by Vernon Loder
‘I should understand it at least.’
‘Quite. Well that’s the way it was. But the son didn’t quite know how to set about it, and he had no evidence about Man—about the fella, except his face. It struck him that the fella’s face was the kind that’s had practice ogling pretty girls, and there were rumours goin’ about too, though not direct enough to give a handle.’
‘He never thought of an inquiry-agent, I suppose?’ Devenish prompted, more or less convinced now that Jameson Peden-Hythe was speaking the truth.
‘Jolly well did, if you ask me. But those inquiry fellas seem such cads, and he didn’t like to tell them about Mrs X, as you can imagine, having some sort of respect for the old lady.’
‘No. What then?’
‘Well then, a chap turned up and wanted a job, and it happened that he was a fella who was under some kind of an obligation, or thought he was, and was a very decent, sound fella into the bargain.’
‘Who could be pitchforked into a job at a big Stores, say?’
‘Absolutely, and not the sort of chap to go spilling other people’s secrets. Whatever he saw he would keep to himself. Well, the idea was this. He was to keep an eye on Mander’s flat, and he had a key to the back door on the laneway. It was pretty clear that no one was likely to visit that bounder before ten, for the butler might be in and out before that.’
‘I see.’
‘In any case, if anything had happened, I—I mean the watchman would have been excused, and any damage done would have been made good, so there was no harm in putting him on the job.’
‘But rather a dirty business spying, sir,’ said Devenish quietly. ‘We do it because it is our duty, and we have some public interest to serve.’
‘You’re quite right,’ said Jameson. ‘I oughtn’t to have said that to you the other day. I take it back, and apologise. But to get down to tin tacks, Mann wasn’t able to get anything very definite, for he couldn’t be out in the lane all the time. It wasn’t his fault, but this son chap got a bit peeved about it, and had an idea that things would move fast before he could interfere—’
‘Apparently Mander contemplated a bolt with Miss Tumour,’ said Devenish.
‘But I couldn’t know that. I mean to say Mrs X’s son wasn’t feeling in the best of tempers Sunday evening, and he determined to barge round to see for himself. He rang the bell of the back door into the Stores, not the door to Mander’s private staircase, and Mann came out. Mann had been on the watch after he arrived for his turn of duty, and he had seen a girl let in by the private door.’
Devenish started. ‘Oh, he saw that?’
‘Yes. Well, this X chap thought he would catch Mander on the hop, and he had had just enough to make him think of the silly plan of ringing at the private bell and making old Mander answer for his deeds. Whether old Mander was dead at that time, or could get a squint from above at the caller, no one can say, but he didn’t show up. So Mrs X’s son tootled back to his club when he got tired of ringing. Later on he got the wind up, because he had dropped his match-box in the lane and couldn’t find it.’
‘And finally tried to fool the police into believing he knew nothing about the case.’
‘Well, he didn’t really, did he? Not from what he says,’ pleaded Jameson.
‘Has he seen Mann since then?’ asked Devenish.
‘Yes, he did, but Mann said he knew nothing. After he had reported to X at the back door, he went on with his job—I believe him too. You know, inspector, Mann is really a most respectable fella.’
Devenish studied the young man’s face very thoughtfully. It wore an expression which did not seem evasive, and on the whole the detective was inclined to believe that he had told a true story. If he had really thought his mother was going to marry Mander, and suspected that the man was not only mercenary but a secret libertine as well, he might have excused his rather tortuous course of conduct with the reflection that he was saving his mother from an unhappy future.
‘What time was it that you rang?’
‘I should say it was about just after eleven.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Devenish, as he rose to go. ‘Your story must of course be tested, and you must not leave town on any account until you get permission from us. But if I find that you have told me the truth, I shall endeavour to keep Mrs X’s name out of it.’
Jameson put out his hand. ‘I’ve been a damn fool, inspector, in more ways than one. But I am going to put a padlock on it. I hope you’ll have good luck.’
Devenish went away very thoughtful. He wanted to see Mr Melis next, which was fortunate, for Mr Melis was very anxious to see him. When he entered the assistant-commissioner’s room at the Yard, he was greeted with a murmur of satisfaction.
‘Come in, inspector. You’re the very man I want to see. One of our cheerful experts has upset your latest apple-cart, and I want to see how you propose to set it up on its wheels again.’
He motioned Devenish to a seat, and lit a cigarette for effect.
‘That bullet,’ he began, gesturing with his cigarette as he was wont to do on the amateur stage. ‘It isn’t the right one.’
‘I wondered,’ said Devenish.
Melis laughed. He did not think it likely that Devenish had wondered, but thought he was trying to cover up a very natural error.
‘It was fired, no doubt,’ he continued, ‘and fired from that Mauser. But it was fired into the sand, not into Mander. That does make a difference, I must say. For example, it gives us two shots fired instead of one.’
Devenish nodded. ‘So Mander may really have been shot in the lift, sir.’
‘With a magic bullet which flew into tiny fragments, and so could not be found, I suppose!’ Melis rallied him. ‘And the blood flowed upwards from under the carpet on the floor? Must be unique that!’
We haven’t found the carpet from the lift, sir,’ said Devenish, and went on to explain what he had done that day. ‘Not yet.’
Mr Melis looked both startled and puzzled. ‘Jove! So this alcoholic young man was hanging about that night, and now comes at us with a fairy tale.’
‘I am not sure of that, sir.’
Melis forgot to gesture with his cigarette. ‘Really? And you’re not a bad judge of character either. But what is on now? I suppose you don’t still suspect Kephim or Cane, or Webley?’
Devenish knitted his brows. ‘I don’t know that I suspected Webley much at any time, but Kephim is a possibility, and Cane.’
‘What have we against Cane?’
‘We have only hypotheses, sir, but that applies to them all. If Cane is concerned at all—and I admit I didn’t like him very much—it has something to do with this gyrocopter. Webley is a bit of a genius, it seems, at mechanics proper, but Cane gave me to believe that a man who could invent the thing must have had high technical knowledge.’
‘The science of the thing—higher mathematics, and so forth?’
‘That is what I mean, sir. There are people who can do anything with machines but do not understand the scientific theories on which they are based. Now Cane is a highly educated man.’
‘You think he may be the inventor?’
‘He was very bitter about the rewards inventors get, though he talked more or less impersonally. If there is any case against him at all, his invention was stolen by Mander and worked up by Webley, or else he was taken on because of the gyrocopter and agreed not to claim as the inventor, but got discontented when he found it was selling so fast. Why did he go to see Webley at all? Had he heard that the man was to be put forward by Mander as the real inventor? Did he see Mander at the flat on that Sunday night, and find him determined to stick to the original arrangement that we are postulating?’
‘It’s barely possible.’
‘Quite so, sir. In that case he may have shot Mander and discovered that the Tumour woman was an eye-witness. Disposing of her with the dagger that was in Mander’s drawing-room, he might have faked evidence which would involve Webley (who was, by
this theory, in the plot against him) or alternatively Kephim, with whom he was on bad terms. I don’t really believe that, but we may have to work it out if other ways fail.’
‘I wanted to know,’ said Mr Melis, ‘because Inspector Hemp has got a curious side-light, or what may be a side-light, on the case. It does not touch Cane or Kephim, but it may give us a new view of the rather strange girl who was killed.’
Devenish pricked up his ears, ‘I shall be glad to hear what he has to say, sir.’
Melis picked up his desk-telephone and asked that Inspector Hemp should come to his room, then he turned again to Devenish.
‘I float about a good deal in various sorts of society, you know,’ he remarked conversationally, ‘and, of course, people know who I am. Now and again I am asked to solve little social problems unofficially. In cases, I mean, where the social status of my acquaintance makes secrecy very necessary. The other day I was approached by the niece of an old friend of mine, Lady X, I shall call her.’
‘Not my Mrs X, sir?’
‘No. There is a marquisate in the offing, but, in the middle distance, a bit of wreckage that it would not do to let drift into the marquis’s gaze. I had a talk with the young thing, found her very contrite and dreadfully frightened. If I could have kept the thing to myself, I would. But it was rather beyond me, so I put Hemp, our blackmail expert, on the job.’
‘Couldn’t have had a better man, sir,’
‘No. I don’t think I could.’ There was a knock at the door, and he looked up and called out: ‘Come in, inspector.’
A very well dressed and bland person came in. He saluted Melis, nodded to Devenish, and was waved to a chair.
‘Hemp, I believe that case I gave you bears some similarity to two other cases which had rather puzzled you?’
‘Yes, sir. Looked like the same hand to me.’
‘Both of those flummoxed you, but my little lot gave you a pointer, I understood you to say.’
‘Yes, sir. I suppose it was because she got away with it so easily in the two other cases, and forgot to take all the precautions.’
‘Very likely. Are you sure now?’
Hemp pursed his lips. ‘Very nearly—in my own mind, quite.’
Devenish was much interested, he leaned forward. ‘Any of my birds involved?’
‘One of your witnesses,’ was the reply. ‘Mrs Hoe, a woman who does society pars, and, by virtue of her job, gets to know some secrets.’
Devenish slapped his knee. ‘Mrs Hoe? You surprise me, and yet you don’t. But can we suppose that she and Miss Tumour would be friends, if Mrs Hoe was blackmailing her?’
‘Mrs Hoe might have heard of the prospective bolt to South America, and used that as a handle to extract money,’ suggested Melis.
Hemp was studying his colleague. ‘Any objections to that, Devenish?’
‘Several,’ Devenish replied promptly. ‘I cannot see a woman keeping her blackmailer’s telephone number on her pad. But there are other reasons.’
Hemp looked sceptical. Mr Melis was interested.
‘Then you are not very sure that Mrs Hoe had any connection with this case?’
‘I think she did, sir, but I can imagine Mrs Hoe and Miss Tumour being in it together.’
‘How do you reason that out?’
‘Her character, as borne out by her life, sir. Tumour lets Mr Kephim court her, while she is carrying on an intrigue with Mander at the same time. She is engaged to be married to the manager, and visits Mander’s flat after her lover has left her. A woman of that type, with apparently no morals, might be up to anything.’
‘I think you may be right,’ agreed Melis, while even Hemp looked more approving. ‘If Mander was in money trouble, or going to bolt with the dibs, if, at the same time, he was sufficiently fascinated with the Tumour woman to suggest a bolt, he was giving himself right into her hands. She and Mrs Hoe may have even planned the campaign that way.’
‘But why engage herself to Kephim?’ asked Hemp.
Devenish smiled. ‘A man at your branch, and asks us that! She may have had no conscience, and yet been in love with Kephim.’
‘You’re quite a psychologist, Devenish,’ chuckled Melis. ‘I am with you all the way. Mander had got himself on toast by procuring the passport for Tumour under another name. But all that doesn’t help us to solve the murder problem. Mander couldn’t have shot himself, and killed the girl, then settled them both in the window below, and then gone up and fired the Mauser into the sand! And if he could have performed the later stunt to a nicety, what about the wheel tracks, and the missing sparking-plugs, etc.?’
Hemp shrugged. ‘Well, sir, our bird is not a bit suspicious. I had the young lady send the money last evening as requested. If I can get a search warrant today, it would be better to execute it as soon as possible.’
‘For Mrs Hoe’s flat, sir?’ asked Devenish.
‘Yes—all right, Hemp. I’ll see about it at once. Let Devenish know if you get any material bearing on his case, please. I don’t think we want you any more now.’
Hemp saluted and went out.
Melis turned to Devenish. ‘I think you are making headway, though I am not quite sure of your direction,’ he said smiling. ‘It is certainly possible that Miss Tumour was in this crook game too. But to go back to our earlier muttons. Even if Peden-Hythe told the truth to you and did pay a call on the watchman at the back door that night, it does not explain the watchman’s seeing nothing—unless the lifts were used while he was at the back door talking to the young man.’
‘That’s our trouble still, sir,’ replied the inspector, ‘but I’ll get that yet. Is there anything more you wished to say to me, sir?’
‘Only to look for a second gun, Devenish. There must have been one. And the magic bullet!’
CHAPTER XVII
THE revelation about Mrs Hoe and her suspected activities surprised Devenish more than he would have cared to own. But he knew very little of the woman, and it was quite possible that the dead girl Tumour had known very little more than he. You may be a friend of a dubious character for years without knowing it. On the other hand it was on the cards that Tumour had known, and that, as he had hinted to Mr Melis, the two were in league to blackmail the dead man, Mander.
After a little cogitation, Devenish decided to see Kephim. He found him at home, and was welcomed readily enough by the manager. Indeed it almost seemed to him that Kephim’s gloom had lifted a little during the past few days, whatever the reason might be.
When they had exchanged a little desultory conversation, the inspector accepted a cigarette, and spoke of his former interview with Mrs Hoe. He watched the other’s face, and there he saw that Kephim was beginning to be interested in the journalist, and in a matter unrelated to the case itself.
It was not at all improbable, he thought, that the discovery of the intrigue with Mander had killed Kephim’s love for the woman, Effie Tumour.
You do not mourn for what you have ceased to love, and if Devenish’s interpretation of the affair was correct, the man was already finding some consolation in the company of his new sympathiser, which was natural enough in the circumstances.
‘I was wondering,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘if Mrs Hoe had known the late Miss Tumour long?’
Kephim frowned at the mention of the name. ‘A number of years, I think,’ he said.
Devenish started. ‘Are you sure of that?’
The other man stared at him in surprise. ‘I am not very sure. I think so. I think they had not met for many years, but I believe they were at school together in the country. Then when Mrs Hoe was engaged to do some press propaganda for the firm, they took up the old acquaintance. Why do you ask?’
‘Well, I want to get all the witnesses I can, Mr Kephim. A question is involved here as to Tumour’s character. Anyone who had only known her a short time might not understand much about her.’
Kephim scowled and bit his lip. ‘Character!’
‘You know what I mean. Ce
rtain types of people are more likely, even in this law-abiding country, to die violent deaths than others. Women of a certain class always provide a big proportion of the murder victims, and next to them one would think blackmailers would figure next. They don’t, as a matter of fact; but, even if they escape, the motive for—’
‘Wait a moment, inspector,’ cried Kephim, much disturbed. ‘I really am surprised to hear you mention blackmail. I have a great deal to blame Effie—Miss Tumour for, but I should never have thought her likely to turn to that.’
Devenish was sure the man was speaking sincerely. ‘Perhaps not, but have you considered the peculiar circumstances surrounding Miss Tumour’s relation with Mr Mander and with you? You proposed to her and were accepted lately. I presume you took that to mean that she loved you.’
‘I thought so,’ said Kephim, in a low voice.
‘Yet, while she accepted you, she was visiting Mander, and indeed seems to have made arrangements to bolt abroad with him. Why then did she accept you? She was under no compulsion to do that, I suppose?’
‘Of course not. How could she be?’
Devenish rubbed his chin. ‘Did she seem to be loving, affectionate? I mean to say, did she give you the impression that it was her real wish to marry you?’
‘Yes. She was all she could have been to me,’ said Kephim, ‘at that time,’ he added, with something like a groan.
‘I see. Now, Mr Kephim, you know as well as I do that a woman may be a thorough-paced rogue in many ways, and yet fall honestly in love with a man. There is just a possibility that Tumour was trying to blackmail Mander, leading him on to believe that she would go abroad with him until he made the final and fatal mistake of applying not only for his own passport but for one in which Miss Tumour figured under a false name. Her photograph was, of course, on the passport.’
‘But why? I don’t see the connection between that and blackmail.’
‘I should think it was obvious. With that passport as a weapon, she could threaten Mander at any time.’