Lord Hirlpool did not seem to think much of the suggestion. He looked at his watch and mumbled:
“Chris ought to be here by now. He’s always late.”
A slow and hesitating step sounded without, paused as if in doubt, and then came on, and there entered languidly a youngish man of middle height with the long, melancholy face and legs too long in proportion to the body that often characterized members of the family of Owen of Hirlpool, and that Bobby himself was thankful some trick of Mendelism had allowed him to escape. The newcomer was Christopher Owen, eldest nephew to Lord Hirlpool, who was a childless widower and to whom, therefore, Chris was heir- presumptive. It followed that he was also grandson to the dowager Lady Hirlpool, cousin by marriage to Cora Owen, cousin by blood to the missing Ronnie Owen and to Detective-Sergeant Bobby Owen, and anything but friend to Dick Norris, with whom he had had in the past certain complicated financial relations which had ended in a common loss and mutual ill-feeling. He was the proprietor of a small antique shop, of which the extremely fluctuating profits afforded him his means of livelihood, and he had the reputation of often picking up for a pound or two in the houses of his friends and acquaintances bits of china, drawings, old furniture, and so on, that afterwards he disposed of on trips to America at a fantastic profit. But it was also believed that most of what he gained in business he promptly lost again, gambling on the Stock Exchange. He had a considerable reputation as what is vulgarly called a “lady-killer,” since his long, melancholy face had its own attractiveness, his eyes could take on a look of infinite appeal, and many women seemed unable to resist the languid and melancholy indifference of his manner that seemed positively to challenge them to relieve it. Often they managed to convince themselves that that was a breaking heart which was in reality only wonder whether an offer of a couple of guineas for the bit of Sèvres – worth ten – on the mantelpiece would be accepted or resented. He spoke with a slight, indeed very slight, stutter, intermittent and at times scarcely perceptible, and yet, in a general way, oddly noticeable. Slight as it was, it had had a great effect on his life, it had made impossible for him a stage career to which he had been strongly drawn and for which he had real aptitude, and at Cambridge it had been the cause of his having been sent down without taking his degree. Absurdly sensitive always to what was a very trifling defect, he had resented so strongly a mocking imitation of it given by a fellow-undergraduate, at a party at which the cocktails had been frequent and strong, as to express that resentment in terms of a carving knife. A serious criminal charge had been narrowly averted; there had even been a few hours when a death and a charge of murder had seemed a possibility; in the end the injured man’s lie that he had inflicted the injury himself had been accepted. But the incident had brought Chris’s university career to a conclusion, and with it his hopes of entering the Civil Service with an eye upon the Foreign Office. Now, the moment he entered the room he announced gloomily, his little stutter more marked than usual:
“T-t-those Chippendale chairs I bought at the Lawes sale are all duds – made in Birmingham year before last. R-rather a bore – means I shall drop a couple of hundred on them.”
“Hard times all round,” agreed the brown-faced Norris. “It’s hardly any good writing anything about golf – every editor you try has a drawerful of stuff already. All they want to know is if you’ve won the Open, and, if you haven’t, then yours goes down the drain.”
“You shouldn’t buy duds, Chris,” his grandmother told him tartly. “Antique dealers sell duds, they don’t buy ’em.” Having delivered herself of this aphorism, Lady Hirlpool turned to Norris: “Why don’t you turn pro, Mr. Norris?” she demanded. “They make plenty of money; they charge you a guinea for advising you to buy one of their own clubs at twice what they paid for it.”
“I know,” sighed Norris, “but if you’re a pro you have to compete with pros – not good enough.”
“Got any tips to give away?” asked Chris, dangling eyeglasses of which he had no need, since his sight was excellent – the eyeglasses were in reality powerful magnifiers, enabling him to give a close examination to objects on which he seemed to be bestowing a merely casual glance.
Norris answered this inquiry for tips by a dismal shake of the head.
“The last three blokes I wasted a spot of coaching on stood me one dinner, one week-end invite, and one ‘Thanks awfully’ between them,” he said dejectedly, “and one of them knew jolly well what was going to happen to ‘Emmies’ and never said a word.”
“Too bad,” murmured Chris, more sympathetically than believingly. To Cora, Chris added: “I don’t know when I shall be able to pay back that couple of thou.”
Cora took not the least notice of this remark. She might not have heard, and yet they all felt in her a kind of hidden heat of attention, as though no word was spoken but was fuel to some secret fire in her. Chris’s remark had reference to a sum of £2,000 Ronnie Owen had lent to him in a mood of unusual benevolence, affluence, and less unusual intoxication. That, of course, had been before the crash, and Bobby remembered the occasion well, for he had chanced that night to be in his cousins’ company; had had made to himself, but had not accepted, similar generous offers; and had admired a fur coat in ocelot skin Ronnie had happened to see in a shop window, taken a fancy to, and bought then and there for Cora. She had been less grateful in that she had already two fur coats, and did not care for ocelot fur or consider that it suited her. The loan to Chris had been for the purpose of buying out an unsatisfactory partner in the antique business and for extending it, and the windfall which had permitted Ronnie to display such all-round generosity had been the result of a highly successful speculation in gold-mine shares, undertaken on the strength of information passed on by Dick Norris that it was commonly said he had failed to act on himself since he had not believed it reliable – otherwise he would not have passed it on but kept it to himself, was the unkind comment generally added when the story was told. By an added irony of fate, it was only this lucky hit, resulting in such unusual affluence – for the £2,000 lent to Chris had been a comparatively small part of the gain – that had put Ronnie in a position to propose to Cora. Chris said to her now:
“No news yet of Ronnie, I suppose?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I believe he’s been murdered.”
CHAPTER 2
A TASK FOR BOBBY
The last word fell like a stone into a quiet pond. One could almost see the slow ripples of surprise, horror, incredulity, spreading in each listener’s mind – but incredulity predominating. Lady Hirlpool was the first to speak. She said protestingly, a little with the air of thus finally disposing of the matter:
"My dear Cora!”
Cora picked up the half-smoked stump of one of the cigarettes she had discarded and put it between her lips without appearing to notice that it had long been extinguished.
“I expect I shall begin to scream soon,” she remarked dispassionately.
“Oh, I say... Cora,” exclaimed Norris, his first expression of blank disbelief changing to one of acute alarm.
“When people start to scream at the Yard,” observed Bobby as dispassionately as Cora, “we just let ’em. Then we go on when they’re through.”
His grandmother turned on him with a flash of genuine indignation.
“I call that simply brutal,” she declared heatedly.
“So do they, granny,” agreed Bobby.
Lady Hirlpool snorted, and took refuge in her lipstick.
Lord Hirlpool said:
“It’s because of this idea of Cora’s that I asked you to come along here. Mother’s flat is too small.”
“’Tisn’t,” snapped Lady Hirlpool, still indignant. “I can get two bridge tables in quite easily, and three if someone sits in the lobby.”
“Besides, it’s in West Kensington,” Lord Hirlpool added clinchingly. He still thought of West Kensington as others think of Central Africa, and, before his mother could frame another angry protest, he we
nt on: “At my hotel one can’t be private, so I thought it would be better to meet here to talk.”
“If I had known,” interposed Norris, “I would have suggested my place. I’ve a flat in Park Lane now, you know,” he added with a certain complacence, since this suggested an affluence altogether new and the more unexpected in view of his recent lament over the present difficulty of selling articles about golf in a world in which possibly not everyone played golf, but certainly everyone wrote about it.
“But... murdered?” protested Chris, as if the word had only just sunk into his mind. “Old Ronnie... murdered...? Oh, come...”
“If Cora has any facts to go on,” Bobby pointed out, himself incredulous, “she ought to give information to the C.I.D.”
“Well, you’re the C.I.D., aren’t you?” asked Chris. “Jolly good, too; people like it, when you’re buying bits of things from them, if you tell them you’ve a cousin in the C.I.D. Makes them feel so safe,” he added, his voice the soft purr of a cat lazily absorbing a saucerful of cream.
Bobby, very indignant at this shameless use of a family connection, tried to think of some effective protest, but failed. All he could do was to grumble out:
“I’m not the C.I.D. I’m a detective-sergeant, and a detective-sergeant is just an errand-boy running about where he’s told. It’s the big hats upstairs do the brainwork. If Cora’s got anything to show...”
“I’ve this,” said Cora, and put a signet ring on the table. “It was Ronnie’s.”
“It was offered me,” explained Lord Hirlpool, “by a dealer who had noticed the crest and motto and thought I might like to buy it for family reasons – it was a man in quite a small way out in Islington,” added Lord Hirlpool, explanatory, since it was obvious no West End dealer would ever have thought of Lord Hirlpool as a likely market for the purchase of anything whatever. “I thought the ring must be Ronnie’s from the description, but to make sure I went to see. It had been pawned.”
“Oh, well, nothing in that,” observed Dick Norris as the speaker paused; for, indeed, to Norris, in spite of his present remarkable Park Lane affluence, the pawnshop still seemed the natural and indeed inevitable home for all unattached jewellery.
“Ronnie would never have parted with it,” Cora said, her long-extinguished cigarette still between her lips.
“Oh, well, when a chap’s put to it,” Chris observed tolerantly. He himself was not without experience in such matters.
“Ronnie would have starved first,” Cora insisted.
“It was not Ronnie who pawned it,” Lord Hirlpool said. “It was his widow.”
“Widow?” repeated Bobby, a little uneasily.
“Widow,” repeated Cora. “But not me.”
“The pawnbroker made inquiries,” Lord Hirlpool went on. “The ring is of some value – he advanced £30 on it, and I suppose rings worth that much don’t often turn up in Islington. He found it had been the property of a man on whom an inquest had been held a few days previously. The name was given as Ronald Oliver. If any of us saw the report of the inquest in the paper, that name wouldn’t suggest anything. It was mentioned in the evidence that Mr. Oliver had recently taken out an insurance on his life for £10,000, as well as an accident insurance for another £10,000. Both amounts were paid.”
“Well, that couldn’t have been Ronnie,” Chris pointed out. “Rotten heart, always getting knocked up, daren’t even run for a bus. No company would have insured him for ten thousand pence.”
“Then why had he Ronnie’s ring?” Cora asked, looking with an air of surprise at the cigarette-end she had just taken from her mouth, as if wondering how it had got there.
“When pawning the ring,” Lord Hirlpool went on, “Mrs. Oliver explained that the insurance was all taken up by business liabilities. Mr. Oliver was described at the inquest as a stock and share dealer, but apparently not a member of the Stock Exchange.”
“Well, that’s nothing against him,” said Norris, somewhat defiantly. “Just as straight blokes outside as inside – straighter, if you ask me.”
“As well as the life policy there was an accident policy – both for ten thousand,” Bobby repeated thoughtfully. “Do you know if they were recent?” he asked.
“The accident policy had been taken out only three months before,” Lord Hirlpool answered.
“Nothing in that,” observed Norris. “I took one out myself for £20,000 only the other day.” He smiled, and seemed inclined to wink, but did not. “Useful in business sometimes, and blokes don’t always spot the difference between an accident and a whole-life policy. You can always raise a bit of coin on a policy with a good company.”
“I suppose the company made some inquiries before they paid?” Bobby remarked. “What was the verdict at the inquest?”
“Death by misadventure.”
“What caused it?” Bobby asked.
Lord Hirlpool hesitated, and looked at Cora. She put both hands on the table before her, holding them firmly together. In a loud, clear voice she said:
“Boiling.”
“What?” said Bobby, thinking he had misunderstood. Cora got up and walked out of the room.
“Boiling,” repeated Lord Hirlpool.
“But, good Lord,” protested Chris, “you mean he scalded himself... kettle of boiling water...?”
“No, I don’t,” said Lord Hirlpool. “The evidence showed he died in his bath from the effects of boiling water coming from a lighted geyser during approximately thirty-six hours.”
“I think I’ll go and see what Cora’s doing,” said Lady Hirlpool, getting up and following her niece.
“She means she’s going to be sick somewhere,” said Lord Hirlpool gloomily. “It does make you feel a bit like that.”
“Yes, but hang it all,” spluttered Chris. “Well, I mean... how could it – happen?”
“The evidence,” said Lord Hirlpool, “was to the effect that Ronnie – Mr. Oliver – was the worse for drink when he returned on Saturday night to the flat he occupied alone. The charwoman he employed didn’t come on week-ends. It was only when she arrived on Monday morning that what had happened was discovered. The flat is in a big new building, meant chiefly for working people, and the overflow from the bath ran off into a main waste-pipe, so there was nothing to attract attention there. Neighbours said that ‘the gentleman often came home jolly.’ They thought nothing of it when he was seen like that on this occasion. It seems quite clear Ronnie was alone. There was a half-empty whisky bottle in the bathroom. The suggestion adopted was that Ronnie had decided to have a bath, possibly to sober up on; that he got ready – his clothing was lying about the room – and that he lighted the geyser and then, overcome by the steam perhaps, had managed to fall in his intoxicated condition into the bath in which the boiling water from the geyser continued to pour continuously for a day and a half.”
“I suppose it might happen like that,” Bobby said slowly.
“The jury thought so,” answered Lord Hirlpool. “The police were called in, and found papers showing that he was living separated from his wife, to whom under the deed of separation he had to pay £7 a week. The insurance policy was in her favour, to assure her a continuance of that income in case of his death.”
“I thought the money had to go to pay business liabilities,” interposed Bobby.
“There seems an inconsistency there,” agreed Lord Hirlpool. “The wife’s name was given as Mary Oliver, at a Bournemouth address. The police communicated with her, she came to London, seemed decently distressed, made all necessary arrangements, collected the £20,000 insurance, and that’s all.”
“Why does Cora think it was murder?” Norris asked. “It might have been a genuine accident.”
“Had Cora heard from him at all since – since the scandal?” inquired Bobby.
“Yes,” answered Lord Hirlpool. “At the time she told him she would never forgive him, and never wanted to see or hear of him again. He had the grace to be thoroughly ashamed of himself, and he went
away accordingly. He took nothing with him except a few clothes and a little ready cash – not more than £50 at the most. He saw his lawyers and instructed them that Cora was to have everything else, and signed the necessary papers. Apparently as Mr. Oliver he took up some sort of stockbroker’s business, and was doing quite well at it. He wrote once or twice to Cora, He gave no address. He said that was so she wouldn’t be able to return his letters unanswered. He said he supposed she would never forgive him but he always read the Announcer, and if one day he saw his name in the agony column, with the word ‘Return’ with it, he would give her a week to make sure she meant it and then, if there was no other advertisement to cancel the first, he would take it she was willing to have him back and he would come.” Cora had returned to the room. She had been listening intently and smoking furiously. Abruptly she said:
“Father hated cigarettes; he said they were poison.” Her father had been a doctor, and she herself, chiefly to please him, had begun medical studies. But she had never made much progress with them, and on his death she had abandoned them. A lingering regard for his teaching made her a rare smoker, but today she was helping herself to one cigarette after the other, though indeed it was more a case of burning them up than of smoking them. Bobby reflected her abrupt remark probably meant she was longing to have again her father’s presence and advice. He said:
“Did the pawnbroker give any description of the woman who pledged the ring?”
“‘Tall, dark, slim, wearing a leopard-skin coat,’ he said,” Cora answered. “I had one in ocelot fur once. I got rid of it long ago. It was one Ronnie gave me. I went to the shop. The man said it was someone like me but not me – someone older and darker, much darker skin. There was no one Ronnie knew like that.”
“Did you do what he asked about the advertisement?” Bobby inquired.
“At first I tore up the letters he sent,” she answered. “If I had known his address I would have sent them back. I hated thinking of him. One day in March last year I was near the Announcer office, and I went in and got them to put in the advertisement he wanted. I thought there was a whole week I could change my mind in if I liked. I didn’t, and I waited, and he never came.” Her tone was monotonous and dull, but one felt the strong emotion in it. In the same carefully restrained voice she added: “It was that week-end it happened.”
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