by Roy Vickers
“Why she wants him is a mystery all to itself. She practically admitted to me that she thought him a poor fish.”
“Clever girl!” remarked Crisp, but Benscombe missed the point.
“The funny thing is, sir, that when they thought they were alone together they talked very much as they talk to us—except for Ralph’s raving about those envelopes.”
“The other funny thing,” said Crisp, “is that Querk and Claudia are contradicting each other on a substantial point.” He opened the dossier. “Here’s Claudia speaking of her interview in the study before five-fifteen: ‘He became complimentary—quite definitely so—the burden of it being that he was very glad I wanted to marry Ralph.’
Crisp turned a few pages, then continued:
“Querk, speaking of his interview after five-fifteen, says he advised Watlington to withdraw his objection to the marriage and to tell Claudia so at once. But Watlington does not reply that he has already done so—some ten minutes previously. According to Querk, he refuses, yields to persuasion, then promises to tell Claudia—what he has already told her. If he did tell her!”
“Personally, I prefer Querk’s version,” put in Benscombe.
“Then you’ve changed your opinion of the girl. Why?”
Because a picture had awakened him to the potentialities for violence latent in a good woman. The Chief answered his own question.
“You’re judging by character. Claudia, you think, would do anything to protect that lame dog of hers. Querk is comparatively disinterested. Hm! Over-simplification, boy! Character will sometimes give you a hunch on where to look for evidence. More often it leads you up a blind alley. Leave out what they all might have done and let’s see how much we know of what they have done. Take the main items on that typewriter, while we run through them. Leave out corroborative matter.”
Thus would Crisp clarify his own thought by explaining to his junior, a process valuable to both sides.
“Take the killing first. Of the murderer—who may be more than one person, by the way—we know that he did not strike through the wig—that he removed the signet ring after death. He knew that Watlington had been trepanned. He wanted to open the envelope containing the Will and seal it up again.
“How many persons knew about the trepanning? You can write down Querk, Ralph, Claudia, Mrs. Cornboise, Fenchurch. How many, in point of time and place, could certainly have committed the murder? All except Fenchurch. Put a query against him, because he can’t prove his movements between three and seven o’ clock, nor can we.
“The Will. There must have been a total of three envelopes printed with the address of the solicitors. Watlington used one—which was opened and taken away by the murderer. If Watlington had torn the envelope up himself, as Claudia suggested, we should have found the pieces.
“Assuming that envelope No. I contained nothing but the Will, who could have wanted to tamper with it? None of the three who were in the study after lunch—call them the Big Three—because they all knew its contents. Rule out Fenchurch. Leaves only Mrs. Cornboise.
“Assume that the envelope contained also love letters written by Claudia to Fenchurch—I’m going on what you found out this afternoon. That yields Claudia and Ralph, interested in destroying the letters and preserving the Will.”
“And Fenchurch?” suggested Benscombe. “He might have heard Watlington had got those letters and determined to get ’em back. Especially if Glenda pinched them from him.”
Grisp was doubtful.
“Only if Glenda pinched them,” he amended. “As soon as the bank is open to-morrow that girl will have a shot at getting her cash, in the hope that I’m wrong in saying the banks won’t pay a dead man’s cheque. Pick her up and squeeze out of her whether she did.
“Next item. Persons known to have gone to the library between, say, three and seven o’clock. The Big Three plus the person who telephoned us—who may be one of the Three. Anything I’ve missed there, Benscombe?”
“The person who gave Watlington the note of Casa Flavia and the two names and the date.”
“Right! Go on!”
“The only one of the Big Three who could have given it is Claudia. And she could have lost nothing by admitting it to us.”
“Agreed. But why do you exclude Ralph?”
“Time, sir. Querk and Mrs. Cornboise agree that Ralph was only in the library for a minute or so. Look at that note! A town in Italy: two local tradesmen: a date. Nobody hopped in there, hurled all that at him and then hopped out again. It must have been a fairly lengthy conversation, with question and answer: several minutes at least—allowing for the dictating of the note. We know that Fenchurch possessed the information contained in the note, and that it was given to Watlington after the Big Three left the library—that is after about two forty-five.”
Crisp nodded with satisfaction as the other confirmed his own deduction.
“After the Big Three left the library at about two forty-five!” he repeated. “But before, or after, each of the three re-entered it separately?”
“No data, sir.”
“And we shan’t get any data by questioning Fenchurch. We’ll leave him alone until we’ve managed to get a card or two to play.
“Now those letters. Give ’em a separate heading. In telling their separate tales to us, the Big Three all suppressed the fact that the letters were put in the envelope with the Will. Let yourself go on that.”
“Claudia was telling the truth when she said she didn’t notice,” suggested Benscombe. “Querk shut up because he wants to smooth everything over and lead a quiet life. Ralph, knowing that he himself had not touched the envelopes, assumed that Claudia had. He assumed it the moment you opened the Will-envelope and he saw the letters weren’t there. Assuming his confession is a fake, he became dead certain Claudia had scuppered the old boy and burnt the letters. I don’t think he said: ‘I will now nobly sacrifice myself for the woman I love.’ I think he just lurched from one horror to the other. And I don’t see that it matters to us whether he has an hallucination or is just lying. From his tone of voice, it struck me that he’s more than a bit afraid of Claudia.”
“But you said they’re going to marry in a week.”
“I said she said it, sir. He didn’t gurgle with delight when she—well, it wasn’t love-making—thank heaven!—but a sort of crooning over a panicky child. He agreed obediently—I suspect because he was too exhausted to argue. I don’t think he has much staying power.”
Crisp rose from his desk, looked over Benscombe’s shoulder while he completed his notes.
“Good! You’ve cut the character talk and taken the facts. Querk leaves the library at approximately five twenty-eight. At five thirty-four the telephone rings and Watlington does not answer. By the way, did you contact the caller?”
“A socialite called Tremayne. Knows very little about Watlington. He was asked to the dinner party, but had to fly to Edinburgh because his wife was injured in a street accident. He was ringing Watlington to explain that he couldn’t turn up.”
“Hm! That buttons him up. Anyhow, the call came at five thirty-four. With the doctor’s evidence, we may infer that by that time Watlington was dead. That gives the murderer a maximum of five minutes for the job.”
“Which would take about five seconds, sir. Then he could lock the door and take his time over the signet ring.”
“So at five twenty-eight the murderer enters the library. But he can’t get on with the murder, because he wants to get that Casa Flavia conversation off his chest. And see that the man he’s just going to kill makes a note about it. And gets the spelling right. In order to give us a headache. Hm! We may have got the facts, but we’ve got ’em in the wrong order, somehow.”
He went on: “That means more spadework. And there’s plenty of small stuff to be cleaned up. We want a note on that die-stamp. And remind Inspector Sanson to enquire at the post office about that registered package. That’s disappeared.”
Crisp checked t
he clock-times and then:
“Now try your hand at the Appreciation,” he invited. “Take it that Querk and Ralph cancel each other out as principals.”
“But is that logical, sir?”
“Logic only works when both sides know the rules and can be relied on to obey them. Most crimes are a jumble of intelligence and stupidity, of careful planning and hasty improvisation. When our facts are insufficient, we have to work on probability with what common sense we have.
“Now, Ralph asserts that he killed Watlington. But he mis-describes the method of killing, and protests that he did not notice the distortion of the body—which would be as striking to any non-medical man as it was to me.
“Querk’s evidence is two-edged. If Watlington was dead when Querk entered the library, then Querk becomes compassionate accessory against the will of the principal. I don’t think compassion is in Querk’s line o’ business—especially when it means taking such an enormous risk.
“The other edge touches Querk as hypothetical murderer. As he himself has pointed out—horrible chap, isn’t he—as a murderer he is also an incredible fool, because he volunteers extremely damaging evidence against himself which we should not otherwise have possessed. I’m pretty sure Querk is not a fool. So you can leave those two out.”
Benscombe inserted a fresh sheet and typed the word ‘Appreciation.’ Crisp was watching the paper. Benscombe typed on:
‘Opportunity: Mrs. Cornboise, Claudia Lofting and (?) Fenchurch.
‘Opportunity and Motive: Claudia Lofting.’
Crisp grunted with approval.
“If you hadn’t insisted otherwise, sir, I would have included Querk under ‘opportunity.’ Mrs. Cornboise and Fenchurch would have been awful fools to kill Watlington.”
“Isn’t that an argument for cutting them out,” As Benscombe said nothing, Crisp added: “We’ll leave them in, then, and see if we can collect enough evidence to eliminate them. That will isolate Claudia.”
Chapter Eleven
By Monday morning the routine work on the murder of Lord Watlington had spread fanwise throughout county headquarters so that every constable on point or beat was checking some detail. A steady stream of reports filled the wire baskets, to be summarised and indexed for reference.
At half-past seven, Benscombe drove a police car from the garage at Watlington Lodge to the Three Witches, the road-house with the swimming pool. He filed a report that it had taken eleven minutes, and added a comment that Ralph’s Reindert could probably cover the distance, under normal traffic conditions, in eight minutes.
At five minutes to ten he was hovering near the City branch of the National and Mutual Bank. Glenda was already waiting outside the locked doors. Watching her from a safe distance, he was amused to notice that no fewer than three business men stopped short on their way to the office in the hope of picking her up, averaging two minutes apiece to discover that there was nothing doing, Glenda’s interest being concentrated on her hope of cashing Watlington’s cheque for five hundred pounds.
When she came out, flushed after an ill-advised effort to persuade the manager that he was misinterpreting the law, she did not recognise Benscombe until he took her arm.
“Tough luck, Glenda! A cup of coffee will pull you round.”
“Oo! It’s you! I didn’t know you out of uniform. And I don’t want any coffee, thanks.”
“Don’t be tactless, darling! When the police offer you coffee in that tone of voice, it means they’re trying to keep you out of clink if you give ’ em the chance. There’s a place round the corner. Come along!”
The bank manager had done the ground work. In Glenda’s life there were axioms for most emergencies, offshoots of the golden rule that a girl must look after herself. When your luck is out, don’t start something. And Glenda’s luck was indisputably out.
“Mother’s diamonds and all that!” remarked Benscombe when they were seated. “All right when you want a gag for your friends. When you give us a tale that isn’t true—well, the first stage is a cup of coffee. The second is not.”
The arrival of the waitress gave her time for reflection. Benscombe observed that she was quietly dressed in a tailormade, and looked like a business girl in difficulties.
“I don’t see how I’ve broken the law.”
“In strict confidence, Glenda, we don’t care tuppence whether you’ve broken the law or not. For other reasons, we intend to have the whole story of that cheque.” He added: “We shan’t give you away to Fenchurch.”
“Oh well, then!” On her lips the phrase meant that she would comply, but in her own way. “Arthur was as mean as they make ’em but he always expected me to be decently dressed and keep the housekeeping down.
“There was something going on between him and Watlington, and I don’t know yet what it was, on Arthur’s side. We used to live in Hampstead. As soon as he heard that Watlington was coming to the Lodge, Arthur took that flat so as to be near, had it all fitted up as if he meant to stay there for years.
“After we’d settled in, and only a few days before Watlington turned up at the Lodge, a man came to see me one night when Arthur was at a party. Not a gentleman—oily sort of man. It came out he wanted to know whether I knew anything about Arthur and a Miss Claudia Lofting. Well, I didn’t. But I knew there’d been a Claudia because more than once, when he was sleepy and absent-minded and a bit drunk, he had called me Claudia. The oily man got that much out of me before he went.
“He turned up again about a week ago and said Lord Watlington wanted to see me privately. Well, I said I wouldn’t go, and then I did, he was so pressing about it and saying it would be to my advantage.
“Watlington dragged out of me about Arthur calling me Claudia. It pleased him and he called me a good kid, which I thought common, coming from a real lord, as I understood he was. Then he got on to asking me whether there were any letters in the flat from the real Claudia, thinking I’d know. He was a very coarse man—asking that sort of question.
“As a matter of fact, I did happen to know there were some letters. Arthur kept them tied up in one of those tin boxes, like lawyers have. Only, the lock didn’t work and I had a perfect right to look there one day when a man came to the door with a bill which Arthur’d given me no money to pay. There wasn’t any money in the box—only these letters signed ‘Claudia,’ and some oddments.
“So Lord Watlington said he’d give me five hundred for the letters if they were any good to him, which of course I knew they would be. Come to that, I was surprised at a real lady writing like that to a man she wasn’t married to. And Watlington said how he’d pay me and what was to be done, just as I told you the other night, only I said diamonds and it was really those letters. I daresay you think it was mean of me. But you don’t know Arthur. And what I say is that a girl has to look after herself.”
“Quite right, Glenda!” applauded Benscombe. “You’re doing fine. Did you leave Arthur suddenly because he found out what you’d done?”
“He didn’t find out I’d done it, but I was afraid he would,” she admitted. “It seems luck was against me from the start. First thing, there came a letter from Miss Lofting on the very Saturday morning—day before yesterday—I could see it was from her though I didn’t read it, as I knew the handwriting. He read the letter over breakfast, then put it in his pocket and went straight to that tin box. She must have asked him to burn her letters or something. Anyhow, he came back looking very ugly. ‘Glenda,’ he says, ‘have you been to my deed box?’
“I made out that if he had lost anything it was probably when we moved, as the box wasn’t locked, and he seemed to believe it. But he didn’t do any work that morning, and after lunch he said, same as I told you, that he was going round to see Ralph Cornboise.
“I didn’t see him again until about ten that night. When he came in he stared at me, almost as if he was trying to think who I was. Then he said: ‘Watlington is dead. Puts us in a tight spot.’ I thought he meant he’d lose the mon
ey for painting his lordship’s portrait, as he didn’t tell me about it being murder.
“Of course, I was worrying about my cheque. And when I thought Arthur had settled down to drink himself sleepy, I slipped round. That policeman in the hall told me I’d have to wait. I was a bit put out when Miss Lofting came up to me, all pleasant. She had heard me give the name of ‘Mrs. Fenchurch’ and she asked me if I’d mind taking Arthur’s sketch book back, as he’d left it. It’s a posh book in art leather covers, with his monogram. He carries it in a special pocket to make line-notes when he can borrow a pencil, as he never remembers to carry one himself. I said I didn’t mind, but I did mind, because I didn’t want Arthur to know where I’d been.
“When I got back to the flat I just had time to hide the sketch book when he popped out of the studio. He asked me where I’d been, but he didn’t listen to the answer. He said: ‘When I left here after lunch, did I tell you where I was going?’ And I said: ‘Yes, you told me you were going to Watlington Lodge.’ He said: ‘Forget it. I changed my mind and went for a walk by the river, because it was too hot to sleep.’ I remembered how you’d wheedled the truth out of me on the phone, so I said: ‘I wouldn’t say that if I were you. Ralph might give you away.’ And he got ugly again and he said: ‘I wasn’t asking you for advice.’ And then—well, I think that’s all that matters.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Benscombe. “Keep going.”
“I don’t like to,” she simpered. “He started talking about my face.”
“Let’s have it,” prompted Benscombe. “It’s waste to be shy of me when I’m on duty.”
“Well, I’m only telling you what he said, mind! ‘Your saccharin prettiness,’ he said, ‘which you’re so proud of, depends on the balance of your features.’ Of course, being an artist he says things like that, and he knows all about women’s dress, which is awkward sometimes. Only I’m sure nobody could call me proud.”
While Benscombe was trying to fit it in, she continued: