Smallbone Deceased (6 page)

“Well, I'm sure,” she said. “There's no need to be unpleasant. I was only having a joke.”

“So was I,” said Miss Mildmay.

There was silence for some time after this, broken only by the flagellation of three typewriters.

Miss Chittering, however, was not a person who was able to keep silent for very long. It was perhaps unfortunate that she had to address all her remarks to Anne, since she was still not on speaking terms with Miss Cornel owing to certain heresies on the subject of genuine crocodile dressing cases.

“Poor Mr. Horniman,” she said. “I think he's getting thinner every day. Worry, that's what it is.”

“What's he got to worry about?” said Anne.

“Well, I expect it's all the new work—and the responsibility.”

“He gets paid for it.”

“And the hours he works. He's always here last thing at night.”

“It won't kill him.” Anne sounded so unnecessarily bitter that Miss Cornel looked up curiously.

“He says the strangest things, too.”

“Like ‘O.B.E., Esquire,'” suggested Miss Cornel unkindly from her corner. Fortunately, before any further hostilities could be provoked, the signal bell gave a buzz. Miss Cornel collected her shorthand notebook and went out.

“Some people,” announced Miss Chittering to no one in particular, “think that because they've been here a long time they can say anything they like.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Anne. “How many r's in referred?”

The typewriters resumed their clatter.

Meanwhile in Bob Horniman's room he and Miss Cornel were looking rather hopelessly at a large black deed box labelled “Ichabod Stokes.”

“He can't have
lost
the key,” said Miss Cornel. “He kept them all together on one ring. Let me have another look. Consequential, Marquis of Curragh, Lady Burberry, General Pugh—he always kept twelve boxes on this rack and six more under the bookshelf. That's eighteen.” She counted the keys again. “You're quite right,” she said. “There are only seventeen keys here. Stokes is missing—”

“First the trustee, then the key,” groaned Bob. “I knew it. I knew it. The next thing we shall find is that half the securities are gone.”

Miss Cornel looked at him sharply. “The securities aren't kept in here,” she said. “They're with Sergeant Cockerill in the strong room. There's nothing in this box but old files and papers and trust accounts.”

“I know,” said Bob, “but how am I to start checking up the securities unless I can get hold of the last set of trust accounts? Hasn't Cockerill got a key?”

Miss Cornel thought for a moment. “There was a master key with each set,” she said. “When your father had these new deed boxes put in, they came in sets. There was a master key with each one, and it was a good thing there was—they were always losing single keys—not your father, he was very careful, but the others—”

“As a matter of fact, I don't think Mr. Craine ever keeps his boxes locked at all,” said Bob. “Do you think his master key would fit this lock?”

“I know it wouldn't,” said Miss Cornel, “because about five years ago your father lost
his
master key, and I remember we had to have another one made. It took months.”

“Well, we don't want to go through all that if we can help it,” said Bob. “Ask Sergeant Cockerill to come up here for a minute.”

Sergeant Cockerill, summoned from the basement, denied any knowledge of master keys.

“All the other keys I've got,” he said. “Strong room, lockers, doors, inside doors and outside doors. But not boxes. The partners look after them.” He spoke rather resentfully.

“I suppose we shall have to get through to the firm that made the boxes,” said Bob. “But, heavens, that'll take weeks, and goodness knows where Mr. Smallbone will have got to by then.”

“I might be able to get a copy of the trust accounts from the auditors,” suggested Miss Cornel. “We could at least start to check the securities. After all,” she added, with considerable logic but a curious lack of conviction, “what's all the fuss about, we don't
know
that there's anything wrong with this trust.”

“Excuse me,” said Sergeant Cockerill suddenly. “But do I understand that all you're wanting is to open this box?”

“That's right.”

“And it's important?”

“Well,” said Bob, rather helplessly. “We don't really know. Until we open the box we can't tell whether it's important to open it or not—if you see what I mean.”

“Well, if that's all,” said the sergeant, “I'll have her open in half of no time.”

“Don't tell me,” said Miss Cornel in a thrilled tone of voice, “that you're a retired burglar. One of those people who open locks with a little bent bit of wire.”

“Never you believe it,” said Sergeant Cockerill. “There's no lock with a spring inside it worth the name was ever opened with bent wire. That's a thing you see on the films—it's not real—” He went away and came back with an ordinary heavy ball and plane hammer.

“Put her up on the window seat where I can get at her,” he said.

“Let me give you a hand,” said Bob. “It's mighty heavy-up she comes … Yes, what is it, Miss Bellbas?”

“Could you sign this receipt for Mr. Duxford, sir?”

“In a minute,” said Bob. “Hold her steady.”

Sergeant Cockerill took a careful sight down his hammer, swung it up, and brought it down fair and square on the circular brass lock.

IV

The senses sometimes record events in an illogical order. The first thing that Henry Bohun noticed as he came out of his room was that someone had been sick.

Then he saw Sergeant Cockerill, who said in his curiously gentle voice: “Look out you don't tread in it, sir—it's Miss Bellbas. I'm fetching something to clear it up.”

Then his ears insisted that someone was screaming; had been screaming for some seconds.

He pushed past the sergeant and through the door of Bob Horniman's room. Here his nose took charge. Three years of active service had taught him the sweet, throat-catching smell of corrupted flesh.

He saw Bob, white to the lips, standing beside his desk, and Miss Cornel, the corners of her mouth drawn into a pucker.

“What's happened?” he said sharply.

“It's in that box,” It was Bob who spoke. “We've just found him. For God's sake, someone, stop that girl screaming.”

Henry went quickly out of the slaughterhouse stench, and found Miss Bellbas sitting on a chair inside the secretaries' office.

Most of the other members of the staff seemed to be crowding round her.

“Give her room,” he said with unconscious authority. “Stand back.”

He placed himself in front of her and gave her a swinging smack on the face with his open palm.

Miss Bellbas stopped screaming.

Then she opened her mouth and observed conversationally: “It's the voice of the stars. You remember what they said. ‘Things will open up surprisingly about the middle of the week.'”

Chapter Four

… Wednesday Evening …

A CONTRACT IS ENTERED INTO

A contract is sometimes described as being
uberrimae fidei.
This is not a term which has ever received exclusive definition but it signifies that the contract is one of those – a contract of insurance is the commonest example – in which both parties are under an obligation to make the fullest disclosure of a relevant circumstance.

“Blast!” said the Assistant Commissioner.

“Yes, sir,” said Chief Inspector Hazlerigg.

“It's damned inconvenient.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I particularly don't want to take you off your regular work” – he meant Inspector Hazlerigg's permanent Black Market assignment – “but I don't see what I can do. With Aspinall and Hervey in Lancashire looking for that damned maniac and Cass in Paris; and now Pannel has to go and crock himself.”

“I expect I can manage it, sir. Pickup can do my job here—” But there was more to be said, and both men knew it.

“Look here,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “I think I'd better give you a quick outline, and then you'll see how-well, never mind that. I won't start by prejudicing you. Now. At eleven o'clock this morning a partner in this firm of solicitors—what's their name?—Horniman, Birley and Craine, opened one of their deed boxes. The box was supposed to contain papers relating to a trust. What they found in it was one of the trustees. Name of Smallbone—Marcus Smallbone—very dead.”

He paused: then added inconsequentially: “The late senior partner in that firm was Abel Horniman. Friend of the Commissioner.”

“Wasn't he the chairman of a committee on Criminal Law Revision?”

“That's the man. Quite a leading light in the Law Society, and between you and me pretty widely tipped for the next Honours List. His name was a big one in legal circles and he was beginning” – the Assistant Commissioner, though he didn't know it, was here paraphrasing Mr. Birley – “he was beginning to be a bit of a public figure, too.”

“But if he's dead, sir,” said Hazlerigg cautiously, “I can't quite see how—”

“He died about four weeks ago,” said the Assistant Commissioner, “of angina. He'd been ill for some time. I think it would be fair to say that he knew he was booked. His doctor had told him as much.”

“I see, sir.”

“Our pathologist's first opinion,” went on the Assistant Commissioner, with elaborate casualness, “is that Smallbone had been dead for at least six weeks-possibly eight-maybe ten.”

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg. “Yes, I see.”

“Abel Horniman and Marcus Smallbone were fellow trustees—the only trustees—of a very big affair—the Ichabod Stokes Trust. That's an obvious line on the thing, of course. It's almost the only direct connection between the two men.”

“And is this trust—I don't know the proper legal word—is it in order?”

“That's one of the things you'll have to find out. Colley—he's the D.D.I—I'll give you his full report in a minute—asked them about it. Apparently it isn't just as easy as all that. One of the difficulties is that all the papers which might have helped should have been in that deed box—”

“And they were all gone?”

“Every one of them. Good Lord, as it was, there was hardly an inch of room to spare. If Smallbone hadn't have been quite unusually small and slight his body would never have gone in at all.”

“Ten weeks,” said Hazlerigg. “I should have thought they'd have begun to notice him by that time.”

“In the ordinary way, yes,” agreed the Assistant Commissioner. “But these were special boxes, as you'll see. A rubber sealing band round the edge and a compressor lid.”

“Rather unusual, sir,” said Hazlerigg. “Whose idea were they?”

“Abel Horniman's.”

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg again. He was already beginning to see the outlines of a simple but unsatisfactory affair with a lot of work and not much kudos. He also realized why the case had been handed to him. The implied compliment added only a little to its attractions.

Another thought struck him.

“What room was this in?”

“Young Horniman's—that's the son. He's taken his father's place in the firm.”

“And his father's room, I suppose.”

“Yes. I've got the first pictures here.” He opened a folder. “The deed box was kept on a shelf under the window—there—you can see the space it came out of.”

“I take it it was locked.”

“Yes—that was one of the things. They couldn't find the key. The box was actually opened in the end by their commissionaire. He ‘sprung' the lock with a hammer, and the lid flew open. Must have been quite a moment.”

Hazlerigg was studying one or two of the reports. Something seemed to have puzzled him. He looked through the photographs again and selected one gruesome close up which showed the body of Marcus Smallbone as it had lain packed in its metal coffin.

Then he looked again at the statement.

“I can't quite make out from this,” he said, “who actually identified the body first?”

“I thought it was young Horniman.”

“Not from what it says here. Horniman says that the first time Smallbone's name was actually mentioned was when Miss Bellbas—she's one of the typists, I gather—ran out of the room screaming ‘It's Mr. Smallbone' and something about the stars foretelling it. Miss Bellbas denies it. She says she had never seen Mr. Smallbone when he was alive so how could she have recognized him when he was dead. Miss Cornel, one of the secretaries, says that she thought Bob Horniman mentioned the name first. Sergeant Cockerill says. No. He doesn't think anyone actually mentioned the name, but there had been so much speculation about Smallbone's disappearance that he, for his part, assumed at once that the body must be his.”

“Sounds plausible,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “Why are you making a special point of it …?”

“Well, sir” – Hazlerigg pointed to the photograph – “you see how the body was lying. The face was pushed right down on to the chest. Then again, after eight or ten weeks, I shouldn't have imagined that anyone could say with certainty—”

“Yes. There may be something there. Bland did the autopsy. Have a word with him and see what he says. Incidentally, I can set your mind at rest on one point. There's no doubt it was Smallbone. We've got very good prints which match up a dozen test samples from his lodgings. The man was a sort of pottery collector, bless him, and has left hundreds of beautiful prints. Colley will tell you about that.”

“Right,” said Hazlerigg. He replaced the photographs and gathered the typewritten sheets of Divisional Detective-Inspector Colley's report, patting them into a neat bundle, then rose to go.

“There
is
one thing,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “You may need a bit of expert help. It doesn't need me to point out to you that there is an obvious line here, and the obvious line is often the right line. On the face of it, there's only one man who could have done this job. And his motive, when you get to it, is almost certain to be tied up in some legal jiggery-pokery. That's the logical supposition, anyway. Now would you like me to lend you one of our legal fellows to help you? Just say the word—”

Hazlerigg hesitated. The offer, he knew, was helpfully meant: and yet it had a faint suggestion of dual control which was hateful. However, it was no doubt the sensible course and he had actually opened his mouth to say “Yes” when his eye caught a name on the top of the typescript report.

“May I take it that the offer will be kept open?” he said. “I'd like to start this in the ordinary routine way. I may find myself out of my depth. Quite likely I shall. If so—”

“Certainly,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “Just say the word. By the way,” he added shrewdly, “what was it on that paper that made you change your mind?”

Hazlerigg smiled.

“I saw a name I recognized,” he said. “Here—in the list of recent arrivals at the office.”

“Henry Winegarden Bohun,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “Never heard of him. What is he?”

“Presumably he is a solicitor. He was a statistician. Before that, I believe, an actuary. And at one time almost a doctor.”

“I don't believe,” said the Assistant Commissioner, “that any normal man could find the time to train for all those professions.”

“Quite so, sir,” said the chief inspector. “No normal man could. Bohun's not normal. I'll tell you how I know about him. He happened to be in the same battalion as Sergeant Pollock—you may remember him—”

“The man the Garret crowd killed. He worked with you, didn't he?”

“Yes. Well, he was a friend of Bohun's. They were in the same company in North Africa. He told me about Bohun's peculiarity. If this is the same chap—and heaven knows it's not a common name—then he might be useful. Particularly if we can be certain that he wasn't involved—I'll check on that first, of course.”

“A friend in the enemy's camp,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “It's quite a good idea. Only for heaven's sake don't be like that mug in the detective story who confides all his best ideas to a friendly sort of character who turns out to be the murderer in Chapter Sixteen.”

II

Bohun was one of the first to leave the office that evening. In view of the fact that he had only joined the firm two days before, and had had no previous ascertainable connection with any member of it, if we except a very distant schoolboy acquaintanceship with Bob Horniman, he had occupied only a few minutes of Inspector Colley's time.

In common with all the other members of the staff he had had his fingerprints taken.

This was typical of Inspector Colley, who was elderly, soured by lack of promotion, and extremely methodical. He knew the necessary moves to a hair, and made them all. His reports were models of conciseness and monuments to a staggering lack of imagination.

However, he was a worker.

In the short time at his disposal he had taken statements from everyone in the office, set his photographers in motion, commissioned a detailed drawing of Bob Horniman's room and an outline sketch of the whole office, set his fingerprint men to work on the room, its walls, its door, its fittings, its approaches and its very varied contents; had taken check sets of prints from ail other members of the staff; had dispatched a man to Smallbone's lodging to obtain prints from there, together with a check set from his landlady; had, in due course, sanctioned the removal of the body for pathological examination; and on the strength of the doctor's preliminary report had divided the personnel into two lists. List One, those who had been with the firm less than a month: Mr. Bohun, Mr. Prince, Mr. Waugh (the cashier), Mrs. Porter and Mr. Flower. Mr. Flower, it might be explained, was none other than Charlie the office boy. He kept his surname a secret in the office, having suffered from it at school. List Two, the remainder.

He had also contrived to make everyone on both lists feel thoroughly uncomfortable.

“It's not what he says or does,” as Miss Cornel observed to Anne Mildmay; “it's his general frightful air of ‘You're all presumed guilty until you're proved innocent.'”

Bohun walked quietly home in the dusk, across New Square.

He was thinking of the extraordinary events of the day. He was thinking that shock revealed the oddest traits and flaws in the human character. He was thinking that he was glad he was on List One.

He stepped into Malvern Rents, which is a passage off a turning off Chancery Lane, and turned in at the Rising Sun Restaurant, which, in spite of its pretentious name, was a tiny eating house, the total furnishing of which consisted of four small tables, a few chairs and a wooden counter with an urn on it. The room, as was usual at this hour of the day, was empty. Bohun paused for a moment at the half-open door behind the counter to shout: “I'm back.”

A muffled echo from the depths seemed to amount to some sort of acknowledgment.

He then pushed on through the second doorway, covered by an army blanket, up two flights of the narrow stairs and through a second door. He was home.

It was an unexpected room to find in such a house. Originally, no doubt, it had been a large loft or storeroom, belonging perhaps to some scrivener at a time when the focus of the legal world had centered on the east rather than the west of Chancery Lane. It was a big room – quite thirty feet long and about half as wide, and looking surprisingly attractive with its grey fitted carpet, its stripped wooden walls and its carefully arranged lighting. The wall on the right as you came in from the landing, the inner of the long walls, was all books, covered with books, from floor to ceiling and from end to end. There was nothing esoteric about them, no tall folios, no first editions swathed in wash leather”; – rather the well – handled tools of a reading man's trade. Poets, essayists, historians, sets of novels, textbooks, even school books, there must have been more than a thousand of them.

Two formal steel engravings of battle scenes filled the space between the tiny uncurtained windows of the long outer wall. At the far end of the room stood a large electric log fire (there was, of course, no fireplace). Over it hung a portrait in oils of a severe-looking lady. In front of it stood a single leather arm chair.

Bohun whistled softly to himself as he walked through the room and disappeared into the small annex which dropped off it and which was his sleeping quarters.

When he reappeared he was dressed in corduroy trousers and a khaki shirt, and had a white muffler round his neck. With his plain, serious, rather white face, he looked like some mechanic with a bent for self-improvement, a student of Kant and Schopenhauer, who tended his lathe by day and sharpened his wits of an evening on dead dialecticians.