Crossword Mystery (8 page)

They were hurrying a little now, for Mr. Winterton had increased his pace as they returned along the rough path that ran by the shore of the Cove, and Bobby was indeed inclined seriously to believe that his host was being subconsciously affected by his housekeeper's expressed disapproval of late hours and late rambles. A born ruler, organiser, director of men and things, Mrs. Cooper seemed, he told himself, and then he said aloud:

“Mr. Winterton, there's one thing I would like to mention, if I may. Very likely it's of no importance, but when I reached your house to-day I couldn't very well help hearing...it was a Mr. Shorton, I think, and he seemed very upset about something.”

“Little bounder,” Winterton answered. “He thinks he's badly used; got a grievance and all that. Not my fault; it was all his own doing; and, as Archy's executor and trustee till the kids come of age, I wouldn't think of going against his wishes, even if I wanted to, which I don't.”

“It was something your brother was concerned in – something that happened before his death? Have you any objection to telling me the details ? Anything that can throw light on any detail connected with him might be useful.”

“There's no reason why you shouldn't know all about it, I suppose,” Winterton answered, though with some slight apparent reluctance. “Anyhow, it's no secret; you could easily find out all about it if you wanted to. Sometimes old business friends used to come down here to stay with one or other of us. Archy and I both liked to keep in touch with the City, and a week-end by the sea sounds all right to most City men, so most of them were willing enough to run down here now and again. Shorton, the man you saw, came once or twice. He took a fancy to the place, and got out a scheme for developing it into an up-to-date resort. The idea was to build a big seaside golfing hotel, rather on the lines of Gleneagles in Scotland, only not quite so swell; rather more for the fairly well-to-do business man, the class that's prepared to spend fifty pounds on a holiday or a fiver on a week-end now and again. Shorton said there was a big market there. On the Point itself there is what is very nearly a natural golf-course. A little expenditure would make it one of the best in the world. Suffby Cove itself would make a splendid swimming-pool. Shooting rights were to be bought over the land near, and there would be lots of fishing and boating, and, of course, a first-class jazz band and a good dance-floor; even an ice-rink was thought of. Shorton was quite enthusiastic; swore it would be a gold-mine. Archy didn't see it that way. No more did I. It was a promising enough scheme on paper, but you can never tell if that sort of thing will catch on, and we didn't feel sure we could compete with the big seaside places. And we didn't much want crowds of holiday-makers and trippers swarming all over the very place we had come to for quiet and peace. My sister-in-law liked it still less; hated it, in fact. We all felt if the scheme went through we should have to leave, and we weren't so sure as Shorton was that there was big money in it. Anyhow, the money wouldn't begin to come in for years, and we were neither of us so young we could afford to wait years for results. So we came down flat against it. Shorton argued we couldn't possibly lose. He said the public would subscribe the money if we got out an attractive prospectus. If the thing was a failure, the public would stand the racket, and if it was the success Shorton expected – well, naturally there would be lots of cream for us, as the promoters, to skim off before we passed on the rest of the profits. Of course, we knew all that already.”

“Of course,” murmured Bobby, though a little startled by this side-light on the workings of the Limited Liability Act.

“The more we thought of it,” Winterton went on, “the less we liked it. We had found Suffby; we were nicely settled and quite comfortable; it suited us very well; we felt a big hotel planted down like that, next door almost, would spoil the place for us altogether. I shouldn't have had much peace for getting on with my book. Shorton's an obstinate little devil, and he really had got it into his head that the scheme promised big money. He had got others interested, too. When we told him we didn't like it, he got huffy, and said it would go on all the same. He had it all worked out. He had arranged for a motor-'bus service; he had an idea for collecting guests, free, gratis, and for nothing, from their homes, and bringing them direct to the hotel in a big Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur in livery. As he said, people do love to think they are getting something for nothing, and you can always make them pay through their noses afterwards. Archy saw it was serious. We arranged that I was to let Shorton talk. I wasn't to commit myself, but I was to let him talk, and he could think what he liked from my being ready to listen and promising to consider his figures. Meanwhile Archy made inquiries. He found Shorton had already bought up a lot of land, and had options on more. He had bought nearly all Suffby Point, except, of course, the house Archy occupied and its garden. He didn't want them. The site of the hotel was to be almost next door, and I suppose he reckoned that when Archy had had enough he would be willing to sell, and the house would come in nicely as an annex. But by this time rumours were getting about, and one man who had two fields reaching right across the Point was holding out for a big price. Shorton thought he was being had, and that put his back up. He had an option on the fields, but by way of a bluff he let it run out. He calculated that would make the owner of the fields come down. But Archy was watching. The option ran out at twelve one day, and at one o'clock Archy bought those two fields. When Shorton found out, he was furious. He called Archy a blackmailer. Archy said all right, now he wouldn't sell those two fields for the amount of the American debt. He couldn't close the fields altogether, for there was a right of way along the cliffs, but he said he would put up a corrugated iron fence twelve feet high all round them, with an iron turnstile for admission to the right of way path, and he would prosecute anyone for trespass who left the path by as much as a yard, and what would become of Shorton's precious golf-course then, and who would go to an hotel you could only get at through an iron turnstile? So then there was another row, but Archy was within his rights, and a good many people sympathised with him. There was quite a general feeling that Archy was putting up a public-spirited fight to protect the amenities of the peaceful countryside against London exploiters, and that he was saving the simple fisher-folk from corruption – not so much simple about the fisher-folk if you ask me. It was generally felt that if Shorton had chosen to sink a lot of money in his scheme, well, that was his affair. If he was going to drop a packet, he had done it all himself, and he had had plenty of warning. Then poor Archy was drowned. I heard Shorton had the indecency to send out for champagne when he knew. I was told he drank a toast to ‘the North Sea, and may its tides never grow less.' He said that wasn't true when he came to see me, but anyhow it put my back up pretty thoroughly. He had got a notion, from the way I listened to him, that I was quite in favour of the idea. He had been to see Mrs. Archy – who hadn't heard the champagne story – and got her consent, and of course the bank, who are co-trustees with me, didn't object, if I were willing. I wasn't. If for nothing else, that champagne story settled it once and for all. And I'm not going against what I know were Archy's wishes. I don't like, any more than he did, the idea of the whole place swarming with summer visitors, and everything turned upside down. When Archy's oldest boy comes of age, he can do what he likes, but till then they can wait – eleven years. Shorton came down again to-day to have another try to get me to change my mind. He thinks I'm trying to squeeze them out to take the thing on myself. That's nonsense; I'm not; but it's what he thinks. He says he's sunk fifty thousand that I'm making him lose. I don't suppose it's as much as that, but I daresay he stands to face a loss. That's his look-out. Finally he offered me all his rights and so on for ten thousand, which may be about what he has really spent. I told him I wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole. Then he began to lose his temper, and you turned up in time to hear the rest of it.”

“Thank you,” said Bobby, who had listened intently, with a certain rising excitement indeed. “I can quite see it looked a very promising scheme from their point of view, and I can quite see your objections to it. Do you know, I have a sort of idea that the name Shorton is familiar somehow.”

“Perhaps you heard about the rag on the Stock Exchange over a Channel swimming-stunt they got up a year or two ago. The
Daily Announcer
got to know about it, and turned one of their funny men on the story – quite good his articles were. Shorton actually started. He's a first-class swimmer; Archy and he met first on the committee of the City Swimming Club. Of course, he's not up to Channel form, but he got more than half way, and won some money for Help Yourself – the Stock Exchange charity annual, you know. Everyone thought he had done very well; he got quite a reception next time he went to the House.”

“He must be a jolly good swimmer,” Bobby remarked. “I suppose I'm right in saying that your brother's death offered him and his backers – or seemed to – a chance of getting back their money they must have given up as lost?”

“That's just what they did think,” Mr. Winterton agreed, “only they had forgotten me.”

“That,” observed Bobby thoughtfully, “is just what I am wondering – whether they have forgotten you.”

Mr. Winterton stopped abruptly.

“My God,” he said in a shaken voice, “what do you mean by that?”

The surprise, the sudden agitation in his voice, were sufficient proof to Bobby that, whatever secret fears his companion might have entertained, they had not been inspired by Mr. Shorten.

“What do you mean?” he repeated. “Why do you say that?”

“As I understand it,” Bobby said slowly, “certain persons have sunk ten thousand pounds – which is a large sum – in a scheme promising, they think, big profits. Only there is an unexpected obstacle in the way – your brother. He dies. The way seems clear again. Then another unexpected obstacle appears – yourself. The scheme is again held up. But please note that I'm drawing no deductions at present. I am simply stating the facts as I understand them to be.”

“But, good God!” Winterton protested, his voice still shaken and astonished. “Good God!” he said again.

Bobby said nothing. They walked on a few steps, and then once more Winterton halted.

“But Shorton's perfectly well known; business man and all that,” he protested; “offices in Gracechurch Street. I've been there myself.”

“Yes,” said Bobby.

“City men – business men – don't commit murder.”

“I suppose not,” agreed Bobby; “it's so seldom necessary in the City. But I have not said anything about murder. I have stated certain facts. It is police duty to consider every fact. Personally, I don't accuse Mr. Shorton or anyone else. I am merely here to collect facts and report them to my superior officers. Of course, I quite agree Mr. Shorton doesn't in the least look like a murderer, and murder and business are quite different – as different as playing poker and using a poker on someone else's head. The whole technique is so different, isn't it? Naturally you won't attach any importance to what I'm saying. I don't myself. It's only facts that count.”

He made as if to walk on as he spoke, but Winterton did not follow. Very plainly he was still greatly shaken and excited. He was muttering indistinctly to himself, and then he said aloud: “No, no, you're on the wrong track there.”

“Well, I don't admit that, you know,” Bobby answered pleasantly, “because I don't admit that I'm on any track at all at present, wrong or right.”

They went on again towards the house, and when they were nearer, Bobby spoke again.

“Now, Mr. Winterton,” he said, “if you don't mind I would like to ask you to switch your mind back once more, entirely forget that I'm police, and even in your thoughts regard me again as an old friend's son. We've chatted a bit about golf during our walk to-night, and I've asked your advice about going on the Stock Exchange. I may have a chance of getting in with Hobbs & Sutcliffe. Jolly good, old-established firm, aren't they?”

“But,” protested Winterton, slightly bewildered, “that's a real firm. I know them quite well; everyone does.”

“Exactly,” Bobby answered, “and if you mention to them that a young fellow, Robert Owen, has been recommended for a job with them, you'll find they know all about it. My chief, Superintendent Mitchell, has arranged that. He knows one of the partners, and there's a letter on file in the office any of the clerks can see, recommending that same Owen, and mentioning your name as an old friend of the family.”

Mr. Winterton grunted.

“You do things thoroughly,” he observed.

“At the Yard, sir,” Bobby answered, “we find we have to. Often everything hangs on detail. In the last case I was employed on, the angle at which a woman wore her hat proved the clue to the whole thing. Now, sir, please forget the Yard and police and just look on me all the time, even, in your own thoughts, as the young fellow you are taking an interest in and have been giving advice to.”

“Oh, all right, all right,” Mr. Winterton said, rather irritably. “Especially,” Bobby ventured to add, “when Mrs. Cooper or her husband are about. Mrs. Cooper strikes me as the sort of woman who would notice anything at once.”

“I'm not in the habit of talking about things before Mrs. Cooper,” retorted Mr. Winterton, now plainly vexed, so that Bobby decided it would be prudent to say no more.

They went on up the drive, and when they entered the house Mrs. Cooper met them in the hall. Mr. Winterton greeted her amiably, as if to impress on Bobby that he knew quite well how to deal with her.