by Zenith Brown
“Miss Colton says that Smith died a bit ago,” Field said, with very little apparent concern, Bull thought. “That’s awkward. He knew more about Mr. Colton’s actual business than anyone.”
“Yes, it’s too bad,” Bull rejoined briefly. “Doctor said the shock was too much. Was he very much attached to Mr. Colton?”
The solicitor hesitated a moment.
“In a sense,” he said. “I mean he’d been with Colton’s father. I suppose altogether he’d been with the firm half a century, perhaps. Of coure, you know that Mr. Colton was not precisely a ‘loveable’ man. I mean I should doubt very strongly if there was any deep personal attachment there.”
“Well,” said Bull. “Why the shock, in that case?”
Again Mr. Field hesitated.
“Well, of course, Inspector,” he replied, with a deprecatory gesture, “I wonder if it isn’t a mistake to assume that the shock was Mr. Colton’s death. After all, Mr. Colton was killed yesterday. Of course, perhaps it was that. I’ve no way of telling. It’s absurd for me to express an opinion.”
Inspector Bull decided to waive the point.
“You do know, however, what disposition Mr. Colton made of his property. Was he a very wealthy man?”
Mr. Field took a paper from his pocket.
“The will is quite a long document,” he said. “I’ve jotted down the important points of it here for you.”
Bull took the sheet of paper.
“You’ll observe,” Field said, “that he’s left Mrs. Colton his business. He wished it carried on as long as Smith lived. At Smith’s death, he suggests, Mrs. Colton should arrange for its liquidation; however, that’s entirely at her discretion. He leaves his daughter the income from a block of stocks. That’s approximately £ 1,000 a year. Also a cottage in Surrey. Then there are minor bequests. Smith gets—was to get —£ 200 a year for life. Gates £ 100 for life. Then the residue, which amounts to something like £ 150,000 goes to his wife.”
“Then Mrs. Colton is comparatively a very wealthy woman.”
Mr. Field raised his sandy eyebrows.
“No wealthier, Inspector, than she was a couple of days ago, really. Mr. Colton was extremely generous.”
“With his wife—but not his daughter, I understand.”
“That I know nothing about,” Mr. Field said with a smile.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Inspector Bull had the feeling that crime would be much simpler if women were kept out of it. He viewed female encroachment in all branches of life as deplorable in the extreme. His general attitude was that no good could come of it, and to prove his point he told the story of a friend of his who asked a Metropolitan policewoman at Trafalgar-square the way to Adelphi and was misdirected. The Navy and the street-cleaning department were the only branches of human activity that were free of them. He often thought of joining the Navy for that reason. He didn’t because he was always seasick when he made the channel crossing and his wife never was.
Bull felt that his present case would be much simpler if it weren’t swirling around the complicated mental and emotional states of Agatha and Louise Colton. Still, viewing his job objectively, he was forced to admit that it if weren’t for women there wouldn’t be crime at all, and Scotland Yard would have to close shop.
As a matter of fact the thing that annoyed him was not the presence of the two women in the case, but his own apparent inability to place them properly. He felt that they were in it, even that they might be the mainspring of it, but he had no very clear idea why or how. So Bull set out from the house in Cadogan-square and ate a solitary and rather gloomy dinner at Simpson’s in the Strand before he went back to the Embankment. He was polishing off some fine old Stilton and washing it down with a pint of bitter when he remembered that he had a guest at home. He wondered how Mr. Pinkerton was managing with the cold mutton; and would the custard be as watery as usual?
Dismissing Mr. Pinkerton and his troubles for the time being, he came out into the Strand and took his way leisurely towards Trafalgar-square. He was well fed; his attitude towards the whole world was much more comfortable. He even greeted a policewoman standing in front of the Corner House, and agreed so pleasantly with Larry Hodder—well known to both of them as an only moderately successful pickpocket—that it was a fine evening, that Larry looked after him with deep suspicion.
Inspector Bull glanced up at Charles I as he turned down Whitehall. He always did. It was a sort of ritual. It was at the feet of Charles I that Bull had won his spurs. He had learned, by his usual patient inquiries and curious imagination, a strange thing about Marcel Dashiel; and one day Marcel Dashiel, wearing the white rose of the Stuarts, came out of a wise retirement long enough to join in the pilgrimage to the statue of the martyred monarch. Inspector Bull was there. Dashiel did not lose his head, but he had the rest of his life in Dartmoor to think over his error.
In his little room Bull got out some paper and a trick fountain pen and cork screw combination that someone had sold him, and tried to make a few notes. Abandoning the pen for a tuppenny stub from Straker’s he got on better, and in a short time had before him a sound précis of what he had learned and thought in the course of the day. He folded it carefully and put it in his note-case for further reference. Then he took up the telephone.
“Williams, is Brindley around? Send him up.”
“I want the low-down on three people,” he said when the young man appeared. “Gates. Lives in Shepherd’s Bush. Here’s the address. Go slow. I want to know where he is, first of all, and then anything else you can find out. Do that tonight if you can. Tomorrow, get a line on Michael Royce. High-street, Windsor. Here’s his address. Don’t bother the Midland Bank people there, by the way; I’ll see them myself. Then . . . I guess that’s all; just the two. Be careful about Royce. Oh, will you tell Severn I want a man to trail Mrs. Colton’s chauffeur, name of Peskett. Until I call him off. He lives over their garage. ’Night.”
It did not occur to Bull at the time that although he had the gravest doubts about the women in the case he had carefully avoided any check of their movements.
Albert Steiner was waiting for Bull in his flat in Queen’s-gate.
“Smedley, of the Continental, is quite alarmed,” he said, peering at Bull through his heavy lenses, and smiling tranquilly at some sly joke of his own. “He seems to think he told you too much.”
“If he did I missed it,” Bull said. “He told me Mrs. Royce’s diamonds were not worth what they were insured for.” He decided that it was reasonable to come into the open with Steiner.
“That’s quite true.”
“What is their value, then?”
Mr. Steiner shrugged.
“How should I tell? I’ve not seen them in twenty-five years. They were worth £ 35,000 then. But not today. Maybe fifteen, maybe twelve, maybe ten. I can’t say. I’ve not seen them.”
“But they’re not worth thirty-five? You couldn’t sell them for that?”
“No, no. I don’t even know that you could sell them. Things are dull.”
“Mrs. Colton said she understood her husband had a purchaser. She thought an American. She thinks that is why her husband was bringing them from Windsor.”
“It may be so. I didn’t know it. Colton mentioned no client to me.”
“Why did the insurance company, then, decide at this time to have a reappraisal?” Mr. Steiner hesitated.
“That is what worries Smedley,” he said, tapping the chair arm rhythmically with the tips of his blunt fingers and smiling faintly.
“What do you mean?” said Bull, watching him with his mild blue eyes.
“He says the first move for a reappraisal came from Colton.”
The thick lenses played curious tricks with the expert’s eyes. All Bull was sure of was that they were watching him, shrewdly calculating; that there was meaning behind their deep calm. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder if Steiner was mixed up in this business.
“What would be his interest
?” Bull decided to go more cautiously.
“I couldn’t say, Inspector. It might depend on many things. If he had a client—as Mrs. Colton thinks, you say—he would want an opinion. He knew, of course, that the stones would not bring £ 35,000—at least not from an informed person. He spoke of it at lunch last month, using the case as an example of how estates have diminished.”
Inspector Bull thought for a moment.
“Did he say Mrs. Royce wanted to sell?”
“No, no. I asked him if she wanted to. There are one or two fine stones in the collection. I might have been interested. He said he thought not.”
Mr. Steiner looked out of the window a moment before continuing in his low rich voice with its curious timbre.
“I remember it quite well. Mr. Colton did not think much of them, you see. He said, in fact, that it was a pity someone had not stolen them. I think he didn’t like diamonds—if you can understand that. I can. An emerald, that he would buy any time or place. I fancy you’ll find Mrs. Colton never wears diamonds.”
“He said that?”
“As a joke, Inspector. I assure you it was nothing more than that. It was quite natural.”
Inspector Bull’s face undoubtedly showed his doubt. Mr. Steiner peered at him. Again Bull began to wonder.
“It was merely a joke. I suppose all of us thought what he put into words, Inspector. It’s the obvious reaction.”
“All of us? Was anyone else present?”
There was no change in Bull’s impassive face, but he was watching the thick lenses carefully.
“Let me see. There was Colton and myself, Smedley, and young Royce. That was all.”
“Royce was there?”
“Yes. He had come in to see Colton about something, and Colton brought him along. Colton and I were arranging the insurance on the benefit exhibition of Queen Anne plate at Sir Philip Orton’s.”
“What did Royce say?”
“Oh, he laughed and said, ‘No such luck,’ or something of the sort. He said if anyone was clever enough to lay hands on anything of his mother’s he ought to get the insurance himself.”
Bull thought it over. Then he said cautiously, “Did it occur to you at the time that Colton might have given him an idea that . . .”
“That would be difficult to live with?”
Bull nodded.
“No. I’d forgot the incident entirely, until I saw the Times this morning.”
“Well, Mr. Steiner, I have to keep coming back to this: you can’t tell me if Colton had a purchaser?”
“No,” said Mr. Steiner. “He didn’t say so to me. Colton was close-mouthed. And in fact I can’t imagine him telling his wife. He might have told Smith. You’ve seen him?”
“Smith died this afternoon.”
Steiner looked up with genuine surprise.
“You don’t say, Inspector.” The blunt fingers tapped on the chair arm. “I saw him yesterday morning. He came to me to see some stones I’d just got from Holland.”
It was Bull’s turn to be surprised.
“Smith?”
Steiner nodded.
“Smith knows—knew—more about diamonds than any man in London,” he said deliberately. “More than I do—much more than Colton did. I’m sorry he’s gone. Maybe it was best. Heart?”
“Yes.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“You don’t know Smith’s story, I suppose,” Steiner said. “He was unfortunate. His father was a jeweller, a partner in Tait and Robinson. They were one of the best firms, thirty years ago. Smith’s name was Tait. He got involved with Daisy du Val in 1887 or so. She led a merry chase, Inspector. He was madly in love with her, she was insatiable. The upshot was that he misappropriated various valuables. His father disowned him and the firm prosecuted. Smith was sent away for ten years. When he got out he was thirty-four. Colton’s father was a friend of his mother and took him in as ‘Smith.’ Then Colton kept him on. It was profitable to him.”
Mr. Steiner smiled. Bull was fascinated by the quiet dark calm of the man.
“Smith told me only a month or so ago that he got forty-five shillings a week, Inspector.”
Bull was a mattter-of-fact man.
“Did Smith know Colton was bringing the stones from Windsor last night?” he said placidly.
“Oh, yes. We talked about them yesterday morning. He said he was anxious to see them. There was a pendant that old Mrs. Royce bought from Daisy when she went bankrupt. And now I come to think of it . . .”
The heavy lenses seemed to look earnestly at Inspector Bull.
“Do you think that could have been one of the stones he did his ten years for, Inspector?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mr. Pinkerton was waiting up for his host. He had spent the day thinking very hard, and he was ready with some rather startling conclusions. He was not prepared, however, for a haggard and very tired Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department who barged in at half past eleven with no interest in anything except a hot bath and a soft bed. Mr. Pinkerton, disappointed, was by very nature mild, inoffensive and patient; he tucked his surmises away in his neat grey little mind, prepared to wait until Inspector Bull was in a receptive mood—probably at breakfast. But by the time Mr. Pinkerton heard the maid’s tap at the door and her “Hot water, sir,” Inspector Bull was well on his way to Windsor.
For a moment, it is true, the Inspector, stirring his steaming tea and expanding pleasantly with the consumption of juicy sausages and well-cooked eggs at the White Horse Hotel, felt a qualm at the idea of his guest’s eating still another lonely meal of Crissie’s manufacture. But by the time he had finished his toast and marmalade, and drained his last cup of heady tea, he had forgot Mr. Pinkerton entirely. He was thinking about Mrs. Colton, and about the story Albert Steiner had told him the night before.
Bull left his car in front of the White Horse and walked up the High-street under the towering grey walls of the Castle, past the statue of Queen Victoria, past the building that Wren had built for Anna Regina. He knocked on Mrs. Royce’s front door. It was just half past nine.
Mrs. Royce was down. Her tall hat stood on the marble-topped table in the hall. Beside it, somewhat belligerently, lay her black kid gloves, her fur, her beaded bag and her walking stick. It occurred to Inspector Bull at once that Mrs. Royce was going out.
“Good morning, Inspector.”
Bull had listened to Mrs. Royce before, but he was unprepared at the moment for her deep vigorous voice. Well fortified, however, with tea and sausage, he felt himself a match for the strongest.
“Good morning, Mrs. Royce.” He also greeted her son, who seemed to be steadily, Bull thought, in the position of rear guard. In spite of his mother’s command, “Step out, Michael—don’t always stand behind me!” he seemed, Bull noticed, to manage always to retain such a position. Michael Royce returned the Inspector’s greeting politely, but Bull noticed he still had a flicker of amusement somewhere about his face. Bull could not tell whether it was in the eyes or the lips. Personally, Bull could see nothing even remotely amusing in the situation, and he had that vague uncomfortable feeling that serious-minded people have when they meet someone not serious-minded. He thought Michael Royce was making fun of him—not of Humphrey Bull personally, of course, because his own identity was submerged when he was on duty—but of Inspector Bull as investigator of the Royce diamond robbery and the incidental killing of George Colton.
Mrs. Royce fixed an accusing eye on him.
“I’ve been summonsed, Inspector, to give evidence at the coroner’s inquiry this morning.”
“That was necessary, ma’am. I hope it doesn’t inconvenience you too much.”
“Inconvenience indeed. It’s not the slightest inconvenience. I always do my duty; and I consider this my duty—to my friend Colton, as well as to Society.”
“Oh,” said Bull. He glanced at once at young Royce. From the slight elevation of that young man’s right eyebrow he gathered that his
mother’s patriotic and moral sentiment left him unmoved.
“If the inquest is at ten-thirty, Mother, don’t you think we ought to be getting on with it?”
“It’s at Slough, Michael—don’t be asinine.”
“I know it’s at Slough, Mother. But inasmuch as you don’t care to do more than twenty an hour . . .”
Michael Royce received so truly savage a glance from th*. wicked old eyes, so ferocious a shake of the grizzled old head, that Inspector Bull, seeing him stand his ground, realised that after all he was a man of some parts.
“None of your lip, young man. If you mean that I don’t care to fly around the country-side as if a legion of demons were after me, the way you do, then you’re quite right. I travel at twenty-five miles an hour; and that’s fast enough for anybody.”
“Quite so, Mother.” Royce’s agreement was entirely equable. “All I say is that that being the case, it’s just as well to count on it. Give yourself plenty of time—that sort of thing.”
From Mrs. Royce’s glance at her son Bull gathered that he was not the only one who was not sure that his attitude was entirely serious.
“Very well, then. I’m ready. Tell that girl to bring my hat. And you, Inspector, are you going along now? Will you come with us?”
“I shan’t go just yet, ma’am. I have a number of things to do first. And I wanted to find out from you this morning the exact reason Mr. Colton was taking your jewels to town that night.”
“The exact reason, Inspector? Has anybody given you an inexact reason?”
“Well, there are two theories, ma’am,” Bull said politely. “One that you wished to sell them, and that Mr. Colton had found a purchaser. The other, that at the suggestion of your insurance people you were sending them to town for reappraisal.”
At first Inspector Bull thought Mrs. Royce was going to have a stroke of apoplexy. He watched the effect of his simple words in dismay. When she spoke, however, she was surprisingly calm.
“I’m sure, Inspector, I don’t know what you mean. I had no intention whatever of selling those diamonds. My husband left them to me. I’d be stark raving crazy to think of it. They wouldn’t have brought £ 10,000 on the open market. Anyway, my income is quite adequate—thank you—for my needs. I can’t imagine where such a ridiculous rumour started. Can you, Michael?”