Richardson's First Case (4 page)

The inspector turned to Richardson. “You searched his clothing. Did you find any keys?”  “Yes, sir, the bunch of keys that's attached to my report.”

“Well, go and get them.” Richardson returned in a few moments with the large official envelope that contained all the portable property of the dead man. He turned out the contents on the table. The inspector pushed the bunch of keys over to Reece. “Now, sir, would any of these open the shop door?”

Reece shook his head. “No, I've seen that door key; it's a good deal bigger than any of those.”

The inspector scratched his head. “I don't see that we can do any more tonight. People do stay out late sometimes, and it's not very likely that there should be two street accidents to knock down a husband and wife on the same day. I'll leave a report on the desk, and the superintendent can deal with it when he comes in—about getting into the shop, I mean. I daresay you won't be sorry to get to bed, sir.”

“No, I shan't be sorry to turn in.”

“Of course, if you find that your aunt didn't return home at all you will let us know.”

P.C. Richardson spent a restless night in his bunk in the section house. Just as the case was becoming absorbing it would be snatched from his hands and he would find himself on point duty again wondering whether others were making a mess of it. Of course they would make a mess of it. They wouldn't know that this young Arthur Harris had denied all knowledge of the old man, while the old man's nephew said that he knew him quite well, and then he cudgelled his brains for a solution of that small mystery. He fell asleep over it at last, but a troubled slumber for under an hour does not turn out a man at his best in the early morning. It was some solace to him to find that he was posted for relief duty.

His name was called; he was wanted by the chief inspector. “You were the officer in charge of that Catchpool accident yesterday, weren't you? Well, the nephew has just telephoned to say that his aunt never came back last night. He's on his way here now. I think we'll have to get into the shop in High Street, but we must do as little damage as we can. You'd better go with him, and if he can't tell you where to get the key you must get a locksmith to pick the lock. The station sergeant will give you a locksmith's address.”

It was thus that P.C. Richardson found himself still in charge of his first case. He was resolved to quit himself with honour. His first difficulty was that Reece could not tell him who had supplied the lock.

“My uncle used to say that the lock was burglar proof. He was awfully pleased when he got it made and was very cunning about the key—I've seen it, but he'd never even let me unlock the door if we'd come in together, and he wouldn't ever tell me the name of the man who made the lock.”

“Well, then, we'll have to try what a locksmith can do.”

The locksmith, a keen, ferret-faced craftsman, seemed quite pleased to hear from his visitors that the job was difficult. “Glad you told me; now I know what tools to take. But you needn't worry. I've never met a lock yet that I couldn't turn in five minutes.” He proved to be as good as his word; there was scarcely time for a few errand boys to collect before the shop door swung back. “I'll tell you what I'll do if you like. While you're looking round the shop I'll slip back and get another door lock and key to take the place of this one; that'll give me time to make another key, and you'll be able to go in and out just when you like.”

He shut the door behind him.

“Now,” said Reece. “This is the shop and there's the staircase up to the living room. The office is behind that door with the red blind.”

“I think we'll go upstairs first, sir.” They found the two little rooms incredibly poor and mean, and they wasted no time in them. Richardson led the way down again. “I suppose this door into the office won't be locked, sir.”

“I don't think so; we'll try it.” He pushed past Richardson and opened the door. “My God! What's this?” Richardson looked over his shoulder. On the floor lay the body of a tall woman—a lady, he judged from her clothing—dressed in outdoor things. She was lying on her face; her hat had fallen off, exposing her grey hair. A chair had been overturned, otherwise there was no disorder.

“That is my aunt,” said Reece, sinking limply into a chair.

Now that Richardson was face to face with what he felt to be a great case, all his preconceived ideas seemed to have left him. One thing he did remember from the teachings at Peel House—he must not touch the body; also that it had become a case for the C.I.D. in which a uniformed constable could take no further part, and that he must not touch anything for fear of leaving fingerprints behind him. One thing, however, he felt that he must do, even if it was only for his own satisfaction: he must satisfy himself whether there had been any burglarious entry. He took the precaution of putting on his gloves before he tested the window fastenings. They were intact and so were the thick window bars outside. He went back to look at the shop window; that also was intact. “This is a bad business, sir,” he said. “There is no doubt but that the poor lady's dead. You say that no one had a key to this shop except your uncle. Surely your aunt must have had a key too.”

“No, I'm sure she hadn't,” replied Reece in a hollow voice, “I can't think how she got in unless—” 

“Unless what?”

“Well, unless she came in before my uncle left the shop.”

It was a new light to Richardson. “You mean that she died here while he was still on the premises and that he locked the door and went off without reporting the death to anyone?”

“I don't see how else it could have happened. That seems to me the only possible explanation. What do we have to do now?”

“There's a lot to do, sir. I'll have to go and report this at the station. They'll send for the police surgeon; the body will be moved down to the mortuary, and then, I suppose, the matter will be put into the hands of the divisional detective inspector, but first I must take a few notes on the state of the room.” He went into the office again; Reece watched him from the door. “Only one drawer open,” he said, “do you think there's money gone?”

“My uncle didn't keep money in that drawer; only notes of hand. He was a registered moneylender, you know.”

Richardson paused with a word half written. “Oh! Then quite a lot of people would have liked to get at that drawer.” He glanced at the papers, but did not touch them. “Well, now, Mr. Reece, I think I've got all that I need. We'll lock up the shop and take the key down to the station if you're ready, but we must wait till the locksmith comes back with the new lock.”

They had not many minutes to wait. The locksmith screwed on the new lock with a practised hand and gave the two keys to Richardson.

While they were on their way to the police station Richardson asked his companion what the exact relationship was between him and the dead woman and learned that she was his aunt by marriage. He made his report orally to the chief inspector, who sent for the divisional detective inspector from upstairs. The latter officer was a soft-spoken Scotsman of slow speech. To him Richardson was bidden to repeat what he had said.

“You say that you looked at all the windows and they had not been tampered with?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And that the nephew says that the dead man had the only key?”

“Yes, sir, he's outside if you'd like to see him.”

“We shall have to see him, of course, but not yet. The first thing is to get down the police surgeon and let us make a thorough search of the house; then the coroner will have to be told. Oh, there's plenty to do.”

“Will you want me any more?” asked Richardson in a tone of disappointment.

“Not just at present, but we shall want you,” he added with a twinkle.

And so poor Richardson returned disconsolate to his seat, thinking that he had dropped out of the picture. He heard telephones being used; he saw the D.D.I. with two of his men bustling off with the key of the shop and handbags, and an hour or two later he saw them returning from their quest—the D.D.I. in close conversation with Dr. Macnamara the police surgeon. Richardson stood up as they passed to the stairs. The D.D.I. recognized him and smiled. “That was a great case you brought us; you'll be interested to hear that it is a case of mur-r-der!”

N
EXT DAY
Divisional Detective Inspector Foster of D Division might have been seen at the main entrance of New Scotland Yard, his overcoat bulging with papers. He nodded to the messenger in the hall, turned sharp to the left, and rapped on the third door—the office of Chief Constable Beckett, an officer who had risen to his present position after years of service in the same capacity as Inspector Foster, and knew more about the arts of criminal London and the wiles of detectives than anyone in the building. “Come in,” cried a gruff voice.

It was a tiny little office for so important a functionary. The writing table, piled high with official files, and a couple of chairs seemed to fill all the space. In a sense it was no more than a passage, for one communicating door led into the office of the superintendents and the other into that of the deputy assistant commissioner.

“Good morning, sir,” said Foster. “I thought I'd better bring down my report on that Catchpool affair, in case you'd like to talk it over with me.”

“It'll take me an hour to read through all this,” growled Beckett, fingering the report. “I'd rather you told me the main facts or—stop! It's no good telling the story twice over.” He knocked at one of the communicating doors and ushered Foster into a room a little larger than his own, where a man of about forty was sitting immersed in papers. He was a fair, studious-looking man with a gentle voice and a mild eye. Perhaps it was these characteristics, which are unimpressive in open court, that had led Charles Morden to exchange the Temple and the Midland Circuit for his present post. He was the legal light of the building.

“I thought you would like to see Mr. Foster yourself, sir. He has brought his report with him.”

“On the murder of that woman in Marylebone?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Foster. “Mrs. Catchpool.”

“You've no doubt it was a murder, then?”

“I have the surgeon's report with me, sir. He says that the woman died from shock resulting from strangulation. He found the marks of fingers on her throat; the hyoid bone was fractured.”

“I suppose you've formed some theory.”

“It's a puzzling case, sir. The husband and wife had separated years ago and were on bad terms. The husband had given her notice to quit her flat, and she didn't want to move; that accounts for her having been to his shop. The husband was knocked down and killed by a motorcar at five-thirty on Tuesday afternoon. He had the only key to the shop, but no key was found on him, nor were there any marks of breaking in; yet the body of his wife was found in the office behind the shop. How did it get there?”

“That seems an easy question to answer; she must have visited her husband before he left the shop and either he or a third person must have strangled her. I take it that that is the police view that you will put before the coroner?”

Beckett broke in. “The coroner has already had that view from the press—double headlines and all. As the husband's dead they haven't to think of the law of libel; they pitched it hot and strong. They've interviewed the dead woman's servant and the housekeeper, who both played into their hands. Now if the jury finds that it was murder and suicide we can wash our hands of the case.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Beckett,” said Foster mildly. “There are one or two complications. First, we haven't found the key of the shop; second, P.C. Richardson found a witness in the street who said she heard the old man cry out, ‘Very well, then, I'll call a policeman,' just before he dashed into the road. I've seen the woman myself and I'm sure she's telling the truth. She didn't see who the old man was speaking to—the pavement was crowded at the time—but she heard him say that. Thirdly, there's this young man, Arthur Harris. Catchpool was a registered moneylender. He had Harris's address in his pocket, and the nephew says that his uncle was going to that address when he was knocked down and killed. I've seen young Harris, and he sticks to it that he didn't know the deceased; the nephew says that he knew him quite well. Fourthly, we found the moneylender's ledger—pretty well kept, it was—with a page headed ‘Arthur Harris' and an entry of a loan of £200. On the other side there were two payments on account. Now the only drawer open in the desk was the drawer containing the notes of hand. We compared them with the ledger; they were all there except Arthur Harris's. On the other hand, he's brought a witness to prove that he had motored down to Oxford that afternoon.”

“Harris is a liar, then, but he may have had another motive for lying. Young men who slip off to moneylenders are generally shy about letting their parents know about it,” said Morden.

“Yes,” Beckett agreed; “and as to the witness who heard Catchpool say ‘Very well, then, I'll call a policeman,' she may be telling the truth. He was an eccentric old man by all accounts; probably he was brooding over what he'd done and may have intended to give himself up. This evidence of the nephew, Reece, and the dead woman's maidservant about the quarrels between the husband and wife seems to me convincing evidence of motive. I don't see that you want any more for the coroner, Mr. Foster.”

“There's one other thing, sir, that I ought to mention. On the floor of the shop itself we found a big sheet of brown paper folded in two just as it's sold, and beside it a length of string made up of short pieces of different thicknesses knotted together. It looked, of course, as if it was intended for wrapping up a biggish parcel. I should have attached more importance to it if there had been evidence of a burglary, but every shopkeeper has brown paper, and string knotted together like that is just the sort of string that a miser would use. Still I've mentioned it in my report.”