Richardson's First Case (6 page)

Sir William Lorimer felt a passing irritation that Morden should have chosen this moment for leaving the office. It was the kind of situation in which his man of law revelled.

The man of law with his naval friend had caught Foster as he was leaving the office and taken him with them as a guide. He had the key of the shop in his pocket. “Now, sir,” Foster said on unlocking the door, “perhaps you'd like me to lead the way and I can show you exactly where we found the body.” He led them into the dingy little office at the back, overturned one of the chairs, threw open a drawer in the writing table, and showed them chalk marks on the floor which indicated the position of the body. Kennedy listened attentively and moved towards the window. “You'll be careful not to touch anything, sir,” said Foster. “We want to leave everything just as we found it until after the inquest.”

“Keep your hair on, Inspector, I'm not going to splash my fingerprints all over the place. By the way, I suppose you've been over the room with a microscope looking for fingerprints? They always do that in the books.”

Inspector Foster smiled indulgently. “That has all been attended to, sir, but you wouldn't find fingerprints on anything in this room. You see, there's no glossy surface anywhere.”

“What about the window?”

“Yes, sir, there might have been a fingerprint on the glass if a man had entered by the window, but he didn't. That desk isn't smooth enough for a print and, in any case, the prints you get on furniture are very seldom of any use.”

“Why not? I thought that if you found a fingerprint you found your man.”

Foster chuckled. “They do that in the books, sir, but in real life you find most of the fingerprints left on furniture or glasses are blurred or smudged, without any core or any delta, and so they are useless for identification purposes.” The Scottish itch for educating had taken hold of him. “You see, sir, what we want for identification is a rolled fingerprint like this, and a criminal does not roll his fingerprints when he touches an object.”

“No, but when he grips a woman by the throat and strangles her, then you've got something to work upon.”

Foster smiled with the patience practised in the kindergarten. “The human fingers leave no impression on the flesh except a bruise. You see, sir, the impression left on a smooth surface is due to the perspiration ducts—”

“We'll have to put you through the instruction class, Guy,” interrupted Morden. “You'll learn a lot of things there that will put you off detective shockers for the rest of your life.” He looked at his watch. “Now we mustn't keep Mr. Foster any longer. He's got his work to do; and I am devilish hungry.”

Kennedy's expression registered disappointment as he allowed himself to be piloted back through the shop. “What a lot of worthless junk these blighters collect. I suppose you've turned them all over for evidence? Hallo! How the devil did that get here?” He was staring at a canvas begrimed with varnish and dirt.

“It is clever of you to recognize it,” said Morden. “I can't even see what it's supposed to represent.”

“Nor could I until my wife gave me an art lesson. Under that black patch there there's a Dutch village. I had to take that on trust, and so must you. You see these blighters in the foreground: you wouldn't think it, but they are licentious Spanish soldiers come to knock hell out of the virtuous Dutchmen in the village. You see that dull red: that's flames from a burning house, and there in the corner you notice a lady of opulent charms with her clothes half torn off her by the licentious soldiery.”

“Does the picture belong to you?”

“No, it belongs to a friend of ours, Lady Turnham. By Gad! It's an extraordinary coincidence. I meant to speak to you about this picture this very morning, only the murder put it out of my head.”

“You mean it's been stolen, sir?” asked Foster, pricking up his ears.

“Well, yes, I suppose you'd call it stolen. My wife knew a lame dog in the picture line, and with the owner's consent she gave it to him to clean. He tied himself in knots when he saw it and said that it was an old master of the Dutch school and worth God knows what. My wife's protégé has had it for months and she can't get it back. I always told her that he'd pawned the damned thing.”

“That's a criminal offense, sir—illegal pawning. What does he say about it?”

“Oh, always the same thing—that it's getting on nicely; but whenever she asked to see it, he made an excuse and I didn't believe that he had it. I was going to ask you, Morden, what we'd better do about it.”

“In other words you wanted professional advice out of me for nothing.”

“You ought to feel flattered.”

“Will you give me the name and address of the picture cleaner, sir?” said Foster, pulling out his notebook.

“Frank Cronin, Elizabeth Building, King's Cross Road. But I don't want to prosecute him. All I want is the picture. If I can't take it now, I hope you won't let anyone else take it.”

“No, sir, but I shall have to see the man to find out how it got here.”

“Well, then, rub it in and scare him out of his boots—the old rascal—and if you find that he committed the murder, I'll thank Mr. Morden for the sum of one shilling for having solved the mystery. Come along, Morden, and we'll take the edge off your appetite. Good-bye, Inspector. You've taught me more about fingerprints than I ever dreamed of.”

When they had exhausted reminiscences of their old days together and cigars had been lighted, Morden remarked quietly, “What sort of a fellow is your friend, Michael Sharp? I suppose he couldn't have been playing games with the girl he's engaged to when he said that he'd seen his aunt in the street.”

“Good Lord! No. Michael is one of the most shameless truth tellers in the navy—the sort of young man who'd walk up to a post captain and tell him, with due respect of course, that he'd missed a tuft on his chin with his razor. George Washington was a child in the vice of truth-telling compared with Michael. You know the type—the strong, silent man who knows what he's talking about.”

“Of course, in a big crowd, as there is at Marble Arch at six in the evening, it isn't easy to distinguish one woman from another.”

“Ah! You never saw Mrs. Catchpool. She was the grenadier type of old lady, about six foot high and gaunt. You couldn't miss her in a crowd of Londoners.”

“The trouble is that until we see Sharp there's no means of knowing whether he caught her up. The Admiralty must have already been asked to send a wireless to the ship and bring him back.”

“Good! Then he'll be here next week. We can give him a bed in our spare room.” Morden rose. “You're not going yet?”

“I must. Your visit this morning is going to give us a lot more work over this case, and I've got to arrange with the coroner about the inquest.”

“I wish you joy of it. Should I be indiscreet in asking you whether that bevy of talent I listened to in your chief's room this morning are what the papers call the ‘Big Five'?”

“You weren't impressed with them?”

“Indeed I was, but I'd always imagined that the Big Five were pale, studious-looking persons, addicted to drug-taking, and these were hefty-looking specimens that one meets in the street.”

“Yes, because if they were all geniuses like you and the heroes of the novels we should never get anywhere. Crime detection, my dear Guy, is common sense, hard work, and strokes of luck in equal proportions, with a big machine behind them. Now I must go.”

Morden was stopped by the messenger on his way to his room. “Sir William told me to say that he would like to see you as soon as you came in, sir.”

“Any letters or telegrams for me while I've been out?”

“Only what Mr. Beckett is dealing with.”

“Is Sir William alone? Good! Then I'll go straight in.”

“Oh, there you are, Morden,” said his chief. “I had a legal conundrum for you just before lunch, but you were out.”

“Yes, I went up to look at the scene of that Marylebone murder.”

“Anything fresh?”

“No, except that I've started a new line of inquiry, which may come to nothing.”

“Well, I have something new for you in the same case. The executor to the wills of Catchpool and his wife has been in to ask me which of the two died first. He says that Catchpool's estate is worth £80,000 at least, and the wills were so drawn that if the wife died first all the property goes to Herbert Reece, the husband's nephew; but if he died first it will go to the wife's nephew.”

“You mean the naval lieutenant, Sharp?”

“Yes.”

“A nice little case for the Probate Court. There have been quite a lot of precedents. I remember one case in which everything turned upon whether a husband was likely to be a better swimmer than his wife—a case of shipwreck—and the court gave judgment on the presumption that a drowning man would live longer than a drowning woman. But I wish we weren't going to be mixed up in it. I was going to ask the coroner this afternoon to open both inquests and adjourn them to give the police time to get further evidence.”

“The complication is that two of your witnesses are interested parties and are not likely to forget it in the witness box. Reece has been round to the executor already trying to borrow money in advance out of the estate.”

“The deuce he has! His evidence will have to be watched.”

“So will any dealings he may have with the other witnesses.”

“Yes, I remember now a passage in the report of the uniform constable, Richardson, when he went to the shop and first found the body. Reece was with him, and he was the first to suggest that the dead woman entered the shop and died there before his uncle left it. He made no suggestion of murder against his uncle, because at that time they didn't know that she had been murdered.”

“That view was supported by the dead woman's servant, wasn't it?”

“Yes, but, of course, it was only conjecture in both cases. If you approve I'll get on to the coroner myself.”

“Do, but keep on the right side of him. He's a peppery man.”

“I don't think he'll mind when he understands our difficulties. Besides, I think that another week or ten days ought to be enough for our purposes.”

T
HAT EVENING
Joan Summers was dining with the Kennedys at their flat in Sloane Square. She was a pretty girl of twenty, without any of the arid graces that are apt to cluster about the school teachers of maturer years. She looked up in alarm on hearing the bell.

“That's our sleuth,” remarked Guy. “I'm under bond, Nan, that you and I shall keep out of it until he's turned poor Joan inside out.”

“Is he a very terrible person?” asked Joan.

“He's a mild, paternal Scotsman from the northern wilds. He coos at you like a sucking dove.”

“Mr. Foster to see Miss Summers,” announced the parlourmaid.

“Show him into the drawing room.”

“Now, Joan, you've nothing to fear. Just tell him simply what happened. Here, go through that door.” Inspector Foster rose as she came in. “Have I the pleasure of speaking to Miss Joan Summers?” he asked.

“Yes,” faltered Joan.

“Perhaps Lieutenant Kennedy may have told you the object of my visit. On Tuesday evening I think that you were near the Marble Arch with a gentleman named Sharp at a little after six.

“Yes.”

“And you parted from him there?”

“Yes. We were on a bus, and he had to get off at Marble Arch, as he was going to see his aunt in Sussex Gardens.”

“And he got off there?”

“Yes.”

“And he went off in the direction of Sussex Gardens?”

“No; he didn't. Just before the bus stopped, he caught sight of his aunt in the street and tried to point her out to me. ‘I must catch her now,' he said. ‘She may be going out for the evening.' And he jumped off the bus.”

“Which direction did he take?”

“By the time he got off I think that his aunt must have passed us and he followed her.”

“And overtook her?”

“I don't know. The crowd on that pavement where the bus stops is very thick, and you can't see what becomes of people.”

“Yes,” said Foster with a reminiscent eye. “I've often had occasion to notice that myself; but probably you have heard from him?”

Joan Summers blushed. “I have had just a line posted in Devonport, but it said nothing about whether he overtook his aunt or not.”

“You saw the lady yourself?”

“Well, no, I can't say I did. You see, there were hundreds of people on the pavement, and the street lights were dimmed by the fog.”

“She is described as a tall, striking-looking old lady.”

“I know, and I looked hard for her, but I didn't see her.”

“Do you know why Mr. Sharp was so anxious to see her?”

“Well, he was going away next morning to the Mediterranean. She was like a mother to him. It was natural that he should want to see her,”

“To say good-bye to her?”

“No—not exactly to say good-bye. He'd done that already—” She hesitated and then added rather lamely, “He just wanted to see her again.”

Her hesitation was not lost upon Foster. “You mean that when he said good-bye they had not parted quite amicably, or was there some other reason?”

She blushed and hesitated. “As a matter of fact—”

“You were going to say?”

“No—nothing.”

“You were going to say that as a matter of fact he had had words with her when they last met, were you not?”

To that seductive tone Joan could offer no resistance. “Well, if you call it having words. I think there had been some slight dispute between them.”

“Ah! It's very expensive for officers in the navy, with the small pay they get. One doesn't wonder that they have to draw on their relatives sometimes to help them out.” Joan looked unhappy, “I don't know how you knew that it was about money, but I fancy that Mr. Sharp had incurred a few debts and he wanted to get them cleared off.”