Richardson's First Case, page 6
“You admit having sold it, then?”
“Yes, sir, they told me that the old man who kept the shop had an eye for a good picture and would pay a fair price for it and that he asked no questions. He took it, but he didn’t pay anything like a fair price. I meant, of course, to buy it back from him as soon as I’d got the money for my other work. There was no criminal intention.”
“That will be a matter for the court, not for me. Did you sell the old man any other pictures?”
“No, sir, that I can swear.”
“What was the date when you sold this one?”
“Well, sir, I don’t keep a diary; it was some weeks ago.”
“Try to remember. Was it three months ago?”
“Oh, not as long as that, sir.”
“Two months? One month?”
“I should think it was between four and eight weeks ago, but I couldn’t swear even to that.”
“Do you often go down High Street?”
Cronin was seized with another fit of shivering; Foster ascribed it to his recent potations, of which the room reeked. “I went down there once, sir, and saw the picture exposed in the window.”
“Tell me how lately you have been down to that shop. When was the last time?”
The old man began to cry; it was a pitiful sight. The idea crossed Foster’s mind that possibly this wretched creature had been concerned in the tragedy, but looking at him now he felt sure that such a human wreck could not have killed a fly, let alone a tall, vigorous woman. The creature filled him with pitying disgust.
“Are you going to arrest me, sir?”
“Not this evening: it all depends upon whether the owner of the picture signs an information against you.”
“I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself. I owe a great deal to that lady. Indeed, I owe my livelihood to her; it was she who got me some of these commissions. She trusted me, and now she knows what I am. When I think of my ingratitude, I’d rather go to prison.”
“As I said, it’s not come to that yet, but I may have to see you again. You mustn’t change your address without letting me know at the Marylebone police station, and if you’ll take the advice of a man who can speak with knowledge, you’ll take a pull on yourself and not touch another drop of liquor.” Foster rose to go. He longed to breathe the comparatively pure air of the King’s Cross Road. As he was going out, his eye rested on the parcel propped against the wall near the door. It caught the light from the naked kerosene lamp, and he saw that it was tied up with little lengths of string of unequal thickness knotted together—just the same kind of string as they had found on the floor of Catchpool’s antique shop in Marylebone High Street. That set him thinking: it seemed certain now that he would have to see the artist again.
Chapter Six
THE CORONER had fallen in with the suggestion that he should open the inquest and adjourn it. Evidence of identity was all that he required, and one witness, the nephew, Herbert Reece, could provide that. He proved to be an excellent witness; the formalities of the law restrained his natural loquacity. Inspector Foster was favourably impressed by the conciseness of his replies and the tone of blended sorrow and respect with which he spoke of the two dead people. The press was present in force, but the coroner was not disposed to satisfy their thirst for a sensation; medical evidence was called to show that Mrs. Catchpool had died from shock consequent upon having been seized violently by the throat, and the coroner then adjourned the inquest with an intimation that the police were pursuing their inquiries.
As Inspector Foster was leaving the court, he was overtaken by Herbert Reece. “Excuse me, Mr. Foster, I want to ask your advice. I have been trying to get some sense into the head of the executor to my uncle’s will; now that the first part of the inquest is concluded, surely he ought to read the will or tell me its contents. Besides, I have to arrange about the funerals and I want to do them in some style; surely the executor ought to advance money out of the estate for the funeral expenses. Is he entitled to put the brake on like this?”
“I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong person, Mr. Reece, I’m not a lawyer.’’
“No, of course you’re not, but in a simple matter like this I don’t want to run to the expense of a solicitor.”
“Well, sir, it’s quite outside my province. If you think the police are in a position to help you, I should advise you to go down to the Yard and ask to see Mr. Beckett, the chief constable.”
“Thank you; that’s a very good suggestion. I’ll go at once.”
When Beckett read the name on the interview form, he had the visitor shown in, for he remembered that this was the man who could throw more light on the Catchpool case than anyone else. He received him with grim civility and invited him to sit down. “You are, I think, the nephew of Mr. and Mrs. Catchpool, on whom the inquest was held this morning. What can I do for you?”
“You can do a great deal for me, sir, if you will. I can’t bear to think of my uncle and aunt being given pauper funerals. I’m the nearest relative, and it’s my duty to have their funerals done in style, but I’m a poor man and I cannot get any sense out of my uncle’s executor. Surely he ought to provide the money out of the estate.”
“If your uncle left a will, that was probably included. Have you seen him about it?”
“I’ve been to see him every day—not perhaps about the funeral expenses, but about advancing me something out of the estate. But not a bit of it: he won’t budge. He’s an old man, and I think he’s barmy.”
“Did your uncle leave much property?”
“Oh, yes; he was fairly well-to-do! Apart from the moneylending business he had a lot of house property and a biggish deposit in the bank.”
“Was he on bad terms with his wife?”
“Well, it was this way: She was the daughter of Mr. Alston, the senior partner in that big house-agent firm—Alston & Catchpool. There were two daughters; the elder one married a man who rose to be a colonial governor out in the East and was knighted. The younger one, my aunt, got engaged to my uncle, the junior partner, and her father didn’t like it—thought, I suppose, that she ought to do better for herself. Anyway, she married him and the partnership dissolved. My uncle took out his share and invested it in house property. The business grew, and the richer he got the more miserly he became in his habits. His wife always treated him like dirt under her feet, if you know what I mean, and fifteen or twenty years ago they agreed to separate. She had a small income from her father, and my uncle was induced by the solicitor to agree in the deed of separation to let her live, rent free, in one of his flats. A year or two later her sister sent her little boy home to be educated for the navy, and she took charge of him. About the time he was to go to Osborne his father, Sir Walter Sharp, died in Singapore, and within three months Lady Sharp followed him, so the boy was left to the guardianship of my aunt.”
“Did he get a commission in the navy?”
“Did he not? Oh, he’s quite the naval officer—looks down his nose at me whenever we are unlucky enough to meet—quite the affectionate cousin is Lieutenant Michael Sharp, I can assure you—”
“Did your uncle and aunt often meet after their separation?”
“Not oftener than they could help. Whenever they did I was careful to keep out of the way. It was no place for little Herbert.”
“Why?”
“Well, people don’t often improve with age, do they? My uncle had become miserly and short-tempered; my aunt had grown faultfinding and grand—seemed to think she belonged to another world and that we were not good enough for her. Her airs and graces used to drive the old man into a furious rage, and I used to keep out of his way until he’d had time to get over it.”
“Do you know why she should have gone to his shop that evening?”
“I don’t know, but I can guess. You see, he had given her notice to leave her flat for another nearly as good. He had had a good offer for the house and he wanted to close with it. He made me do all the preliminaries, and I can tell you I wouldn’t do it again for a hundred pounds. She made me feel as if I was something that the cat wouldn’t eat. Then the old man went to tackle her himself, and he talked to her straight—threatened to throw her out, he said—and I suppose she went down to the shop to get some of her own back. That’s what it seemed to me. I know he didn’t expect her to come, because he had an appointment with me that afternoon.”
“You think that a dispute arose between the two and that your uncle was responsible for her death?”
“I don’t know what else to think. I wish I did.”
“Why are you so anxious to get the executor to advance you money? Do you know that you are inheriting anything from the will?”
“The will was made years ago when I was a small boy, so my uncle told me. He was always talking about revoking it and making a new one, but he kept putting it off. He did hint to me once that he’d not forgotten me. You see, with his death my little salary for managing his house property came to an end. I thought that the police might just give the executor a hint to hurry up.”
“It’s not quite so easy as you think. There can be no harm in my telling you what we know. Your uncle’s will made your aunt sole legatee, if she was alive at the time of his death; if not, you were to become sole legatee. If she outlived him her will left everything to your cousin, Lieutenant Sharp. Suppose that a witness came forward to swear that he saw your aunt alive after your uncle’s death?” Beckett was watching him closely. He saw him start and change colour.
“I should say that he was a liar,” said Reece confidently. “But the executor might not: naturally he has to be careful.”
“Has anyone come forward?”
“Yes.”
“You mean that there’ll have to be a law case about it?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Then you can do nothing for me?”
“Not as the case stands at present—not unless some new fact comes to light. You needn’t worry about the funeral: the executor will see to that.”
Herbert Reece left the office in a chastened spirit. He narrowly missed meeting Inspector Foster, who knocked at Beckett’s door five minutes later. As usual his pocket was bulging with reports. “I thought I’d better come round with my reports, sir, and talk to you about them. Yesterday afternoon I had an interview with that young man, Arthur Harris—a rather unsatisfactory interview—about that alibi of his. He stuck to it that on the day of the murder he went down to Oxford in his car and gave the name and address of a friend who was with him. He said that he got back soon after dark—say at half-past five. Of course, that was not an alibi at all if he killed the woman in the course of the evening, but there was something in the way he made his statement that seemed rather fishy. He contradicted himself twice and got his times all mixed up. So I thought I had better see the man whose name he gave me before they had time to make up a story between them. His name is Henry Vivian—a young man whose parents are in a good position living in Pont Street. I asked him if he’d been out motoring with Harris that afternoon. He said yes. I asked him where they’d gone, and he said to Oxford and back. Was he sure? He began to stammer and look sheepish, and I pressed the point. ‘Because,’ I said, ‘it may be very serious for you if you’re telling an untruth.’ That did it. He broke down and admitted that he’d never been out in the car at all with Harris that afternoon, but Harris had asked him as a friend to say that he had.”
Beckett laughed sardonically. “Oh, these alibis!”
“Now, sir, don’t you think it queer that Harris should have thought it worth while to manufacture a false alibi unless he had something to hide?”
“It certainly looks fishy.”
“I went straight back to Wigmore Street to shake up Harris again, but he was out, and the butler told me that he didn’t know when he’d be back. I fancy that young Vivian must have telephoned to him after my visit and scared him.”
“Oh, he may have been hiding upstairs. Better leave him alone for a day or two.”
“Yes, sir, that’s what I thought. Well, then, after that I took a statement from that young lady, Miss Summers; she was perfectly frank and open, but she couldn’t tell me whether Lieutenant Sharp overtook his aunt, or whether he found that he had mistaken another woman for her. Well, sir, that wasn’t all I did yesterday. I hunted up that picture cleaner—a wretched, broken-down whisky-sodden creature living in a single room in King’s Cross Road. He owned up that he’d sold that picture to Catchpool and, of course, committed larceny as a bailee. He didn’t look as if he had the strength to kill a sparrow, but I did notice one thing. You remember the brown paper and string found in the shop? Well, he had a picture done up ready for delivery and tied with just the same kind of string—bits of different thicknesses joined together. Of course, it might have been the paper and string in which he had brought down that picture for sale, except for one thing. The brown paper we found in the shop had never been folded: it had just been rolled up.”
“You think he may have been in the shop just before or just after the murder, or do you suggest that he was concerned in the murder? How did he get in if there was only one key?”
“That is what I am going to work upon, sir: that and Arthur Harris’s motive for a false alibi.”
“Right. Before you go I’ll see whether Mr. Morden would like to have a word with you.” He knocked at the communicating door and then looked in. “The D.A.C.C. is out of his room. I’ll read your report and tell him what you say.”
Morden had just been summoned to his chief’s room. “I’ve been thinking over that Marylebone murder case,” said Sir William. “We don’t seem to be getting on with it. What about putting one of the superintendents of C.O. in charge of it?”
“Foster seems to be doing very well. I don’t like swapping horses in midstream.”
“Nor do I, but the list of our undiscovered murders is getting uncomfortably long. One of the sensation rags published a list of them this morning, hinting that the Marylebone murder would have to be added to it. If a superintendent is put in charge it may keep them quiet for a bit.”
“But have we one to spare? Shelburn’s still away in Gloucestershire over that poisoning case; Smith is less than half through with the Bank of England note forgery; Cossett is tied up with the G.P.O.—the mailbag robbery case; Gay is still down in Eastbourne and is getting home on that highway robbery and murder. We have only Graham available, and I put him onto that coining case. If we take him off just when he is on the point of finding the plant, the rascals will get to work again. Besides, he’s better at that sort of job than he is with a murder.”
“All right; then let Foster carry on. Is he making progress?”
“He will if he isn’t hustled. You know what those Scotsmen are—slow and sure. He’s a whale for work—about sixteen hours a day is his ration, and I like his quiet way of handling witnesses. If we give him another week I believe he’ll get home all right.”
“You remember old Bertillon’s dictum about detective work. He talked a lot of rot in his time, did Bertillon, but he was right when he said that criminal investigation was fifty per cent, perspiration, ten per cent, inspiration, and forty per cent luck. In this case we seem to have had the first two, but little of the third.”
“I don’t despair. The luck will come.”
“As I know the case, everything seems to turn upon that key. Are you satisfied that there really was only one key to the shop?”
“So far we have only the nephew’s word for that, but Foster is to see whether the man who supplied the door lock kept any record of the number of keys supplied with it.”
“Are you satisfied with that nephew? Both he and his cousin may have thought that they stood to benefit by the death of their aunt—in fact, so far as motive was concerned, there were only three people with a motive—the old man who hated her and wanted to get her out of his flat, the nephew Reece, and that naval officer whom we’ve sent for.”
“You’ve forgotten Arthur Harris, who had borrowed money from him and whose receipt was missing from the file, to say nothing of that artist chap who wanted to get back the picture he’d sold to him for fear of exposure and prosecution. Foster is getting on with the process of elimination. I fancy he lies awake at night suspecting new people and clearing them out of the way. It takes time.”
“It does, and this sort of case has a nasty way of rounding on one by turning out that someone whom we never suspected at all did the murder from the vulgar motive of robbery.”
The door opened and the messenger brought in a card. Sir William read it and tossed it over to Morden. “Mr. Charles Harris? I never heard of the gentleman. Take him to someone else, Willis.”
“He seems very anxious to see you, Sir William. I told him you were busy. He seemed rather hot and angry and said that if he couldn’t see you he’d go straight to the Home Secretary and make a complaint.”
“Then let him go to the Home Secretary.”
Morden was studying the card. “Wait a bit. His address is given as 7 Wigmore Street. That’s the address of the young man who’d been borrowing money from Catchpool. It may be his father.”
“How is he dressed, Willis?”
“Very well, Sir William. He looked like a City man.”
Sir William groaned. “I wish that the architect of this building had constructed an oubliette in the passage with a spring trap for timewasters.”
“You might get something useful out of him,” said Morden, soothingly.
“You think so? Well, take that chair like a good fellow and be prepared to act as chucker-out. Show him in, Willis.”
Chapter Seven
THE MESSENGER had not overstated either the personal appearance or the heat and anger of the visitor. He was a florid, stout person, attired in what was the uniform of the stockbroker before the war—tall hat, black coat, striped trousers, patent leather boots and spats. His temper, thought Sir William, had not been improved by stagnation of business on the Stock Exchange. He declined the chair courteously brought forward for him by the messenger.
