Death of a Frightened Editor

by E.

  “Even coney is a fur coat,” Merry agreed. “I wonder why a fur coat is so envied by the so-called lower classes when they’d look smarter in a good cloth coat?”

  “Because they ape the customs of the Very Important Women, Jim. And they feel that fur is fur, whether it’s mink, sable or rabbit, and better than a good cloth.”

  “Well, anyway we have a pointer to a maid in the coats, for what it is worth.”

  “We have also others now that we have started the chase. Jones said he found pigskin dressing cases initialled ‘M.M.’—obviously meant to be Mary Mortensen on their jaunts together. But there were also fibre dressing-cases without initials. One might conceivably ring the changes on mink and coney, but not I think on pigskin and fibre. Finally, there is the peculiar wardrobe. That should have occurred to both of us at once, had we thought the thing out logically.”

  “The peculiar wardrobe being, I suppose, following your line of reasoning, the fashionable frocks, and the plain and simple dresses?”

  “What else? Who but a maid would wear simple black dresses with white collar and cuffs? And—”

  “All right, Harry. Let’s agree that she was a maid when Mortensen met her. How much further does that get us with Mortensen?” asked Merry. “She didn’t kill him.”

  Manson lifted the telephone receiver and dialled a number. A blast answered. It was Jones.

  “Come right up, Old Fat Man,” said Manson. He turned to Merry. “We’d better have him in on this,” he said.

  Five minutes, and the figure of the superintendent came puffing and panting into the study. He held on to the door jamb.

  “Gora ’mighty,” he said. “Want . . . lift . . . here. Stairs . . . be the death o’ me.” He sat heavily down in a chair. “Lemme . . . ger breath before . . . start.”

  “Never mind your breath, Fat Man. You can listen while you are coming back from the grave.”

  He gave the superintendent a resumé of their conclusions and the evidence in support. Jones’s reaction was much the same as that of Merry. But it had a note of caution, rather than anticipation.

  “So what?” he asked. “You’ve more than that in your mind. Don’t help much . . . know she’s . . . maid.”

  “Right. Let us go into it a little deeper. Say she’s a maid when she went to Mortensen as his mistress. I suppose you’ll agree that she went to him to better herself, her circumstances, and so that her working days should be ended? She was the kept woman of a rich man. He fits her out with Paris frocks, with silver-fitted expensive dressing-cases, with mink and a luxuriously furnished flat. Her working days are behind her.”

  “So!” agreed Tones, with a grunt. “Obvious.”

  Doctor Manson stood up. He lit a cigarette, and exhaled a deep gust of smoke.

  “Then why,” he asked, quietly, “should she keep in this luxury hat side by side with the mink and the silver fol-de-rols the things that you found—the maid’s dresses, livery of service, the fibre suitcases, the usual concomitants of the servitude she had left behind her?”

  There was a silence. Jones ruminated over the question.

  “I once knew an Arab chief in Tangier,” said Merry. “Very rich and very influential. Facing him where he sat on silken cushions was a large motto on a level with his eyes. It read, ‘all things pass’. I thought it an excellent antidote to indulgence.”

  “Arabs chiefs are Moslems, Jim,” Manson retorted. “And they are, by virtue of their faith, contemplative and philosophical. I doubt whether Miss Ross’s philosophy, providing she possesses any, would be as contemplative as you suggest.”

  “Then why—” began Merry, and was interrupted.

  “Mean . . . say she was still usin’ the clothes?” roared Jones, who had come out of his ruminations.

  “I can see no other reason for them being there,” Manson said.

  “But why? What . . . hell want . . . work for? In clover, ain’t she?”

  “Let us look for a moment at the mysterious Mr. Moore,” said Manson. He had ignored the superintendent’s last question. “Mr. Moore has paid into his account over a period more than £20,000. It has been paid in pound notes. The cashier cannot say whether the numbers of the notes were at any time consecutive, but I should think it hardly likely they were. I feel pretty certain, however, that they have some connection with Miss Ross . . .”

  Jones snorted. “Cor luvva duck, Doctor,” he said. “The girl said she didn’t know Arthur Moore. You agreed that she seemed surprised at not having heard of him in connection with Mortensen.”

  “I think she was telling the truth,” Manson said.

  “You mean he was double-crossing her under another name?”

  “Yes.”

  Jones stared at him. “Cor lumme,” he roared. “He’s keeping her . . . lap . . . luxury. She’s working . . . servant . . . wearin’ Dior . . . Marks and Spencers . . . carryin’ pigskin and fibre. There’s £20,000 she don’t know about, and he does. I don’t get it . . . damn and blast it to hell I don’t get it. He’s made a lady of her, and now he’s double-crossin’ her.”

  Manson had crossed to a bookcase and had taken down a thick black volume. Black was its colour, and Black Book was its name. He sat down again, and flipped over some of the typewritten sheets that formed its pages.

  “I . . . been talkin’,” Jones snarled. “I . . . been wastin’ . . . breath.”

  “I heard you, Old Fat Man,” Manson rebuked. He turned back to a page he had turned down, and read:

  “On June 14, 1955, jewellery worth £15,000 was stolen from the house of a Mrs. Lestrange in Oxshott. It was never recovered. Mrs. Lestrange and a number of guests were at dinner. No noise was heard, and the loss was only discovered when she went to bed. The jewellery had been kept in a box and was underneath the bedclothes. The thief went right to the box. Nothing else was disturbed.

  “In February, 1956, the house of Sir James Melville and Lady Melville was cleared of furs and jewellery worth £8,000. The thieves were not apprehended.”

  He turned to another marked page. “In September, 1956, a Mrs. Morris was robbed of jewellery, mostly diamonds, worth £25,000 again while the family were dining. The jewels were locked away, safely, in a hidden wall safe, which was forced open. Need I go on? There are, as you know, a dozen such robberies in this file. In each case the thieves went straight to the spot where the jewels were kept. The robberies were carried out in a matter of minutes and no other part of the house was disturbed. In each case the investigating officers made similar reports—that the thieves must have had inside knowledge. But, also, in each case the servants could not be implicated, though they were put and kept under surveillance.”

  “Any sackings before-hand?” Merry asked.

  “Ask Jones,” retorted Manson.

  “No sackings,” the superintendent barked. “One . . . two servants left. Thought ’bout them,” he added. “Checked names . . . thought . . . might be.” He stopped suddenly.

  “Goramighty!” he said, and looked at the Doctor. Manson smiled.

  “You mean Mortensen . . . ruddy Raffles. And girl spied out the joints?”

  “Could be, you know, Jones. A couple of months as a maid spying out the house, the habits of the family, the hiding place, especially, as a lady’s maid—the white collar and cuffs brigade—and then, a couple of months later a visitor, a guest, knows exactly where to pick up the fortune—and when. And a ‘fence’ usually pays in pound notes. Remember the fibre cases of Miss Ross have no initials on their sides.”

  Jones rose lumberingly to his feet. “Soon settle that,” he announced. “Find if girl known as servant.” He moved to the door. “See if she had been servant in those places.”

  “It was tried at the time, Old Fat Man,” said Merry. “You said yourself you checked servants at time of robberies.”

  The superintendent stopped in his tracks. Merry met a look of such malevolence that he started in surprise.

  “Stone me,” said Jones. “Have . . . got .
. . teach you elements of investigation?” His voice rose crescendo. “Damn and blast to Hades, I said . . . checked . . . names. Servants who’d left.”

  He paused to draw breath. “Now,” he roared, “got pictures . . . Ross girl, haven’t I. She can change her name, but cor sufferin’ Moses, she can’t change her goddam face, can she?” He went out, banging the door.

  Merry wiped his brow. “My word,” he said, “did you see the look he gave me?”

  14

  Superintendent Jones once out of the room hurried to his own room and then to the Photographic Department of the Yard. The figure of Inspector Venables confronted him.

  Venables was the Yard’s photographic expert—a tall man with a cigarette drooping permanently and despondently from a corner of his mouth. His eyes, from long peering at negatives developing in dark-room tanks, had the appearance of being half-shut slits in his face. His fingers bore that tinge of brown which is the inheritance of all men who dabble in pyro in photographic dark-rooms. He looked quizzingly at the super.

  “And what can I do for you, Old Fat Man?” he asked. Jones produced his photographs of Mary Ross.

  “Domestic servant,” he rapped out. “Want . . . identified . . . quick . . . wire.”

  “Only wire?”

  “No. General Circulation.” Venables nodded.

  “Jennings!” he bawled. A head, followed by a body, appeared from a dark-room. “Pictures for telephoto,” said Venables. He passed over the photographs.

  Jones wandered back to his room. He picked up the telephone and called the Chief Constable of the county of Notts.

  “Sending you picture . . . telephoto. Woman . . . suspected maid . . . country places. . . want know . . . been robberies . . . houses employed.”

  “Bless me soul! Never knew they could afford maids these days,” said the Chief Constable. “All right. We’ll do our best.”

  Scotland Yard and newspapers rarely see eye to eye. It is the job of a newspaper man to obtain news; and so far as Scotland Yard is concerned it is their desire not to have news given away which may, in their view, give a hint to certain sections of the community of the way in which inquiries of the Yard are tending.

  But the Press, in a roundabout way, have been of invaluable assistance to the Yard. And in no greater way than in their development of the Telephoto apparatus. Telephoto is the name given to the process by means of which photographs can be sent over the telephone wires—and arrive as clear and distinct as one taken and delivered by a photographer. Its development is due to newspapers and their engineers.

  There was, for instance, a great Fleet Street Editorial Executive named Bartholomew who perfected a system by which photographs could be sent by cable to anywhere in the world. The transmitted photographs could be in the hands of American newspapers within twenty minutes of the transmission being commenced in London. From that system was developed the present method of sending pictures by wireless—and the sending of pictures over the telephone.

  The latter transmission works in this way: A Press photographer takes his picture. He develops and prints it in his portable dark-room. He walks into a telephone exchange carrying what appears to be a suitcase. He calls the telephone number of his office—50, 100 or more miles away—when his call is through he opens his suitcase, plugs a wire from it into the switchboard, another wire into a power switch, and within seven minutes his picture is in the newspaper office.

  Unfortunately for the smaller papers the process demands elaborate and expensive receiving machinery at the other end, so that only papers with large circulations and handsome revenues can afford the luxury. It is the same with the police force; only the county C.I.D. stations possess the apparatus.

  It was this process to which Superintendent Jones referred when he told the Notts Chief Constable that he was sending over a picture by wire. And he told the same story to Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Manchester. Within half-an-hour the shrill whine in the receiving rooms of the Telephoto was evidence that the picture of Mary Ross was entering those cities. Another half-an-hour and photographic prints of the girl were on their way by post to police forces in other areas. Thus was brought into being a little appreciated side of criminal investigation—little appreciated because little known to the public.

  An hour after the receipt of the Telephoto photograph in Nottingham, Detective-Sergeant Gillespie of the County police cycled up the drive of The Elms, the residence of Sir James Melville. His ring brought an old friend to the door—the butler. Bevis—he was the butler—let his habitually cheerful smile relapse into a look of despondency. He groaned a little.

  “Master Alistair again?” he queried. “What has he been up to this time, Mr. Gillespie?”

  The sergeant grinned. The pranks of the heir to the baronetcy were a source of no little anxiety both to the family and to the police.

  “Nothing, Mr. Bevis. We haven’t had anything on Master Alistair for a month now. Is he ill, or something?”

  “No. He’s all right, but he has been a bit quiet now I come to think of it.” He looked surprised. “Well, if it ain’t Master Alistair, what is it, Mr. Gillespie?”

  “It’s her ladyship I’ve come to see.”

  “Her leddyship?” The butler staggered back from the blow. “Cor lumme, what has her leddyship been up to?”

  “Nothing, Bevis!” A voice came seemingly from nowhere, like a disembowelled spirit seeking to convince a material world of its innocence. It was followed by its possessor, who appeared through a doorway covered with a curtain. Lady Melville walked up to the door. “What can I do for you, sergeant?” she asked.

  “Would your ladyship know this person?” he asked; and handed over the photograph of Mary Ross.

  “Why, that’s Helen Cardus,” was the reply.

  “And who would she be?”

  “She was at one time my personal maid. A most efficient and lady-like person, sergeant. The best maid I ever had, and very sorry I was to lose her.”

  “She was dismissed?”

  “Indeed, she was not. The last thing I would have thought of would have been to dismiss Helen.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “I do not know. She was quite happy, but suddenly decided that she wanted a change. She even refused a higher wage.” Lady Melville shook a regretful head. “But whatever do you want with her?”

  “That I don’t know, your ladyship. We have been asked by Scotland Yard to identify the woman in the photograph, who is thought to have been in service in country houses. When did she leave you?”

  “It would be about 18 months ago.”

  “How did she come to be employed?” Lady Melville looked at her butler. “She answered an advertisement I inserted in Society,” the butler said.

  The sergeant entered the details in his official notebook. He thought for a moment over his official instructions. “Was Miss Cardus with you when your jewellery was stolen?” he asked.

  “No,” the butler said. “She had left some time before.”

  “Goodness,” said Lady Melville. “It isn’t suggested, is it, that she—”

  “I know nothing of why she is being inquired into,” the sergeant said. “Would you know a Mr. Mortensen?”

  “Heavens, yes, sergeant. You mean the Mr. Mortensen who was found dead in the Brighton train? He was a frequent guest with us, here and in London. A most charming man and very popular with us.”

  “And Miss Cardus would have been with you how long?”

  “About four months.”

  That was the extent of the information the sergeant was able to glean. He returned to the Notts C.I.D.; and the gist or it was sent to Scotland Yard. So was information gleaned from other officers in Notts.

  And so also, was a queer conglomeration of coincidences from rural areas north, south, east and west, all identifying Mary Ross, and all under different names.

  15

  Doctor Manson picked up from his study table a copy of Society, and settled down to re
ad its contents.

  So far he had concentrated on people who had been concerned in the mystery of Mortensen’s death, without delving into the background of the man himself. That line had brought a wealth of information, but not much tangible result. Since the source of Mortensen’s finance seemed to be indissolubly mixed up with Society, he now proposed to absorb the background of the editor of that journal.

  He started with the point that the paper earned for its proprietor an income of about £100 to £150 a week and sold some 20,000 copies a week. It had been referred to as a disreputable rag; but then so have a number of other publications whose policy is to give the readers what they want to read, and not what the editor thinks they ought to read. It is a distinction with a very great circulation difference.

  The normal issue of Society seemed to be about 40 pages, measuring 11½ inches by 8½ inches wide; and it was a curious mixture of news and gossip and fact and fancy. The title page had the name of the journal printed in blue—probably from the idea that blue symbolised the familiar belief in the Blue Blood of Society! The title stood out boldly in letters two inches deep. The remainder of the page consisted of gossip paragraphs with, in the centre, a portrait of a woman of title well in the current news.

  Inside pages contained more photographs alongside reports of fashionable functions. There were recipes for cocktails and articles on Squash, Racing and other sports. At the end no fewer than ten pages were devoted to advertisements vacant and wanted—for domestic servants, gentlemen’s gentlemen and ladies’ ladies.

  But it was obviously the centre double page that was the tit-bit of Society. It bore a large heading white on a black background in flowing script characters: ‘We would Like to Know—’ Beneath it were scattered paragraphed tit-bits of gossip, ridicule, scandal and innuendo.