Murder of a Snob (14 page)

And yet, reflected Benscombe, as he went on down the stairs, she wanted to marry him—a sub-murderer type, by her own analysis.

“If they get away with all this, she'll be the wife of a rich man, whom she can boss as if he were a kid,” ran his thoughts.

But those thoughts did not fit in. That picture of Fenchurch's was nearer the mark. In the nude too—to make it all symbolic! After all, the very qualities that made a mother gentle would also make her fierce under provocation. And mothers who had never had any children—phew!

In the hall, he stopped for a friendly chat with the constable on guard, then returned to headquarters, to find the Chief Constable at work as on a week-day, his broad shoulders bent over the desk as if he were about to claw his way up to the pigeon-holes.

“Well, Benscombe?”

“I listened-in all right, sir, but I was caught by Claudia as I was coming out.” Before the Chief could comment he hurried on. “Appreciation: Querk and Claudia believe in the hallucination, Ralph himself does not. Letters written by Claudia to Fenchurch, in Watlington's possession, were placed by Watlington in the envelope with the Will and sealed up. Ralph thinks that either he himself or Claudia removed the letters after the murder. He can't remember doing it—thinks that he couldn't have done it in the time—so he fears Claudia did. Claudia told Ralph she believed that Watlington removed them himself, having changed his mind about her suitability. Claudia is going to marry Ralph to-morrow week, because he has what she calls the suicide impulse.”

He followed up with a detailed report, ending with his meeting with Claudia and her request regarding Ralph.

“Why she wants him is a mystery all to itself. She practically admitted to me that she thought him a poor fish.”

“Clever girl!” remarked Crisp, but Benscombe missed the point.

“The funny thing is, sir, that when they thought they were alone together they talked very much as they talk to us—except for Ralph's raving about those envelopes.”

“The other funny thing,” said Crisp, “is that Querk and Claudia are contradicting each other on a substantial point.” He opened the dossier. “Here's Claudia speaking of her interview in the study
before
five-fifteen: ‘
He became complimentary—quite definitely so—the burden of it being that he was very glad I wanted to marry Ralph
.'

Crisp turned a few pages, then continued:

“Querk, speaking of his interview
after
five-fifteen, says he advised Watlington to withdraw his objection to the marriage and to tell Claudia so at once. But Watlington does not reply that he has already done so—some ten minutes previously. According to Querk, he refuses, yields to persuasion, then promises to tell Claudia—what he has already told her. If he did tell her!”

“Personally, I prefer Querk's version,” put in Benscombe.

“Then you've changed your opinion of the girl. Why?”

Because a picture had awakened him to the potentialities for violence latent in a good woman. The Chief answered his own question.

“You're judging by character. Claudia, you think, would do anything to protect that lame dog of hers. Querk is comparatively disinterested. Hm! Over-simplification, boy! Character will sometimes give you a hunch on where to look for evidence. More often it leads you up a blind alley. Leave out what they all
might
have done and let's see how much we know of what they
have
done. Take the main items on that typewriter, while we run through them. Leave out corroborative matter.”

Thus would Crisp clarify his own thought by explaining to his junior, a process valuable to both sides.

“Take the killing first. Of the murderer—who may be more than one person, by the way—we know that he did not strike through the wig—that he removed the signet ring after death. He knew that Watlington had been trepanned. He wanted to open the envelope containing the Will and seal it up again.

“How many persons knew about the trepanning? You can write down Querk, Ralph, Claudia, Mrs. Cornboise, Fenchurch. How many, in point of time and place, could certainly have committed the murder? All except Fenchurch. Put a query against him, because he can't prove his movements between three and seven o' clock, nor can we.

“The Will. There must have been a total of three envelopes printed with the address of the solicitors. Watlington used one—which was opened and taken away by the murderer. If Watlington had torn the envelope up himself, as Claudia suggested, we should have found the pieces.

“Assuming that envelope No. I contained nothing but the Will, who could have wanted to tamper with it? None of the three who were in the study after lunch—call them the Big Three—because they all knew its contents. Rule out Fenchurch. Leaves only Mrs. Cornboise.

“Assume that the envelope contained also love letters written by Claudia to Fenchurch—I'm going on what you found out this afternoon. That yields Claudia and Ralph, interested in destroying the letters and preserving the Will.”

“And Fenchurch?” suggested Benscombe. “He might have heard Watlington had got those letters and determined to get 'em back. Especially if Glenda pinched them from him.”

Grisp was doubtful.

“
Only
if Glenda pinched them,” he amended. “As soon as the bank is open to-morrow that girl will have a shot at getting her cash, in the hope that I'm wrong in saying the banks won't pay a dead man's cheque. Pick her up and squeeze out of her whether she did.

“Next item. Persons known to have gone to the library between, say, three and seven o'clock. The Big Three plus the person who telephoned us—who may be one of the Three. Anything I've missed there, Benscombe?”

“The person who gave Watlington the note of Casa Flavia and the two names and the date.”

“Right! Go on!”

“The only one of the Big Three who could have given it is Claudia. And she could have lost nothing by admitting it to us.”

“Agreed. But why do you exclude Ralph?”

“Time, sir. Querk and Mrs. Cornboise agree that Ralph was only in the library for a minute or so. Look at that note! A town in Italy: two local tradesmen: a date. Nobody hopped in there, hurled all that at him and then hopped out again. It must have been a fairly lengthy conversation, with question and answer: several minutes at least—allowing for the dictating of the note. We know that Fenchurch possessed the information contained in the note, and that it was given to Watlington after the Big Three left the library—that is after about two forty-five.”

Crisp nodded with satisfaction as the other confirmed his own deduction.

“After the Big Three left the library at about two forty-five!” he repeated. “But before, or after, each of the three re-entered it separately?”

“No data, sir.”

“And we shan't get any data by questioning Fenchurch. We'll leave him alone until we've managed to get a card or two to play.

“Now those letters. Give 'em a separate heading. In telling their separate tales to us, the Big Three all suppressed the fact that the letters were put in the envelope with the Will. Let yourself go on that.”

“Claudia was telling the truth when she said she didn't notice,” suggested Benscombe. “Querk shut up because he wants to smooth everything over and lead a quiet life. Ralph, knowing that he himself had not touched the envelopes, assumed that Claudia had. He assumed it the moment you opened the Will-envelope and he saw the letters weren't there. Assuming his confession is a fake, he became dead certain Claudia had scuppered the old boy and burnt the letters. I don't think he said: ‘I will now nobly sacrifice myself for the woman I love.' I think he just lurched from one horror to the other. And I don't see that it matters to us whether he has an hallucination or is just lying. From his tone of voice, it struck me that he's more than a bit afraid of Claudia.”

“But you said they're going to marry in a week.”

“I said
she
said it, sir. He didn't gurgle with delight when she—well, it wasn't love-making—thank heaven!—but a sort of crooning over a panicky child. He agreed obediently—I suspect because he was too exhausted to argue. I don't think he has much staying power.”

Crisp rose from his desk, looked over Benscombe's shoulder while he completed his notes.

“Good! You've cut the character talk and taken the facts. Querk leaves the library at approximately five twenty-eight. At five thirty-four the telephone rings and Watlington does not answer. By the way, did you contact the caller?”

“A socialite called Tremayne. Knows very little about Watlington. He was asked to the dinner party, but had to fly to Edinburgh because his wife was injured in a street accident. He was ringing Watlington to explain that he couldn't turn up.”

“Hm! That buttons him up. Anyhow, the call came at five thirty-four. With the doctor's evidence, we may infer that by that time Watlington was dead. That gives the murderer a maximum of five minutes for the job.”

“Which would take about five seconds, sir. Then he could lock the door and take his time over the signet ring.”

“So at five twenty-eight the murderer enters the library. But he can't get on with the murder, because he wants to get that Casa Flavia conversation off his chest. And see that the man he's just going to kill makes a note about it. And gets the spelling right. In order to give us a headache. Hm! We may have got the facts, but we've got 'em in the wrong order, somehow.”

He went on: “That means more spadework. And there's plenty of small stuff to be cleaned up. We want a note on that die-stamp. And remind Inspector Sanson to enquire at the post office about that registered package. That's disappeared.”

Crisp checked the clock-times and then:

“Now try your hand at the Appreciation,” he invited. “Take it that Querk and Ralph cancel each other out as principals.”

“But is that logical, sir?”

“Logic only works when both sides know the rules and can be relied on to obey them. Most crimes are a jumble of intelligence and stupidity, of careful planning and hasty improvisation. When our facts are insufficient, we have to work on probability with what common sense we have.

“Now, Ralph asserts that he killed Watlington. But he mis-describes the method of killing, and protests that he did not notice the distortion of the body—which would be as striking to any non-medical man as it was to me.

“Querk's evidence is two-edged. If Watlington was dead when Querk entered the library, then Querk becomes compassionate accessory against the will of the principal. I don't think compassion is in Querk's line o' business—especially when it means taking such an enormous risk.

“The other edge touches Querk as hypothetical murderer. As he himself has pointed out—horrible chap, isn't he—as a murderer he is also an incredible fool, because he volunteers extremely damaging evidence against himself which we should not otherwise have possessed. I'm pretty sure Querk is not a fool. So you can leave those two out.”

Benscombe inserted a fresh sheet and typed the word ‘Appreciation.' Crisp was watching the paper. Benscombe typed on:

‘Opportunity: Mrs. Cornboise, Claudia Lofting and (?) Fenchurch.

‘Opportunity and Motive: Claudia Lofting.'

Crisp grunted with approval.

“If you hadn't insisted otherwise, sir, I would have included Querk under ‘opportunity.' Mrs. Cornboise and Fenchurch would have been awful fools to kill Watlington.”

“Isn't that an argument for cutting them out,” As Benscombe said nothing, Crisp added: “We'll leave them in, then, and see if we can collect enough evidence to eliminate them. That will isolate Claudia.”

By Monday morning the routine work on the murder of Lord Watlington had spread fanwise throughout county headquarters so that every constable on point or beat was checking some detail. A steady stream of reports filled the wire baskets, to be summarised and indexed for reference.

At half-past seven, Benscombe drove a police car from the garage at Watlington Lodge to the Three Witches, the road-house with the swimming pool. He filed a report that it had taken eleven minutes, and added a comment that Ralph's Reindert could probably cover the distance, under normal traffic conditions, in eight minutes.

At five minutes to ten he was hovering near the City branch of the National and Mutual Bank. Glenda was already waiting outside the locked doors. Watching her from a safe distance, he was amused to notice that no fewer than three business men stopped short on their way to the office in the hope of picking her up, averaging two minutes apiece to discover that there was nothing doing, Glenda's interest being concentrated on her hope of cashing Watlington's cheque for five hundred pounds.

When she came out, flushed after an ill-advised effort to persuade the manager that he was misinterpreting the law, she did not recognise Benscombe until he took her arm.

“Tough luck, Glenda! A cup of coffee will pull you round.”

“
Oo!
It's you! I didn't know you out of uniform. And I don't want any coffee, thanks.”

“Don't be tactless, darling! When the police offer you coffee in that tone of voice, it means they're trying to keep you out of clink if you give ' em the chance. There's a place round the corner. Come along!”

The bank manager had done the ground work. In Glenda's life there were axioms for most emergencies, offshoots of the golden rule that a girl must look after herself. When your luck is out, don't start something. And Glenda's luck was indisputably out.

“Mother's diamonds and all that!” remarked Benscombe when they were seated. “All right when you want a gag for your friends. When you give
us
a tale that isn't true—well, the first stage is a cup of coffee. The second is not.”