Smallbone Deceased (7 page)

“Well, Mr. Bohun,” said Mrs. Magoli, descendant of Florentines, owner of the Rising Sun Restaurant, and Bohun's landlady. “And how are you finding your new office?”

‘Thank you,” said Bohun. “I'm liking it very much.”

“Dry as dust, I expect.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Bohun. “We found a trustee in one of the deed boxes today.”

“Lor!” said Mrs. Magoli, who clearly had no idea what a trustee was. “What will you lawyers get up to next? Now what could you fancy for your afters?”

Bohun inspected the table in the middle of the room which Mrs. Magoli had spread with a fair cloth and covered with a number of dishes, backed by a promising looking wicker-covered flask.

“Ham,” he said. “How on earth do you get ham? I didn't think there was that much ham in London. Pasta schuta. Bread, Butter. Green olives. To add anything else would be sacrilege and profanation—unless you've got a little bit of Carmagnola cheese—”

“I thought that's what you'd be after,” said Mrs. Magoli. “Got some this morning. Shocking price, I don't like to tell you what it cost.”

“Then don't,” said Bohun.

“You'll be the ruin of me,” said Mrs. Magoli complacently.

“Then we will go down together into bankruptcy,” said Bohun, “fortified by the blamelessness of our lives and strengthened by the inspiration of your cooking.”

When Mrs. Magoli had cleared away the last of the dinner, Bohun took a book from the shelves and started to read. He read steadily, reeling in the lines of print with a nice unfettered action. Page after page was turned, until the little clock on the mantelpiece tinkled out eleven: whereupon Bohun closed the book, marking the place with a slip of white paper on which he scribbled a note. Then he got to his feet and looked out of the window, stooping his height a little to get a view of the skyline over the gable opposite.

The sky was clear, and the night warm for mid-April.

Bohun went back into his bedroom and returned carrying an old raincoat, turned out the fire and the light and went quietly downstairs. A few minutes later he was in Holborn, boarding a late bus, going east.

It was half a dozen fare stages beyond Aldgate Pump before he alighted. Thereafter he turned south, toward the river, following his nose.

The public houses were long since closed and the only lights which showed were from one or two little all-night cafes. Bohun seemed to know where he was going. He left even these rare lights behind him as he turned down a side street. He was in the factory and warehouse area now, and the street along which he was walking was lined with heavy double doors, steel-roller covered vanways alternating with hoardings.

After a hundred yards he turned down an alleyway which came to a dead end in an ugly square yellow-brick building. Lights were showing in one or two of the windows and Bohun knocked. The front door was unlocked and he went in without waiting for an answer.

The room into which he turned was some sort of office. A gas fire burned in the grate, and at a table a small bald middle-aged man was seated drinking cocoa out of a large mug.

“Good evening, 'Enery,” said the bald man. His voice declared that he had been born and bred within striking distance of Bow bells. “I thought I reckernized your fairy plates. 'Elp yerself to a cupper.”

“Thanks,” said Henry. “Anything doing tonight?”

“Not tonight, son. You mighter used the blower and saved yerself a journey.”

“That's all right,” said Henry. “I like the exercise. When's the next job coming along?”

“I can fitcher in next week, most probable. Peters need a pair for their new place.”

“Peters—isn't that whiskey?”

“Wines and sperrits.”

“That's apt to be a bit rough, isn't it?” said Bohun. “I'm not
looking
for trouble, you know. A quiet life is all I want.”

“Quiet,” said the little man. “It'll be quiet as a fewer bed. Peters are all right. Very scientific. All the fixings.”

“All right,” said Bohun. “I'll try anything once. Give me a ring nearer the time. How have you been keeping? How are the pigeons?—”

“Pigeons … There's no money left in our fevvered friends—take pigs—”

It was an hour and more before Bohun finally set out again into the night. The last bus had long gone to its garage and the streets were empty. He faced the prospect of the walk with equanimity. Walking in the country bored him, but London he loved, and most of all he loved it at night. The shuttered warehouses, the silent streets of offices. The grave, cloaked policemen, the occasional hunting cat. The death of one day's life.

His long legs carried him steadily westward.

Three o'clock was striking from Lincoln's Inn Chapel when he turned once more into Malvern Rents.

As he turned his key in the door he stopped in some surprise. Ten yards down, opposite the entrance of the narrow passage, he noticed the rear light of a car. This in itself was unusual at that time of night, but it was not all. Looking up from where he stood he saw that there was a light in his room.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Bohun. He shut the shop door quietly and went upstairs.

The thickset man who got up as he came in, said: “I'm sorry to disturb you at such an unorthodox hour, Mr. Bohun. Your landlady gave me permission to make myself at home till you came back.”

He might have been a farmer, with his red face, his heavy build and his hardworn tweed suit. He might have been a soldier in mufti. The hand which he held out to Bohun had the plumping muscles behind the fingers which meant that the owner used his hands as well as his head. The only remarkable thing about this generally unremarkable person was his eyes, which were grey, with the cold grey of the North Sea.

“My name's Hazlerigg,” went on the newcomer. “I'm from Scotland Yard.”

Bohun had recognized the police car and managed not to look too shaken. The next remark, however, did surprise him.

“I believe you knew Bobby Pollock,” said Hazlerigg.

“Lord, yes,” said Bohun. “Won't you sit down? Bobby and I were second loots in the Rum Runners. We were in Africa and Italy together. I heard—didn't he get killed?”

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg. “I had the pleasure of hanging both the responsible parties,” he added.

“I'm glad,” said Bohun. “Bobby was a first-rater. I believe he broke every regulation known to officialdom to get into the army.”

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg. “He told me a lot about you too.”

“Well, I expect you know the worst. About my disability, you mean.”

“I should hesitate to describe para-insomnia as a disability,” said Hazlerigg, “although I know the army regarded it as such.”

“I don't think that anyone really knows very much about it,” said Bohun, “or that's the impression I've got from talking to a number of different doctors.”

“It's true, then, that you never sleep more than two hours a night.”

“Two hours is a good night,” said Bohun. “Ninety minutes is about the average.”

“And you don't suffer any ill effects—excuse me. It's bad taste, I know, asking questions like that, only I was interested when Pollock told me.”

“It doesn't make me feel tired, if that's what you mean,” said Bohun. “It isn't straightforward insomnia, you know-not as the term is usually understood. The only detail on which the medical profession are at all agreed is that some day I may drop down dead in the street. But what day—or what street—they can't say.”

“I can't do better,” said Hazlerigg, “than quote Sergeant Pollock. He said some nice things about you as an infantry officer, then he added, ‘Of course, he was God's gift to the staff. Imagine a G.S.O. who could work indefinitely for twenty-two hours a day!' I gather that an officious M.O. tumbled to it in the end and the net result was that you were boarded out.”

“Once they knew about the para-insomnia I don't think they had any option.”

“I should have thought the most difficult thing was filling in the spare time.”

“Oh, I do a good deal of reading,” said Bohun. “It's useful, too, when I'm taking an exam. And I do a good deal of walking about the streets. And sometimes I get a job.”

“A job?”

“As night watchman. I combined most of my reading for my law finals with a night watchman's job for the Apex Shipping Company. Believe it or not, I was actually reading the sections in Kenny on ‘Robbery with Violence' when I was knocked out by Syd Seligman, the strong-arm man for one of the—”

“I know Syd,” said Inspector Hazlerigg. “I helped to send him down for a seven last month. Well, now—”

“The preliminaries are now concluded,” thought Bohun. “Seconds out of the ring. Time!”

“I've got a proposal to put to you. I don't know if you'll think it's a good one or not—” Shortly he laid before Bohun the idea which he had already put to the Assistant Commissioner and the facts on which it was based.

“We might as well face it at once,” he went on. “Almost the only person who could and would have killed Smallbone is your late senior partner, Abel Horniman. If you're inclined to look anywhere else for a likely candidate just ask yourself how anyone else could have got the body into the room unobserved, and opened the box—of which only Abel had the key. For Abel himself, the box was the obvious place to put a body. He knew he was dying. He only needed a few weeks' grace—a few months at the most. But for anyone else, the idea was madness.”

“Yes,” said Bohun. “Of course. When you put it like that it seems obvious enough … But why?”

“That's where you come in,” said Hazlerigg. “Again, we'll start with the obvious solution. You'd be surprised how often it's the right one. Abel Horniman and Marcus Smallbone were fellow trustees. I don't understand all the ins and outs of it, but I realize this much. They had joint control of a very large sum of money. It might be more accurate to say that Horniman had control of it. He was the professional. One would expect Smallbone to do what he was told-sign on the dotted line and so on.”

“I don't think,” said Bohun slowly, “that Smallbone was quite that sort of man.”

“I don't expect he was,” said Hazlerigg. “That's why he's dead, you know. It's so obvious that it must be so. Some swindle was going on. I don't mean that it was an easy swindle or an obvious swindle. Nothing that an outsider could spot. But Smallbone wasn't an outsider. The thing had to be put to him—to a limited extent. And lie just happened to spot the rabbit in the conjurer's hat.”

“So the conjurer popped him into his disappearing cabinet.”

“Yes. Think of Horniman's position. Think of the temptation. On the one hand, disgrace, the breaking down of a life's work—probably jail. On the other hand—he could ‘die respected,' as the Scots say. Once he was dead it wouldn't matter. It was so easy. Into the box with the body, lose the key, sit tight. Even if it went wrong, what matter. The hangman would have to get the deuce of a move on if he wanted to race the angina. How many people, I wonder, would commit murder if they knew they were going to die anyway. And Smallbone was such an unimportant, such an insignificant creature. How dared he imperil the great Horniman tradition, cast doubts on the Horniman legend, besmear the great Horniman name. No, no. Into the box with him.”

“I see,” said Bohun. “How are you going to prove all this?”

“That's it,” said Hazlerigg “We shall have to find out what's wrong with this trust.”

“Well,” said Bohun, “I expect I could help you if you're keen on the idea. But surely an accountant or an auditor could do it better than me. It'll just be routine.”

“I wonder.” Hazlerigg suddenly got up. He strolled across to the window. The first light of dawn was coming up. The roofs opposite showed blacker against the faintest greying of the dark.

“It may not be as simple as all that,” he said. “Anyway, I'd like your help if I may have it.”

“Of course,” said Bohun.

“And then again, we've always got to face the possibility that it may not have been Abel Horniman. That is going to open up quite a wide field of speculation.”

“List Two,” said Bohun.

“Ah! You've seen the testament according to Colley. I'm afraid his classification may not be as exhaustive as it seems—”

“You mean, someone who came after?—”

“On the contrary—someone who was there, but has now left.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I suppose that's possible,” said Bohun slowly. “I hadn't thought of it. I had no predecessor. My typist, Mrs. Porter, came when I did: I mean, she didn't replace anyone. The Common Law clerk, Mr. Prince, took the place of another old boy who'd been umpteen years with the firm. But he—the other one, I mean—left months ago. Just after Christmas. I believe they had some trouble over finding a replacement. You don't get Common Law clerks easily. Then there's the cashier—we had a cashier, before, a Mr. Clark—he's well in the running, I suppose. He only left three weeks ago.”

“Colley mentions him in his report,” said Hazlerigg. “But he's out for another reason. He couldn't have done it, he was a last war casualty. He only had one hand.”

“And why does that mean he couldn't have killed Smallbone?” said Bohun quietly.

“I quite forgot,” said Hazlerigg. “You don't know how he was killed.”

“I don't,” said Bohun steadily, “and I suggest,” he added, “that if you're going to trust me you don't set traps for me.”

Hazlerigg had the grace to blush. “Just second nature,” he said, and added: “No. It would have been quite impossible. Smallbone was strangled with picture wire. Definitely a two-handed job.”

Chapter Five

… Thursday …

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE

How matter presses on me! What stubborn things are facts

Hazlitt:
Table Talk

Hazlerigg found Gissel, the police photographer and fingerprint man. at work in Bob Horniman's office.

“I've done jobs in junk shops, in lost property offices, in warehouses and in the mistresses' common room at a girls' public school,” said Gissel, “But never before in my life have I seen one room with quite so much
stuff in
it.”

“Then thank your lucky stars that you're in a Horniman office,” said Hazlerigg, looking round at the rows of black boxes, the neat files and the orderly assemblage of folders. “This is child's play to what you'd find in the office of an ordinary uninhibited solicitor, really it is.”

“It's all these books,” said Gissel. “In open shelves, too. Anyone might have touched them or brushed against them. They don't look as if they've ever been read.” He picked one down and blew a cloud of black dust off the top. “
Queen's Bench,
1860. Who in Hades would be interested where the Queen put her bottom in 1860?”

Hazlerigg said thoughtfully: “We shan't be able to let young Horniman come back here until we've finished, and that looks as if it may take a bit of time. I think I'd better use this room myself for working in. You've done the desk, I take it?”

First came the senior partner, Mr. Birley. In an interview of limited usefulness the most that could be said was that both sides managed to keep their tempers.

It irritated Mr. Birley to see a stranger behind one of his partners' desks: it irritated him to have to sit himself in the client's chair: it irritated him unspeakably to have to answer questions instead of asking them.

After fifteen unhelpful minutes Hazlerigg dismissed him and asked for a word with the second partner.

The tubby Mr. Craine was more obliging.

“Ichabod Stokes,” he said, “was a Presbyterian fishmonger. He was one of Abel's oldest clients.” Seeing a slight look of surprise on the inspector's face, he added: “I don't say that he was the sort of client we should have taken on nowadays, but when Abel was starting, way back before the turn of the century, well, he was like every other young solicitor—to him a client was a client. And I don't think either of them regretted their association. Ichabod, you know, was one of those men who really understand money. He started with one fish shop in Commercial Road, and when he died he owned almost a quarter of the East Coast fishing fleet.”

“When was that?” Hazlerigg was making an occasional note in his amateur shorthand: notes which would later be expanded into the journal of the case.

“Ichabod died—now let me see—at Munich time, autumn, 1938. He left a will appointing Abel Horniman and Marcus Smallbone executors and trustees. Why Smallbone? God knows. He and Smallbone had a common passion for collecting pottery, and had met at one or two sales, and struck up some sort of acquaintanceship. And I believe they used to write long letters to each other about ceramics and what-have-you, though between you and me,” said Mr. Craine, with that cheerful vulgarity which is often a characteristic of tubby extroverts, “I don't think Stokes really knew the difference between the Portland Vase and a piss pot—or that was the impression I got when I had to put his collection on the market after his death. However, that's by the way. The whole estate, as I said, was left to his trustees on trust for a dozen charities. There was no disputing the will—they were very sound and sensible charities; mostly to do with fish. The Herringfleet Homes and the Destitute Drifters and so on. He nominated them himself, got us to make certain that they were charities, and had 'em listed, by name, in his will—and if every testator took those simple precautions,” concluded Mr. Craine with feeling – for he, like others of his profession, had suffered from the decision in
re
Diplock – “the lawyer's lot would be a very much happier and a very much easier one.”

“So now,” said Hazlerigg, “all you have to do is to divide the income among these charities?”

“In theory, that is so. In fact, there's more to it than that. Of course, when Ichabod died his estate consisted of a lot of different things. There was real property—he bought a number of farms cheap at the time of the 1931 slump—and there were the assets and the goodwill of his various businesses, which had to be valued and paid out. However, you can take it that by now everything has been realized and invested in securities. In round figures, Ichabod added up to nearly a million pounds. When the death duties had been paid we salvaged just over half a million—and we worked like dogs to keep that much.” Mr. Craine spoke with genuine feeling. This was one aspect of his work which genuinely appealed to him. Sometimes, indeed, he went so far as to visualize himself as an archangel, a rotund St. Michael, armed with the sword of Dymond and defended by the shield of Green, protecting the helpless from the assault of the massed powers of darkness, those archfiends, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.

“Half a million,” said Hazlerigg. “And all invested. It will just be a matter of checking the stocks and shares, I take it.”

“There again,” said Mr. Craine, “in theory, yes. In fact, no. I don't know how much you understand about these things, but a lot depends in any particular trust on the investment clause. It's much easier, in a way, if you are limited to trustee securities. That's dull, but fairly straightforward. In this case, we had wider powers. Not absolutely discretionary, but almost so. That meant that we had to keep the fund in the best possible state of investment compatible with security—stop me if I'm confusing you.”

“You are being very clear,” said Hazlerigg. “Please go on.”

“Well, that was Abel's job—and, if I may say so, he earned his professional retainer a dozen times over. He knew the stock market as well as any broker, and he bought and sold to meet the demands of the day. That's why it isn't possible, without looking through all the recent files and folders, to say exactly what the trust fund
ought
to consist of. I can tell you what it
does
consist of. I'm having Sergeant Cockerill make a list of the securities at this moment. But most of the accounts which would have told me what it ought to have been—the history of the various investments, as it were—they were in that box.”

“I see,” said Hazlerigg. “Does that mean that you'll never know—?”

“Oh, no. We'll find out,” said Mr. Craine. “It'll just take a little time, that's all.”

“I see. Let me know what the answer is, please, as soon as you get it.” Hazlerigg thought for a minute and then said: “If Abel Horniman had been embezzling funds, do you think he would have taken them from this trust, or some other one?”

He was watching Mr. Craine as he said this, and found more interest in his reactions than in the actual words of his reply.

One thing was quite evident. Mr. Craine was neither surprised nor shocked at the suggestion. On the contrary, he was plainly very interested in it.

“Yes,” he said at last. “Yes.
If he
had embezzled money I think this was the trust he would have gone to.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Tell me first.” Mr. Craine looked the chief inspector shrewdly in the eye. “Have you any reason for your question—any grounds for your supposition?”

“None at all,” said Hazlerigg. “The case was purely hypothetical.”

“On those grounds, then,” said Mr. Craine, “I'll answer it. As a hypothesis only. The Stokes Trust would have been a suitable vehicle for fraud for several reasons. First, because the only other trustee was a layman. Secondly, because the funds were all here, and under our effective control. They had to be. As I explained, Abel was constantly buying and selling; so no question would be asked. Thirdly, the beneficiaries were all charities. The secretary of a charity is, on the whole, so glad to see his annual check that he doesn't usually question its amount very closely. If he was told that all the investments in the trust were showing lower yields, or that some income was being put back for administrative reasons, he would probably accept the explanation without further question—far more readily, anyway, than a private beneficiary whose own pocket was being touched.”

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg. “I see. Thank you. You've been very frank. You'll tell me at once if anything
is
wrong with the trust fund. In the meantime, perhaps you would ask Mr. Bohun to step along.”

II

Meanwhile, Detective-Sergeant Plumptree had made his way out to Belsize Park and was interrogating Mrs. Tasker. Sergeant Plumptree was a pink-and-white young man, with the well-scoured look of one who has but recently emerged from his mother's washtub. His methods were unorthodox and some of the results which he achieved surprised even himself.

“Young man,” said Mrs. Tasker, “pour yourself out a second cup of tea, do, and be guided by me. Never take in lodgers. Go to the poor-house, go to prison, commit arson, larceny and what you like, but never take in lodgers.”

“What—” began Sergeant Plumptree.

“Take this Mr. Smallbone. A quiet man. An inoffensive man. A good payer. Never should I have thought that by his deeds he would have brought anxiety to my bosom and police into my house—the sugar's behind the clock. Five years ago he came here to lodge. Put down six months' rent on the table, the one we're sitting at at this moment, and said to me. ‘Mrs. Tasker, I'm a rolling stone. I gather no moss. But somewhere I must have to lay my head.' ‘The first floor front pair's vacant,' I said, ‘and use of the ring at the back for cooking.' That's all that passed between us, if I go to my Maker tonight.”

“Which—” said Sergeant Plumptree.

“It wasn't as if he didn't warn me straight out. ‘I'm a collector, Mrs. Tasker,' he said. ‘Pots and pans there'll be in my room aplenty. And if it's extra trouble for you to dust we'll come to an understanding. And another thing he said: ‘I'll come and go as I like.' And so he did. ‘Expect me when you see me.' That was the rule. Last year he was in Italy, at his house in Florence. The address is on his card. You can see it for yourself. Three months he was away, and one morning back he came, without a word, with a carpetbag full of flower pots.”

“How—” persevered Sergeant Plumptree.

“And then this February he goes away again. The twelfth of February. I've marked it in the rent book—see, Friday the twelfth of February ‘I'm going down to Kent,' he said. I didn't catch the name. Stanton, I thought he said. It may have been Stancomb.”

“I thought—” said Sergeant Plumptree.

“I know what you're going to say,” said Mrs. Tasker. “But wait. He went away on the Friday. ‘I'm going down to Kent,' he said. ‘And if I find what I'm looking for, that'll be the beginning of great things, Mrs. Tasker. Great things. I'll be back tonight.' he said.”

“And he never came back?”

“Certainly he did. That night, as he said. Then the next day he went out again. No luggage. Nothing. That was always his way. ‘Ah,' I thought. ‘He'll be off to Italy. He's found what he's looking for.' And when one week went by and then another, I knew I was right.”

“You knew he—?”

“I knew he was in Italy, where he is now,” concluded Mrs. Tasker triumphantly. “Enjoying the hot weather.”

With a discretion beyond his years Sergeant Plumptree refrained from any comment on this interesting speculation.

III

“It's the question of access which is worrying me,” said Hazlerigg, “and that's the sort of thing where you can help.”

“Access to what?” asked Bohun.

“Access to that deed box in which we found the body,” said Hazlerigg. He added as an afterthought: “Access to this room, access to the office building, access to Lincoln's Inn.”

“Well,” said Bohun. “Anyone can get into any of the public parts of Lincoln's Inn at any time by day. If you came in very late or very early—or on Saturday afternoon or Sunday—then you'd probably be noticed.”

“Particularly if you were a prominent resident like Abel Horniman.”

“Yes. The porters certainly knew him by sight. At any time during office hours you can get into the Inn by at least six routes and there's no check of any sort.”

“Right,” said Hazlerigg. “Now the office.”

“That's more difficult,” said Bohun. “I haven't been here long, and perhaps this week hasn't been exactly a typical one, but I really have been surprised at the number of people who wander through these offices without question. Not only the staff, but outsiders, too. On our side of the office we've got the reception room—where the junior typists sit. All visitors to the office are supposed to look in there first—clients, messengers, clerks from other offices, people examining deeds, people selling office accessories, and even the friends and relatives of the staff. The other side is a bit more select. There are only these three partners' offices and the partners' secretaries' room. But even so, a lot of people who know the ropes short-circuit the system by going straight in to see the secretary of the partner they're interested in—or to bring messages—or collect mail—or wind up the clocks, or spray the telephones or clean the typewriters.”

“In short,” said Hazlerigg, “anyone who looked as if they had some business to transact could walk into either side of the office during business hours whenever they liked without anyone stopping them, and probably without anyone noticing them. After business hours no one could get into the Inn without a strong probability of being noticed—or into the offices?”

“Certainly not into the offices,” said Bohun. “Sergeant Cockerill locks the two doors at night. He leaves about seven. He's the last to go.”