The Bath Mysteries

by E. R. Punshon

  The apartment into which Bobby was now shown was large, well lit, and very comfortably furnished with easy chairs in the latest style, fitted with their own lighting, bookcases containing various works of reference, two writing- tables near the windows, and one large table in the middle of the room covered with newspapers, daily, weekly, illustrated, and financial. There was a box of cigarettes on this table, too, with the friendly exhortation above:

  “Please help yourself and please us.”

  The day was fine and warm, sunshine streamed in at the open window, the whole air of the room, which indeed more resembled a drawing-room than a City office, was friendly, welcoming, confidence-creating. By the table stood a small, erect, brisk-looking man, elderly, very well dressed, dandified almost. His perfectly cut lounge suit whispered – too well bred, of course, to do more than whisper – Savile Row from every stitch; his gold mounted umbrella was a miracle of neat rolling; his hat and gloves were perfect; his spectacles were gold rimmed and seemed to regret there was no metal more precious to use; on one finger shone a ring whose value must have been in the three-figure order; in the cuffs of his silk shirt twinkled two diamond links; his shoes seemed as though never meant to tread the common earth. A little ostentatious, perhaps, the whole effect, and yet still within the bounds of taste and breeding. In age Bobby took him to be between forty and fifty, though very possibly some years younger. His eyes behind his glasses were bright and alert, and his every movement had a quality of swift unexpectedness that was at times even a little disconcerting, as though one could never be quite sure of his exact position. The only real sign he gave of advancing years was that his hair, dark and of unusually strong and vigorous growth, was beginning to show just a touch of grey at the temples; but, then, that is often the case with men at a comparatively early age. He was clean-shaven, a bluish tinge on the square, forward-thrusting chin suggesting that the growth of his beard, if permitted, would have been as strong and luxuriant as that of his hair. At the moment Bobby entered he was helping himself to a cigarette from the open box on the table, his hand flashing in and out with the quickness of gesture that seemed habitual to him. As he lighted the cigarette he gave Bobby a quick, all-embracing glance that seemed to take him in from top to toe, and then, as if satisfied that the newcomer was one whose existence could be recognized, he remarked:

  “These City lads do themselves pretty well. I smoke this Regie* brand myself, but they come a bit high, and I don’t know that I should leave them about in my study for everyone who blew in to help himself as he liked.”

  CHAPTER 7

  A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

  Bobby glanced at the cigarettes and saw that they were in fact the somewhat expensive brand mentioned. The fact interested him, for, taken together with the comfortable, even luxurious, manner in which the room was furnished, it suggested that the Berry, Quick Syndicate was in no way short of capital. And yet according to the caretaker they did hardly any business and their references had not been of a nature to make the managers of the building very anxious to accept them as tenants. Indeed, had not tenants grown so scarce and rare a species, they would apparently have been politely refused accommodation. Facts to be remembered, Bobby thought, and, looking up, saw with surprise that his companion was now at one of the windows, enjoying the cigarette to which he had just helped himself and staring idly down at the busy street below.

  He had moved so softly and so swiftly, with so strange a lightness of action, that Bobby had been quite unaware of it, and had thought him still standing by the table. Elderly he might be, certainly was, for age cannot wholly be disguised, but equally certainly he was still nimble as the nimblest of youths, and with no trace of that awkwardness that even nimble youths still show before they have acquired full control of their own limbs. Bobby wondered if he had been an athlete – a lightweight boxer perhaps – or it might be a dancing expert, and so had acquired that swift certainty of balance and of movement he seemed to possess.

  All at once he began to laugh, a soft, rather musical laughter that gave the impression of being as entirely under control as were his bodily movements. He took off his glasses as if without them he could see better at a distance. He said:

  "Jove, nearly got her.” To explain his amusement, he added to Bobby: “Dear old lady scuttling across the road, and a car missed her by inches. Anyhow, the motor age is teaching the aged to leap.”

  “Yes,” agreed Bobby, who knew too much about the statistics of the dead and injured on the roads, that Scotland Yard compiled each week, to regard any aspect of the subject as in any way amusing. “I think I’ll have one of these,” he added, helping himself to a cigarette.

  “Why not?” said the other, and, when Bobby looked up again, he had left the window and was lolling in one of the armchairs. Once more he had shifted his position with such lightness and soft rapidity of action that Bobby had been aware of no movement, heard no sound. “After all, I suppose it’s mugs like us who pay for them. But I beg your pardon. Very likely you aren’t one of the great army of optimists who expect to make a fortune in the City.”

  “Well, I’ve just called to make a few inquiries,” Bobby answered cautiously.

  “So have I,” the other observed. “Well, it’s an amusement for an idle man, and generally I break even, though I’m a few hundreds down this last year or two. Must try to catch up soon.” With that swift ease of movement that seemed characteristic of him, he flashed a visiting card from his pocket to the table in front of Bobby. “Introducing me,” he said, with another of those soft, musical, yet controlled laughs of his.

  The name on the card was Beale – Dr. Ambrose Beale – the address, The Thatched Cottage, The Hog’s Back, Kent.

  “Don’t confuse our Hog’s Back with the one near Guildford,” Dr. Beale added. “Most people do. Ours is nothing like so well known, though we all think it much superior – our view is so much wider and there is the river in the distance.”

  “That’s rather jolly,” agreed Bobby, and added, chiefly for the sake of saying something: “I see you are a doctor.”

  Dr. Beale gave again that soft laugh of his.

  “Doctor of philosophy, not of medicine,” he explained, “though people who hear me called doctor often want me to prescribe them a few pills. But I never could see why doctors of medicine should have a monopoly. Music, laws, letters, philosophy, we are all doctors, too.”

  “Yes, of course,” agreed Bobby, with the reverence due from laymen to one who had scaled the dizzy heights of doctordom. “I’m afraid it took me all my time to scrape through for a modest B.A.”

  “Ah, you’re ’varsity,” Dr. Beale said quickly, with a slight touch of surprise that was not, Bobby thought, too flattering. As if conscious of this, he added quickly: “I only meant you look more the athletic type. Examinations are a tricky business, though. A bit of luck and you might have got a double first. Now for a doctorate you only have to submit a thesis. Much fairer, in my opinion. Mine was on Spinoza’s theory of monads – the monistic philosophy, you know.”

  “Oh, yes,” agreed Bobby, still more respectfully, as he strove in a puzzled way to remember what in his university days he had learned of the different philosophies.

  Dr. Beale helped himself to another cigarette.

  “Sometimes people don’t believe it,” he remarked. “They seem to think a philosopher must be at least a hundred years old, with a beard at least a yard long, and that he ought to live in a tub. And I do draw the line at that, though if I’m not a hundred I’m getting on – sixty-five.”

  Bobby made polite sounds of incredulity, for, indeed it did seem to him hardly possible that a man of sixty-five should have retained the ease and swiftness of movement Dr. Beale displayed. He was, in fact, really surprised by the other’s reference to his age; his whole appearance, his alert manner, his bright, quick glance, the extraordinary swiftness and lightness of his movements, all seemed to belong to a much younger personality. But, then, sixty is an age no
one wishes to claim, neither young enough for adventure nor old enough for reverence, a dull, indeterminate age, indeed, to which no one would be likely to advance a false claim. So it was probably correct, however surprising, since, though time may have no bite upon the mind, the body remains its natural prey. Bobby said something polite about his companion looking much younger, and Beale gave that low laugh of his which had so much the manner of being so entirely under his control.

  “Would you like to know why?” he asked. “Good wine and enough of it, good food and not too much of it. Overeating is fatal – makes you fat.” He paused to shudder at the thought, like any debutante detecting the approach of plumpness. “But you can’t over-drink, because if you do you simply cease to drink and begin to swill. No drunkard can appreciate good wine. But dull food – ginger beer and cold mutton – that’s fatal, too. Kills your interest in life. Good food well cooked – it needn’t be expensive – and good wine – it must be expensive, unfortunately. Make those your slogans and live to be a hundred.” With his conjuring-trick air he flashed his watch from his pocket and back again. “Hope this Lawrence chap is not going to be much longer,” he said. “I suppose they do a big business here, but I’ve another engagement as well. Generally I deal with my regular brokers – most respectable firm; their notion of a flutter is a wild plunge in Consols. So when I want a fling in gold mines I come here. My own man hardly knows gold mines exist. Generally I only risk two or three hundred, but this time I’ve a surprise for these people.”

  “Indeed,” said Bobby.

  “Twenty thousand,” said Beale; and Bobby looked up quickly, wondering a little at the largeness of the sum, and guessing that perhaps it was a natural excitement over a prospective deal on so large a scale that was making his companion so talkative.

  For the doctor of philosophy did not strike him as being of a type likely to chatter so freely in the general way.

  “Twenty thousand,” Beale repeated now, rolling the words on his tongue as if to get the full flavour of their meaning. “Gilt-edged securities yield too low. What does a capital of £20,000 bring in today? Five or six hundred if you’re lucky. And if a woman’s been used to spending a hundred a month – well, it can’t be done, can it?”

  “No,” agreed Bobby, “only there’s always the question of risk.”

  “Oh, I’ve drawn up a perfectly sound, safe list,” declared the philosopher; and suddenly, Bobby hardly saw how, he was seated again in another of the armchairs with a bundle of papers on his knees. “Jolly good,” he said complacently, “only, of course, my old stick of a broker can’t understand. So I’m going to see what these people think of it. It’s a lady I’m acting for. I’m her trustee. She’s a widow, poor soul, and lost her only son very tragically some time ago.”

  “Indeed,” murmured Bobby, beginning to be a little bored by such a stream of confidential reminiscence.

  “Found dead in his bath,” added Dr. Beale, and Bobby’s heart nearly stopped with fear and wonder and excitement.

  Dr. Beale was silent then. He was slowly turning over the papers on his knee, but less as if interested in them than as if oppressed by memory of this tragedy he had referred to. Bobby said presently, as indifferently as he could:

  “Was that recently?”

  “Oh, no, two or three years ago,” Dr. Beale answered. “Three years to be exact. Very sad affair altogether. Most tragic. The poor woman’s only son, and making a big name for himself in the City. A financial genius. She misses the liberal allowance he used to make her, too. It stopped with his death.”

  “Didn’t he leave anything?” Bobby asked.

  “Not a penny,” Beale answered. “Liabilities, in fact. Very sad affair – it happened on the Continent, no one could explain how. He was found dead in his bath in a furnished villa he had taken for holidays. They thought he fainted and his head went under the water. He had a number of big schemes in hand, and he had probably been overworking. Of course, everything collapsed with his death. I can tell you I’ve been very careful ever since never to fill my bath too full.”

  “Wasn’t he insured?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, heavily – £20,000, I believe, including £1,000 on a coupon from a diary they wouldn’t pay because it happened out of England. His mother would have got that, I suppose, but all the rest went to the people who held the policies. I don’t know why, but they tell me a life insurance policy with a good company is the most easily negotiated financial instrument there is.”

  “I suppose so,” agreed Bobby. “Do you know what company it was?”

  “Some American concern, I think. But I don’t know much about it. All I’m sure of is that the mother didn’t get a penny. I never understood why, but then I’m not instructed in business ways. Ask me anything about Hegel’s philosophy of realism and I dare say I could talk about it for an hour or two. But ask me about business methods and I’m dumb.”

  Bobby thought that improbable, but he said nothing. His mind was in a whirl of doubt, confusion, even dread. Dr. Beale added:

  “The poor fellow had had dealings with this firm – or, rather, with their predecessors: that’s how I got in touch with them.”

  The door opened, and there entered the girl typist Bobby had seen before.

  “Mr. Lawrence can see you now, sir,” she said to Dr. Beale. To Bobby she added: “Mr. Lawrence says he’s so sorry to have kept you waiting, but it’s always a little difficult if no appointment’s been made.”

  She was looking directly, even fiercely, at him as she spoke, and again Bobby was aware of that expression in her eyes he had seen before and that had then, as now, puzzled him so much. There was fear in it, but not the fear all officers of the law are familiar with in those whom at last the arm of the law has reached. There was hate, defiance, too, but a hate and a defiance different from that to which officers of the law are accustomed when their duty brings them into contact with those in whom hate and defiance are the general mood. There was desperation as well, and with that, again, Bobby, like all his colleagues, was only too sadly familiar. But it seemed as if there were in addition a kind of wild appeal and trust – almost hope – and that was less easy to understand. It was only for a second, or less than a second, that their eyes thus met; and then the girl was moving to the door of the inner office to open it for Dr. Beale to enter. With his characteristic light speed of movement Dr. Beale followed, and, as he vanished, Bobby heard a loud yet dull and curiously expressionless voice saying: “I’m so sorry, doctor. So awfully good of you to have waited. It was Montague with me, and he’s such a suspicious, cautious old beggar he would have been dead sure something was wrong if I had made even the least attempt to hurry him through the papers. It’s rather a big thing – ” The girl closed the door then, shutting out the voices. She went back to her cubicle by the outer door without another glance at Bobby, though he was certain she was acutely aware of him. For a moment, indeed, he had the idea that she was going to stop and speak, and then he thought that he would speak to her himself. But he did not. The only thing he could be sure of was that she was in an intensely emotional and nervous state, and he felt it would probably be better to let that nervousness and emotion find their own vent.

  Besides, he did not know in the least what to say or how to approach her. His mind was in a turmoil, and, warm as was the day, warm the sunshine streaming in by the open windows, he felt strangely cold, so that he found he was shivering slightly.

  He heard a slight noise of movement behind him. Turning, he saw that the typist girl had opened her door again an inch or two and was looking at him through the crack.

  “Did you want to speak to me?” he said.

  She closed the door again, and almost at once he heard the clatter of her machine as she banged it to and fro at a feverish rate.

  CHAPTER 8

  LINES OF APPROACH

  But he found it difficult. The simplicity with which Dr. Beale had told his story had intensified a thousandfold the terrors it conce
aled. No doubt the doctor felt keenly the tragedy of a young and promising life abruptly cut short, but what did he know of the fresh light thrown by it upon what now appeared a conspiracy of murder as callous, widespread, and successful as any the whole dread history of crime could show?

  It suddenly occurred to him that the very cigarette he was smoking might well have been bought with the proceeds and profits of what was beginning to show itself to him as a kind of murder factory. Perhaps that was why it was an expensive brand. Expense no object with death so easily transmuted into gold. With a strong effort he applied himself to clear his mind of all emotion and to consider dispassionately the facts so far established.

  Of these, the first and most important was this series of deaths of men heavily insured, in each case but one the insurance on their lives being paid, not to their natural heirs, but to business associates, and in each case, too, the death occurring in a bath and arousing no open suspicion. Though, of course, it was likely enough, as Bobby knew well from his own experience, that many doubts and misgivings had been in fact aroused, even without sufficient justification being found to permit of open expression.

  He noted the second fact, apparently well established, that there existed some sort or kind of connection between this series of deaths and the firm of outside brokers in whose waiting room on the eighth floor of a London office building he was now seated at his ease, smoking one of their admirable and expensive cigarettes. It was a connection, too, that explained the luck of his chance encounter with Dr. Beale, but for the fortunate coincidence of the meeting with whom nothing might ever have been heard of the further death that had apparently taken place somewhere on the Continent. A bit of luck, Bobby told himself gravely, that showed, he hoped, Providence was on his side, intending to help him.