by Richard Hull
Slowly and deliberately Cardonnel replied: ‘I am not so sure that I am going to do anything of the sort.’
‘Eh?’ The other three all started violently.
‘As to what has happened, no one knows outside we four. Obviously we can carry on in the way you suggest, Ford. It may indeed be necessary. But who is going to benefit? You yourself will come out of it pretty badly, you know. You will have to admit that you connived at hushing up what you thought were two murders, though actually we are given to understand that there was only one.’
‘One, thank you.’
‘There are rather a number of things,’ went on Cardonnel, acknowledging Anstruther’s interruption by a slight, rather formal bow as if he were obliged for an interesting but unimportant correction on a point of detail, ‘which you will have to explain to the Committee as well as the police. I do not envy you your position. You will, I think, escape prison, though undeservedly, but you are hardly likely to remain here as secretary.’
Lest Ford should express his belated desire to sacrifice himself on the altar of justice, he turned to the waiter. ‘And you, Hughes? Are you anxious to have a scandal in the Club?’
‘No, sir.’ The answer was prompt and emphatic.
‘Don’t be too quick. If this comes out, a great deal of credit will very properly accrue to you. The Club as a whole should be very grateful to you, quite apart from the debt which I owe you myself.’
‘What’s the good, sir, of making a fuss? It won’t do the Club any good, and what doesn’t do the Club any good doesn’t do me any good. Besides, sir, from what you told me when we talked this over after I told you about the railing, Mr Ford could have made things a lot easier for himself by getting rid of me, and if he didn’t then, I don’t suppose he will now. No, sir, I do what you two gentlemen tell me.’
‘Thank you, Hughes. You are right about the Club too. That is what is influencing me mainly.’ He paused and surveyed the figure on the bed.
Anstruther sat quite still with an almost maddening appearance of being entirely detached from the proceedings. Of the four present only Ford showed any signs of any nervous strain. Cardonnel was in command and knew his own intentions, Hughes was content to obey – that Ford could understand – but that anyone should be so resigned that he should view his ultimate fate in a spirit of scientific observation was an attitude far too cold-blooded for so simple and impulsive a nature as the secretary’s.
Once more Cardonnel’s voice went steadily on. ‘So now we come to you, Anstruther. An appeal to loyalty or to sentiment would, I think, be regarded by you as an insult to your intelligence; but you have, I believe, your pride. You would rather leave behind a reasonable, I might say a respected, name. Besides, the legal process of a trial will be not only unpleasant, it will be extremely dull.’
Ford shook his head. How anybody could be bored at their own trial for murder, he could not understand. But, in any case, how was it to be avoided? Cardonnel’s next words reassured him to some extent.
‘Make no mistake. I am not suggesting that you simply disappear, still less that you get off scot-free. Very far from that. No.’ For a while he stopped as if searching for a phrase and then unexpectedly ended: ‘Do you happen to be acquainted with the new criminal law of Latvia?’
‘Of Latvia?’ For a while Anstruther remained impassive, then gradually comprehension and interest dawned on his face. For several minutes there was silence in the room. Hughes stood solidly with his back to the door. It was no part of his business to understand now. His active thinking in the matter was over; the rest he was quite content to leave in Cardonnel’s hands; secretly he was rather glad that no decision apparently rested with Ford. The secretary was the only restless one of the three. He started to fidget and drum his fingers on the table, until a glance from Cardonnel, sitting quietly and sipping his brandy, restrained him. Try as he would, he could not understand it. How on earth were they to avoid calling in the police? All the same, Cardonnel was right; the consequences were going to be most unpleasant. The chair on which he was sitting creaked ominously.
Suddenly the tension was broken by Anstruther leaping to his feet. ‘Very well, then,’ he cried. ‘I accept. To the laws of Latvia!’ He drained his glass.
Cardonnel too jumped up. ‘Excellent. When shall we – hear from you? Tomorrow morning? Good.’ He motioned Hughes out of the way and flung open the door. Before Ford could say a word, Anstruther was gone.
‘But, but,’ protested Ford feebly, ‘he’s gone.’
‘So I am aware. It’s all right, I tell you. The best possible solution.’ Cardonnel sighed happily. ‘Whatever I doubt in this world, I do not doubt that that doctor will keep his word. A very gallant man,’ he ended slowly.
‘But what are the laws of Latvia?’
‘Oh, don’t you know? Well, that I can explain tomorrow.’
32
Two Last Letters
After a restless night, Ford hurried down the next morning and rapidly looked through the letters addressed to him personally.
Nothing from Cardonnel. Nothing from Anstruther. What on earth was the plan that these two had concocted under his very eyes? The more he thought of it, the more he hoped that it was sound, above all that it was final. He had no wish to figure prominently in the publicity that would be occasioned by the trial of Anstruther; Cardonnel was certainly right when he said that it would do neither him nor the Club any good; but even more did he wish that the whole business might be over once and for all. He could not stand much more of it.
After vainly looking up ‘Latvia’ in the encyclopaedia, he went up to his office and tried to concentrate on his ordinary routine work, but he found it almost impossible. Everything that he touched served only to bring his mind back to the one absorbing trouble. There was for instance a long complaint that the window of the library had been left open with the result that the room was uninhabitable. Well, he knew how that had happened. In a sense it was his own fault that it had not been shut. But how to pacify the indignant member he had no idea.
He put it down, hoping that in some mysterious manner it would answer itself and found himself reading a letter quoting prices for sherry.
He never wished to hear the subject of sherry mentioned again. What between the great sherry controversy, the echoes of which had barely died down, and Anstruther’s fancy tricks with the same wine, it had become a subject which filled him with the direst apprehensions.
His meditations however were soon interrupted by a knock on the door. No less a person than the hall porter arrived.
‘The lady, sir, was very insistent that I should give you this note myself. She made me promise that no one else was to hand it to you. Moreover, sir, she left a large case in the hall with instructions that only you were to open it.’
He was just about to say that it must wait when he suddenly heard Cardonnel’s voice: ‘This intrigues me, Ford. Sorry if I overheard what the hall porter said. Most reprehensible, I know.’
‘What–’ Ford was about to ask whether any news had arrived concerning Anstruther, when he remembered that it would be wiser not to speak about the matter before a third person. The discretion was unusual. To get rid of the hall porter he told him to see that the case was brought to his office at once. Then he hurried back to Cardonnel.
But the lawyer was in an irritating mood. ‘No, my news can wait. Let’s hear what this further little mystery is.’
Reluctantly deciding that he would get nothing from Cardonnel until he had complied, Ford started to read:
Dear Sir,
Since my dear father, the judge, died a fortnight ago, I have been occupied in the melancholy task of going through his papers prior to moving back to our old home in Nottingham.
‘Nottingham!’ interrupted Cardonnel.
Ford nodded and continued:
For the last few years my very dear father had been getting old and absent-minded, and unfortunately he had developed a habit of picking up things and
then forgetting where they came from. He was, of course, as you well know, the soul of honour, and he could never have done such a thing intentionally, but the difficulty was that he so frequently did not know where the things had come from.
I must admit that in the case of the Club books which I have discovered hidden in the most curious places all over his sitting room, which no one was ever allowed to tidy, he should have known, because of the markers, but I think the explanation can only be that he forgot that he had put them there.
I am therefore hastening to return all the volumes personally, and should I find any more, I shall pursue the same course. But I hope for the sake of his reputation, and even the worst of us prizes the reputation he or she may leave behind –
Cardonnel could not keep back an exclamation. Exactly the argument he had used to Anstruther!
– that you will find it possible to keep it quiet.
I am,
Yours faithfully,
Muriel Skinner.
A short silence ensued, broken at last by Ford complaining that the actual books were of little or no use to him. ‘She makes no offer to repay what we have had to spend. How like a woman!’
‘All the same I should write to her and comfort her. The judge was a very good fellow, really, and he was completely absent-minded. For the rest, you are getting quite used to “keeping it quiet”, eh, Ford? For one thing, I hope you realise that this completely proves my theory as to Nottingham to be right. I am sure that if you looked into the rest of the Judge’s habits, you would find they entirely bore out everything that I have deduced, though for myself I shall not worry to do so.’
Perhaps it was as well. As the days went uneventfully on, a legend grew up round the Club that Cardonnel had done the most wonderful piece of detective work with the result that, not only had the theft of books been stopped, but that many had been recovered. It was understood that the name of the member was carefully suppressed because he was dead.
Cardonnel, however, always avoided discussing it, being content with the certain knowledge that his reputation for sagacity was firmly established. Neither did he risk finding out more than he knew already about Skinner. Therein he was wise, since the Judge, as in his heart of hearts Cardonnel suspected, had never been to an Association football match in his life and did not know one musical composer from another. Wisely, however, as Ford would have said, he ‘let sleeping dogs lie, considering that ignorance was bliss’.
Even at the moment that the letter from Judge Skinner’s daughter was read, Cardonnel had a shrewd idea of how events would fall. He sat there letting his mind wander into the future, until his thoughts were brought back to the present by an exclamation from Ford.
‘Anstruther?’ he answered. ‘Oh, yes, to set your mind at rest about that. I too have had a letter.’ From his pocket he produced a typescript of a kind all too well known to Ford. ‘May I read it? It begins:
My dear Cardonnel,
It may seem odd to you that I should so address you after all that has passed and still more after what has failed to pass between us, but somehow all the resentment that I felt towards you has vanished and I believe that you too are big enough to harbour no bitter memories.
Whatever else may have happened, believe me, I respect your brains and your courage. I have also to thank you for offering, and offering so neatly, the way out of the difficulty. Fortunately I also had noticed, since everything connected with poison has recently had a type of fascination for me, the recent change in the laws of Latvia, so that your hint, though a little ‘precious’ in form, if I may say so, was not wasted upon me.
‘Excuse my interrupting, but it still is on me.’
Cardonnel looked up impatiently at Ford. ‘I thought you would have found out by now. In Latvia, let me explain, they have recently passed an act whereby any man condemned to death has the option to administer poison to himself. They were rather surprised when the first man chose to be hanged in the normal way.’
He stopped and then added quietly: ‘Anstruther has chosen differently.’
Then, having seen that Ford had at last understood, he went on reading:
You need not fear but that I shall keep my word. You will however, I am sure, excuse me if I so arrange things that it will appear that I have lost my life in the cause of medical science, as the result of the experiments I have recently been carrying out with hyoscine – one of which resulted, though this will not appear, so unfortunately for Pargiter. The evidence that this is so will be found neatly, but not too neatly, arranged in my consulting-room. I am sure that I can rely on you to assist me in giving the widest publicity to the fact, since as you rightly said, one does prefer to leave behind a good reputation. Though quite why one should worry about it so much, I do not know. Perhaps I am only anxious to provide myself with a last good laugh.
Give what message you will to Ford. Read him this letter if you like. You will, I think, have no difficulty in persuading him to connive at yet another crime. He is getting quite accustomed to it by now. But this time advise him seriously that it would be better if he really kept it quiet.
The Ghost It Was
Richard Hull
1
The Start of an Idea
Linnell, deputy sub-assistant editor (or thereabouts) of The New Light, regarded Gregory Spring-Benson with annoyance.
At the age of thirty – which is what he accurately estimated Gregory to be – in his opinion any man ought to have decided on what he wanted to be, not be trying to start in yet another new profession. Also, a man of thirty ought to have got over the youthful habit of regarding other people as being fools and of telling them that the work they did was so easy that anyone else could immediately do it (and do it well) without previous training.
‘And have you any reasons,’ he asked, ‘for thinking that you will make a good journalist? Or that you are in any way particularly suited to The New Light?’
Actually Gregory had none, but he was naturally not going to admit it.
‘I think, you know,’ he suggested blandly, ‘that the very fact that I am seeing you is in itself some sort of proof that I might be some use. After all, the obtaining of interviews with the right people is one of the most difficult things that one has to do.’ He stopped and politely offered Linnell a cigarette, and. parenthetically expressed surprise that smoking was not allowed in that particular part of the office. ‘I’m not suggesting,’ he went on, ‘that I should write leaders for you or control the policy of the paper–’
‘Thank you.’ Linnell put the tips of his fingers together and waited with more than his usual patience.
‘– but only that I should be a reporter. Of course it’s not the sort of job I ought to take, but one must start at the bottom before working up, and having a decent appearance’– he surveyed as much as he could see of his well-cut grey suit and admirably polished brown shoes with complete satisfaction – ‘does help to get one received.’
‘You really regard having obtained an interview with me as some sort of proof that you have abilities of a kind as a reporter? I suppose you must realise that I am only seeing you because I have the greatest respect for the man from whom you brought an introduction?’
‘Precisely. If you knew how very much he disliked giving that introduction, you would see at once what I mean. At one time I thought I should have to write it myself.’
Linnell stirred uneasily. It was rather a point to Gregory, but he was not going to admit it.
‘So you include forgery in your accomplishments?’ he asked casually.
But Gregory Spring-Benson was quite unmoved by that type of remark.
‘Would that be a useful accomplishment? I suppose one could learn it, like typewriting.’
‘Which you can do, by the way?’
‘Adequately, to tell a story. No more.’
‘Shorthand?’
‘Oh dear, no.’ Gregory airily waved the suggestion aside.
‘Pardon my mentioning it, bu
t you wouldn’t be a very good person to send to report, say, a political meeting.’
‘On the contrary. I should ask the speaker to give me a copy of his speech before he started – and I should get it. That’s the point, I should get it.’
‘You mean you have unlimited effrontery?’ Linnell was beginning to think that only direct methods were of any use.
‘Undoubtedly. Unbounded cheek and impertinence, if you prefer the phrase. And, after all, isn’t that the principal requirement of any journalist?’ Before Linnell had time to reply, Gregory went on casually: ‘But as a matter of fact, you’ve not quite got the idea. I did not propose that I should do just simple hack journalism. You must have plenty of people who can do that sort of thing, and who are quite prepared to work long, regular hours every day for a most inadequate salary. I am content neither with the long hours nor the inadequate salary. I thought of giving you the opportunity to use me on more interesting work where initiative and resource and intelligence are wanted. Where, as you so well put it, only someone with my unlimited effrontery would be able to get you the story at all.’
‘And what sort of “story” do you propose to exercise your talents upon?’
‘Oh, society gossip, crime, provided it is of an original or humorous nature, special interviews with important people in any walk of life – I mean you can see that I don’t mind whom I talk to – or anything really off the beaten track. Some absolutely fresh stunt, out of the usual common rut of journalism with which all the papers are so invariably full. The fresh mind, you know, not destroyed by years of routine working for the Press.’