The Bath Mysteries

by E. R. Punshon

  For he realized well that the task before him had been rendered so difficult by the passage of time that to gather convincing evidence of what had happened so long ago would require for success every possible aid that diligence, luck, or brain could give. At any rate there was one quarter from which he thought it reasonable to suppose he could calculate on getting every help. The Mr. Lawrence apparently in charge here, and so ominously insured for that sum of £20,000 which seemed to run like a leit-motiv through all these different tales of death, could surely be relied upon to give all the information in his possession. Warning would have to be given him with tact and care, but, once he understood that he was almost certainly destined to be the next victim – or why this heavy insurance? – then evidently he should be willing to do all in his power to help, if only for the sake of his own threatened safety.

  A big point in his favour Bobby felt this to be, one that promised real hope of success. For Lawrence must know how and why and by whom he had come to occupy his position.

  Another thing, Bobby reflected, was plain enough – that something was already known here about his own identity. Only some degree of previous knowledge could explain the behaviour of the typist girl. Not so would she have looked at any casual caller; only a degree of understanding of his identity and errand could account for the profound agitation she had displayed. But that implied also some previous knowledge of the ghastly realities this apparently commonplace business office concealed. Nor in that connection was it to be forgotten that both this girl and the woman who had passed as Ronnie’s widow possessed a fur coat in what is often called “leopard skin” – one sufficiently smart and valuable to have drawn admiring comments from feminine beholders. Were they, wearers and coats, identical, then?

  If so, must it be concluded that she was accomplice and decoy?

  Bobby’s looks grew grimmer still as he contemplated the probability. Yet there remained the enigma of her behaviour, it was a little hard to reconcile with the temperament of either accomplice or decoy or even dupe. A dupe would not have been terrified, a decoy would surely have shown greater self-control, an accomplice an alarm less oddly mixed with other elements less easy to understand. Bobby told himself that she had looked at him as a drowning person might look at one holding out a lifebelt, but doubtful whether to lay hold of it might not to be to risk a worse fate still. And, even if in all this his imagination was running away with him, and her troubled looks no more than his own fancy, it was fairly certain she knew who he was.

  But that could easily be accounted for, since it was likely enough the caretaker had been chattering. Bobby blamed himself for not having paid his visit earlier in the day. The affair seemed now to show itself in outline with the typist as accomplice and Lawrence as dupe and prospective victim, while behind must be concealed the personality of the prime mover and originator of the whole conspiracy.

  Three lines of approach, then: Lawrence himself; Dr. Beale, who should prove a willing assistant, ready to help by telling all he knew about the death on the Continent; the girl typist, whose past would have to be investigated, a procedure likely to be fruitful, Bobby thought, and who might also, if handled with tact, be willing to tell what she knew about a business of which it was hardly possible she was quite ignorant and yet of which it was equally improbable she should turn out to be the principal.

  He turned his thoughts to the consideration of another aspect of the case that he had not forgotten, though till now he had kept it in the back of his mind. Dick Norris had chanced to mention that he himself had recently taken out an insurance on his life – for £20,000. And Bobby was growing sensitive to any mention of any insurances of that amount. Moreover, he had recently shown signs of an unaccustomed affluence, even while complaining of an increasing difficulty in disposing of his golfing articles. He had moved, for instance, into a flat just off Park Lane, and, even if Park Lane no longer stands where it did, still flats in that neighbourhood are not for the poor and struggling. Besides, it was known he had been speculating freely on the Stock Exchange of late.

  It would be as well, Bobby decided, to have a chat with Dick Norris. Probably Chris would know in which of the new buildings by Park Lane his flat was situated. It was only a chance, but he might have some useful information to give, and Bobby was aware of an odd curiosity and unease when he reflected on the amount of the insurance Norris had taken out. He wished it had been £10,000 or £30,000 – anything but that perpetually recurring figure of £20,000.

  Bobby glanced at the clock. The caretaker had asserted that the syndicate did little or no business, but they seemed busy enough this afternoon. He wondered if everyone had to wait as long for an interview as he had been obliged to do. First there had been some client or another calling on apparently important business that couldn’t be hurried and needed much examining of documents. Then there was Dr. Beale, with his proposals for investing a clear £20,000 – a small fortune, and, in these days, not so small either. Bobby fancied that few City firms in this time of depression would hope for a busier afternoon, or one providing better prospects. His own presence, of course, was in a sense accidental, a coincidence having nothing to do with these other transactions; but, still, he did help to keep the waiting room occupied and, of course, to the casual eye, would appear as yet another client.

  Abruptly there broke upon his hearing a sound of voices from the neighbouring room. He could not hear what was said, but plainly someone was in a temper, and expressing it in very loud tones. It was Dr. Beale, he thought. Something must have happened to annoy him. Bobby heard distinctly: “Insolence...” and then “Do you dare...?”

  Mingled with the louder tones was a quieter voice, trying apparently to soothe the other. Bobby got to his feet, not quite sure what to do, ready for developments. The door opened, and Dr. Beale flashed out, and in the one movement pirouetted round to face the room he had just quitted.

  “Most uncalled for... unheard-of impudence... a deliberate insult...” he shouted incoherently, stuttering with his indignation. Again he swung round, and his glance fell on Bobby. He said to him: “I never heard of such a thing... never; did you?”

  Without waiting for the answer Bobby could not have given, since he had no idea what the question referred to, the angry philosopher had vanished, rather as if he had dropped through a trap door or dematerialized through the ceiling, though the echo of the slammed outer door and the quivering of the door itself showed that through it he had passed. Next moment he was back again, crossing the floor in a stride or two to the still open door of the inner office. “When I want to insure my life,” he shouted into it, “I’ll insure it for my own benefit, in my own way, not in yours.”

  Then he was gone, and the room seemed to settle once more into quiet, as does a still pool when the darting fish has left it. Bobby had a vision of the doctor transferring himself from this eighth floor to the ground level in a single bound, disdaining alike elevator and stairs. There was something almost terrifying in the extraordinary agility of his movements, as terrifying as those last words of his that seemed to suggest few clients entered here but that an insurance on their lives was suggested. A slow, dead level voice from behind said:

  “I must apologize...”

  Bobby turned. He had been gaping at the door through

  which for the second time Dr. Beale had vanished. He now saw, standing in the doorway behind, a tall, strange-looking man, his hair quite grey, his eyes deep sunken beneath heavy swollen lids, his face deeply lined and utterly expressionless. The features were so regular, so well shaped, one had the idea that once he must have been extremely good- looking before he had grown so thin, so pallid, so expressionless. The breadth of his shoulders, the length of his limbs, suggested that he had possessed an unusually fine physique, but now he seemed as though borne down by a weight too great for him. Bobby noticed especially his hands, large and well shaped, with a mixture of strength and fineness, the hand of an artist and an athlete, but now so thin, almost
transparent, the sunlight from in front seemed to penetrate them.

  After he had uttered the three words he had already spoken, he appeared to forget both what he had meant to say and even the presence of Bobby. He stood there silently, looking straight in front from his dull, deep-sunken eyes, but not as if they saw anything there present; rather as if, forgetting all that, they were staring back into the past. Bobby’s nerves were strong enough, but he felt curiously uncomfortable.

  “Mr. Lawrence?” he asked, a little loudly.

  The other started slightly, as if abruptly and unpleasantly recalled to the present. He made a little bow of acquiescence, and even to that common gesture he seemed to impart a dreary, chill intention.

  “That is my name,” he said. “You wished to see me? I am the manager of the syndicate. Will you please come in?”

  He turned back into the room, and Bobby followed him. It was a comfortably furnished office apartment, like a thousand other City offices, with a Turkey carpet on the floor, chairs, writing table, a desk telephone, safe, deed-boxes, filing cabinets, and so on. Warm as was the day, an electric fire was turned full on, so that the atmosphere resembled that of a hothouse.

  “Please sit down,” he said, indicating an armchair.

  In silence Bobby seated himself. There was stirring in his mind the strangest recollection possible – a memory of a day when he, a young constable new to the force, had been in the Central Criminal Court on some errand or another, and had listened to the stern words spoken by the grave presiding judge, banishing for five years from the world of living men one who stood before him in the dock. But that man the judge had addressed had been young, splendid in the glow of youth and strength, superb in physical perfection, and this man was grey and worn, his face lined, his tall form bent as though bowed by the passage of the years, his eyes – those of that other had been so bright and eager, ready to affront the sun itself – dull, deep-sunken, lifeless.

  Bobby took his cigarette case from his pocket.

  “May I smoke while we are talking?” he said. “Won’t you take one?”

  He put the case down, as he spoke, on the table before Lawrence. For the first time Lawrence lifted his dull gaze and looked full at Bobby. Then, with a gesture that almost seemed to say he understood, he took up the case between the tips of his fingers and pressed them hard upon it and handed it back to Bobby.

  “No, thank you,” he said. “I don’t smoke.”

  CHAPTER 9

  QUESTION AND ANSWER

  A trifle disconcerted, Bobby put back his cigarette case in his pocket. He felt that Lawrence had understood, and had quite deliberately impressed his fingerprints upon it, though whether in conscious innocence, in mockery, or in defiance, Bobby could not make up his mind.

  For in the other’s manner there seemed neither mockery nor defiance, and conscious innocence was a theory Bobby was not yet prepared to admit, since, for one thing, an innocence that is conscious can exist only where suspicion has been entertained, and in this case how could suspicion have been roused except by a knowledge incompatible with innocence?

  Lawrence had taken his seat at his desk behind which burned the electric fire that was on this warm afternoon lifting the temperature in the room to what Bobby was inclined to think must be well over the hundred mark. But, though Bobby was perspiring freely, the lean, cadaverous Lawrence seemed quite unaffected. His worn features, so deeply lined, his dry and parchment-like skin that seemed so incongruous with his apparent youth, showed no sign of being affected by the heated atmosphere. Nor did he show any sign, either, of being still aware of Bobby’s presence. He might have entirely forgotten him. Motionless he sat, his dull eyes fixed upon the wall opposite, but not as though they saw anything there. He gave the impression of being utterly withdrawn from the present, of being unaware of the future, of existing only in the past. There was something unnatural, terrifying even, in his entire withdrawal from his surroundings, almost as if he had ceased to be man, though not because he had either risen above or fallen below our common humanity, but more as if he had slipped, or been pushed, outside.

  One thing at least seemed clear to Bobby: that if this place, this ordinary-looking office, were really, as he was coming to believe, a kind of twentieth-century murder den, the centre of such a conspiracy of death as scarcely the criminal annals of any country could tell of, then its occupants were the strangest conceivable.

  Was it possible to reconcile this dull, incurious personality that Lawrence showed with any plottings so deep and fierce as those concocted here must be? The little typist, too, with the suggestion that hung about her of a terrified bewilderment, of an appeal she dared not make, showed no sign of the qualities one would have expected in any of those associated in such a conspiracy. More and more Bobby became convinced that somewhere in the background must hide a stronger will, a more cunning mind, and that these two were only pawns. But then there was the question whether they were cognizant and willing pawns, or pawns in full meaning of the word. He said:

  “I expect, Mr. Lawrence, you are wondering why I have asked to see you.”

  If Lawrence did entertain any such sentiment of wonder, he certainly hid it well. One might even have doubted if he had so much as heard what Bobby said, so unchanged remained his attitude, so unaltered his expression. Even when Bobby repeated his remark in a somewhat louder tone he still took no notice, still seemed utterly withdrawn into a far-off and gloomy past.

  Bobby told himself that silence is a game two can play at. By experience he knew how powerfully silence and waiting work upon those whose conscience is bad, who have reason to fear the knowledge of others. Natural enough, since the instinct of fear is always to cry aloud. So Bobby, too, sat still and motionless, and the minutes passed and Lawrence gave no sign. He might have been sunk in a trance for all awareness of Bobby or of his surroundings that he showed, and yet it was not so, for when Bobby, finding perspiration caused by the heat of the room trickling down his cheeks, made a movement to wipe it away, Lawrence stirred and switched off his electric fire. Then at once he sank back into his previous abstraction.

  Bobby began to find the situation growing rapidly absurd. Apparently they might sit there like two stuffed dummies forever, without Lawrence either speaking or moving. In the game of silence, Bobby felt he had to acknowledge himself badly beaten. Giving it up, he said crossly:

  “There are a few questions I want to ask about your firm and your own position with it.”

  Again it might have been that Lawrence had not heard, only this time Bobby was well convinced he had.

  “May I take it you will be willing to tell me what I want to know?” Bobby asked.

  Lawrence responded by a slight negative shake of the head.

  “You understand I have good reason for asking?” Bobby said. Fairly certain as he was that his identity was already known, he went on: “I am an officer of police. There is my personal card and that is my warrant card. If you refuse to answer questions, naturally certain conclusions will be drawn.”

  ‘‘Your conclusions are your affair, not mine,” Lawrence answered slowly, dragging himself back as it were from what had seemed so like undirected, aimless contemplation of past and distant things.

  “I think you may find they may become yours,” Bobby answered. “Mr. Lawrence, are you sure you would not be glad of our help? I think perhaps you might be.” But Lawrence took no notice, and Bobby had the feeling that he might as well have offered help to the rain driven by on the wind, or to that wind itself. He tried another way and said: “I think something happened to upset Dr. Beale just now, didn’t it?”

  “Yes. I meant to apologize for that. I began, I think, then I forgot,” Lawrence answered in those dull, level, emotionless tones he seemed always to use. “I must apologize, too, for having kept you so long. We do not like to keep clients waiting, but it is a little difficult if no appointment has been made. One may be disengaged all day and then two or three clients will come in on top
of each other, all wanting an immediate interview. I was sorry Dr. Beale took such offense, but I hardly think we are to blame.”

  “He seemed very much upset,” remarked Bobby. “He seemed to think some suggestion made to him wasn’t quite the thing.”

  “He didn’t like what we suggested,” agreed Lawrence. “We are outside brokers, which means, as I expect you know, that we are not bound by the Stock Exchange rules – very excellent rules, no doubt, for their own purposes, but hampering business greatly. We are really a kind of private Stock Exchange of our own. We bring our clients into direct personal contact, avoiding all middlemen, so that very often they deal with each other direct on terms much better than the Stock Exchange can offer. They aim at safety; we are out for big profits. We consider that speculation and safety are contradictions, while speculation and big profits are complementary.”

  “Big losses, too,” Bobby interposed, wondering at this sudden burst of speech, delivered in a tone that lacked all emphasis and significance, like that of a schoolboy reciting a proposition of Euclid he has learned by heart without understanding a word of it.

  “It is our business to try to avoid losses for our clients,” Lawrence countered. “Naturally they do occur at times; that has to be expected; it’s inevitable. So we have to exercise great caution.”

  “Caution and speculation are contradictory, too, aren’t they?” Bobby asked.