Mr. Jelks began to feel on firmer ground again.

“You put it inaccurately,” he said, “but I see what you mean. If it should be necessary to sue the British Imperial Company on the policy---” Thank Heaven! he thought, Dedman is in charge of all the litigation in the office! “---the burden will be on the Company to prove that the case falls within the exception of the policy.”

“I’m not sure that I understand,” Mrs. Dickinson put in. “Do you mean that in any case we bring against them, it will be for them to prove my husband’s suicide all over again, in spite of what the coroner’s jury has already said?”

“Certainly. Though I must say that on the evidence so far I think they would succeed in doing so. But if, in some way that I confess I don’t yet understand, you are able to cast doubt upon the inquest verdict, by setting up a prima facie case of---” again he boggled at the word “---of the other thing, then you might succeed.”

“It makes a big difference,” said Martin, “if we haven’t got to pin the crime on anyone. Just show it could have been done, and so on. But how does one set about finding a primer what d’ye call it of murder? That’s what I want to know.”

Mr. Jelks gave an embarrassed little laugh.

“Well! Really, you know, this is hardly in my line,” he said. “What is it the books say? Means, Motive, Opportunity: those are the three factors, aren’t they? I suppose you have to look about for some person or body of persons who had all three, and then try to---ah---implicate them. But you must beware of the law of defamation while you’re about it, you know,” he added hastily.

“Thanks,” said Stephen. “That’s very helpful indeed.”

“Oh, not at all, not at all,” answered Mr. Jelks, who was happily impervious to irony. “Well, Mrs. Dickinson, I think I should really be going now. If I can be of any further assistance----”

“I think you can,” Stephen interrupted him. “If we are to get any further in this business than talking about it, we have got to start investigating those three factors you mentioned just now. So far as opportunity goes, it was obviously confined to the people who happened to be in the hotel at the time.”

“Oh, obviously. I take it that this---this committee of detection, shall I say?”---his little witticism brought no answering gleam from any of the faces around him---“will begin by adjourning to Pendlebury Old Hall to inquire into the staff and residents there.”

“That’s just the trouble,” said Stephen. “I’ve been thinking about that, and so far as I’m concerned there’s every objection to my being seen nosing around Pendlebury. I don’t expect for a moment that the hotel people will be particularly anxious to help us---this sort of publicity would obviously be bad for them---and as soon as I gave my name they’d guess what was up and would shut up like oysters. The same objection applies to Anne going. I suppose Martin could, but----”

“I shouldn’t be any use,” said Martin at once. “The hotel people were all at the funeral, and someone’d be sure to spot me. Anyhow,” he added, “I don’t know that I’m so keen on all this investigating business. If Steve thinks there’s been a murder, can’t he prove it out of the evidence he’s got already?”

“No,” said Stephen. “Quite obviously I can’t. I can’t even disprove suicide, which is what we really have to do, though I can throw some doubt on it. If we’re going to do any good, there’s a lot of hard work in front of us. That’s why somebody must begin by going down to Pendlebury, as Mr. Jelks says. In fact, that’s where Mr. Jelks comes in.”

“Where I---I beg your pardon, Mr. Dickinson, but it was only a suggestion of mine. You can’t mean that I should----”

“I imagined this sort of thing was just in your line. Surely solicitors are always having to make inquiries at hotels and places, for divorce and so on?”

“Divorce?” said Mr. Jelks. “We never touch it! There are firms, of course, who specialize in that class of business.”

“Then I suppose we shall have to put our affairs in the hands of one of the firms who do.”

Mr. Jelks had horrid visions of his partners returning from their holidays to find that he had lost a client.

“That will not be necessary,” he said, hastily. “I think what you want is a good inquiry agent. This is hardly a lawyer’s business at all, you know. You couldn’t expect me . . .”

Stephen, looking at him, privately agreed that he could not.

“You can find me a man of that sort---at once?”

“Oh, certainly, yes. I have the very man in mind. I’ll tell him to ring you up and make an appointment.”

Mr. Jelks had not the faintest acquaintance with any inquiry agent, good or bad; but he was fairly confident that one of the managing clerks in the office would know where to find one. At the moment he was anxious above all things to get away from this persistent young man, who, not content with propounding the most hare-brained plot, was actually suggesting that he, Herbert Horatio Jelks, should help to put it into execution. The sooner he returned to the sweet sanities of Bedford Row, the better.

Before he went, he had one further thing to say.

“You will remember that the Company’s offer, thanks, I may say, to my own intervention, remains open for fourteen days,” he said. “I shall receive confirmation of that in writing, no doubt, but we may take it that you have fourteen days before you need finally decide to reject it.”

“We have rejected it,” said Stephen, tight-lipped. “I don’t see what else there is to decide.”

“Wait a bit, though,” said Martin. “There is something in this, y’know. Fourteen days is quite a bit of time---long enough to find out if there is anything in Steve’s idea. I vote we give ourselves that time to prove our case, and if we can’t, then take the thirteen hundred quid and look grateful. What d’you say, Annie?”

Anne turned to Stephen.

“Do you really stand by what you said?” she asked. “You really think that someone killed Father?”

“Yes. I do.”

She passed her hands before her eyes.

“We seem to go from one horror to another,” she murmured. “I think Martin is right, Stephen. At least, we needn’t make a definite choice until then.”

“I must ask you to make up your own minds about it,” said Mr. Jelks, in a hurry to be gone. “It is a point that you should bear in mind, that is all. I expect Mr. Dickinson thinks nothing of the task of laying bare a criminal in a fortnight.”

And with this last and utterly ineffective witticism, he took his departure.

+++

“Pompous ass!” was Stephen’s comment, as he watched the solicitor’s chubby form recede along the pavement outside the house. “I might have known he’d be no sort of use.”

“Decent sort of fellow, I thought,” said Martin. “Of course, it was a bit of a shock to him; couldn’t take it in at first; but no more could the rest of us. It is a tall order, y’know. Anyhow, I think the idea of a trial fortnight is a good one. After all, one can do a lot in a fortnight.”

“What seems to have escaped your notice is that we’ve got to do a lot in a fortnight. I have four weeks holiday and nearly two weeks of it have gone already. After that, things aren’t going to be so easy.”

“Jove, yes! I’m lucky, I’ve still got three weeks to play with, so I’m all right. And now I suppose there’s nothing we can do till the inquiry chappie has got to work. Not that I like this business of poking about in hotel registers. You never know what you might find.” He blinked solemnly behind his spectacles. “I’m short of exercise,” he announced. “Is anybody coming for a stroll on the Heath?”

Nobody else felt inclined to go with him, and he walked out alone. As soon as he was gone, Anne took Stephen on one side.

“There’s something I want to say to you,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Yes. It’s just that I’m sorry.”

“What about?”

“About that beastly row we had the other night.”

“Good Lord! That! I’d forgotten all about it.”

“Well, I hadn’t. You see, it’s only just occurred to me that you must have just made up your mind that moment about this horrible business.”

“That Father’s death wasn’t accidental, you mean?”

“Yes. It was a pretty bad shock to me when you brought it out just now, and I can understand what it was for you when you tumbled to it all by yourself. Of course you were all on edge.”

“Say no more, sister. We both said some pretty silly things. Let’s forget them.”

The telephone bell rang. Stephen answered it. It was Mr. Jelks speaking from his office.

“I have got the man you want,” he said. “The name is Elderson. Will it suit you to go and see him tomorrow morning?” He added an address in Shaftesbury Avenue.

“Thank you,” said Stephen. He put down the receiver and began to laugh.

“What on earth is the matter?” Anne said.

“I---I’m sorry,” he said, struggling with gusts of uncontrollable giggling. “But it does seem a bub---bloody silly position, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t see anything funny about it at all.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I shall be sane tomorrow. Just now I---hoo, hoo, hoo!”

And so odd is the effect of overstrained nerves, that when Martin came in from his walk he found Anne also in the grip of mirthless laughter.


 66 
 on: March 11, 2024, 11:05:00 am 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Saturday, August 19th

STEPHEN was down late to breakfast next morning. Mrs. Dickinson, following the custom by which the privileges of invalids are always extended to the recently bereaved, was breakfasting in bed. Anne had already finished her meal some time before, but was still in the dining-room. Stephen came in just as she was jabbing the stub of her third cigarette into an ashtray. She had an air of impatient exasperation.

“Well?” she fired at him at once.

Stephen did not reply. He went over to the sideboard and helped himself to coffee.

“Stone-cold,” he remarked. “And the milk has a disgusting skin on it. What a filthy stink you have made in here. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you smoking in the dining-room after breakfast.”

“Go on! Say it!” said Anne. “If Father was alive I shouldn’t be doing it. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“Well, there’s no harm in looking on the bright side, is there? You’re very pugnacious this morning, Anne.”

“I’m very impatient, if you like. I thought you were never coming down.”

“Impatient?” said Stephen, buttering a piece of toast with great deliberation. “What about?”

“About everything, of course. Are you getting on to Jelks today? When are we going to see the insurance person? What are we going to do first? There are scores of things I want to discuss with you. And then you ask what I’m impatient about!”

“The first thing I’m going to do,” said Stephen, “is to have my breakfast, and I wish I could feel that it was more than a forlorn hope that I should have it in comparative peace and quiet. After that----”

“Yes?”

“After that, I am not going to discuss matters with Jelks, or the insurance people, or, for the matter of that, with Martin. I am going to make a few quiet inquiries on my own. Now don’t start making a fuss,” he went on quickly before she could speak. “I know quite well what you are going to say. But I’ve thought this out, and I’ve made up my mind. I’ve read the evidence and you haven’t. There’s just one chance for us, as far as I can see, and I’m going to test it, and see if there’s a reasonable prospect of its coming off. If there is, we go right ahead. If not----”

“You mean that you’re looking for an excuse to back out. It’s just the sort of thing I might have expected!”

“Need we go into all this again?” said Stephen wearily. “I am not anxious to back out, as I think I explained to you last night. But you don’t understand the position at all. If,” he went on with a maddening assumption of superiority, “you had had the decency to let me eat my breakfast in peace, I dare say I should have explained it to you. As it is, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.”

Anne got up and went to the door. With her hand on the latch she turned and said:

“Stephen, this is all very ridiculous. I’m sorry about last night, if that’s what you want me to say. Why on earth should this horrible thing have made us squabble like two children?”

“Because we look at it from two different angles, I suppose. Not that I admit for a moment that there is anything in the least childish in my behaviour, at any rate. So far as you are concerned----”

“Oh, very well!” Anne exclaimed, and flounced out of the room. A moment later she opened the door again, and did her best to repair the anti-climax by the sarcastic tone in which she asked: “Will your lordship be good enough to indicate where he is going to prosecute his inquiries, and whether he expects to be home to lunch?”

Bowing gravely over his boiled egg, Stephen replied: “I shall not be in to lunch. And I see no objection to informing you that I am going to Scotland Yard.”

+++

Going to Scotland Yard was simple enough; doing anything when there turned out to be a difficult matter. The polite but inquisitive policeman at the entrance made that clear to Stephen. So he wished to see Inspector Mallett, did he? Precisely. In connexion with what case was it? Oh, a private matter? Just so. Had he an appointment, perhaps? No? That was unfortunate. Stephen, feeling uncomfortably warm with embarrassment and with a growing sensation that his collar was a size too small for him, agreed that it was unfortunate. No, he did not desire to state his business to any other officer. Yes, he quite understood that the inspector was a busy man, but the matter was urgent and would not detain the inspector long. Yes, here was his card. By all means he would wait. No, he really would prefer not to explain the position to the sergeant. No, not at all. . . . Oh, certainly. . . . Yes, rather. . . . Thanks, if you don’t mind. . . . I quite understand. . . . Yes. . . . No. . . .

These preliminaries occupied about half an hour, and the sojourn in the waiting-room that succeeded them some twenty minutes more. At the end of that time, Stephen was informed that the inspector was in conference with the Assistant Commissioner, and that when the conference was over he would be at his lunch. The tone in which this latter piece of information was delivered indicated that Inspector Mallett’s lunch was not a function to be treated lightly. After his lunch, if he was not otherwise engaged, the card of this importunate visitor would be put before him, and he might consent to receive him---if he thought fit. The officer obviously did not think it likely that the inspector would so think, but he indicated that there would be no harm in trying, and Stephen, by now thoroughly cowed, promised to return at two o’clock.

He lunched miserably in the neighbourhood and soon after Big Ben had struck the three-quarters was back again in the dirty brick quadrangle which seemed by now depressingly familiar. Resigned to another long period of unprofitable waiting, he was agreeably surprised to be met by the news that the inspector’s conference had finished earlier than was expected, that the inspector had had his lunch all right (this was a most important point, evidently), that the inspector had seen Stephen’s card, and that the inspector was free and would see him now, and would he come this way please?

Somewhat dazed, Stephen suffered himself to be led along many passages and up many flights of stairs, and finally found himself in a small airy room which overlooked the Thames, and which at first sight seemed to him to be distinctly overcrowded. The impression of overcrowding, he soon decided, was largely contributed to by the great bulk of the man who was its only occupant, and who now sat behind his desk regarding him with an expression that was at once genial and inquiring.

“Mr. Stephen Dickinson?” said Mallett in a voice surprisingly quiet and gentle for one of his large frame. “Won’t you sit down?”

Stephen did so, and opened his mouth to explain himself, but the inspector went on: “Are you the son of the late Mr. Leonard Dickinson?”

“Yes. In fact I----”

“I thought so. You are rather like him in some ways.”

The young man flushed.

“Oh, do you think so?” he said, in a tone of some annoyance. “I never thought there was much likeness myself.”

Inspector Mallett chuckled.

“One of my grandmother’s rules of conduct,” he observed, “was: ‘Never see a likeness.’ She had a theory that it was rude. I’m afraid manners were never my strong point, though. I joined the Force before the days of courtesy cops. But there is a likeness, all the same,” he added.

Recollecting the late Mr. Dickinson’s unattractive elderliness, he was not in the least surprised that his son should repudiate the suggestion so curtly. It was in any case, he reflected, a likeness of expression rather than of feature. It was difficult to pin down, as family resemblances so often are, but the fact remained that with his first glance at Stephen, his mind had gone back at once to old Mr. Dickinson. Oddly enough, he had been reminded of the dead man’s face, not as he had seen it pressed close to his own in garrulous confidences after dinner, but as it had appeared the next morning, silent and still, the lines of worry and disillusionment smoothed out in death. Then the essential cast of countenance had been revealed with the removal of the accidental tricks that life had played with it. In Stephen’s case, experience had not yet had time to spin its web of disguise. And the common factor was---he fumbled for a definition---that each was essentially the face of a man who was before all things self-centred. At bottom, he felt, the likeness between father and son was a good deal more than skin-deep, though one was a weary pessimist and the other obviously alert and self-confident to the point of bumptiousness. Had he known it, this parallel between himself and his parent would have annoyed Stephen considerably more than the discovery that they possessed a similar nose or chin could possibly have done.

Meanwhile Stephen was speaking.

“At all events,” he said, “it was about my father that I came to see you.”

“Yes?” Mallett was friendly, but showed no inclination to help him out.

“Yes.” He hesitated for a moment, braced himself as though for a plunge into cold water, and then came out with: “I’m not satisfied with the verdict on my father’s death.”

Mallett raised his eyebrows.

“The coroner’s jury was wrong,” Stephen repeated.

“Yes,” said Mallett slowly. “I appreciate that that was what you meant. But in that case, Mr. Dickinson, don’t you think you ought to go and see the police about it? I mean,” he went on, smiling at the puzzled expression on the young man’s face, “the Markshire police. This is their affair, you know. My own connexion with it was purely accidental and unofficial. Perhaps if I were to give you a note to the local superintendent----”

“No,” said Stephen firmly. “I quite understand what you say, but that isn’t what I want. I came to see you personally, because . . .” He hesitated.

“Yes?”

“Because you were the person largely responsible for things going wrong at the inquest.”

It was a long time since Inspector Mallett had had a remark of this kind addressed to him, and he did not take it very kindly. For a moment he was tempted to deal very severely with this impertinent person, and it was perhaps fortunate for Stephen that he was still in a post-prandial mood of kindliness. His momentary look of annoyance, however, did not pass unnoticed, and Stephen was prompt to apologize.

“Please don’t think----” he began.

“Never mind what I think,” the inspector interrupted him. “It’s what I did that is in question, isn’t it? Let’s keep to that. I was a witness at the inquest on your father---a witness of fact, purely and simply. I hope I was an accurate witness. I certainly tried to be.”

“Exactly. And it was your evidence that caused all the trouble. Although it was accurate---because it was accurate---it resulted in the coroner and the jury being hopelessly misled.”

Stephen sat back with the air of one who has delivered an ultimatum. But Mallett showed no sign of being impressed. He merely laid his broad hands flat upon the desk in front of him, pursed his lips, and looked into space about a foot above the top of Stephen’s head.

“You know, I haven’t the least idea what you are talking about,” he murmured. “Now look here----” He suddenly brought his gaze down full upon the other’s face. “Suppose we start at the beginning. It’s much more satisfactory. Mr. Dickinson died from an overdose of Medinal. The medical evidence was conclusive on that point, to my mind at least. Are you disputing it?”

“No.”

“Very well. On the evidence, of which mine was part, the coroner’s jury came to the conclusion that he had taken his own life. That you say was wrong?”

“Exactly.”

“Apart from my evidence, do you think that the verdict would have been different?”

“I think there was a very good chance of a finding of accidental death.”

“I don’t altogether agree with you. As I recollect the evidence---but we can discuss that later. Do you think that accidental death would have been a proper verdict?”

“I should have been perfectly satisfied with it.”

“But do you think it would have been a proper verdict?”

“No. If by ‘proper’ you mean in accordance with the facts, I don’t think it would.”

A long pause followed these words. Mallett opened his mouth to say something, evidently thought better of it, and then said: “But you told me just now you would have been satisfied with that verdict?”

“That’s not quite the same thing, is it?”

“You needn’t tell me that,” said Mallett with some asperity. He looked at Stephen quizzically for a moment in silence and then said: “Mr. Dickinson, I don’t understand you in the least. You object to the verdict which was given because you think it was incorrect, but you would have been perfectly prepared to accept another, equally incorrect. Evidently you are not concerned about---abstract justice, shall we say? And at the same time you don’t strike me as a person who would worry very much about any stigma attaching to a finding of suicide. Or am I wrong?”

“No,” said Stephen. “I’m not very strong on abstractions. As to stigmas,” he grinned reminiscently, “some of my family seem to have them on the brain. Personally, I don’t care two hoots about them. But it so happens that a very large sum of money depends upon my establishing that my father did not kill himself.”

The inspector could not suppress a smile.

“And therefore you have determined that the verdict was wrong?” he said.

Stephen frowned at the imputation.

“No!” he protested. “I knew that the verdict was wrong as soon as I heard it. So would you, if you had known as much about my father as I do. But the wrongness doesn’t concern me; its consequences do. That is why I should have been content with a verdict of accidental death. And that is why, very much against my will, I find myself in the position of having to prove the truth, which for other reasons it would have been much better for all concerned not to have bothered about.”

To himself Inspector Mallett murmured with satisfaction, “Self-centred!” Aloud he said, “And what precisely do you mean by the truth, Mr. Dickinson?”

“That my father was murdered.”

The inspector tugged thoughtfully at the points of his fierce military moustache. If he was at all shocked at the suggestion, he gave no signs of it.

“Murdered?” he said softly. “Just so! Then in that case, don’t you think my original suggestion was the correct one---that you should put the case before the appropriate authority, the Markshire County Police?”

“I don’t know whether it was correct or not,” retorted Stephen with some impatience. “I do know that it’s no sort of use to me. For one thing, I have at the present moment no evidence whatever to put before the Markshire or any other police, and for another, I am not interested in proving that any particular person killed my father. I only want to show, to the satisfaction of the insurance company, or a court of law if necessary, that he was killed by somebody.”

“I see,” said Mallett. “You put the position very clearly. You can hardly expect a police officer to take the same rather---er---detached view of crime as you do, but I appreciate your position. I take it that your object now is to get what evidence you can in order to prove your case against the insurance company?”

“That is what I am here for.”

Mallett made a little gesture of impatience.

“But my dear sir,” he said, “we are back where we started from! How can I help you? Officially----”

“I am here quite unofficially.”

“Very good, then. Unofficially, I am simply an individual who was called to give some evidence which was perfectly accurate, and which the jury believed and acted upon. If you ever bring any proceedings in which your father’s death is in question, I should probably be called as a witness again, and should give the same evidence, which would presumably have the same effect on another jury. What can I do about it?”

To his surprise, Stephen replied airily, “Oh, I can dispose of your evidence easily enough.”

“Indeed!”

“Certainly. I should probably have done so at the inquest, if I had been there, instead of in Switzerland all the time, out of reach of newspapers and letters. After all, what did it amount to? You had a talk to my father the night before he died, or rather, if I know anything of the matter, he did the talking and you just listened and wished you could get away from such a shocking old bore. You found him a gloomy old man---as who wouldn’t?---full of complaints about life in general and his family in particular. That is the main effect of it, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” the inspector admitted. “But it went a good deal further than that.”

“I bet it did. You didn’t enter into very many details, but I expect I can supply a few for you. He told you that he had made a mistake marrying a woman so much younger than himself, didn’t he? He said that he had been born at Pendlebury Old Hall and that it meant much more to him than his family could ever imagine, because it was the only place where he had been happy in the whole of his life. And finally, he said that he felt like a snail, dragging its trail about with him wherever it went, and wondered with an air of deep significance where the trail would end.”

“But I never mentioned that in my evidence,” said Mallett. “How did you know that he used that expression?”

“Because he was always using it, of course. You don’t imagine that he invented it for your benefit, do you? In the home one could expect that sort of stuff to come up every month or so. The snail and his trail has been the theme song of my family for ages. In fact, I did actually write a song about it. It begins like this:

   “How doth the melancholy snail
       Invigorate his friends,
    By looking back upon his trail
      And wondering where it ends.


“Not very high-class verse, I admit, but it proves my point, anyhow. So far as your talk with him is relied on as evidence of suicide, you can wash it out altogether.”

“My evidence was not confined to my conversation of the night before,” Mallett pointed out. “And I don’t think that the coroner relied on that alone when he came to sum up to the jury.”

“No, of course he didn’t. What he relied on most of all was the silliest bit of evidence of the whole lot---not that I blame him, he couldn’t have known. It was simply the most sickening piece of bad luck---a pure coincidence that nobody could have foreseen. I suppose, by the way, that we are talking about the same thing---I mean the inscription, motto, or whatever you like to call it, that was found by his body?”

Mallett nodded.

We are in the power of no calamity, while Death is in our own,” Stephen quoted. He laughed mirthlessly. “Gosh! Isn’t it ridiculous! By the way, Inspector,” he went on, “did you happen to notice what sort of paper it was written on?”

“Yes. It was on a small slip of white paper of good quality. The ink was dark, I remember, as though it had been written at least some hours before I saw it, possibly more. That would depend on the type of ink, you know. The handwriting, you may remember, was identified at the inquest by your mother.”

“Oh, no question about the writing,” said Stephen. “The silly thing is, it might just as likely have been mine. That would have puzzled the coroner a bit, wouldn’t it?”

“Yours, Mr. Dickinson? How could that be?”

Stephen did not answer the question directly.

“Do you ever read detective stories, Inspector?” he said. “There’s a very good one of Chesterton’s, in which a man is found with an apparent confession of suicide beside him, which is really a fragment from a novel he is writing. The murderer pinches the sheet he has just written, and snips off the edge of the paper which has the inverted commas on it.”

“But this was a small slip of paper,” was Mallett’s practical comment. “Not a fragment of a book or anything else. And I’m quite certain none of the edges were snipped off.”

“And you may add with equal truth, my father was not writing a novel. But I’ll tell you what he was doing, he was compiling a calendar.”

“A calendar?”

“Yes---a calendar of quotations, one for every day of the year. And being my father, it was, of all things, a calendar of pessimistic quotations. Incidentally, can you imagine a man who really contemplated suicide devoting years of his life to selecting and arranging the three hundred and sixty-five gloomiest observations on life that he could find?”

“This was a quotation, then?”

“Lord, yes! My father wasn’t capable of producing a sentiment of that kind out of his own head. It was written by a gent named Sir Thomas Browne, about three hundred years ago. Father was fearfully pleased when he discovered it, or rather when I discovered it for him. I wrote it down for him a month or two ago, and evidently he thought it good enough to keep for his permanent collection, as he copied it out on one of his little slips. He had hundreds of them, you see, and was always shuffling them about and rejecting the ones that didn’t come up to his standard of depression. He got some perverted pleasure out of it---I can’t think what. That’s why his calendar took such a long time to complete. I’ve brought some to show you the sort of thing.” From his pocket he took several small slips of paper. “Here’s a good example,” he said.

    My Brother, my poor Brothers, it is thus;
      This life itself holds nothing good for us,
    But it ends soon and nevermore can be;
      And we knew nothing of it ere our birth,
    And shall know nothing when consigned to earth:
      I ponder these thoughts and they comfort me.


The City of Dreadful Night, you know. He got quite a number of his best quotes out of that. Then this one is rather amusing:

   Howbeit, I do here most certainely assure you, there be many wayes to Peru.

“I don’t quite know how he came by that. It’s out of Hakluyt’s Voyages. He seems to have thought that Peru was symbolical of the next world, or something of the kind, whereas as a matter of fact it’s a perfectly straightforward piece of geographical information. Anyhow, he discarded it in favour of something grislier. Like this, for example----”

“I think that’s enough to go on with,” said Mallett, who was beginning to feel somewhat overwhelmed at this display of erudition. “You seem to have proved your point, Mr. Dickinson. But I don’t understand why this particular passage should have been found by your father’s bed after he was dead. Are you asking me to believe that someone else put it there, in order to give the effect of suicide?”

Stephen pondered for a moment before he answered.

“No,” he said. “No, I’ve thought of that, and it doesn’t hold water. For one thing how would he have known where to find it? The simple explanation is that my father took it out of his pocket when he undressed, along with his other things, and kept it by his bedside to gloat over. I know that sounds improbable to you, Inspector, and God knows how I should ever get a jury to believe it, but that happens to be the kind of odd fish my father was. He got a kick out of this sort of thing, just as old men of another kind get a kick out of indecent photographs. And like them, he enjoyed having his pet vice handy.”

“It’s possible,” said Mallett slowly. “Yes, I suppose it’s just possible.”

“It’s a dead certainty to me, knowing Father as I did.”

“Well, assuming---just assuming---that you are right so far, and that your father did not in fact kill himself. You are still a long way from proving the rather startling theory which you advanced just now---that this is a case of murder.”

“If he didn’t kill himself, then someone else did,” said Stephen with an air of finality.

“That’s just the point I want to put to you. Your father died, as we agreed just now, from an overdose of Medinal, a drug which he was regularly taking on medical advice. If we exclude the possibility that he took the overdose deliberately, surely the inference is that he took it by accident?”

“Yes, it ought to be, but there again luck is against us. I’ve told you already I’m not in the least keen to prove that a murder has been committed, but I’m driven to it. I think the evidence quite clearly puts an accidental overdose outside the bounds of possibility.”

Mallett reflected for a moment.

“I begin to remember,” he said. “There were two bottles of tablets beside the bed, were there not? One nearly full, and the other completely empty.”

“Exactly. Two bottles. Now one can understand a man, having taken his proper dose, forgetting that he had done so, and taking another one, out of the same bottle. You could easily get a jury to swallow that. But who on earth is going to believe that anyone in his senses should go and open a fresh bottle when the old one is staring him in the face, to prove that he had taken his proper dose already?”

“Yes. I remember that the coroner dealt with that question.”

“And,” Stephen added, to clinch the point, “there weren’t enough tablets missing from the full bottle to constitute a lethal dose.”

“He certainly died from the effects of a very large overdose indeed. The doctors were quite clear on that.”

“Quite so. Therefore I should fail if I attempted to prove that my father died accidentally. If I am to dispose of the verdict of suicide, I must rely on the only other possible cause of death---namely, murder.”

“I suppose,” said Mallett ironically, “that you haven’t considered such minor questions as who murdered your father, or how, or why?”

“Not yet,” answered Stephen with irritating composure. “That will, of course, be the next stage in my inquiries. And remember, it is no part of my job to convict anybody. I’m only interested to show that my father’s estate is entitled to collect the cash from the insurance company. That’s where I want your help. You are interested in punishing crime, I suppose, so I presume you have no objection to giving it.”

“I have already explained,” said the inspector, “that this case is no affair of mine. Even if you are right in your suggestion, I can take no part in any inquiries unless and until I am called in.”

“You misunderstand me. I’m not asking you to take any part in the inquiries. I am sorry to have taken so long to come to the point, but I had to explain the position first. What I’m after is this: If this was a case of murder---and I, at any rate, am satisfied that it was---there must have been something to indicate it. Something fishy---something a little out of the ordinary, at least. And if there was, you were the person to notice it at the time. Oh, I know you’re going to tell me that you weren’t there on business. I admit that. But after all, you’re a detective by training. You can’t get away from that, wherever you are and whatever you happen to be doing. You can’t help noticing things and remembering them afterwards, even if they don’t seem of any significance at the time.”

“If I had noticed anything in the least suspicious,” Mallett pointed out, “I should have mentioned it at once to the local police.”

“I didn’t say suspicious. I’m after anything you saw that was in the least unusual. It may not convey anything to you, but it may be of value to me. Do you see what I mean? Take my father’s room, for example. What did you observe in it?”

Mallett almost laughed out loud. It had so often been his experience in the past to put a question of this kind to witnesses that it tickled him to find the tables turned in this way.

“Your father’s room,” he repeated. “Let me see. The bed was on the right of the door as you went in, against the wall. By the bed was a little table. You’ll find everything that was on the table set out in the evidence at the inquest. You have read that, I take it?”

Stephen nodded.

“Furniture,” Mallett went on. “A wardrobe, closed. A chair with some clothes left on it. Two ugly china vases on the mantelpiece. Near the window, a dressing-table with drawers beneath it. On the dressing-table, your father’s hair-brushes, shaving things, and so on. Also the contents of his pockets---small change, keys, a note-book. And---yes, this was unusual---a small plate. On the plate was an apple, with a folding silver knife beside it. That’s all I saw. Of course, I wasn’t in the room any length of time, and I may have missed something.”

“Well done!” said Stephen softly. “I’m much obliged, Inspector.”

“Have I told you anything useful?”

“You’ve knocked another nail into the coffin of the suicide verdict, anyway. The apple, I mean.”

“How so?”

“Father believed in an apple a day. He used to eat one every morning before breakfast, and after shaving. He was a creature of habit, you see. If he went away anywhere for a week, he’d take seven apples with him, so as to make sure he wouldn’t run short. He took the silver knife with him too, to cut the apples up with. Before he went to bed, he would put an apple out for next morning. That’s what he’d done this time, obviously. Not a likely thing for a man to do if he knew he wasn’t going to be alive to eat it, was it?”

“I’m only telling you what I saw, I’m expressing no opinion. But there was something that happened the night before which you may as well hear, though I expect there’s nothing in it. Your father saw a man in the hotel whom he thought he recognized.”

“What!” Stephen sat bolt upright in excitement. “Where was this? Upstairs, in the corridor outside his room?”

“No, no. In the lounge, while we were talking after dinner.”

“In the lounge? Someone he knew? By Jove, Inspector, but this is really interesting. What was he like?”

“I didn’t see him myself. He passed behind me. I got the impression of someone who wasn’t very tall, from his shadow, that’s all. But if you’ll take my advice, you won’t build on this. Your father thought he saw an acquaintance and then decided that he hadn’t. That’s all. Probably his second impression was the right one.”

“Did he say he was wrong?” Stephen persisted, unwilling to give up the slender clue. “You don’t remember his actual words, I suppose?”

“As it happens, I do. He said: ‘I must have been mistaken. Thought it was somebody I knew, but it couldn’t have been.’ Then he said something about the deceptiveness of back views and went on talking. The interruption made him change the subject, I recollect, without his realizing he had done so.”

“ ‘Must have been mistaken,’ ” said Stephen. “That’s not the same thing, is it? He thought he must have made a mistake, that it couldn’t have been the person he thought it was, because he didn’t think it possible that person could have been there. You know, Inspector, my father was an awful old dunderhead in lots of ways, but he had eyes in his head, and he didn’t often make a mistake of that kind. Suppose he wasn’t mistaken, and the person who ‘couldn’t’ have been there really was there? Suppose----”

“There are a great many suppositions in your case, I’m afraid,” said Mallett, looking at his watch.

“I’m afraid there are. And I’m afraid, too, that I’ve wasted a great deal too much of your time, as you have just reminded me.” He got up. “That is all you have to tell me, I suppose?”

“There is nothing else that I can think of at this moment, Mr. Dickinson.”

“Then I will say goodbye and thank you. You’ve given me something to go on, anyhow. At breakfast this morning I was half inclined to chuck the whole thing up.”

“I don’t see that I have given you very much help,” said the inspector.

“You’ve given me enough to see this thing through, anyhow,” was the answer. And a moment or two later a very determined-looking young man walked out of New Scotland Yard.

Left alone, Mallett sat thinking for a few moments. He was conscious that he had shamelessly wasted quite a considerable amount of valuable official time discussing a theory that was probably entirely without foundation and was certainly no affair of his. A conscientious officer should have felt a good deal of regret at the fact. But Mallett, whom his worst enemies had never called anything but conscientious, did not feel a single qualm of regret. Instead, to his surprise, he felt pleasurably excited. Some sixth sense seemed to tell him that this was only the second chapter, and not the end, of the story which had begun at Pendlebury Old Hall. From a drawer in his desk, he pulled out an empty file. Smiling at his own folly as he did so, he solemnly entitled it “Re Dickinson,” and returned it, still empty, to the drawer. Then he took a sheet of notepaper and wrote a personal letter, in very guarded terms, to his good friend the head of the plain-clothes force of the Markshire County Constabulary.

When all this had been done, Inspector Mallett plunged again into his proper work. Routine reigned once more in the little room overlooking the river.


 67 
 on: March 11, 2024, 10:45:56 am 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Friday, August 18th

THE cousin with the taste for Press cuttings was as good as his word. Before he went to bed that night, Stephen was in possession of a thick, untidy volume, full of irregularly pasted extracts from publications of every kind. They began with snippets from school magazines, commemorating such earth-shaking events as that “Dickinson, mi., was a bad third” in the Junior Hundred Yards, and continued for a few pages to record the rare occasions when the doings of the owner or his family had escaped into print. “The short and simple annals of the obscure,” was Stephen’s comment as he fluttered the pages. It was not long before he came to the account of the tragedy at Pendlebury Old Hall, which absorbed more than twice as much space as the rest of the contents put together. With ghoulish assiduity the compiler had preserved every scrap of newsprint that contained any reference to the matter. Headlines and photographs, paragraphs short and long, all were fish for his net. The death of Mr. Dickinson, a respectable but not particularly noteworthy figure, had not, in fact, created much stir in the world, or occupied much room in the newspapers of the country, and most of the references were brief, although, when collected, they looked impressive enough. But it had evidently been an event of the first magnitude in the immediate neighbourhood of Pendlebury, and, as the owner of the book had said, the local Press had dealt with it thoroughly. By the time that he had finished reading its report of the proceedings, Stephen was confident that he knew as much about the affair as if he had been present at the inquest.

Stephen went up to his room very late that night. He had had a tiring day, and his researches had taken him a considerable time. None the less, he seemed even now strangely disinclined to go to bed. After wandering up and down the room for a short time, he sat down on a chair and lit a cigarette, frowning in an attempt at concentration. Had any observer been present, he would have seen a very different Stephen from the cocksure young man who over the coffee-cups had so blithely announced his intention of putting the insurance company in its place. This Stephen was anything but cocksure. On the contrary he was obviously acutely anxious, the observer might have even added nervous, at the prospect of the task which he now saw before him. At the same time, here was evidently a young man firmly determined in his mind on what he had to do. If he was different, he was certainly a more formidable person altogether.

The cigarette finished, he at last began to undress. He had propped the book of Press cuttings upon the chest of drawers, open at the report, and from time to time broke off his undressing to consult it again, as a fresh thought struck him. He was still half clad, poring over the book, when the door opened quietly. He looked up.

“Anne!” he exclaimed. “Why aren’t you in bed? Do you know what time it is?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I heard you moving about, so I knew you were still up.”

She came in and sat on his bed, swinging her pyjamaed legs meditatively backwards and forwards. Looking at her, Stephen wondered, not for the first time, whether Martin really knew just how lucky he was.

“Give me a cigarette,” she said.

He did so, and lit it for her in silence. The cigarette was half finished before she spoke again.

“Stephen.”

“Yes?”

“Look here, you meant what you said in the drawing-room after dinner, didn’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You still mean it?”

“Of course I do. Why shouldn’t I?”

“I dunno. You look so worried, that’s all.”

“Not surprising. I am worried. Hellishly.”

“Because of that?” She pointed to the open book upon the chest of drawers.

He nodded.

“But the verdict was wrong, wasn’t it?” she persisted.

“Yes. As wrong as wrong. We start from that, don’t we? But all the same, I’m damned if I can see what else they could have done on the evidence. Look here, for instance----”

“No, I don’t want to hear about it, not now. I shall have to some time, I suppose, if I’m to be any use to you. Only, Stephen, I wanted to be sure that you weren’t---weren’t weakening about it, that’s all.”

“Weakening? I like that! Not on your life!”

“That’s all right then.” She grinned suddenly. “You look quite the strong man, even in those awful pink underclothes of yours. So long as you’ve made up your mind that it’s worth going through with it----”

“I should damn’ well think it was! Do you realize just how badly off we are going to be if we don’t?”

“Oh, the money, yes! I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“Well, you can be pretty sure I was.”

“You always were keen on money, weren’t you, Stephen? Ever since we were tiny. That’s not what’s worrying me. It’s simply that I can’t stand the idea of people saying about Father----”

“What Uncle Edward calls the Stigma?”

“If you like---but it’s more than that, really. Oh, I can’t put it into words, but what I feel is that the poor old parent had a pretty rotten deal while he was alive, and it would help to make up a bit if we can stop people telling a lot of nasty lies about him now he’s dead. Make up to him, I mean. Does that sound awful rot to you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can’t help it if it does. I never thought you would understand. You see, I was really fond of Father, only he never gave me the chance of showing it, and you really hated him, and never had the smallest difficulty in showing it. That’s just the difference between us.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Stephen. “So far as my hating the old man is concerned, I mean. You’ve no right to say that.”

“I’m sorry, Stephen. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“I’ve got no feelings in the matter, one way or the other. I didn’t get on with Father, I agree, but no more did you. We don’t exactly seem to have a knack of getting on with our seniors. Look at Uncle Arthur, for example.”

“Uncle Arthur doesn’t count. He was a maniac. His will proves that. But Father was different. He did try to do his best for us, but always as if it went against the grain, somehow. And it wasn’t just us, either. He seemed to have a sort of grievance against life.”

“Exactly. That’s what the jury found, wasn’t it?”

“But he never ran away from life---that’s the point. And the less we succeeded in making him happy while he was alive, the greater our duty to---to----”

“To make him happy now he’s dead?” suggested Stephen with a yawn. “I’m sorry, Anne, but your doctrine of posthumous reparation does not appeal to me. Personally, I think that if he is conscious of anything at all, Father is probably rather glad to be dead, however in fact he came to die. Luckily, it doesn’t matter very much which of us is right.”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t. I wish we looked at things in the same way, though. It might make things easier.”

“My good girl, do be practical for once. We want the same thing, don’t we?”

“Yes. With me bent on clearing Father’s memory, and you with both eyes firmly fixed on the main chance, we ought to make a pretty strong team. Not to mention Martin.”

“Yes, of course,” said Stephen carelessly. “I was forgetting him.”

“Well, please don’t forget him in future, that’s all.” Anne’s voice had suddenly taken on a dangerously hard quality. “I’ve no doubt you’d like to if you could.”

Stephen knew perfectly well that the one way to precipitate a quarrel with his sister was to cast any aspersions on the man upon whom she had chosen, for reasons which he could not understand, to fix her affections. He was, moreover, desperately sleepy and longing for bed. He had, therefore, every reason to make some soothing reply and get Anne out of the room as quickly as possible. But some imp of perversity made him reply, instead:

“I’m not likely to have much chance with you about, am I?”

The mischief was done. Anne’s slumberous brown eyes lit up for battle, her cheeks glowed, her chin was thrust forward.

“Why,” she began, “why are you always so perfectly beastly about Martin?”

Too late, Stephen saw his danger.

“I’m not, really I’m not,” he protested feebly.

“Yes, you are, always. If you’re not, why don’t you sometimes tell me you like him?”

“But I do like him. I can’t always keep saying it can I? I---I admire him in lots of ways. Only . . .”

Fatal word.

“ ‘Only!’ That’s just it. That’s always it where Martin’s concerned. ‘Only’ what, may I ask?”

Stephen’s temper took command.

“Only that I don’t happen to think he’s the right sort of man to make you happy, that’s all.”

“For God’s sake don’t talk like a good brother in a Victorian novel! It doesn’t suit you in the least. Why can’t you say what you mean?”

“I’ve said exactly what I mean, so far as I am aware.”

“No, you haven’t. You’ve simply hinted at it. What you mean is that you think Martin is a---what’s your choice word for it?---a womanizer.”

“Since you insist on introducing the subject, I do.”

“Well, please understand once for all that Martin and I have absolutely no secrets from each other on that subject or any others. I don’t care what his murky past may have been. If you’re such a beastly little puritan as to object to someone for having sown a few wild oats, I’m not.”

Stephen’s fatal weakness for scoring a verbal point betrayed him once more.

“The trouble with these people who sow their wild oats,” he said in his most aggravating manner, “is that they’re apt to have a grain or two left in odd corners of the sack when you think it’s empty. As you may discover in due time.”

“I suppose I’m to consider that witty,” retorted Anne. “But if you imagine . . .”

From this point the quarrel degenerated into a mere schoolroom brawl, in which nothing was too sacred, nothing too trivial, to be snatched up as a weapon in the fight. The armoury of old grudges and grievances that every family keeps stored away somewhere was ruthlessly exploited by both sides. At one point Stephen was pointing out to Anne that she had hopelessly lost her nerve the year before during the descent of the Rimpfischorn, and was being reminded in turn how he had been caught cheating at cards at a children’s party twelve years ago. At another, Anne got in a vicious blow by recalling the fatal misconduct by which her brother had finally alienated the affections of Uncle Arthur, and Stephen, white with rage at the mention of the unmentionable, retorted by disinterring her appalling faux pas at her coming out party. And on and on the battle raged, with the name of Martin recurring again and again to provide fresh fuel for fury when the flames showed signs of being exhausted.

“As I happen to be in love with Martin, and he with me----”

“How do you know he is in love with you, and not simply the money he thought you’d get?”

“Simply because you’re incapable of loving anything except money, you imagine that everybody’s like you!”

“Well, if he’s as fond of you as all that, why did he shirk coming out to Switzerland with us? Or was he afraid of climbing?”

“You know as well as I do that he’d have come if he could. It was simply that he couldn’t get away.”

“Very likely! I wonder how he was amusing himself---and who with?”

“I’m not going to answer your beastly insinuations. For that matter, why did you come out three days later than you said you would, and leave me hanging about at the hotel by myself after Joyce had had to go home? A lot you cared!”

“I’ve explained to you already that I couldn’t help it. My firm asked me to go specially to Birmingham because their accountant was ill and---”

“Yes, you’ve explained it already. I’m sick of your filthy accountant at Birmingham, if there is one. Then why couldn’t you have come by air instead of wasting time in a train?”

“If you think I’m going to waste money on aeroplanes to suit your convenience . . .”

And so on.

“Anyhow,” Anne said some time later, “Martin is in this with us, whether you like it or not. And you can just lump it!”

“Of course he’s in it. He knows which side his bread is buttered. Has it occurred to you, in all your highfalutin reflections, that our collecting the boodle may make quite a difference to your chances of getting married?”

“Yes, it has occurred to me. I’m not quite a fool.”

“You relieve my mind. Perhaps you remember also that one of the few things Father and I agreed on was that he couldn’t stand the idea of Martin as a son-in-law at any price?”

“I dare say it was. But it’s not the least good your thinking you can play the heavy father with me, because it won’t work.”

“I’m not going to. All I say is, that putting those two things together, namely, that Father wouldn’t help you to marry while he was alive and that you can’t afford to marry unless you collect your share of the insurance money, it seems to me a nauseating hypocrisy for you to pretend not (a) that you lament his death as a terrible blow, and (b) that your only interest in upsetting this verdict is . . .”

But Anne did not wait for the end of her brother’s carefully polished period. Getting off the bed she stalked to the door with as much dignity as her dressing-gown allowed.

“You make me sick,” she observed crisply, as she went out.

Thereafter these two highly intelligent, deeply affectionate, grown-up young persons went at last to bed, to wake next morning feeling more than a little ashamed of themselves.


 68 
 on: March 11, 2024, 08:40:37 am 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Friday, August 18th

DINNER proved to be a good deal more enjoyable than might have been expected, if only for the absence of the relations. Mrs. Dickinson strove with a surprising degree of success to make the occasion as much like a normal family party as possible. Now that she was no longer coping with the irritability of George, or being exhorted to be cheerful by Edward, her naturally sunny, equable temperament reasserted itself, and she contrived to keep the conversation going throughout the meal without once touching on the subject that hung like a black curtain in the background of the minds of each of them. Stephen and Anne felt that they were seeing a new side to their mother’s character, and to each the same thought came, unbidden: that dinner at home was, regrettably but unmistakably, pleasanter for the absence of the querulous, contradictory figure who, as far back as they could remember anything, had sat at the head of the table.

But in the drawing-room, after dinner, Mrs. Dickinson’s manner changed. Her face from being serious became solemn, and she appeared to be nervously awaiting the moment when the door closed behind the maid who brought in the coffee. Then she drew a deep breath, patted her hair into place---a sure sign, in the family, that she was worried---and said:

“Stephen, I have something important to discuss with you. No, don’t go, Martin. It concerns us all, and I count you as one of the family now. I have had a letter from Jelks, your father’s solicitor, which I don’t at all understand, and which rather disturbs me. I haven’t shown it to Robert, as I didn’t think it concerned him. You must deal with it, Stephen.”

She fetched a letter from her desk, but did not immediately hand it over to Stephen. Instead, she continued to talk, holding it in her hand.

“I must explain, first of all,” she said. “You all know, of course, about the very odd and improper will that your Uncle Arthur made?”

“Yes, of course,” said Stephen and Anne together.

“Do you know what I am talking about, Martin?”

Martin looked at Anne.

“Do I?” he said. To Stephen, he appeared more oafish at that moment than he had ever done before, which was saying a good deal.

“Perhaps you don’t,” said Anne patiently. “I meant to tell you, but I don’t think I did. Uncle Arthur----”

“Perhaps I had better explain,” said her mother. “Arthur Dickinson, who was my husband’s eldest brother, and the only wealthy member of the family, died last year. He was a bachelor, and he left a considerable amount of money, which he divided equally between his brothers, Leonard and George, and the children of Tom and of his sister Mary. Those are the cousins who were here this evening, some of them. We are rather a large family, I’m afraid, but I expect Anne has told you all about us.”

“Oh, yes,” said Martin, squinting rather doubtfully through his thick glasses at Anne once more.

“Very well. As I have said, he left his money equally divided, as to the amount, that is. But in the way in which he left it, he did not deal fairly so far as we were concerned. Although he was always on perfectly friendly terms with my husband, he had or pretended to have some grievance against us, I mean against myself and Anne and Stephen. I need not go into how it all originated---it’s an old story, and rather a painful one, I am afraid---but it seems to have worked upon his mind to such an extent . . .” She began to be a little flustered, and lost the thread of the story. “Of course, he was an old man, and not perhaps altogether---at all events, I have never felt it right to blame him, because he cannot really have been himself at the time----”

“The long and the short of it is, he cut us all out of his will,” said Stephen impatiently.

Martin absorbed the information slowly.

“Cut you out? I see,” he said. Then turning to Anne he said reproachfully: “I’m quite sure you didn’t tell me anything about that. That was rather a rotten thing to do,” he added solemnly. “What made him do a thing like that?”

There was a pause, long enough to make even as thick-skinned a man as Martin aware that he had said the wrong thing. Mrs. Dickinson pursed her lips, Anne flushed, and Stephen looked savagely angry.

“That’s neither here nor there,” he said. “The point is what he did, and that’s what I’m trying to tell you. He left Father the interest on fifty thousand pounds---that was his share---for life only. Everybody else had their bit absolutely, to do what they liked with. But on Father’s death the capital of his little lot was to go to some beastly charity or another, I forget what. Do you remember, Mother?”

“No. It doesn’t matter what charity it was, does it? But as a matter of fact, only half of it was for the charity. The rest goes to somebody else---a woman,” Mrs. Dickinson explained, lowering her voice. “I’m afraid rather a disreputable person, altogether.”

Martin, to Stephen’s disgust, showed a tendency to snigger at this point. That is to say, while keeping a perfectly straight face, he gave the impression that he was only doing so with difficulty.

“My husband was of course very much upset at the injustice of the will,” Mrs. Dickinson went on, “and he decided to do what he could to provide for his family.”

“He insured his life, I suppose,” said Martin at once.

Stephen looked up in some surprise. The man was not altogether such a fool as he had thought. It was difficult to tell what went on behind those thick glasses. Had he been underrating him?

“Exactly. For twenty-five thousand pounds. The premium was very high, I understand, in view of his age. In fact, I do not think it left very much out of the income Arthur had left him. But as most of his other means consisted of his pension from the Civil Service, which would of course die with him, he thought it well worth while.”

“I see.”

“And now that we’ve had all this ancient history over again for Martin’s benefit,” said Stephen, “can we get to the point?”

His voice was impatient, and more than impatient. It seemed to contain a hint of anxiety, almost of nervousness.

Martin took off his glasses, polished them and blinked upwards at the light.

“I think that what Mrs. Dickinson is going to tell us is this,” he said. “Since your Uncle Arthur died only a year ago, I presume that the insurance policy is less than a year old. Most insurance companies have a thing they call a suicide clause in their policies. What company is this one, Mrs. Dickinson?”

“The British Imperial.”

“H’m, yes, just so,” said Martin, replacing his spectacles. “They would be quite certain to have a suicide clause, and a very strictly drawn one too. It’s a most unfortunate position altogether.”

Looking extremely pleased with himself, he pulled from his pocket a foul-looking pipe, blew through it, and began to fill it. Stephen looked at him with feelings of disgust. He was disgusted with Martin for presuming to smoke a pipe in the drawing-room without asking permission, and still more disgusted with himself for having allowed this interloper to take possession of the discussion. Before he could say anything, however, Anne intervened.

“Martin!” she said sharply. “Put that beastly pipe of yours away, and explain things properly. What is a suicide clause, and how does it work?”

Martin blushed and put his pipe in his pocket with a mumbled “Sorry!” Then he said: “It simply means that if you insure your life and commit suicide within a certain time---usually a year---you don’t recover anything on the policy. That’s all.”

“You mean,” cried Anne, “that there won’t be any money for us? Although Father insured himself?”

Martin nodded, took out his pipe again with an automatic gesture, looked at it, and put it back.

There was a shocked silence in the room for a moment or two. Then Stephen, trying to keep his voice steady, said: “And now, Mother, may I see Jelks’s letter?”

The letter was quite short, and only too explicit.

It ran:

Dear Mrs. Dickinson,

I have been in communication with the Claims Manager of the British Imperial Insurance Company in connexion with your late husband’s policy. He writes to me as follows:

“In reply to your letter of yesterday’s date with regard to Life Policy No. 582/31647. In view of the finding of the coroner’s jury, and of the fact that this policy has only been in force for eight months, it seems clear that Clause 4 (i) (a) of the policy applies. I am therefore instructed formally to repudiate liability on behalf of the Company. At the same time, I am to inform you that the Company would be prepared to consider the possibility of making some ex gratia payment to the widow and dependents of the assured, provided, of course, that all claims under the policy were explicitly withdrawn. Perhaps you will let me know when it would be convenient for a representative of the Company to call on Mrs. Dickinson in order to discuss this matter.”

I should be glad of your instructions as to what attitude I should take in the matter. It would be advisable, in my opinion, for you to agree to see the Company’s representative, without, of course committing yourself in any way. But bearing in mind that your husband by his will left half his estate between your son and daughter and the other half to you during widowhood with remainder to them, it would, I think, be only proper for you to discuss the position with them before coming to a decision. I should, of course, myself desire to be present at the interview, to safeguard the interests of the estate.

Yours faithfully,

H. H. Jelks

Stephen read the letter through twice, once to himself and then aloud.

“Well!” said Martin, when he had finished. “That sounds pretty definite.”

“How many halfpennies are there in twenty-five thousand pounds?” asked Anne.

“I don’t altogether follow you,” said her fiancé stiffly.

“I do,” said Stephen. “Uncle George said: ‘Is it going to make a ha’porth of difference to anyone, whether it’s suicide or not?’ Well, we can tell him now.”

“Father didn’t kill himself,” said Anne obstinately.

“How do you know?” said Stephen in a tone of despair. “How does anybody know?”

“I know because I know,” Anne persisted. “He just wasn’t that sort of person. Nobody’s going to persuade me that Father did a thing like that, not if he came and told me that he saw him do it. Nobody,” she repeated. “Mother, you feel like that, don’t you?”

Mrs. Dickinson shook her head slowly.

“I never understood your father,” she said simply. “So far as I’m concerned, I’m afraid I feel like George about it. I have lost him, and it doesn’t seem to matter very much to me how people say it happened. To you children, obviously, it makes a great deal of difference. That’s why I asked your advice.”

“But Mother, it makes just as much difference to you as to any of us!” Anne protested.

“My dear, I was badly off before I married your father, and I suppose I can bear to be badly off again afterwards. Don’t let’s say any more about that. But tell me, please, Stephen, what are we going to do? How am I going to reply to Mr. Jelks?”

“I’ll deal with that,” said Stephen, rousing himself abruptly from the stupor into which he had fallen since reading the letter. “You needn’t bother your head about it any more, Mother. We’ll see this insurance animal and tell him just where he gets off. As for abandoning the claim to the money, of course that’s all nonsense.”

“Then you do agree with me?” said Anne eagerly. “You think I’m right, that Father wouldn’t have killed himself?”

“Obviously you’ve got to be right, if we don’t all mean to be paupers.”

“But that’s not the same thing at all!” she protested.

Stephen assumed his most superior and infuriating attitude.

“My dear Anne,” he said, “your sentiments do you credit, but they are not going to cut much ice with an insurance company. Our job---my job, perhaps I should say---is to prove to their satisfaction that they are legally bound to pay up. When we’ve done that we can afford to be highfalutin about it.”

“That’s absolutely the wrong way to look at it. It makes the whole business so sordid, so money-grubbing----”

“Money,” Martin intervened in his flat, platitudinous voice, “can come in very handy sometimes. You shouldn’t turn your nose up at it, Annie.”

“Annie!” Stephen shuddered. This codfish called his sister “Annie,” and she liked it!

“But what I don’t quite see at present,” Martin droned on, “is how you are going to set about proving all this. Insurance companies,” he wagged his head sagely, “take a bit of satisfying, y’know.”

Stephen was ready with his answer.

“All that the company has done is to take what the coroner’s jury said as gospel,” he said. “Well, we don’t. We start from scratch. And to begin with, we can go over the same ground that they did, only a good deal more carefully.”

“D’you mean, interview all the witnesses all over again, and get ’em to say something different?”

“We may have to do something like that before we’re through. But to start with, there’s the evidence that was actually given at the inquest. I don’t know the first thing about that yet. My little cousin is lending me the reports of everything that was said. I mean to go through that with---with----”

“With a small-tooth comb,” Martin prompted.

“With the greatest care,” said Stephen, glaring at him. “Then I shall see what we’re up against, at any rate. After that, we can set to work to build up our own case.”

“Well,” said Martin, “I wish you luck, I’m sure.”

“You’re in with us on this, Martin,” said Anne. “It makes a bit of difference to us, you know.”

Martin turned on Anne a look that might have been a tender one, if his spectacles had not deprived it of all expression.

“All right, Annie,” he said rather thickly, “I’m with you.”

And as if ashamed at this display of emotion, he shortly afterwards took his departure, lingering in the hall only long enough to kiss her perfunctorily and light his pipe.


 69 
 on: March 11, 2024, 07:47:40 am 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Friday, August 18th

“TYPICAL of Leonard to want to be buried at Pendlebury! No consideration for anybody’s convenience. Typical!”

THE speaker was George Dickinson, the eldest surviving brother of the deceased; the occasion was, as will have been gathered, the funeral of Leonard, and the remarks were uttered as George was climbing heavily into his car after the ceremony. He had been a stout man when his morning-coat had been made for him, ten years before. In the interval he had added an inch and a quarter to his girth, and the resulting discomfort, accentuated by the heat of the day, had put him into what was for him an unusually bad temper. His temper, it may be added, was normally a bad one. What was for him an unusually bad temper was something quite beyond the range of the average adult. It belonged rather to the type of the ungovernable rages of the three-year-old. Unfortunately, it could not be dealt with in the same way.

“In August, too! It’s really too much!” added George, sitting down heavily in the back seat, and mopping his forehead where the top hat had creased it.

“Yes, George,” said a thin submissive voice at his side.

Lucy Dickinson had been saying, “Yes, George,” for close on thirty years. If she had got tired of saying it during that time, she kept her own counsel on the subject. It was certainly the easiest thing to say, and by confining her observations to those two monosyllables she did, as she had found by experience, contrive to save a good deal of trouble. At the present moment, for example, she would have been justified in pointing out that George himself had stipulated in his will that he too should be buried in the family vault, that at the present moment he was badly crushing her new black silk dress, and that it would have been more becoming, to say the least of it, to wait until they were out of sight of the churchyard gates before lighting one of the cigars which he was now, with immense efforts, fishing out of his tail-pocket. But to have mentioned any of these things would quite certainly have meant trouble. And trouble, after thirty years of marriage to such as George, is a thing that one learns the value of avoiding.

“Well! What are you hanging about for? Drive on, man, can’t you? We don’t want to be here all day!” was George’s next observation, directed to the chauffeur, who was still standing at the door of the car.

The car, unfortunately, was a hired one, and the driver was a young man who showed no particular reverence for his temporary employer. Servants who depended on George for their livelihood soon learned the necessity of an eager obsequiousness which in George’s language was called “knowing their place.” This one merely stared with interest at the empurpled face confronting him, and remarked, “You haven’t told me where to go to yet.”

“Hampstead,” barked George. “Sixty-seven, Plane Street, Hampstead. Go down the High Street till you get to----”

“O.K.,” the chauffeur said. “I know it.” And he cut off further conversation by shutting the door rather louder than was necessary.

“Impertinent young swine,” fumed George. “They’re all like that nowadays. And what on earth made you tell Eleanor that we would go back there after the service?” he went on, rounding on Lucy. “Confounded nuisance! God knows when we shall get home.” He lit his cigar as the car moved forward.

Lucy’s voice came faintly through the cloud of tobacco smoke. The smell of a cigar in a confined space always made her feel faint, but that was one of the things that dear George was apt to forget, and this was emphatically not an occasion to remind him of it.

“She asked me if we wouldn’t come, dear,” she said. “It was really rather difficult to say no. She wants all the help she can get just now, you know. I thought it was the least we could do.”

George grunted. The cigar was beginning to have its customary mollifying effect on him, and his rage with the world at large was declining to a merely average crossness.

“Well, I hope she gives us dinner, that’s all,” he said. “It’s the least she could do.”

Lucy said nothing. She had not the smallest expectation that Leonard’s widow would wish them to stay to dinner, but it would be wiser to let George discover this for himself in due course.

“But why did she pick on us?” George grumbled on. “Couldn’t she have asked any of the others?”

If Lucy had been a woman of spirit she would have retorted that the reason that Mrs. Dickinson had asked them was that she happened to be extremely fond of her, Lucy, and that George was included merely as a disagreeable but necessary appendage to her. But the wives of the Georges of this world are not women of spirit, or if they are they do not remain wives for long.

“She has asked some of the others, dear,” she said mildly. “Edward is going back with her----”

“That smarmy parson? Why on earth----”

“Well, after all, George, he is her brother. Then I think some of the nephews wished to come, too, and of course, Martin.”

“Martin?”

“Anne’s fiancé, dear. You remember, you met him at dinner when we----”

“Yes! Yes! Of course I remember perfectly well,” said George testily. “You needn’t treat me as a complete child.”

Lucy, who had done very little else for thirty years, was heroically silent. The mention of Martin presently sent George off on another tack.

“Positively indecent, those children not being at the funeral,” he said.

“Anne and Stephen, you mean?”

“Of course I mean Anne and Stephen. They’re the only children Leonard ever had, so far as I’m aware.”

“But George, they couldn’t be there. They are abroad. Eleanor wrote to us and explained----”

“Then they ought to have been got back again. It’s indecent, I tell you. I can’t see myself, if my father had died----”

But the words had suddenly jerked back to George’s mind a recollection of what had really happened when his father died, and of the nasty, unforgivable scene that he had made with his mother on the very day of the funeral. And with that memory embittering even the flavour of his admirable cigar, he was silent.

“They are in Switzerland, climbing somewhere,” Lucy went on, unaware of the reason for her husband’s abrupt silence. “Stephen only went out to join Anne there just before Leonard died. Eleanor wired and wrote, of course, but she hasn’t had any answer. You know what Stephen is on his holidays. He’ll go off for days at a time, staying in huts and places. They may not even have heard about it yet. I’m sure they would have come back at once if they had.”

“Silly young fools. I shouldn’t wonder if they’d broken their necks.”

After this charitable observation, no more was said upon the subject, and for the rest of the way to London George contented himself with explaining at great length the measures he had taken, in his own words, “to squash the newspaper snoopers” who had approached him for information about his brother’s life and sudden death, and with reviling the Press with the paucity and inadequacy of the obituary notices. That there could be any connexion between the two facts naturally did not occur to him.

Just as they were approaching Hampstead, a thought struck him.

“By the way,” he said, “d’you think Leonard left Eleanor very badly off?”

“I don’t know, George, I’m sure.”

“I was thinking, that will of Arthur’s you know. She may be a bit hard hit. You’re sure she didn’t say anything to you about it?”

“No, I’m quite certain she did not.”

“Um!” said George, turning over in his mind the disagreeable possibility that he was going to be asked for help. He decided that it would probably be best not to stay for dinner, after all.

+++

It was certainly a full-blown family assembly. George, with his new-born fear strong within him, took as little part in it as possible, leaving it to Lucy to say the proper things to the various people who seemed to crowd the little room. These included a number of dim cousins, who had not been able to get to the funeral. Exactly what they were doing there it was difficult to say. They seemed a little uncertain on the point themselves. Martin Johnson, Anne’s fiancé, hung rather miserably about the outskirts of the family group. In the absence of Anne, his position was an awkward one. The engagement had never been made public, and officially even the dimmest of the cousins had a better right to be there than he. Mrs. Dickinson’s parson brother, Edward, on the other hand, seemed to be quite in his element. His guiding principle in life was one which he himself had happily described as “Looking on the Right Side of Things,” and his round red face shone with unction---if that is the proper word for clerical perspiration---as he exploited the situation to the full. His one regret appeared to be the unavoidable absence of his wife, laid low by a recurrence of her chronic asthma. It was a regret shared by none who knew her. Aunt Elizabeth, to her numerous nephews and nieces, was The Holy Terror---a title which was on the whole well deserved.

Mrs. Dickinson, meanwhile, sat, the melancholy queen bee in the centre of the family hive, looking at least every inch a widow. George eyed her with interest. Lucy, he supposed, would look like that some day. After all, she was younger than he was, and had had a better life. What would she feel like? He averted his mind from the thought and concentrated upon Eleanor. What, in her heart of hearts, did she really think of it all? It could have been no joke being married to Leonard. He felt pretty sure that Lucy would---no, damn it! we are thinking about Eleanor!---he felt morally certain that Eleanor’s widowhood was a relief to her, even if she didn’t know it yet. At the moment, she was everything that one could expect---calm, subdued, and appealingly helpless.

Presently sherry began lugubriously to circulate, accompanied by small, dusty-tasting sandwiches. Little by little conversation began to be more animated. There were even faint approximations to laughter in one corner of the room, where some of the less responsible of the cousins had forgathered. But, on the whole, the decencies were preserved, and talk remained at a low pitch, so that the sound of a taxi being driven up to the door was distinctly heard by every one in the room.

“Now, I wonder who----” said Edward, who happened to be nearest the window, peering out anxiously. “I only hope it’s not---Bless my soul, but it’s the children!”

A moment later Stephen and Anne Dickinson came into the room. They looked very much out of place in that funeral company. Except for the ice-axes and rucksacks which they had presumably just deposited in the hall, they were equipped as though Plane Street, Hampstead, were a glacier and No. 67 an Alpine refuge. Their huge iron-shot boots grated uneasily on the parquet floor, and when Anne bent to kiss her mother it became only too apparent that her breeches had been lavishly patched in the seat with some rock-resisting but alien material. From the cousins’ corner came something very like a titter.

“The children,” as Edward to their extreme annoyance persisted in calling them, were respectively twenty-six and twenty-four, Stephen being the elder. They were both tall, slim, and loose-limbed, but in other respects there was not much likeness between them. Stephen had light brown hair and a skin that was ordinarily pale. At the present moment his whole face was a fiery red, and his rather prominent nose was beginning to peel in a markedly unbecoming fashion. Anne had been more fortunate, or more circumspect, in her encounter with the sun of high altitudes and rarified atmosphere. Her face and throat were burned a deep mahogany which blended pleasingly with her dark hair and brown eyes. It was a striking face, handsome rather than pretty, with a firm, rather too square chin that was at variance with her retroussé, essentially feminine nose. The chin, one felt, would have been better suited to her brother, whose intelligent brow and eyes were betrayed by a jaw that lacked character. Stephen had the carriage and expression of the fluent talker, easily making himself at home in any society in which he might find himself. In comparison, Anne’s quiet and reserved manner seemed almost gauche. At the moment, it was certainly fortunate that he was present to carry off a situation that was sufficiently awkward.

“I must apologize for our clothes,” he said. “We simply came straight away in what we stood up in. I hope they’re sending on our luggage from Klosters.” He looked round at the black-clad group. “I suppose the funeral was today?”

“You should have let us know you were coming,” said his mother gently. “Of course, we should have put it off for you, if we had known where you were.”

“Didn’t you get my telegram? I gave a couple of francs to a porter at Davos to send one for me, but the fellow must have pocketed it and the cash for the wire as well. Too bad! You see, we knew nothing about this till the day before yesterday, and then it was only a pure fluke that I happened to see the Times.”

“It may not be any affair of mine,” put in George, in a tone that made it quite clear that he was satisfied that it was very much his affair, “but do you think it is quite decent to come home in this way, in those clothes, on an occasion like this?”

Stephen very ostentatiously did not answer him.

“You see, Mother,” he explained, “I actually got to Klosters the afternoon of the very day it must all have happened. There were the guides and Anne and everyone waiting, and I made them start out that very night. I suppose if we’d waited we’d have heard next morning. It was all my fault, really, but I couldn’t have told, could I? We were absolutely out of touch with everything for three days until we came down into Guarda, where I picked up an old paper someone had left and saw the announcement. There was just time to get down to the station to catch the train. Stopping at Klosters for clothes and things would have simply wasted a day.”

“Of course dear, I understand. Give yourself some sherry. You must be tired. It is good to have you back again.”

Anne meanwhile had quickly gravitated towards Martin, who from the moment of her arrival had ceased to feel or to appear like an ownerless dog in the family pack. Stephen, watching them together, wondered not for the first time what his sister could see in the squat, sandy, short-sighted young man.

“I have asked Martin to stay to dinner,” said Mrs. Dickinson, thereby tactfully indicating to the company in general that Martin was now to be regarded as one of the family, and to Anne that she would have plenty of opportunity of monopolizing him later.

“This business has been a step-up for Martin, at any rate,” said Stephen to himself. “Mother always had a soft place for that little squirt. I wonder why.”

He was wondering how he could contrive to say a few words to Aunt Lucy without involving himself with Uncle George when he was accosted by the least dim of the cousins, one Robert, who explained that he had been managing what he described as “the solicitor’s end of the affair,” pending his, Stephen’s, arrival. Pinning him firmly in a corner, he produced sheafs of documents and began pouring out a flood of detail concerning matters that would require attention. Stephen was somewhat overcome by the mass of work which had to be done. He had entirely forgotten what a complex legal and financial operation dying is apt to be, particularly when it is carried out at short notice.

He tore himself away from Cousin Robert at last, and began to do his duty as host with the sherry and sandwiches.

“A pity you weren’t back for the funeral,” said his spinster cousin Mabel acidly, as he handed her a glass. Her tone seemed to imply that he had kept away deliberately.

He felt inclined to point out that he could hardly be blamed for it, but contented himself with saying mildly: “Yes, Cousin Mabel, it was unfortunate.”

“I was in favour of holding it up, but your mother wouldn’t listen to reason. You’ll go and see the grave as soon as you can, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, Cousin Mabel.”

“You mustn’t let the inquest verdict distress you, my dear boy,” said Uncle Edward, squeezing his arm affectionately as he pushed past him to get at the decanter.

“The verdict? I haven’t heard anything about it. There was nothing in the only paper I saw.”

“Suicide,” said Uncle George with all the relish of the bearer of evil tidings. “While of unsound mind. ’Pon my soul, if I’d ever imagined that poor old Leonard would----”

“No, no!” Uncle Edward corrected him. “While the Balance of his Mind was Disturbed. Not at all the same thing, I assure you, George.”

“Same thing absolutely. Difference in wording, that’s all. Why on earth the silly asses----”

“No,” persisted Uncle Edward. “You must pardon me, George, but it is not the same thing. No Stigma, you follow me, no Stigma for the family. That makes all the difference in the world.”

The argument, once under way, showed no signs of ever coming to an end, but an interjection from Anne stopped it abruptly.

“Suicide!” she exclaimed. “Do you mean to say that they actually think Father killed himself?”

“While the Balance of his Mind----” Uncle Edward began again, in his suavest tones.

“I don’t believe it! Mother, Stephen, you don’t any of you really think that? Why, it’s---it’s too horrible for words!”

“But I assure you there’s no Stigma----”

“You were not at the inquest, Anne,” said her mother quietly.

“No, of course I wasn’t. All I’ve seen was the little obituary in the Times, the one that had the notice on the front page. It said something about an overdose of medicine. We took it for granted there had been some horrible accident, didn’t we, Stephen? Why shouldn’t it have been an accident? Nobody’s going to persuade me that Father----”

She seemed on the brink of tears. Everybody began to talk at once.

“But Anne, dear, your father was always a little----”

“The detective fellow made it perfectly clear----”

“When a man leaves a message behind like that----”

“He couldn’t have opened two bottles by accident----”

“I’ve got a complete record of all the evidence----”

Anne, her eyes swimming, her ears deafened with the sudden babel of noise, turned to her brother for support.

“Stephen,” she said, “you don’t believe this, do you? There’s been a horrible mistake somewhere. You’ve got to put it right.”

For the first time Stephen saw himself as the head of the family, the ultimate Court of Appeal in what concerned himself, his mother and sister, with whose decisions the uncles and cousins might disagree if they pleased, but dared not interfere. He squared his shoulders involuntarily beneath the weight of authority which had descended upon them.

“Obviously it was an accident,” he said. “That is, I don’t actually know anything more about the affair than you do. But I’ll make it my business to find out.” He turned to the dimmest of all the cousins, who had spoken last. “Did you say that you had a record of all the evidence at the inquest?”

“Yes. In the local paper. It’s practically verbatim. They’ve spelled some of the names wrong, but you can check that from the other papers. I’ve got them all. I keep a press-cutting book, you know.”

“All right. Will you let me have all you’ve got? As soon as you can?”

“Oh, rather. I’ll send it round tonight.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ll let me have it back again, won’t you?”

“Certainly, if it’s any use to you.”

“Oh, rather. I mean, there’s not much in my book yet, and----”

“I quite understand.”

“I don’t want to butt in, my boy,” said Uncle George, who spent most of his life butting in, with frequently disastrous results, “but is it going to make a ha’porth of difference to anyone whether it was suicide or accident?”

“Not the smallest, I should say,” remarked Cousin Mabel.

Uncle Edward’s lips were to be seen silently forming the word “stigma.”

“Probably not, I dare say,” said Stephen wearily. “It isn’t a bit what I expected, that’s all.” What did it matter what he said to these people? It was no concern of theirs.

“It makes a lot of difference to us,” said Anne. Her glance included her mother, who sat, her hands in her lap, listening and saying nothing.

As if recalled to her surroundings by the words and the look that accompanied it, Mrs. Dickinson rose from her chair.

“If you will excuse me, I shall go and lie down for a little before dinner,” she said. “Anne, I think you had better do the same. You have had a long journey. Stephen, will you show Martin where to wash his hands?”

The rest of the party took the hint and left the house in a noisy, chattering body, each with a private disappointment that he or she had not also been invited to stay for dinner. Only George, as he climbed once more into the hired car, with the cheerful prospect of soon getting into comfortable clothes again, was relieved that at all events the dreaded question of financial support for his sister-in-law was postponed for that evening.


 70 
 on: March 11, 2024, 06:09:29 am 
Started by Admin - Last post by Admin
Monday, August 14th

HOTELS in England, however bad, seldom go very far wrong with breakfast, and Mallett, fortified by a good night’s rest, for which, perhaps, he owed more to the admirable brandy of the previous evening than to the somewhat stony comfort of his bed, attacked his imported eggs and bacon next morning with his usual appetite. As he did so, his mind reverted more than once to his curious encounter with Mr. Dickinson. A garrulous, peevish old man, he reflected, with a bee in his bonnet about the hotel, and probably, if one could have got him to talk on any other subject, about everything else as well. If his conversation ran on the same gloomy lines at home, it was not very surprising that his family didn’t altogether love him. At the same time, Mallett could not but feel a certain sympathy for him. He gave the impression of a man unjustly treated by fate. It seemed wrong for any one to be so depressed as to have to confide in a chance acquaintance in the way that he had done. And when the confidence amounted almost to a threat of suicide . . . ! He shrugged his shoulders. People who contemplated such things didn’t confide their intentions, whether to chance acquaintances or to anybody else, he told himself. But at the same time, he could not altogether rid his mind of a persistent feeling of uneasiness with regard to Mr. Dickinson. The man seemed in some way haunted. Mallett’s whole training rendered him averse from relying on, or even recognizing, any suspicion that was not founded on tangible facts. Nevertheless, he had to admit to himself that his companion of the night before had left him in a vaguely disturbed frame of mind. He seemed to carry an aura of calamity about him. And Mallett, who was hardened enough to calamities of all kinds, did not like auras.

As he finished his meal, the inspector glanced round the room. The hotel was evidently not very full, for only a bare half-dozen of the tables were occupied. He looked round for Mr. Dickinson, and looked in vain. For an instant the ominous “Perhaps!” on which they had parted flashed into his mind. Then his common sense reasserted itself. The old gentleman was having his breakfast in bed, most probably---at his age he was quite entitled to it, particularly at the end of a strenuous walking tour. In any case, it was none of his business. There would be plenty of genuine problems awaiting his solution at New Scotland Yard that afternoon.

Some five minutes later, he was walking across the lounge to the reception desk with the intention of paying his bill, when he saw a white-faced chambermaid hurry down the stairs and run to the desk in front of him. There was a hasty colloquy between her and the girl clerk. The latter spoke into the house telephone, and after a few moments, during which the maid hung miserably about the lounge, looking sadly out of place (which indeed she was, at that time of the morning), the manager, swart, flabby, and irascible, came on the scene. He had a few angry words with the girl, who seemed on the verge of tears, and the pair of them disappeared up the stairs together. The clerk applied herself to the telephone, and seemed to be speaking with some urgency.

When she had finished, Mallett asked for his bill. It was some time in being prepared. The clerk seemed preoccupied and nervous. Obviously, something was not as it should be in the hotel, and once again the inspector felt an unreasoning qualm at the pit of his stomach. Once again, he told himself that whatever it was it did not concern him. Accordingly, without comment or inquiry, he settled his account, asked the hall porter (whom he found, quite irregularly, gossiping with someone from the kitchen regions) to fetch his bag down from his room, and went out to the garage for his car.

When he drove round to the front door to pick up his bag, there were two cars there that had not been there before. From the second of these, as Mallett drew up, there alighted a man in uniform. He turned to say something over his shoulder to another who was following him, looked up, and his eyes met the inspector’s. Recognition was mutual. The man in uniform was the sergeant of police in charge at the local market town. Mallett had met him a year or two before in connexion with some inquiries which had resulted in the conviction of an important “fence,” specializing in the produce of country-house burglaries. He had liked the man at the time, but just now, as he smiled and nodded, he could have wished him in Jericho.

“Mr. Mallett!” exclaimed the sergeant, coming across to him. “This is a coincidence, and no mistake! Are you here on business, sir?”

“I am here on holiday,” said the inspector, firmly. “That is, I was here. Just now I’m on my way back to London.”

The sergeant looked disappointed.

“Pity,” he said. “It would have been a comfort to have you around, sir, just in case there did turn out to be anything in this job. Not that there ever is, in this part of the world.”

“And even if there was, Sergeant,” returned Mallett, “I am on holiday, and so remain until I report at the Yard at three o’clock this afternoon.”

“Quite so, sir. Well, I’m very glad to have seen you again, sir, in any case. I must go and attend to my business now. It’ll be quite a sensation in the neighbourhood, I expect, seeing that it’s old Mr. Dickinson.”

“Oh, it is Mr. Dickinson, is it?” exclaimed the inspector, taken off his guard for once.

The sergeant paused, one foot on the doorstep of the hotel, and looked at him with renewed interest.

“So you knew Mr. Dickinson, sir?” he said.

“I met him last night for the first time in my life. What has happened to him?”

“Found dead in bed this morning. An overdose of something or other, so far as I can understand. The doctor’s up there now.”

“Poor chap!” said Mallett. Then, conscious of the sergeant’s curious gaze upon him, he added: “Look here, Sergeant, I had rather a curious talk with Mr. Dickinson last night. There’s just a possibility I might be a useful witness at the inquest. I’d better give you a statement before I go, and meanwhile---do you mind very much if I come upstairs with you, purely as a witness, mind?”

+++

Leonard Dickinson’s room was at the end of the long corridor which ran the length of the hotel’s first floor. Facing south and east, it was now flooded with the mellow August sun. On the large, old-fashioned bed lay the body, the angularities of the wizened features softened in death, the lines of anxiety smoothed away. Mallett, looking down on the still countenance, reflected that he looked happier now than he had in life. The last line had been traced on the map, and the end was where he had desired.

The map, appropriately enough, lay on the table beside the bed, open at the section where the Hall marked the centre of the spider’s web of tracks. Also on the table, he observed, was a bottle of small white tablets, and another, similar bottle, which was empty.

The doctor was just putting away his instruments when they entered. He was young, brisk, and cocksure.

“Overdose of a sedative drug,” he remarked. “I suppose you’ll have to have those things analysed.” He nodded at the table. “But I can tell you what’s in them.” He muttered some scientific polysyllables and added: “Analyse him, too; you’ll find he’s full of it. It’s apt to be a bit dangerous, that kind of stuff. You take your dose---it doesn’t work properly---you wake up in the night, feeling a bit stupid---think, Good Lord, I never took my dose---take another---wake up again perhaps, if you’ve had a drink too much---take two or three more for luck, and you’re in a coma before you know anything about it. Easy as winking.”

Something white protruding from beneath the map caught the sergeant’s eye. It was a small card, bearing on it some writing in a firm, clear hand. Without speaking, he drew it out, read it, and held it up for Mallett to see.

The words were: We are in the power of no calamity, while Death is in our own.

Mallett nodded silently. After the doctor had gone, he said, “That’s why I thought I might be wanted as a witness.”

He glanced round the room, and then, reminding himself that this was not his case, left the sergeant to carry on until he was free to take a statement from him in due form.

When the time came for this, the sergeant, who could not bring himself to forego the rare opportunity of cross examining so great a man, had a few supplementary questions to ask. Mallett answered them good-humouredly enough. Having seen the statement completed to the other’s satisfaction, he had a question of his own to ask.

“I don’t want to waste your time, Sergeant,” he said, “but I can’t help being a bit interested in old Mr. Dickinson. He seemed rather an odd fish, to judge by the little I saw of him.”

“He was, and all that,” the other agreed heartily.

“I wish you could tell me a little about him. He said something to me last night about having been born in this place.”

“You didn’t mention that in your statement,” said the sergeant severely.

“I’m afraid not. I thought it was hardly relevant.”

“Well, perhaps it wasn’t. In any case, sir, we hardly needed your evidence for that. It’s what you might call common knowledge in these parts.”

“He was a well-known character, then?”

“Lord bless you, yes, sir! You see, the Dickinsons had this place ever since it was built, and that was near on two hundred years ago, they say.”

“But they got rid of it some time ago, surely?”

“Thirty years ago come Michaelmas---when old Mr. Dickinson died, that was.”

Mallett laughed.

“I see that memories are long in the country,” he said.

“’Tisn’t that exactly, sir,” the sergeant explained. “Mr. Leonard---the deceased, I suppose I should call him---he couldn’t bear to leave the house. He’s been here and hereabouts off and on ever since. Quite potty about the place, he was.”

“So I gathered from what he said to me.”

“Funny, wasn’t it, sir? None of the rest of the family felt that way about it. Mr. Arthur---that was his brother---made a pile of money in London and could have bought the old place back several times over, but he never bothered to. But Mr. Leonard, for all he had a wife and family of his own, couldn’t keep away from it. Well,” the sergeant concluded pointedly, “I mustn’t keep you any longer, sir.”

It was not often that Inspector Mallett had to be reminded that he was wasting his own time or anybody else’s. He was quite ashamed to discover how interested he had allowed himself to become in what was, on the face of it, the commonplace suicide of a commonplace, if eccentric, elderly gentleman. He pulled himself together, thanked the sergeant for his kindness, and left the hotel. Then he turned his car in the direction of London, and put the tragedy of poor Mr. Dickinson firmly out of his mind.


Pages: 1 ... 5 6 [7] 8 9 10
Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum


Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy