Devious Murder

by George Bellairs

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What else did she tell you?’

  Her tone was irritable and yet eager.

  En garde! It was a phrase Cromwell often uttered to himself. In his younger days he had been in the police fencing team! The term expressed contention and readiness for battle.

  ‘Nothing else. Except that Mr. Leo retired as well.’

  ‘And we were both soon asleep, ready for an early start the next day. We saw nothing of this burglar. So that lets us out, doesn’t it?’

  Leo was decidedly uncomfortable. He kept changing his pitch and was now standing on the hearthrug and his nerves were on edge. He wondered when Cromwell was going to turn to him and start sparring. Finally, he went and helped himself to a drink, neat vodka of all things, without offering some to anyone else.

  ‘All was quiet here that night?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Leo, a bit too quickly, Cromwell thought. ‘Do you think we held a noisy farewell party when she was dying with a bad headache?’

  Cromwell pretended to look through his notebook, just to increase the tension.

  ‘On that night, Mrs. Havenith, was the burglar alarm at your window switched off as usual?’

  Leo pounced on the question as though he’d been expecting it.

  ‘It was switched on! What’s the use of having the whole place a network of wires for alarms and having the things switched off?’

  ‘But Cairncross said the alarm on that particular window was switched off.’

  ‘So Cairncross has been talking, has he? How did he know? He wasn’t in the room after we retired.’

  ‘Were you, sir?’

  Leo’s mouth fell open.

  ‘Of course I wasn’t.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know then, would you?’

  Mrs. Havenith struggled to get Leo out of his tangle.

  ‘It was turned off. You can’t be expected to know, Leo. I did it. It was very wicked of me after all my husband’s trouble with alarms and things. But I can’t sleep thinking the damn thing will start buzzing at any minute and, having a headache, I switched it off. How would a burglar know it wasn’t on?’

  ‘You slept all night?’

  ‘Yes. I took two of my usual tablets. Which reminds me, Leo, I’m feeling a bit fagged and I think I’ve got another headache coming on. I’ll take two of my tranquillisers. Get them, please.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Leo slapped the marble mantelpiece petulantly.

  ‘Oh … Very well.’

  He made off to get them, slamming the door.

  Mrs. Havenith thought it well to excuse him.

  ‘He doesn’t like leaving me for a minute. He’s like a faithful dog. But I don’t know what I’d do without him, Mr. Cromwell. He’s my financial adviser and friend. And when I’m not well, he’s even my personal physician. He was training for a surgeon once, but somehow didn’t make it. I think it was his father’s fault. He’s his only son and should step into my husband’s place when the times comes. His father bullied him into leaving medical school to become a businessman. Leo was in his fourth year and loved the work. That accounts for his bitterness. He despises his father and his oil.…’

  Leo returned with a bottle of pills, two of which he administered with the help of some soda water. Mrs. Havenith made much of swallowing them. They might have been the size of billiard balls!

  ‘That’s better. Is there anything more, Superintendent Cromwell?’

  ‘I think not, for the time being. Later, with your permission, we’d like to examine again the rooms which overlook the flats at Orchard Court.’

  Leo could hardly contain himself. He spluttered and flushed. ‘Really, this is the limit! Have you already been spying in Mrs. Havenith’s private quarters?’

  ‘Only cursorily and then with Mrs. Morgan’s permission.’

  ‘Well, what else do you want there? The thief didn’t enter them, did he?’

  For some reason, Mrs. Havenith seemed to welcome the police visiting her rooms again.

  ‘Why not, Leo? There’s nothing to be ashamed of, is there? On the contrary.…’

  ‘It’s just cheek to expect to intrude in your private quarters.’

  ‘All the same, Mr. Cromwell, you may look over the suite again, if you like. Do you wish to do it now?’

  ‘If it’s not inconvenient, we may as well take a look. Do you mind?’

  Leo began to sulk. He seemed to be losing all the arguments.

  ‘I suppose you want me to take him up.’

  ‘Do that, Leo, please. I’ve letters to write. You’ll find me in the library when you return. Where’s Cairncross? I want to open the safe.’

  ‘If you are opening the safe may I see the diamonds, Mrs. Havenith? I have never seen them, although they’ve been much in my mind.’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Cromwell. When you come back from your inspection. That is, if Cairncross can be found.’

  Leo didn’t seem to hear but led Cromwell off upstairs.

  There was nothing to attract attention in Mrs. Havenith’s rooms. Leo seemed irritated by what he thought was Cromwell’s casual way.

  ‘Wasn’t much use bringing you up here, was it?’

  ‘I just thought I’d like another look around, in case we missed anything last time.’

  ‘You must have given the place a thorough going-over then. What did you expect to find? The murdered man had no connection with us.’

  ‘He lived next door and was very interested in this house. He was obviously planning to rob the place in his own good time.’

  ‘But he didn’t.…’

  It was like a shout of triumph.

  ‘We don’t know. Suppose he did decide to do the job on the night he was killed. He would probably have entered by this room. The alarm was cut out and the window open, inviting him in. He’d know all about that beforehand. Blunt was thorough and workmanlike. He wasn’t a petty little crook. He was a master of his craft. Suppose he entered and someone disturbed him. There was a struggle and a blow or two on Blunt’s head with a heavy object. This, for example.’

  Cromwell picked up a heavy silver candlestick and brandished it at Leo. Leo was annoyed and bored by the whole business.

  ‘Don’t be silly. His body was found in Hampstead, miles away. You’re just imagining it all.’

  ‘He could have been killed here and his body removed to Hampstead.’

  Leo sprang to life.

  ‘Here! Did you know this cracksman well?’

  ‘In a way. We knew of him and his methods, but for years we were never able to pin a single crime on him, although we’d a good idea who committed them.’

  Leo wasn’t listening. He was excited by his own thoughts.

  ‘Suppose he did get in here and burgled the place. He’d be after Julie’s jewellery, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Of course. A man like Blunt wasn’t interested in the silver spoons and tea services. It was the diamonds. They were publicised enough when they were purchased and worn.’

  ‘The diamonds! We’d better check this. Come on.’

  Leo tore down the stairs, shouting for Cairncross. Cromwell followed at an easy pace. They found Mrs. Havenith in the library. She was annoyed and sulking. The whole lot of them seemed to be in a perpetual state of agitation and annoyance.

  ‘I can’t find Cairncross. He’s vanished.’

  ‘Nonsense! He’s probably talking to his pal the caretaker next door.’

  ‘Well, don’t stand there. Get him. I sent Morgan after him, but Morgan’s vanished as well.’

  ‘Give them a chance. You can’t summon them by just wishing them here or clapping your hands.’

  Cairncross entered, puffing and panting, as though he’d run all the way from his hiding place.

  ‘You wanted me, Mrs. Havenith?’

  ‘Isn’t that obvious? You’re never there when I need you. Open the safe. I want my diamonds. Don’t say you sent them to the bank with the other jewellery! I distinctly tol
d you I wanted to take them with me to Deauville and to leave them here in the safe.’

  ‘I was just going to suggest we opened the safe to see if they were safely there. I didn’t take them to the bank.’

  ‘Get them.’

  ‘Have you got the key then?’

  ‘Where’s my handbag?’

  They found it for her and she rummaged inside, produced a key, and flung it across to Cairncross. He swung the dummy books out of the way and manipulated the combination of the safe, turned the key, and opened the door. He squinted into the interior.

  Cromwell could see jewel cases inside the safe. Cairncross examined them one by one.

  ‘What are you doing? Get out the diamonds and then close and lock the door again.’

  Cairncross didn’t seem to hear. He spoke to himself.

  ‘Where are they? I can’t find them. They’re not here.’

  He turned to Mrs. Havenith.

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t had them out?’

  His eyes were glazed as though his thoughts were far away, searching for the jewels in strange places.

  ‘Of course I haven’t had them out, you fool! I can’t get them without you and the combination.’

  ‘And don’t you call me a fool. There are limits to what I’ll put up with. And you have the combination as well. Why say you haven’t?’

  Leo was getting angry again.

  ‘Oh, shut up you two! What matters now is where are the diamonds? If the crook did get in and opened the safe why didn’t he take all the rest of the jewellery? You must have them somewhere, Julie. And you’ve forgotten where you put them when you took them off. I’ll get Mrs. Morgan. She’ll know.’

  Leo rushed out to find Mrs. Morgan, but she didn’t appear. He shouted her name at the top of his voice.

  Cromwell seemed forgotten in the excitement, while the other three quarrelled and rummaged among the jewel cases like a crowd in a street market. He marvelled at the effrontery of Charles Blunt. He’d simply wanted the diamonds and that was enough for him. He was not going to encumber himself with a lot of comparatively minor jewels. No complications. A cool job, which had he lived to enjoy it would have realised enough to keep him opulently for the rest of his life. Somewhere in his patient preparations he had informed himself about the alarm system and the flaw in it in Mrs. Havenith’s bedroom. It was an obvious flaw, visible to Blunt from his window. Julie’s window needed to be shut for the alarm to be operative. He had broken the combination, which was easy for an intelligent expert like Charles. What about the key?

  The scrimmage in the safe had been useless. The diamonds were not there. Mrs. Havenith flopped in a chair and tore at her handkerchief.

  ‘What is Wilbur going to say about this? He’ll kill me. Don’t let him know, any of you, until we think what we’ll do about it.’

  Cromwell wished to satisfy himself about the key of the safe.

  ‘You always carry the key of the safe about with you in your handbag, Mrs. Havenith?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Are there any duplicates?’

  Cairncross, deflated but not to be outdone, answered the question.

  ‘Yes. There’s one other and it’s safely in the London bank.’

  ‘Did you always have your handbag with you, Mrs. Havenith?’

  ‘I have several, but always take care to see that the key is in the one I’m carrying.’

  ‘And you always have it with you? Never out of your possession?’

  ‘Well, hardly ever.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Sometimes when we go dancing I leave it on the table, but I always keep an eye on it. Don’t I, Leo?’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you do. You lost it a time or two, but it’s always turned up.…’

  Cromwell realised that it was no use pursuing the line any further. Blunt, it seemed, would not have had much difficulty in briefly getting hold of the handbag and taking an impression of the keys in it. The scatter-brained Mrs. Havenith would never know and never remember. Failing that, Blunt must have negotiated the lock with his tools … Then, if he’d been killed, where were the diamonds?

  ‘Get the police!’ shouted Leo. ‘Never mind what Wilbur says. He won’t mind the cost of the diamonds. They’re insured. It will be his pride that suffers. All the shouting and newspaper talk about how much he paid for them just to deck out his wife, and then for them to be pinched by a common thief.…’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Cromwell. ‘Not a common thief, but probably the best cracksman in the world.…’

  ‘Never mind that. Let’s get the police!’

  Cairncross stabbed the air in Cromwell’s direction.

  ‘The police are here, you fool!’

  Under the strain, the trio seemed to have forgotten their respective roles as mistress, her lover, and her servant. They were all shouting at each other as though they enjoyed it.

  Suddenly, all the steam seemed to go out of them and they stared at Cromwell as though he were a magician ready to put everything to rights by a wave of his hand.

  Chapter 9

  The Bedroom

  It was agreed that Wilbur K. Havenith should not, for the time being, be advised of the burglary and the loss of the diamonds, nor should the event be made public. Julie Havenith seemed to think there might be a hope of recovery of her stolen gems, but Scotland Yard had no such thoughts.

  The newspapers were now immersed in the Mountjoy murder and Crippen was dragged from the archives again and his crimes compared with those of Kaltbad. This was soon exhausted and returned to the past as news from Hamburg revealed that Kaltbad, with his comings and goings between London and Hamburg, had been under surveillance by the German police and under suspicion of receiving stolen goods of very high quality, especially jewellery and precious stones. His death had given them the opportunity to open his strong-box at Hamburg Bank of Commerce and in it were found certain items of identifiable loot. The Havenith diamonds were not included.

  This information connected more fully the two Mountjoy victims. Kaltbad had almost certainly been Blunt’s missing fence.

  Other information also came in from elsewhere. New York had collected from Tantaluza, Texas, where Havenith had his oil kingdom, further details about him and his family. There had been a lot of gossip in the town about the relations between Julie Havenith and her stepson, Leo. Their goings-on had been a local scandal, but the old man, if he knew of it, which was highly probable, pretended he didn’t. One thing was certain, on the basis of his treatment of previous unfaithful wives, he would not stand for infidelity. He had packed them off with alimony, payment of which his lawyers had then obstructed with every trick in the books. If Julie valued her present cushioned existence she was indeed foolish to drag Leo into a liaison which would ruin the pair of them if discovered.

  Leo was reported to be a playboy, hiding loose-living behind a façade of being in charge of his father’s London business. This was a sinecure, to keep him from under his father’s feet and from making a disgrace and a laughingstock of a good name in the county. Wilbur K. Havenith had no business connection in London.

  In his teens, Leo had first fancied the law as a profession, but finding it too involved had turned to medicine. There he had filled his father with hope and pride, for he had made good progress in four years of study. Havenith had fancied that once Leo had grown-up and settled down it would not be difficult to divert his only offspring to oil, as his father’s successor. However, his mother’s divorce had turned relations between father and son sour. There was a scandal, too, about a girl who had died, and Leo had to leave medical school.

  Julie Havenith had been a dancer in a cabaret and had met Wilbur K. Havenith at a cocktail party, since when he had married her and given her everything she wanted. Her father had worked in the stockyards and her mother had left him long ago and run away with a bank teller, who had emptied his till as he went and fled with her to South America. Nothing had been seen or heard of the
pair since. Julie, although a gold-digger, was not without aspirations. She had, mainly through her own efforts and with the help of Leo, raised herself to the social level of her husband, which was not a very difficult achievement. It was said in Tantaluza, Texas, that W. K. Havenith was growing bored with Julie and preferred his oil, which yielded profits, and the police there had suggested that in such a case the old man was almost certain to have a private detective on the track of Leo and Julie to confirm his suspicions and, if necessary, produce the proof for yet another divorce. The last item was pure surmise on the part of a very crafty Texan police chief.

  The English police made a very thorough job of tracing the backgrounds of everybody even remotely connected with the crime.

  The staff of The Limes came out of it very well, on paper. Morgan and his wife emerged unsoiled. They had had a clean bill during Morgan’s police service. He had been in the force at Swansea, reached the rank of sergeant, and then retired to take up his present job. He and his wife had normal working-class backgrounds; both came from the same village and of very reputable mining stock. They still attended, almost every Sunday, the London Welsh Baptist chapel. The other servants, temporary but mostly the same over the years, all passed muster.

  Cairncross came in for more detailed research. In addition to what Scotland Yard already knew about him he had a good war record, having served in the Middle East as a medical orderly. The security company with whom he had worked before his Havenith appointment produced a testimonial he had submitted with his application for employment. It was signed by Sir Geoffrey Blease, the eminent surgeon, whom Cairncross had assisted in Cairo.

  Littlejohn was interested in the consultant’s recommendation and rang up Sir Geoffrey’s rooms in Harley Street. He was told that Sir Geoffrey was at present holding court at St. Vitus’s Hospital and would perhaps see him there. In any case, he could make an appointment for a consultation. Littlejohn explained that he was not a patient, but from Scotland Yard, to which the pert young lady replied that it didn’t matter where he was from, Sir Geoffrey was only available by previous arrangement. So Littlejohn took a walk across to St. Vitus’s, asked for Sir Geoffrey, was taken to the Out-Patients’ Department, told to fill in a form, and asked who was his family doctor, and had he written already to Sir Geoffrey? The inquisition was suddenly cut short by the appearance of a tall, slim, kindly man, past middle-age. He was walking with the help of a stick, for he had been hit by a golf ball on the previous Sunday. The orderly, who seemed put out because Littlejohn rejected the official form, hurried and whispered to Sir Geoffrey, who at once hobbled over to Littlejohn, bade him welcome and took him back with him to the consulting-room, much to the annoyance of the many patients waiting there, who thought Littlejohn was jumping the queue.