9: Smouldering Fires

RICHARD took the envelope without any show of surprise; he had expected that his uncle’s will would be found amongst his private papers, and he already had a very good idea as to the character of its contents.

“Where did you find it?” he asked half-carelessly. “In the safe?”

“It was in the top drawer of his desk,” replied Simpson. “Part of a small bundle of deeds and papers relating to property---his property. I have locked those up until you wish to go through them.”

He was leaving the room, but Richard called him back.

“Stop a bit, Simpson!” he said. “I’ll have a look at the will, now---you may as well know what there is in it. Don’t go, Liversedge---no objection to your hearing the provisions, either.”

“Well, if you don’t mind, Mr. Marchmont, I should like to know what there is in your uncle’s will,” replied the detective. “In a case of this sort, every scrap of knowledge one can get hold of is useful. And I suppose there’s nothing private about wills, is there? They all get into the papers, anyway!”

Richard seated himself at Henry Marchmont’s desk, in the chair in which he had so often seen him sit, and drew the will from its envelope. He saw at once that it was couched in very brief terms and scarcely covered the single sheet of foolscap paper on which it was written in Henry’s own handwriting. He glanced it over hastily, and suddenly turned to the managing clerk, who stood between the door and the desk.

“Simpson!” he said. “My uncle’s left you ten thousand pounds!”

Save for a sudden very slight heightening of colour, the fortunate legatee showed no particular surprise or emotion. He bowed his head a little.

“Very good and kind of him, Mr. Marchmont,” he said quietly. “I---I am not startled by the news. The fact is, Mr. Henry Marchmont often told me that he intended to leave me what he called a handsome sum---I have, of course, done practically all the supervising work of this office, relieving him of all responsibility, for several years past. Still, I had no idea that he would leave me so much. And---I always believed that I should have a great deal more to do for my employer before the time came when I should receive anything---I regarded Mr. Henry Marchmont as being good for quite another twenty years of life.”

“Well, there it is!” said Richard. “Ten thousand, Simpson! There’s not much else of any note. Legacies to all the clerks downstairs; two or three to charities; all the residue comes to me. What do we do with this will, Simpson?”

“I suppose you are named as executor, Mr. Marchmont?” inquired the managing clerk. “Just so,” he added as Richard handed the will over to him, “sole executor, I see, the ordinary procedure---probate, administration, and so on . . . if you’ll leave matters in my hands----”

He went away, taking the will with him, and Liversedge, when the door was closed, wagged his head.

“Lucky beggar!” he said. “Cool chap too, that! Heard he’d dropped into ten thousand---a real nice little fortune!---and never turned a hair! Um! Jolly good nerves that man’s got, I reckon!”

“He’d expected something,” replied Richard.

“But not so much, nor so soon,” remarked the detective. “Well, some folk are born lucky, and some aren’t! I never had any luck that way---never expect to have. I suppose Simpson has been here a good many years?”

“Ever since I remember anything about it,” replied Richard.

“Knows all the ins-and-outs, eh?” suggested Liversedge. He rose, observed that he must get round to headquarters to learn if there was any news, and went away. At the top of the street he looked round, and seeing a tavern on the other side of the road that crossed it, went over, entered the saloon bar, and treating himself to a drink, sat down in a corner to reflect in solitude.

“Knows all the ins-and-outs, eh?” he muttered, repeating his last words to Richard. “Yes, I guess he does! And knew that will was where it was, and what was in it, if I know anything! Too cool and collected by half, that chap. Not in human flesh and blood to be unmoved at hearing, suddenly, that ten thousand pounds has just fallen into your lap---not it! No---no!---he knew all about that before young Marchmont told him. And I wonder how long he’d known it? Will had been made a year, eh? Now!---now had Simpson known its contents a year? Or six months? Or a month? Lay in an unlocked drawer, did it?---mighty convenient! Expected Henry to be good for another twenty years, did he? Um!---painful thing to have to wait twenty years for ten thousand pounds---very! Dear me!---how things do crop up! Now, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it eventually came out that Master Simpson shot Henry Marchmont!---no, it wouldn’t. Motive!---strong motive! Ten thousand quid!”

He was thus ruminating and wondering if it might not be well to find out a little about the managing clerk, his private life, his antecedents, his present position, and all the rest of it, when two men came into the saloon, supplied themselves with drinks at its bar, and sat down in elbow-chairs close by his own. They were oldish men; they looked as if they had nothing to do but sit about, gossiping, in bar-parlours; and Liversedge quickly discovered that they were talking about the very subject uppermost in his own thoughts---the mystery of the Bedford Row murder. At that he took a covert but careful glance at them. One was a short, rotund person, obviously a retired tradesman; the other a man who, in the detective’s opinion, was or had been of superior social standing to his companion, but who from the fact that his tweed suit, though scrupulously neat, was old and worn, and his carefully cleaned and polished boots were patched and mended, had evidently come down in the world. He was a tall, good-looking man, this; there was something of the sportsman about him, or, rather, a suggestion that at one time of his life he had been a sportsman---it was all had-been with him, thought the observant Liversedge.

It was a remark from this man that drew the detective’s attention to him and his companion.

“What, of course, never came out at the preliminary stages of the inquest on Henry Marchmont,” he said in quite audible tones, “is that Lansdale, or Land, to give the fellow his proper name, knew that he couldn’t clear himself to Henry---or, at any rate, believed he couldn’t. He knew that Henry would still cherish the Clayminster notion about misappropriation of moneys handed to Land for investment. There were such cases---we know of, at any rate, our own case. Land had money of ours which he stuck in his own pocket, as sure as fate! He couldn’t have shown stock for it!”

“Indeed, sir, indeed!” remarked the other man, in the admiring tones of one who listens to wisdom greater than his own. “Dear me! Then you think this here Land, or Lansdale, is a guilty man, Mr. Sanderthwaite?---guilty, I mean, of this Bedford Row murder?”

Liversedge knew now who it must be that sat near him. This must be the Lionel Sanderthwaite of whom old Daverill had spoken, the night before, at Clayminster. Well---Daverill had said something about the family being reduced to keeping a lodging-house in London; probably it was near the tavern in which they were now sitting. He kept his ears open.

“What do you think?” exclaimed the man addressed as Sanderthwaite. “I should have no hesitation in saying he was guilty, if I was on a jury. Would you?”

“I should want to know a bit more, Mr. Sanderthwaite, I should want to know a bit more!” replied the other cautiously. “I’ve been on a good many juries in my time. But it certainly looks very black against this Lansdale, or Land---judging, of course, by what came out at the inquest and what’s been in the papers. Now I wonder, Mr. Sanderthwaite, wherever that man has disappeared to?”

“He’s a clever hand at that sort of thing!” replied Sanderthwaite. “He disappeared cleverly enough twenty-five years ago, and for anything I know he may have repeated the operation more than once since. Practised hand!—he may be wanted in more countries than this.”

“It’s a very unsatisfactory thing when the police can’t put their hands on a man straight off!” remarked the other. “Leads to such a deal of uneasiness amongst what you may call the law-abiding section of the public. Now I remember----”

Liversedge affected to read a newspaper which he had picked up from a table close by; the two cronies talked on. A clock struck twelve; the short fat man drank off the contents of his glass and jumped to his feet.

“Bless me!” he exclaimed. “Noon!---and I’ve an appointment in Gray’s Inn about a bit of property. See you very likely to-night, Mr. Sanderthwaite.”

He hurried away, and when he had fairly gone the detective turned to the man left behind.

“Mr. Lionel Sanderthwaite, I believe, sir?” he said politely. “Formerly of Clayminster?”

The man addressed turned sharply and stared at his questioner as if he scarcely comprehended him.

“I don’t know you, sir!” he said. “A stranger to me, sir. How----”

“I heard your friend who has just gone out mention your name,” replied Liversedge, “and from certain things he and you said, which I couldn’t help overhearing, I gathered that you’re the Mr. Lionel Sanderthwaite of whom I heard ex-Superintendent Daverill speak last night, at Clayminster.”

Sanderthwaite’s face lighted up; it was obvious that the reference to Clayminster made him inclined to talk.

“God bless me, sir!” he exclaimed. “Is old Daverill still alive? Retired, of course. At Clayminster last night, were you? Now, who is it I’ve the pleasure----”

“That’s who I am, Mr. Sanderthwaite,” said the detective, thrusting his professional card into his companion’s hand. “And---I’m in charge of this Bedford Row case!”

Sanderthwaite fumbled for a pair of old-fashioned glasses, put them on the rather high bridge of his nose and read the card.

“Bless me! Dear, dear!---a detective, of course,” he observed. “You haven’t found Lansdale, I suppose? You heard me mention him just now, no doubt. No privacy about it, you know: everybody in this neighbourhood’s talking.”

“Will you have a drink, Mr. Sanderthwaite?” said Liversedge, who had been quick to size up his man and saw that he was the sort whose tongue would loosen over a glass. “No!---we haven’t got Lansdale, or Land, yet,” he went on, when his companion’s liquor had been set down at his elbow. “I suppose you can’t give me any help in that way? You used to know him in the old days, so Daverill told me.”

“All my family knew him far too well, sir, in the old days,” answered Sanderthwaite. “To our cost! Daverill would no doubt tell you that we lost our all, or nearly so, through James Land. No, I’m afraid I can’t give you any help, sir---I wish I could! I’ve no doubt that Land went to see poor Mr. Henry Marchmont for the purpose of stopping him from letting out all he knew about the past, and stopped him for good and all by slaying him! Of course, we knew that Land was going to Mr. Marchmont’s office that evening, so----”

“Who knew?” interrupted Liversedge sharply. “You say---we knew! Who?”

“I reside, sir, with my two sisters, Mrs. Mansiter and Miss Sanderthwaite, in Bernard Street, not far off---I refer to them. We knew means that my sisters and I knew that Land was going there, and why. So,” he added, with a sly smile, “we weren’t surprised when we heard what had happened---though we were horrified.”

“How did you know?” demanded Liversedge.

“The morning before his---his sad death, Mr. Henry Marchmont sent for my two sisters, sir, and they went down to see him at his office,” replied Sanderthwaite. “He told them that Land, under the name of Lansdale, was in England, and apparently now very well-to-do, and that he was coming to see him that night at eight o’clock. Of course, as you are probably aware, Mr. Henry Marchmont himself came from Clayminster, as we did, and was accordingly aware that our family had suffered through Land.”

“Yes---but why did Mr. Marchmont send for your sisters to tell them that Land was coming to see him?” asked Liversedge. He had been considerably surprised by Sanderthwaite’s news, and was already beginning to wonder if Henry Marchmont had spread the news of Land’s reappearance rather more widely than he had reckoned for. “What reason had he?”

“Well, sir,” replied Sanderthwaite, “if you really want to know---and I suppose one can speak freely to a gentleman of your profession---he told my sisters that, being under the impression, gained in the City the previous evening, that Land was now a wealthy man, he was going to see if he couldn’t make him disgorge some, at any rate, of the money we had lost through him! That was it, sir!---and very kind indeed on poor Mr. Marchmont’s part. But,” he concluded, with a deep sigh, as he picked up his replenished glass and sought consolation from it, “we know what happened, sir, we know what happened! At least---we think we do. The veil of mystery, sir, the veil of mystery! Hard to penetrate it, sir---uncommonly hard in this case! But you’ll know more about that than I do!”

“Not much, I think,” said Liversedge. He remained silent a while, ruminating over what his companion had told him. Sanderthwaite’s bit of news had set him off on a new tack---it seemed to him much more likely that Lansdale, if he did see Henry Marchmont alive that evening, would be far readier to purchase his silence about the past by giving him money for the Sanderthwaites than to ensure it by murdering him. “I should like to have a little conversation with your sisters, if convenient,” he went on, turning to Sanderthwaite. “Do you think there’s any objection?”

“I see none, sir,” replied his companion. “None at all---to you! I am just going home, sir---if you like to walk along with me----”

Liversedge went with him to Bernard Street. Sanderthwaite paused before the door of a house which, like most of them in the street, was obviously a lodging or boarding establishment, and producing a latch-key led the detective into a narrow hall. There was an open door on their left, and from the room within came the sound of a woman’s voice, high pitched, vibrant with long-suppressed hatred.

“I hope James Land will hang by the neck till he’s dead---dead---dead!” said the voice. “I wish he could be drawn and quartered as well as hanged! I don’t care that, if he’s as innocent of this last affair as you are! He wasn’t innocent when he robbed me twenty-five years ago! I hope to God they’ll catch him, and convict him, and hang him! If I knew he was innocent and could prove it, I wouldn’t speak one syllable to save him! Damn James Land---and his daughter too! I hope she’ll starve, as we’ve had to, more than once, through his fault!”