Murder of a Snob (24 page)

“My next question is not the same,” said Crisp. He noted that Mrs. Cornboise was looking aggressive. Querk maintained the outward serenity of a cat at a mousehole. “At about seven o'clock on that Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Cornboise—” Crisp dragged out the question, then finished with a rush—“did you telephone the police that Lord Watlington had been murdered?”

“Why shouldn't I?”

Mrs. Cornboise had spoken before Querk could stop her.

“
Ex
-cellent!” ejaculated Querk. “If she did, why should she not have done so? A rhetorical question which, for our purposes, Chief Constable, is tantamount to saying that Mrs. Cornboise will neither deny nor affirm that she gave that information to the police.”

“Tantamount,” echoed Crisp, “to a refusal to answer. The negatives are mounting up, Mr. Querk. Did she enter the house? Did she see Watlington? Alive or dead? Was she aware of the fact of murder at seven—before anybody else? Answers refused on all points, each of which closely touches the murder.”

“Each point closely touches the murder!” repeated Querk. “And. you wonder why I object to a palpably innocent woman giving you a simple, straightforward yes or no on each point. Have you forgotten, Chief Constable, that the defence will be entitled to treat Mrs. Cornboise as a hostile witness? Imagine depositions containing those straightforward answers—that simple yes or that equally simple no. It would not matter which. On any statement made by Mrs. Cornboise, counsel would subject her to a devastating cross-examination, barbed with innuendo. You and I both know how an innocent person can suffer in health through the suggestion of guilt, dishonesty, evasion, reiterated endlessly in open court. Moreover—”

“If they said all that about me, I'd answer them back.”

“Moreover—”

“You're ignoring that she can be cross-examined on the statements already made to us.”

“
Moreover
, Mrs. Cornboise is anxious to observe the wish of her late husband—unwarranted and even cruel though it may be—to avoid courting publicity for the circumstances of her marriage.”

“That will come out on her identity,” Crisp reminded him.

“The fact of marriage will come out, but not the circumstances of their separation,” asserted Querk. “Cross-examination on an assertion—or a denial—that she had entered the house would drag out the full story of their relationship—a story which is necessarily painful to a lady of sensitiveness, who—if I may say so, my dear Mrs. Cornboise—has a very proper pride in her own womanhood.”

He was orating exclusively at Mrs. Cornboise, and Crisp noted that the oratory was effective. She had been frightened enough to keep her mouth shut and flattered enough to make her glad to obey Querk and refuse to talk to the police in future.

Before Crisp reached the corner of the road, Querk drove past him, Glenda turning her back to the pathway. A couple of hundred yards behind came Benscombe, on Querk's trail.

Crisp walked on to the High Road, where he took a taxi to the Goat-in-Flames. In the room that had been occupied by Ralph, the only personal belongings were the books on insanity. He found Mrs. Cornboise's bag in one of the drawers—a small brief bag of the kind commonly carried by business men forty years ago.

Back in his own headquarters, after fumbling with the complicated catches, he opened the bag. Inside was a package of plain white paper.

“That woman must have a starvation phobia,” he mused. “A fifteen minute bus ride—and she carries sandwiches.” There was a litter of picture postcards, a hymn book and a pencil and pencil-sharpener.

Protruding from a slit in the lining was a limp card, of the kind used in an index.

“Here we are!” he ejaculated. On the card, which served as a memo slip, had been typed five questions, numbered:

‘(1)
Where did the car stop?
(2)
For how long?
(3)
Did R. leave the car?
(4)
Any witnesses while car was stationary?
(5)
Did R. proceed straight to Three Witches?
'

When Benscombe came in he was invited to inspect the card.

“I don't think Mrs. Cornboise can use a typewriter,” he remarked.

“And I don't think she would use the word ‘stationary',” supplemented Crisp. “In fact, our Mr. Querk is running his own private C.I.D. With your passion for motivation, you can get your teeth into that one. What did he do with Glenda?”

“Took her to a block in Westminster, where he has a small office. He kept her there for half an hour. She came out without him. I didn't trail her.”

“What's the office like?”

“Two rooms in an expensive block. Very small nameplate—just ‘Mr. A. Querk.' The porter told me it's unoccupied most of the year. Querk turns up for two or three days at a time, bringing his typist with him. That's all I got, sir. I went up and listened outside the door, but couldn't hear anything except the typewriter—sounded as if the typist were taking direct dictation.”

“He was probably taking a statement from Glenda. Can't do much with him until he shows his hand. If he has a hand! He's certainly running Mrs. Cornboise. Advised her not to answer my questions.”

Benscombe went to his desk, surveyed the arrears with dismay.

“D'you think, sir, he's working with Claudia?”

“Working for what?”

“I'm thinking of what you said about motivation changing once we get on the trail. To start with, both of 'em seemed to be working overtime to get Ralph out of it. Now they both seem to be helping to push him in.”

“Ingenious, except that we aren't on the trail, but clean off it,” grunted Crisp. “We're where we were when Ralph dished out his confession.” He added, meditatively: “We haven't dug out a single fact of major importance. The tracks have been confused, so that they all lead back to the starting point.”

The house telephone buzzed on Benscombe's desk. As he picked up the receiver, he said: “And who confused the tracks, sir? … Hullo.”

“Mr. Fenchurch,” said Sergeant Willocks, “is in the waiting-room asking for the Chief.”

“Tell them to send him up, Benscombe,” ordered Crisp. “If he hands out any lies, I shall see if I can frighten him. The experts who looked at those pictures agreed that he is an artist. That may explain his manner, but it doesn't explain his tale—which you think is a plant to prop up Claudia, don't you?”

“Well, sir, we have to take his word that Watlington himself opened that envelope and gave him the letters. Whenever we ask for a spot of proof, all we get is some more artistic temperament.”

Fenchurch at police headquarters was something without precedent. Suspicion was excited by his too imaginative sports coat, the dun coloured glove on his left hand, his air of not understanding the nature of a police force. His escort showed a tendency to hover.

“Well, Mr. Fenchurch!” Crisp's tone was frigid. “You've brought me some information, I hope?”

“About the murder? Why, I thought that was all over! Claudia told me that you had arrested Ralph and that he accepted full responsibility, poor devil! Doesn't that wash out the brown paper and all those other things we got gummed up with?”

“If you thought that, why have you come to police headquarters?”

“There's the difficult problem of Benscombe.” Fenchurch realised with a shock that Benscombe himself was behind the other roll top desk. “I say, old man, I hope you don't resent my going over your head to the higher authority, but I honestly don't see any other way.”

“I don't resent it,” said Benscombe, “because I don't know what it's about.”

Fenchurch turned back to the Chief Constable: he spoke as one resolved to state a grievance in moderate terms. “I have rung Benscombe no fewer than five times to ask him for another sitting. Four times he was out: when I caught him, he said he had urgent duty. I don't doubt he was speaking the literal truth. In the conception of the modern policeman, which I am trying to paint, the idea of lying or any kind of counter-criminality is excluded. But how can we get anything done if he's always on urgent duty!”

“So you want me to release him from his duties here so that he can sit in your studio?” asked Crisp.

“That's exactly what I was going to suggest,” beamed Fenchurch. “With reasonable luck, another three sittings ought to be enough.”

Benscombe was waiting for the explosion which did not come.

“I'd be very pleased to do that for you, Mr. Fenchurch. Benscombe, hold yourself ready to go to the studio when required.” It seemed mere irony until Crisp added, with significance: “You will be on duty.”

“Thanks most awf'ly!” The long face was illumined with boyish pleasure. “I suppose I'd better buzz off now. You chaps look awf'ly busy. Cheerio and thanks again! I'm sorry about poor old Ralph. Could I have a word with him before I go?”

“Yes—if he's willing to see you,” answered Crisp. “But you realise that a police officer will have to be present?”

“Really? I'm afraid that kills it stone dead. You see, I wanted to say something terrifically private.” As if that were not sufficiently ingenuous, he added: “And it's rather tied up with the murder.”

“Then why not write to him—I'll see that he gets it,” offered Crisp, who had grasped the wisdom of taking the artist's point of view, since the artist seemed incapable of taking that of the police.

“Thanks, I will. I want him to get it before they salt him away in Broadmoor. Of course, you've spotted that he's stark mad, like Watlington. A good chap, though! Very decent of him to own up. I'll admit now that I was horribly scared when you were asking me all those questions about clocks and things. I don't suppose you believed a word of what I told you about those letters!”

Fenchurch laughed at a danger passed.

“Remember how hot-and-bothered we got over what people do with their old envelopes?” He spoke on his way to the door. “Funnily enough, I found that particular old envelope. Cheerio!”

Benscombe got to the door first. He held the handle as if he feared the other might slither away.

“Do you mean,” asked the Chief Constable, “that you have found the envelope in which Watlington sealed up your letters with his Will?”

“That's it! I knew it was the same, because it had his seal on it, more or less intact. I thought you'd be amused!”

He had the air of being pleased that he had amused the Chief Constable—a little acknowledgment of his kindness in the matter of Benscombe's duty.

“I am amused,” said Crisp. “Where is that envelope now?”

“Oh I say, Colonel!” Fenchurch was disappointed.

“I must have an answer, Mr. Fenchurch.”

“But don't you see it's the same question that upset us all last time? ‘What Becomes of Old Envelopes?' We don't want to start that again!”

“I want to,” said Crisp. “But let's both be amiable about it this time, shall we! To begin with, where did you find that envelope?”

“In my pocket.” Fenchurch added brightly: “The one place we never thought of searching!”

Crisp remembered that they had not searched for it at all, because he had not believed Fenchurch's story of Watlington ripping up the envelope himself and handing over the letters. He was no readier to believe the present statement that it had been found.

“We shall have to begin at the beginning,” sighed Crisp. “The first step is to ask yourself when and where you put it in your pocket.” As Fenchurch looked blank and miserable: “Come now, you must have put it in your pocket yourself.”

“That's the devil of it! If someone else were to put something in my pocket I'd notice and remember. But surely it must have been when I was talking to Watlington!”

That, of course, was what he wanted the police to believe. Crisp was determined to find that envelope or compel Fenchurch to admit that he was inventing the whole incident to support Claudia.

“Start at the other end, then. Visualise the moment when you surprised yourself by finding this very important envelope in your own pocket. Where were you?”

“In the flat. After breakfast this morning, I pulled it out—noticed how bad the design of the seal was. Then I noticed the other end where Watlington had ripped it open. I immediately thought of you!”

Crisp turned on him fiercely.

“Are you going to tell me that you thereupon burnt that envelope?”

“Oh no! I remember trying to work out whether it proved me innocent or guilty. I knew you had woven that envelope into your fantasy on that piece of brown paper. So I thought I'd better not burn it, in case it turned out to be on my side. Of course, I didn't know then that poor old Ralph was carrying the baby. As it is, I can't remember what I did with it.”

For twenty years, Crisp had schooled himself in keeping his temper.

“But you remember that you decided not to burn it but to keep it,” he said.

“There's nowhere to keep anything in that flat,” muttered Fenchurch.

“Then perhaps you remember wishing you had a safe place in which to keep it?”

Fenchurch clutched his hair excitedly.

“You've
got
something there, Colonel! Keep it up, if you can. Ask me some more questions, quickly!”

“You locked it in a drawer? … You took it to your bank? … You stuffed it at the back of one of your pictures?”

Exasperated by the other shaking his head at each question, Crisp cried: “Dammit, Fenchurch, did you put it back in your pocket?”

Fenchurch's hand shot to his side pocket. The child-like smile dawned again and spread over his face.

He drew out and unfolded the long envelope, sealed at one end, ripped at the other, bearing the printed address of a firm of solicitors.

“Absolutely amazing!” he exclaimed, as he handed it to Crisp. “I never thought you'd pull it off!”