Death of a Frightened Editor

by E.

  “The keys?” echoed the imbiber. “I found them in the doorway of an office in Covent Garden, while I was a’sweeping of the pavement.”

  “What time?”

  “As near as I remembers about two o’clock this morning.” He hesitated. “O’course I should have give ’em in at Bow Street,” he admitted, “or I might have handed ’em to the caretaker. But then I wouldn’t have got me half dollar reward. The rozzers would have claimed the reward for themselves.”

  “Mebbe they would,” agreed Kenway. “But what’s this caretaker business? What’s he got to do with it?”

  “Well, it was in a corner of his door that I found ’em. When I sweeps a pavement, guv’nor, I sweeps the doorways as well. Does me job proper, I does, not like some as I could mention.”

  The expenditure of a couple of pints was sufficient to induce Timmins to make the journey back to Covent Garden and point out the doorway. “There they was,” he said. “I yanked ’em out wi’ me broom.”

  Doctor Manson listened with speculative interest to the story. Later, on his way with Inspector Lathom to the offices of Society he called on the caretaker of the offices. That functionary laughed. “Found them there, did he,” he said. “Keys is a bit of a change in that doorway.”

  “Change? You frequently find things there?”

  “Yes.” He grinned. “Generally an amorous couple. It’s a very deep doorway, as you see, and accordingly very popular with the lads and lasses. I ’as to be careful ’ow I opens the door; they generally falls inside.”

  “I suppose you didn’t notice the keys last night?”

  “No, Mister. But I knows they wasn’t there at 10 because that was the time I let my dog out for a run-round. There was a light in the hall and I couldn’t help but have seen ’em. Besides,” he added, as an after-thought, “the dog would have worried ’em.”

  * * *

  “We can now open this ruddy safe,” Inspector Lathom said. Manson made no reply. He sat at Mortensen’s desk browsing through an ABC timetable, which he had taken from a wire basket on the desk.

  It was some twenty minutes later that there came to light a discovery which placed the Editor of Society in a curious light.

  From the opened safe Lathom had carried a pile of trays and a set of bound books to Mortensen’s desk, and, facing the Doctor, had began an examination of them.

  Lathom was the Scotland Yard’s City expert. He knew finance and the ways of financial juggling as well as Manson knew the intricacies of science. And he dressed the part—immaculate in black coat and striped trousers, with sometimes a black, and sometimes a fancy waistcoat. Patent leather shoes with spats in the winter, and a neat spotted bow-tie completed a figure which the Assistant Commissioner often said was a credit to the Force. This was the man who was setting out to find whether any clue to Mortensen’s death lay in his financial position.

  He turned to the trays. Each contained bank statements with cancelled cheques neatly folded inside them, the whole being kept in apple-pie order by rubber bands passed round them. There were two sets of these and of course, the books.

  The inspector had ploughed carefully through the first set, comparing each individual cheque with the bank statement entries, and with the entries in the day-book and ledger. Everything seemed to be in order until he began going through the second elastic-banded bundle—which comprised cheque book, paying-in-book and a bank statement—and compared them with the ledger and day book. After some minutes he put down his pencil and stared at the accounts. He began again at the cash book, starting at the first page and wading laboriously through, item by item, marking the entries and checking. Again he laid his pencil down, and puckered his brows.

  “Queer,” he said—half to himself, and softly.

  But not so softly as to escape the ears of Doctor Manson who had left the desk and was rummaging through a filing cabinet.

  “What is?” he called back.

  “There’s a hell of a lot of money being paid into the bank which does not appear in any shape or form in the books—at least so far as I can trace.”

  Manson walked round the desk and stood looking down at the papers and books.

  “Look,” Lathom said. “On July 2 the sum of £102 was paid in. But I cannot find any such item in the cash book or the ledger. Again, on August 28 £230 and once more no record in the books.”

  “Odd,” Manson said. “Where did the money come from?”

  Reference to the paying-in book showed that the money had been paid over in £1 notes. Lathom whistled softly. “Let’s go a little deeper,” he suggested. They checked through the paying-in counterfoils, Manson calling out the figures and Lathom checking with the day book and ledger of the company, and with the bank statement. At the end they had a pencilled list of some twenty payments in £1 notes ranging from £50 to £100 made over a considerable period and having no corresponding entry in the firm’s books.

  “Where the hell did the money come from?” Lathom queried; and stared at the books.

  “Possibly from sales of papers.”

  “What sales? Newsagents and wholesalers pay monthly by cheque. Street sellers might pay in cash. But this isn’t the kind of periodical handled by street sellers, and certainly not in the numbers represented by these amounts.”

  “Fiddling a bit, then?”

  “Why, Doctor? The money is his in any case. He has no partners or shareholders. And if he wanted money it would have been in order to borrow from the company. Besides, there is no other evidence of cooking the books.”

  “Dodging income tax, then. Putting cash sales into his own pocket. It’s done quite a bit.” Lathom shook his head.

  “Won’t wash. A few quid here and there, Doctor, perhaps. But this is in thousands. He couldn’t get away with it. The Revenue know the circulation. It’s in the firm’s printing account and bills. Sums like that would stick out a mile. His accountants would have twigged the missing revenue.”

  The riddle seemed likely to go unsolved until a chance glance at the top sheet of the second bank statement caused Lathom to utter a sharp ejaculation.

  “Something else, Lathom?” Manson asked.

  “What did you say was the name of this cove, Doctor?”

  “Mortensen.”

  “That’s what I thought you told me. Then what is he doing with a bank statement, paying-in book and a cheque book of a Mr. Arthur Moore?”

  The two men stared at the name at the head of the statement.

  “What is the name on the first bunch of papers?” Manson asked. Lathom turned up the bank statement.

  “Just Society Newspapers, Ltd.”

  Doctor Manson pressed a bell-push on the desk. The clerk loomed in the doorway. With the death of Mortensen he seemed to have lost some of the foreboding which had enveloped him on their first visit to the offices.

  “Tell me, Silverman who is Mr. Arthur Moore and what part does he play in this establishment?” Manson asked.

  “Arthur Moore, sir?” The man paused. He was palpably searching back in the recesses of his mind. “Never heard of him,” he announced finally. “He’s never been here in my time. Not unless he’s one of the gentlemen who never gave a name. There were some like that,” he added. “They always said they had an appointment, and Mr. Mortensen knew who they were.”

  “No names given? Intriguing sort of people. Did they always see Mr. Mortensen?”

  “Yes, sir. Always in his room.”

  “Did he ever make any bones about seeing them?”

  “No, sir. He always seemed to be expecting them when they arrived.”

  “Ever have any trouble in the room?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you know any of these men, Silverman?”

  “No, sir. They didn’t give . . .”

  “I know that. Did you know any of them by sight?”

  “Only from seeing some of them here several times, sir.”

  “All right. You can go.” Doctor Manson rubbed an ear thoug
htfully, Lathom seeing it, grinned. He recollected how he had smiled a few weeks earlier at a bear in the London Zoo doing just that action while puzzling how to get hold of a bun which had fallen short of his enclosure. Manson spoke at last.

  “There would appear to be a number of very peculiar circumstances, Lathom,” he said. He enumerated them: “Hundreds of pounds in notes which come from we don’t know where and go straight into a mysterious banking account. Two sets of bank statements which do not bear the same name. Mysterious men who come without an appointment and say that Mr. Mortensen will know who they are. I think you had better go round to the bank and see what you can find out about this mysterious Mr. Moore. I have to go back to Brighton or I’d come with you.”

  “I don’t think there is much mystery about him, Doctor,” Lathom said. “It’s the same old mistake. Why they do it beats me. It’s been pointed out in the Press times enough, but still the crooks fall for it. Mortensen has—even if he’s no crook.”

  “What mistake? Getting murdered, do you mean?”

  “No. I mean the initials of dual personality. A.M.—Alexis Mortensen and Arthur Moore. It stands out a mile. I’ll find that Moore is Mortensen.”

  He did!

  * * *

  Mortensen’s bank turned out to be a small branch of the South West and Associated Counties bank situated in King William Crescent. The manager, though somewhat perturbed at the presence in the bank of a detective-inspector listened to that officer’s inquiry.

  “A client named Mr. Arthur Moore, Inspector? Of course. A very good client he is, too. In fact, he is this branch’s wealthiest client.” The manager also let it plainly be seen that he was a client greatly respected by the manager. Lathom grinned inwardly. A wealthy client was hardly likely to be anything else than respected by a bank manager. Aloud he asked:

  “What kind of a man is Mr. Moore?”

  “Most affable, hail fellow well met. Causes no trouble with complaints, and is a generous donor to the bank’s benevolent fund.”

  “I want to know quite a bit about Mr. Moore,” Lathom announced. “And about his money.”

  The manager shut up like a clam. “I’m afraid I cannot discuss that point with you, Inspector.”

  Lathom produced a photograph, and passed it over. “Would that be Mr. Moore?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s also Mr. Alexis Mortensen who was found dead in a train on the way to Brighton. He was poisoned.”

  “Mortensen!” The manager recoiled. “But he’s . . .”

  “A client of yours, too. Quite so.”

  “Why, Inspector, should Mr. Mortensen of whom I of course knew through Society, why should he want an account with me in an alias?”

  “That is what I want to know.” He looked bland. “Shall we talk, or do I get a warrant?”

  The ‘gentle persuasion’ brought a gasp from the manager, who saw not only his best client vanished from his ken with his account, but had nasty visions of the body raked up in the bank by the police.

  “What do you want to know?” he conceded.

  “Plenty. All there is to know about him and his money.”

  “I don’t know much about him really. He had the account before I succeeded to the managership. But our chief cashier has been here a good many years.”

  “We’ll have him in,” said Lathom.

  The cashier did not altogether share his manager’s opinion of Mr. Moore. “Of course,” he admitted, “he was a good client. But I never liked the man. He was the ferrety kind.”

  “Ferrety kind? Now what do you mean by that?”

  The cashier eyed his manager uneasily. “Well . . . er . . . when he visited the bank he seemed to have a furtive air about him. He was forever looking round with shifty eyes, as though afraid of being seen.”

  The manager broke in. He had been sitting with furrowed brow. “Inspector,” he said. “If you didn’t know that Moore was Mortensen, how did you come to be here about him?”

  “I wondered when you were going to arrive at that. By the way”—he turned to the cashier—“how is it since Mortensen and Moore were both your clients, you didn’t know that they were one and the same person?”

  “I’ve never seen Mr. Mortensen,” the cashier said. “Cheques, monies, etc., were always paid in by his clerk. The Mortensen account was originally at another branch and was transferred here. Mortensen never visited me—as Mortensen.”

  Lathom addressed the manager. “The answer to your question is that we found the two accounts in a safe in Mortensen’s office. Now, as a matter of considerable interest to us, how does Mr. Moore’s account stand?”

  The cashier disappeared to return with a ledger. He ruffed through the pages. “He’s in credit to the amount of £25,345,” he said.

  “All on current account?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did all the money come from? Can you tell me the names of the people whose cheques were paid into it?”

  “No cheques were ever paid in to the account,” the cashier said. “He used to visit us at intervals and pay in notes.”

  The inspector thought this over for a moment or two. “I see,” he said. “In fivers and tenners mostly, I suppose?”

  “No. Always in £1 notes.”

  “Always?”

  “Always.”

  Lathom cast an appraising eye over the ornate desk in the room, and then looked up at the manager. The latter had an air of anxiety about him. He was forecasting the next question.

  “You are a banker,” Lathom said. “And I am somewhat of an expert in matters financial. Do you not think it queer that a man has an account with you of more than £25,000 all paid in in Treasury notes?” he said, pointedly.

  “No. It isn’t anything extraordinary, Inspector. We have several clients who at intervals pay in large sums in notes.”

  “With never a cheque or postal order, or notes of higher denominations?” The manager boggled. “Well, perhaps not. But we do not inquire into the business of our clients.”

  “I rather gathered that he used to do a good bit of racing,” the cashier said. “He once or twice gave me a tip or two.”

  “He drew on the account, of course? We’ve seen the cheques.”

  “Yes. He drew mostly to ‘Self’ though there were some for goods purchased, and other personal payments.”

  “What address did he give as his residence?”

  “None.”

  “What!”

  “He said he was travelling a good deal, and he used to collect his bank statements when he came in. His address was care of this bank. That was how I got the idea he was a racing man, travelling round the country to race meetings—that and the payment in of notes.”

  “Right. That’s all for the moment. But we’ll probably want to see you again before long,” Lathom said—and left.

  10

  Mary Ross left a Number 12 bus of the Southdown Service at Black Rock, Brighton, waited for a couple of cars to pass over a Belisha crossing and then walked quickly to the opposite pavement. She followed her nose for a hundred yards, and then turned into a block of flats. Mounting to the first floor she inserted a key in the lock of a flat and entered closing the door behind her. The flat was unoccupied. For a few moments she stood in the centre of the lounge, looking round the room a frown of concentration on her face. It was the kind of comprehensive all-in glance which one gives to a place one will never see again—a glance of remembrance of visits past, never to be resumed. Then she crossed to the sideboard, poured out a whisky and drank it, sitting down.

  She rose at last, patted her sleek blonde hair, and looked at herself in the mirror. She was aged about 25, with hair braided above an oval face. Her brown eyes, slanting upwards imparted to her a slightly Eurasian appearance.

  She crossed to the writing desk and opened it. Sitting on a chair which she had pulled forward she began a systemised search through the cubby-holes and drawers. What she was searching for was obviously no
t there, for she uttered an exclamation of annoyance and stared round the room again. She entered the bedroom and rummaged through the dressing-table and a chest of drawers, examining even under the sheets of paper which lined the drawers. Her face now wore a look of frustration. Finally she went into the hall, opened a cupboard door and switched on a light inside. For a quarter-of-an-hour she fiddled with a safe hidden in the back of the cupboard. From a notebook taken from her handbag she read out a series of words, taking each letter in turn and twisting the dials of the combination lock. Unsuccessful in her efforts to open the safe she at last desisted. Returning to the bedroom she lifted a woman’s dressing-case from the top of a wardrobe and began to pack it with articles of feminine attire taken from drawers of the chest.

  Carrying the case into the lounge she dropped it on the floor with a bump. Then she crossed to a mirror, patted her hair into place and dabbed her cheeks with a powder-pad and finally picking up the case walked towards the door.

  A rattle at the front door of the flat stopped her in her tracks. She stood, hand to her mouth, as though unable to move. The door opened and three men entered the hall, closing the door behind them. At the entrance to the lounge they came face to face with her.

  She screamed. “No!” she said. “No. You killed HIM!” She regained the use of her legs, shot back through the lounge and into the bedroom locking the door.

  For a moment the three men stood rooted in astonishment. Then Inspector Edgecumbe strode to the door and hammered on it with his knuckles. “You in there,” he shouted. “Come out of it. We’re police officers and we want to know what you are doing in this flat.” There was no reply. Doctor Manson crossed to the door. He spoke quietly, and with authority in his voice.

  “This is a Scotland Yard officer speaking, madam,” he said. “Now, do be sensible and come out. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

  A key turned in the lock and the door opened. The girl came slowly out.

  “That’s better,” Doctor Manson said. “I’m sorry we frightened you, but we did not know anyone would be in the flat. I presume that as you have entered with a key, you have some right to be in Mr. Mortensen’s flat. What is your name?”