by Zenith Brown
“Can’t imagine, unless it was Colton,” said her son laconically. “Remember he tried to get you to sell.”
“As you did too, young man. Both you and Colton thought I was a stubborn old idiot. If I remember correctly that was your attitude.”
“Now, Mother . . .”
“Don’t ‘Mother’ me, Michael. I’m quite old enough to know my own mind and what’s more I’m just as sane as I ever was.”
The question of just how much that meant came into Bull’s mind. But Mrs. Royce continued.
“As to that other business, I’m sure I don’t know where you got that idea. It’s true the insurance people thought the jewels were over-valued. Which I’m quite well aware of. The manager suggested I have them reappraised, to lower my rates. George Colton thought it was absurd for me to be paying insurance on £ 35,000 worth of jewelry when I had £ 15,000 at the most. And so did I.”
“Then you were quite willing to change the insured value?”
“Willing, young man? I was delighted. You don’t get insurance for nothing, I can tell you. For twenty-three years I’ve paid that wretched company £125 a year. In all that time those diamonds have been out twice. I have no use for them as ornaments, and until my son marries, and marries a woman that won’t look like a music hall actress decked out in them, no one will wear them. Now George Colton wanted them appraised by that man Steiner. Why, I don’t know. I was perfectly willing to take £ 15,000 as their value. He was as stubborn as a mule. Now if you want my opinion. Inspector—and I’m sure I don’t know why you haven’t asked me for it—I believe there was another reason for George Colton’s taking those stones.”
Bull looked at her in the greatest surprise, which he tried hard to conceal. He was pleased to observe that her son made no attempt to conceal his feelings.
“What do you mean, Mother?”
“You needn’t look at me, either of you, as if I’d taken leave of my senses. If you can find out, Inspector Bull, why George Colton took my diamonds to London—with my permission, of course, even if I didn’t see the least point in his doing so—then you’ll know why he was killed and who did it. We’d better be going, Michael. I’m not driving as if the devil was after me—not if we never get there.”
Young Royce pressed out his cigarette in the silver ash tray and helped his mother with her sealskin coat. Bull noticed with the greatest satisfaction that there was no amusement in his dark handsome face.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Bull saw Mrs. Royce and her son to their car, a Rolls of respectable years, with a withered-looking man in uniform standing by the door holding a gay plaid rug over his arm like a serviette. When the old lady was properly tucked in, and a stone put at her feet, and the chauffeur had gone for lavender salts and had then returned for a packet of peppermints left on Mrs. Royce’s dressing-table, closed the windows so that the car was hermetically sealed, got into the driver’s seat and waited patiently until Mrs. Royce was sure she was ready, the car moved off at a discreet lack of speed down the High-street towards Slough.
Bull drew a long breath of relief and lifted the knocker a second time. The butler answered almost at once. Bull knew he had been watching the street from behind the heavy curtains.
“I want to talk to you,” he said. “We can just step inside; I’m in a hurry.”
The man was obviously flustered. Whether he was more flustered than always, Bull did not know. He did know that it would take a stouter heart than the man’s frame seemed to indicate to live with Mrs. Royce in anything but a state of perpetual trepidation.
“What’s your name?” Bull asked when he had shut the door.
“Murry, sir.”
“How long have you been with Mrs. Royce?”
“Thirty-one years, sir.”
“Oh,” said Inspector Bull. He decided to change his tactics a little.
“You know, of course, Mr. Murry, that Mr. Colton has been murdered.”
“Oh, dear, yes.”
“And Mrs. Royce’s diamonds stolen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you know he was taking the diamonds to town that night?”
“Yes, I did, Inspector. I heard madam tell Mr. Michael to leave them in her room in a small safe we have, sir. He asked her if she thought it was safe. She said very positively that it was.”
Inspector Bull nodded.
“And then I heard them discussing it at dinner, sir.”
“They did discuss it, then.”
“Oh, yes. Mrs. Colton was opposed to Mr. Colton’s taking them. But madam and Mr. Colton assured her it was satisfactory.”
“What did Mr. Royce think of it?”
“I don’t recall that he made any comment. He doesn’t ordinarily, sir.”
Was there the slightest hesitation before the “ordinarily”? Bull thought so.
“Why not?” he asked innocently.
Mr. Murry’s answer came with explicitness yet dignity.
“You must realise, Inspector,” he said seriously, “that we all consider it better for madam to have her own way. The consequences are never so difficult as in attempting to persuade madam to change her views.”
“I quite understand. She’s a little . . . unreasonable?”
“No, sir—determined, I should call it, I’m sure it would be perfectly possible to convince madam, but it seems much simpler and more . . . peaceful . . . to let her have her own way. Fm speaking, of course, sir, just between the two of us. That’s what the master told me when he employed me. He repeated it on his deathbed, sir, and I’ve always considered him a wise man.”
Bull wondered if his wisdom had been shown in dying, but refrained from an impolite question.
“Now, Mr. Murry,” he said, “can you tell me this—and it’s a very serious matter: was there any mention of Colnbrook that evening?”
The butler’s answer came without hesitation.
“Yes, sir. I don’t recall how it came up. I went to the pantry, and when I returned I heard Mr. Colton say, ‘We go through Colnbrook.’ Or something practically like that.”
Inspector Bull noted the remote possibility that the suggestion had not come from Mr. Colton.
“Who was in the room at the time?” he went on.
“Madam, Mr. Michael, Mr. and Mrs. Colton. Myself, and Ella. The maid who helps serve.”
“Are you sure the maid was in the room?”
“No, sir, I don’t remember her actually being in the room. But at dinner afterwards, in the servants’ room, I clearly recall her observing that if she were carrying diamonds to London she wouldn’t go by way of Colnbrook. Mrs. Thompson, our cook, said, I recall, that she would go that way if she were taking diamonds, because of the two hold-ups on the bypass the week before. I mention that topic only because that was actually what she said, sir.”
“Don’t mind me,” Bull said with a heavy attempt at irony. “You’re sure . . . or rather, who was in the servants’ room then?”
“Myself, Mrs. Thompson, Ella, MacRae the chauffeur, and Mr. Colton’s chauffeur—Mr. Peskett.”
“Peskett was there?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I recall that because he said he wished the old boy—as he called Mr. Colton—had told him he was taking the jewels, he’d have brought his pistol. I said that certainly Mr. Colton would be armed. He said then it would be the first time. He said he didn’t know whether the old . . . Mr. Colton was not afraid of anything or if he was more afraid of a gun than of being robbed. He said the old . . . Mr. Colton had raised ‘what for’ once when he told him he had a pistol. After that he had sometimes carried one without telling Mr. Colton.”
Thinking ali this over, Inspector Bull gave what could only be described in a man of slighter substance as a grimace. Was there anyone, he wondered, who did not know that jewels were going to town by Colnbrook?
“One thing more, Mr. Murry,” he said, “and I’ll be getting along. When did the Coltons leave?”
“At about nine o’clock, sir.”
“What happened then? I mean, did you see Mrs. Royce again that evening?”
“Yes, sir. I took her her cup of hot Ovaltine at fifteen minutes of eleven. It’s one of her rules, sir.”
“Where did you take it?”
“To Mrs. Royce, sir.”
“Yes; where was Mrs. Royce?”
“In the upstairs drawing room.”
“Mr. Royce with her?”
The old man hesitated for a moment
“Yes, sir.”
“He hadn’t been out?” “Not that I know of, sir.”
Bull looked at him with a smile.
“You’ve known Michael Royce a good many years?”
“He was born the year after I came, sir.”
“I take it that it was perhaps for his sake that you’ve stayed here so many years?”
Again the old man hesitated.
“I shouldn’t say that, sir. Madam is very kind, even if a little . . . uncertain.”
“Nevertheless you wouldn’t have stayed on, when you were a younger man, if it hadn’t been for the child?”
“Well, sir, perhaps not. Though madam is most generous. She pays me three guineas a week, sir—which I don’t think the servants in the Castle can say.”
“What I’m getting at, Mr. Murry, is this. If you thought Mr. Royce was involved in this affair, you’d be perfectly willing to lie to save him.”
The old man’s hands shook a little.
“I think of him more like he was my own son, sir, even if it’s absurd for me to say that”
“In other words, he wasn’t in when you took Mrs. Royce’s Ovaltine up to her?”
“Yes, sir. He was in; but he came in just as I was taking it up. I don’t know when he went out, but I saw him come in.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“He spoke to me, sir.”
“Notice anything unusual about him?”
“Only in a manner of speaking, Inspector,” the old man admitted reluctantly.
“What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything, sir, except take off his coat and hat and hang them up.”
“Well, what was unusual about him, Mr. Murry?”
“It was what he said, sir.”
The reluctance was more evident still.
“Yes?” said Inspector Bull, a gleam in his placid eyes.
“Mr. Michael is always polite . . .”
“I know. Yes?”
“Well, Inspector, this night he wasn’t. He saw me going upstairs with madam’s Ovaltine, and he said, ‘Good God, does the old girl still take that ghastly slop?’ “
“Oh!” said Bull. “I’ll have to be getting along.”
The inquest was half over when Bull got to Slough. He sat down next to Holmes of the Mirror.
“What’s happened?” he whispered.
“Not a damn thing. Old lady savaged the coroner for fifteen minutes. Priceless old girl! That’s why he looks as if he’d been in the Turkish bath. Watch him rip everybody else up the back.”
Bull glanced around the tiny room. Mrs. Royce was sitting majestically at the side. Her son’s chair was a little behind hers. When she spoke to him in her sonorous whisper she had to lean back awkwardly. Once, Bull noticed, her eyes flashed dangerously, and Mr. Michael hitched his chair forward an inch. Bull smiled.
Mrs. Colton in black cloth coat and small tightly fitting black hat was sitting next to her husband’s solicitor, John Field. Agatha Colton was evidently not in the room, Peskett was a few seats behind Mrs. Colton and the solicitor. From where Bull sat he had a perfect view of the three groups. Mrs. Colton was the only one who seemed nervous in the least. She kept taking off her gloves and putting them on again, until Mr. Field took them, with a smile, and put them in his pocket. She smiled too and folded her hands over her bag. After that she seemed quieter.
The coroner consulted the papers in front of him. Bull saw Field whisper something to Mrs. Colton and give her back her gloves. She put them on again.
“Mrs. Colton, please,” said the coroner. She went to the stand.
“Let me express my sympathy, Mrs. Colton,” he said quietly. “We realise that this is a difficult position for you. Will you tell us just what happened the other night?”
Mrs. Colton was pale but composed in face of the crowd of sensation-seekers that filled the benches, craning their necks, commenting on her clothes, nodding at each other knowingly.
“No good can come of that sort of thing,” whispered a middle-aged woman behind the Inspector. “She’s the one as did it, you mark me!” returned her neighbour. The coroner rapped for order.
“You’d ’a thought she’d ’a wore some jewelry!” the first woman managed to get in before the sound of the gavel died away.
Mrs. Colton told her story directly and calmly. Her composure seemed to strike the audience, which listened in a respectful silence.
When she had finished her story of the actual murder Bull hastily wrote a few lines on a piece of paper, handed it to the bailiff and motioned towards the coroner. The man took it forward. The coroner stopped shuffling among his papers, read it, and glanced over at Inspector Bull. There was a general craning of necks in Bull’s direction.
“That will be all, Mrs. Colton. Oliver Peskett, please.”
The chauffeur was a better bid for public sympathy. Everyone knew, or so the general atmosphere managed to suggest, that his position was not of his own making, and that he had been, to the extent of his being involved, an innocent pawn of fate. He was quite good looking, and unmarried, or so he testified.
He repeated Mrs. Colton’s story. He had not known that the jeweler carried a weapon. He had always believed him opposed to it. He didn’t know he had jewels with him until he saw his black bag as he got into the car. No, he had never had any difficulty with his employer. Where was he born? He was born in Puyallup, Washington, U.S.A. No, that was not the District of Columbia; it was in the Northwest. No, it was not in Oregon; it was in Washington. He had joined the British army. Had served in Russia from ’16 to ’18. Had worked in Birmingham and Manchester. He had thought of taking out papers because he liked the country. No, there was no reason why he didn’t go back to the United States except that he didn’t want to.
The Inspector thought of sending another note to the coroner, and was about to do so when the coroner dismissed Peskett and proceeded to instruct the jury.
Bull stepped outside without waiting to hear the charge of wilful murder by a person unknown. He hoped to be able to intercept Mr. Field without making sufficient point of it to attract the gentlemen of the press. People began to come out with the half-holiday, half-funeral air that hangers-on at coroners’ courts manage to affect. Suddenly Bull heard a meek voice at his elbow.
“Good morning, Inspector!”
“Pinkerton! Hello, what are you up to here? I didn’t see you.”‘
“No. I was behind the large lady with the hat.”
“Oh. That’s Mrs. Royce.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Pinkerton, with a far-away look in his eye. ‘That’s Mrs. Royce.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Look here,” Bull said, taking the little man by the arm and directing him to Mrs. Colton’s car, by the open door of which Peskett was already standing. “Go over there and tell Mr. Field that I want to talk to him. Tell him I’ll be at Colton’s shop at 3.30. Ask him to be there.”
Mr. Pinkerton nodded, almost too excited to speak, and Bull turned to the man who had come up and was waiting to speak to him. It was Walters of the Telescope.
“Hello, Bull! What’ll you give me for the key to the Colnbrook Outrage?”
The reporter grinned at him.
“Anything you like,” Inspector Bull said soberly.
“Well, here it is.” Walters fished a letter out of a baggy tweed coat pocket and handed it over. “From one of the Telescope’s better readers. Only six words misspelled. Riley’s all cut up about it. Says we’re losing our grip. Beginning to
appeal to the lower classes. You know our chart? No words spelled wrong—Cambridge don. Two words wrong—upper middle class. Six—middle class. Eight—lower class. Ten—Labor M.P. Fifteen—Tory lord. We go in for the eights.”
“Let’s see it,” Bull said.
‘Take it along. If you get anything I can use let me know. Want to see Royce before he gets away.”
“You know him?”
Walters nodded. He seldom used more words than were necessary until he sat down at his typewriter. Then no one in Fleet-street used more.
“He’s a good egg. Cheerio.”
Bull dropped Mr. Pinkerton in Piccadilly-circus and drove to New Scotland Yard. He hoped Brindley had got his line on the boy Gates. Not that he felt the boy was materially important, but he would at least solve the riddle of his own disappearance.
There was a note on his desk, re. Gates—James Benjamin, age 51, address Shepherd’s Bush-road, occupation jeweller’s clerk, unmarried. Left rooms Thursday A.M., not returned. No word. Took black fibre suit-case. Landlady says two shirts, four celluloid collars, one pair socks missing. Other clothes in order. Mr. Brindley was a man of dramatic imagination.
“Landlady reports: ‘Quiet, keeps ’imself to ’imself.’ Pays promptly. 12/6 a week bed, breakfast and tea. No known relatives, no friends. Only caller an old man, name of Smith. Smith there Wednesday night. Landlady wants to know if he doesn’t come back by Saturday can she have his clothes for her husband—he’s the same size. I said No!! but she won’t wait till Saturday. Have sent out descriptions.”
Bull read Mr. Brindley’s report without much interest and put it in his file under “Colton.” Then he took out the letter Walters had given him.
“Dere Sir,” it read, in crude straggling writing, “The police are all rong about, Mister Colton geting murdered. Him and Mrs. fight all the time. She kiled him, her and the driver. Yours truley, a Frend.”