Richardson's First Case (19 page)

“You want me to agree offhand?”

Reece laughed loudly. “My dear cousin, I want you to do more than that. I want you to agree, of course, and then I want you to jump into a taxi with me and run down to my lawyer, who will put our agreement into proper form. We'll stick our names to it before witnesses and then go down to Mr. Settle, who is sole executor to both wills, and shake it in his face. Lord! It makes me laugh to think of the face he'll make when he sees all his dreams of wealth melting away. Nothing but a hundred pounds for his trouble, and forty thousand each for the young cousins! That's what I want.” He caught the sign of hardening on Michael's face and made one last effort at persuasion.

“You see, my dear cousin, this may be your last chance. Things may be moving quicker than we know. That inspector man at Marylebone is a smarter bird than you may think. I see him constantly—indeed, he comes to me for help at times—and he let drop a hint yesterday that he is not far off making up his mind. I've made you this offer, and if you turn it down you may regret it all your life, because when I come into the money you can scarcely blame me for saying, ‘No, I made you a square offer: you turned it down; I am not bound to make it again.'”

Michael rose from his chair. For a fleeting moment Reece thought that he had succeeded, but a glance at his cousin's face was enough. He flushed with anger.

“Thank you for the offer. I shall have to take advice about it,” said Michael.

“No, you will have to take it or leave it now. We don't want other people butting in.”

“Then I leave it. Thank you all the same. You know your way out?”

Reece caught up his hat and went out. He could not trust himself to speak. Nan, hearing the front door bang behind him, looked in with an anxious face.

“You've quarrelled with him?”

“No, but I could scarcely keep my hands off him. He wanted me to sign an agreement to go shares, and I told him to go to hell.”

“Don't tell me any more. Wait till Guy comes home.”

Guy returned to lunch with a keen appetite.

“Well, what's the news? What have you two people been doing?”

“Ask Michael,” said his wife. “He's been fraternizing with his cousin.”

“What do you mean? Has that little blighter had the impertinence to come here?”

“Tell him about it, Michael.”

Guy heard him out. Then he said, “We must be up and doing this afternoon, Mike. Morden must be told of this, and so must that poor old lawyer johnny in the Adelphi.”

“Why all this fuss? I turned the offer down.”

“I know you did, but it's the fact that such an offer was made that counts. It means either one of two things—either that that cousin of yours knows that he has a bad case and was trying to jump your claim, or that he means to bolt and hasn't the necessary cash. Both are important, and I'll have to cut out Greenwich for this afternoon.” He went to the telephone and made his peace with someone at the other end of the wire.

“All clear,” he said, returning. “Now to lunch. We needn't hurry over it. Unless Morden browses on a ham sandwich at his office table, he won't be back from lunch till about two-thirty.”

The messenger admitted that Morden was to be found in his room, when the taxi deposited the two naval officers at New Scotland Yard. They were admitted immediately.

Morden greeted Michael most amiably, as if to make amends for what had happened at their last interview.

“Things are moving, Morden my friend. I've brought Sharp here to tell you about a visit he had this morning from his long-lost cousin, Herbert Reece. Go ahead, Michael.”

Morden listened with close attention and did not interrupt the story. Then he said, “You seem to have an excellent verbal memory, Mr. Sharp, but memory is apt to play strange tricks—even the best. If you don't mind I will get you to dictate what you've told me to a shorthand writer. When you've finished, come back to this room.” He led him to an empty little waiting room near the entrance and brought in a young policeman who wrote shorthand like a reporter for Hansard. In two minutes he was back in his room.

“Well,” said Guy, “what do you think of this latest development?”

“Let me hear your views first.”

“Well, if you had a certain eighty thousand pounds waiting for you, would you hunt up a relation whom you hadn't seen for years and offer him half of it as a token of affection?”

“I can't imagine myself doing so.”

“Very well, then; Cousin Herbert is feeling shaky about his inheritance—in other words he thinks that you fellows will be able to show that Mrs. Catchpool outlived her husband. Furthermore, he wants some ready cash and plenty of it.”

“That's the point that interests me most. Why should he be so keen upon quickly getting hold of £40,000, unless—”

“Exactly.” Neither speaker thought it necessary to finish the sentence.

Morden was thinking hard. “Look here, Kennedy, I can't tell you exactly how we stand in this case. I wish I could, but if I were you I should take Sharp on to see the executor to the will, say that you've been here, and tell him the whole story. Stop, I'll ring him up and tell him that you're coming.” He called a number from his desk telephone and made the announcement. “He's expecting you. I fancy that you'll find that even if Sharp had agreed to the proposition it wouldn't have made a pennyworth of difference. The old man wouldn't have moved a step towards obtaining probate until we had given him the word. He's one of the old school and likes to be sure of his ground.”

Mr. Settle received Michael Sharp with fatherly benevolence and recalled their last meeting to his memory. “It's a bad business,” he said. “I had a great liking and respect for your aunt. Even now it shocks me to think of her end. I suppose that you have come to ask me how long it will be before the executor is able to take steps about the will.”

“Not at all,” interrupted Guy. “He's come to tell you about an interview he had this morning with Herbert Reece.”

“With Herbert Reece?” exclaimed the old solicitor in astonishment. “Where did you meet him?”

“He came to see me to make a proposal.” Thereupon Michael Sharp narrated the conversation in detail. Even Guy had to admit that his verbal memory was remarkable. He could even reproduce the tone in which Reece had spoken.

“Amazing!” exclaimed the solicitor, when he had heard him to the end. “I'm glad that you declined to be a party to any such proposal, quite apart from the fact that it would not have influenced me in the slightest degree. As executor I am bound to move with the greatest caution. There may be criminal proceedings in which evidence affecting both wills may be brought to light. The jury has not yet given its verdict on the inquest. Tell me, Mr. Kennedy,” he continued, turning to Guy; “you are in closer touch with Scotland Yard than I am, how are they getting on with their investigations?”

“I wish I knew. They seem to spend their time hunting down false clues. If we were to accumulate a pile of papers that thick over every court-martial case, the ship would go to the bottom with the weight of them.”

“Ah!” smiled the lawyer, “The process of elimination. Well, I am glad to know that they are so thorough. I shan't be sorry, though, when they do arrive at the truth. Between ourselves, that young man, Herbert Reece, is beginning to make my life a burden. He will not understand my position, and he seems to be in a chronic need of money.”

“Why, I wonder?”

“Well, I suppose that everyone needs money, but he is certainly very persistent.”

“Perhaps he doesn't feel quite so sure of his windfall as he did.”

“Perhaps,” said the lawyer, cautiously.

As they were driving back to the flat, Michael remarked, “You've taken up the wrong profession, Guy my boy. You ought to have trained for Morden's job instead of going to sea.”

“Why? Aren't I an efficient naval officer? Lock at me—specially selected for my job at Greenwich—see confidential reports on Lieut. G. Kennedy.”

“Yes, and see confidential report of the admiral superintendent when your job comes to an end. ‘Would be an efficient instructor if he were not away half his time on urgent private affairs.' Whereas, if you'd been a policeman, you'd have nosed out half the crimes in London single-handed and locked up the other half of the population because you could find out nothing against them.”

While they were being driven homeward, Divisional Detective Inspector Foster was closeted with the late John Catchpool's charwoman. He had sent for her, and so far from being awed by the official aspect of a police station she had greeted each functionary she encountered with a sympathetic grin. Some of them she recognized as acquaintances from having met them on their beats.

Foster found her ready—even over-ready—to impart information, and he found it difficult to keep her from the by-paths of anecdote. “I've asked you to come down, Mrs. Hart, to put a few questions to you about your late employer.”

“That's right, Inspector. The more questions you ask, the better I shall like you. Quite gay they are downstairs! Quite a number of old faces I know. Lor' bless you, Inspector; when I come into a police station I feel at home. You must find it a terrible responsibility dealing with murderers and such-like. Do you find it prevents you sleeping at nights? It would me, I know. Now I can guess what you wanted me for. To help you over that case in the shop.”

“Yes, I want to ask you who had a key to the shop.”

“Why, no one but the master.”

“Nobody else?”

“Gracious, no! Do you think he would have trusted anyone with a key? Not him. He kept the key in his trousers pocket and wouldn't even let it go out of his hand.”

“But his nephew must have had a key?”

“Mr. 'Erbert? Not he. Many's the time he's grumbled about it in my hearing. You see, the old master was getting hard of hearing—couldn't always hear the shop bell. Many's the time when I've had to stand in the street with the rain pouring down, ringing and ringing, before I could get him to come to the door. But do you think he cared? Not he. It was the same with Mr. 'Erbert.”

“You saw him leave the shop that afternoon when he was run over?”

“Yes, Inspector, I did. You see, it was this way: I'd done a bit of washing in the morning, and I'd hung up the things to dry on a string across the kitchen, it being wet outside, and I thought to myself if he goes into that kitchen and catches his head against that string there'll be trouble, because you know he'd a nasty tongue sometimes, had the master, over little things like that. Well, I went to the shop, and who should I meet face to face but the master all dressed up to go out. ‘What do you want?' he said, and I told him. ‘You can't come in now, Eliza,' he says, ‘because I'm going out and I'm going to lock up before I go, see.' ‘Very good,' I ses, ‘then don't blame me if you run your head into a lot of linen hanging in the kitchen, because it won't be my fault.' ‘Don't you worry over that,' he says. ‘Get along, I'm in a hurry.' Well, out he came, and I saw him take the key out of his trousers pocket, lock the door, and put it back again. Very mean he could be, the old master, Inspector. I'd work me fingers to the bone keeping the place clean. Do you think he'd ever offer me a bite of lunch? Not he! Not a crust of bread, not a slice of cheese has ever passed my lips since I worked for him. I've had to get me own dinner day after day and slip over to the Crown and Anchor for my drop of beer.”

“It was at the Crown and Anchor you first heard of the accident, wasn't it?”

“Yes, they were all talking about it.”

“How had they heard of it?”

“A man came in when I was there and said he'd seen it, and he knew the old master. He was quite sure it was him.”

“Then why didn't he tell the police?”

“Ah! Now you're talking, Inspector. The people that uses the Crown and Anchor ain't the sort that cares to get mixed up with the police. They'll tell anyone else, but not the police.”

“And then you took the news to Mr. Herbert Reece. Where did you meet him?”

“Oh, not far from the shop; he was just going there at the time. I told him what I'd heard and said, ‘It's no good your going to the shop, Mr. 'Erbert; your uncle's not there; 'e's been run over and the shop's locked up.' He said, ‘Well, then, you and me will go down to the hospital together.'”

“How did you know which hospital he'd been taken to?”

“I didn't know, Inspector. It was Mr. 'Erbert who took me to the Middlesex.”

When Foster had checked her flow of conversation and seen her down the stairs, he returned to his desk and made two notes, with lips curling in a smile.

D
IVISIONAL
D
ETECTIVE
Inspector Foster found Richardson waiting for him when he entered his office at nine-thirty. He listened to the account of the inquiries overnight and bit his lip when he heard of Cronin's disappearance. He was thinking of what would be said at the Central Office about not having kept the flats under observation.

“Well, we've got to find that man and find him quick, or they'll be having us down on the carpet.”

“According to the landlord at the Red Lion, sir, he may come back before closing time this evening.”

“We can't wait till this evening. We've got to find him this morning.”

“Well, sir, from what the landlord said about his only coming in just before closing time, I fancy he's in hiding all the daytime and only comes out when he thinks that no one's likely to see him. I'll make a round of the Church Army shelters; perhaps I may hear something of him there.”

“Right, then get on with it as quick as you can.”

But Richardson's passage downstairs was blocked by the station sergeant coming up with a second person in his wake. On that narrow staircase there was no room to pass. He stood aside, and even in that semi-darkness at the top of the stairs he recognized the man he was in search of. He hung up his hat and followed the two into the inspector's office.