Death of a Frightened Editor

by E.

  Manson nodded.

  “The article was from an American correspondent on the Confidential magazine case. There was a suggestion that if the charge of obscene libel against it was withdrawn the proprietors would undertake to use no more scandal in future. Mortensen’s Society was very much the same kind of rag, but without names being mentioned, I thought it would—well, I was getting at him.”

  “I see,” Manson said, and dismissed the subject. “Mrs. Harrison—when did you board the Pullman that night?”

  “Just before the train was due to leave. I left it rather late.”

  Doctor Manson paused. He looked round at Superintendent Jones, who seemed as though he had gone to sleep in his chair. Then, turning again to the woman, he asked, very quietly:

  “Then tell me where you spent the intervening time between 4.40 and 5.20?”

  She stared at her questioner. “I . . . I . . . d . . . on’t understand.”

  “You passed through the barrier with Mr. Mortensen at 4.40.”

  “Well—I was talking with friends in the car next the Pullman.”

  “You entered the Pullman with Mr. Mortensen at 4.40. Why?”

  She turned colour, and anger came into her voice. “To be alone with him for a few moments. Knowing what you now know, are you not able to understand why?”

  “You mean it was an occasion when you paid over blackmail he was demanding under threat of revealing to your organisation that you had an illegitimate child?”

  Colour surged into her face, but she made no answer.

  “You did not speak to friends in another part of the train, Mrs. Harrison. You left the station. You met someone outside, and you passed through the barrier again just before 5.20. It was your second appearance that recalled the incident to the ticket inspector.”

  Doctor Manson motioned to Superintendent Jones, who handed over a case. He opened it and lifted out a pill mould.

  “This was bought at Lemmells, in The Lanes, a month ago. It was later repurchased by the dealer. From it we have removed powder which analysis shows to be strychnine.” A second article—a small bottle—was lifted. “This bottle of theobroma oil was bought at Gordonson’s, a chemist in Kingsway, Hove. And this pure alcohol from Edmonds in Western Road. Finally, a quarter of a pound of keratin powder was supplied to a customer by a firm of manufacturing chemists. In each case the description of the purchaser is identical.

  “A recipe for keratin coating, and its effects appears in the later edition of Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence and in Poisons Isolated. Fingerprints on these articles”—he indicated the table in front of him—“are identical with fingerprints left by someone who borrowed those books from a London medical library, and studied them.”

  Inspector Kenway and the constable moved towards the door. The seven were sitting stiff and tense in their chairs; and the stillness of the room wrapped itself round them like a dank sheet, and as clammily. The Doctor half turned, to look into the face of Crispin.

  “You said just now, Mr. Crispin, that you were not being blackmailed by Mr. Mortensen. That is true. But Mrs. Harrison was. There is one last question: Mrs. Harrison, why did you give your illegitimate son the name over a shop in Middlecoombe, Devon, in which you had worked—the name of Crispin—instead of the name of his father, Arthur Moore, which was the real name of Alexis Mortensen, and the name you had known him under when he betrayed you?”

  She made no answer, but sat, stricken, in her chair. Her shoulders slumped and her hands were working convulsively. The Doctor motioned towards her, and Inspector Edgecumbe stood behind her chair; and Manson continued.

  “The final recollection of Mr. Edgar which we extracted from his rather sluggish memory a few minutes ago was necessary to complete the chain of evidence. We can now move step by step through the poignant drama of that night.”

  He took a bottle from a pocket and placed it on the table. “This is the bottle of Bismuth tablets which Mortensen, as was his custom, placed on his table when he sat down. Mrs. Harrison was with him—paying, it may well be, his demands. She distracted his attention and substituted for this bottle an identical one containing four capsules prepared with strychnine, taking this bottle away with her. Then she left before Mr. Mortensen had rung for his meal, and before the Steward Reeves entered the compartment.”

  “The next entrant was Mr. Edgar, who noticed only two tablets in the bottle, and fortunately did not take one. And then came Mr. Crispin expecting, as well he might, to find Mr. Mortensen alone. The presence of Mr. Edgar in the car was a shock to him. ‘Good Lord,’ he said, ‘what are you doing here?’ The task for which he had come was in peril and required consideration. He sat down with a paper. But presently the inspiration came. He went over to Mr. Mortensen, opened out his paper to draw his interest to an article, and under the cover of the paper spread across the table—he retrieved the bottle with the remaining poisoned tablets he had made and replaced it with the original bottle—this bottle”—he indicated it on the table—“which he had received from his mother outside the station.”

  Doctor Manson ceased, and placing his hands flat on the table sat back in his chair.

  Mrs. Harrison leaned forward, hands on the arms of her chair. She was ashen-faced. “So it is ended, and I thank God for it,” she said. “It is a failure, but a splendid failure, Doctor Manson. Good has come of it, inasmuch as these people”—she took in the company with a wave of her hand—“have been freed from their fears. I do not know what each and all of them have done in the past to be his victim, but I know the relief they must feel at his death. For years he has bled me white; almost every penny I have earned has gone into his pockets to silence him, blackmailing me for his own son. And now”—she spread her hands—“I am ready. But not my son. He only stood by me as a son should. He did not give Mortensen the poison. As you have worked out, I gave it.” She sat back, and it seemed almost as if she was relieved in her mind.

  “If only you had come to us, Mrs. Harrison,” Doctor Manson said; and his voice was low and broken. “We would have kept your secret and your name secret, and would have protected you in every way.”

  “One learns to reason with fear too late, Doctor Manson,” she said. A chill smile came to her face. “I congratulate you. I thought I had a perfect alibi.” The Doctor rose abruptly and left the room. Inspector Edgecumbe stepped forward. “Edwin Crispin and Freda Harrison,” he began. “I am arresting you on a charge that you conspired together to kill and murder one, Alexis Mortensen, and did so murder—”

  T H E E N D

  About The Authors

  EDWIN ISAAC RADFORD (1891-1973) and MONA AUGUSTA RADFORD (1894-1990) were married in 1939. Edwin worked as a journalist, holding many editorial roles on Fleet Street in London, while Mona was a popular leading lady in musical-comedy and revues until her retirement from the stage.

  The couple turned to crime fiction when they were both in their early fifties. Edwin described their collaborative formula as: “She kills them off, and I find out how she done it.” Their primary series detective was Harry Manson who they introduced in 1944.

  The Radfords spent their final years living in Worthing on the English South Coast. Dean Street Press have republished six of their classic mysteries: Murder Jigsaw, Murder Isn’t Cricket, Who Killed Dick Whittington?, The Heel of Achilles, Death of a Frightened Editor, and Death and the Professor.

  Published by Dean Street Press 2020

  Copyright © 1959 E & M.A. Radford

  Introduction copyright © 2020 Nigel Moss

  All Rights Reserved

  First published in 1959 by Robert Hale

  Cover by DSP

  ISBN 978 1 913527 00 6

  www.deanstreetpress.co.uk

 

 

 
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