Murder of a Snob

by Roy Vickers

  So he did not know! A good teaspoonful of coffee had slopped on to his tie. He put down the cup, mopped himself up in silence. He was, Crisp noted, taking an unnecessarily long time over the mopping up.

  “You would not say that, Colonel, unless you had proof. I can only confess that comment is utterly beyond me.”

  Crisp gazed over the rambling bedraggled garden, leaving Querk to take the initiative.

  “But how, may I ask, does this affect poor Ralph’s position?” Querk’s assurance was creeping back. “Such a fact, astounding and shocking though it is, would hardly seem to bear on the confession.”

  “We’re both speaking confidentially, Mr. Querk, and there are no witnesses, so we can let ourselves go. I know you are aware that Fenchurch visited Watlington on Saturday afternoon and that he obtained those letters which he subsequently destroyed.

  “Very well! What Fenchurch did not tell you is that, at that interview, Watlington dragged out of him particulars of that marriage, including the date, place and witnesses of the ceremony. Of that we have incontrovertible proof— I have personally interviewed one of the witnesses.”

  “My dear Colonel, you take my breath away!” It had some literal truth. Querk was panting. With satisfaction, Crisp observed the false move—he had revealed consternation when he ought to have jubilated at the suggestion that someone other than Ralph might be guilty.

  “If Watlington had lived another few minutes he would have confronted Claudia—Mrs. Fenchurch—with the facts. The Fenchurchs’ attempt to grab the Watlington money with a fake marriage would have failed. But he did not live another few minutes. And when Cornboise learns that Claudia was deceiving him, I think he’ll withdraw that fake confession.”

  Crisp had the instant impression that he had himself blundered. Querk perceptibly relaxed. Moreover when he spoke, the rich, unctuous tone had come back.

  “A truly amazing sequence of events! If I may say so without impertinence, my dear Colonel, few men in your position would have striven, as you have striven, to save an accused man from the consequences of his own confession. But before I can relate these facts to poor Ralph’s position, I have to remind myself that you have not yet arrested Fenchurch. He was here a couple of hours ago, with Miss Lofting. May I surmise that the weak spot in the case is that, although all this might have happened, there is no proof that it did happen?”

  “That’s for the jury to decide,” countered Crisp. “When you say there is ‘no’ proof I don’t follow you. There is very strong circumstantial evidence. There is, for instance, the matter of time.”

  “Pre-cisely! The matter of time!” mouthed Querk.

  “Now I do hope you are not going to produce—from your sleeve, as it were—a piece of brown paper?”

  Another flop, reflected Crisp. Every time he tried to use that piece of paper, it crackled back at him.

  “That’s what I’m doing,” said Crisp stolidly. “And I’m showing it to a jury.”

  Querk shook his head with profound sadness.

  “I fear that no jury will ever inspect that piece of brown paper. Fenchurch, of course, told me about it with—er—a certain regrettable ribaldy. Miss Lofting confirmed that you attached an importance to it which she found hard to credit. So I took it upon myself to investigate the peregrinations of that piece of brown paper.”

  Querk bent down for the attache case which was always within his arm’s reach. When he lifted the lid, the interior opened like a concertina—a portable file.

  “You will find in this document, signed and witnessed by Miss Glenda Parsons, that she herself introduced a piece of brown paper which had wrapped a parcel registered to Lord Watlington—into Fenchurch’s flat. On Saturday night, Miss Lofting had asked her to take back Fenchurch’s sketch book, which he had left lying about here. So she wrapped the sketch book in a piece of brown paper which she found here and furtively unwrapped it at the flat, leaving the sketch book to be discovered in the flat in a manner calculated to deceive her—er—protector.”

  Crisp glanced through the typed statement, noted that no mention was made of where the brown paper had been found by Glenda, but did not indicate the omission to Querk. He remembered, too, that when he had been interviewing Glenda, she had irritated him by crackling brown paper. Doubtless, it had been this half-memory which had given him his initial mistrust of the clue.

  His purpose had been partly achieved. He had now not the least doubt that Querk had been shoring up the case against Ralph. His motive was at present an insoluble riddle —unless he was playing for safety only.

  “I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Querk. I’ll keep this, if you don’t mind.”

  “By all means. Does that destroy the case against Fenchurch?”

  “It only shortens the chain by one link.” Crisp put on his unsatisfactory little act of lighting a cigarette. “Mr. Querk, you are convinced of Ralph’s guilt. I wish you could convince me. If the case against Fenchurch should fail— you can imagine the feelings of a policeman who believes he has procured the conviction of an innocent man.”

  “I could imagine your feelings if I could imagine your reasons for believing in his innocence.”

  Querk believed that he had gained the upper hand. His tone was nearly patronising.

  “When we came on the scene,” said Crisp, “we found that door locked on the inside. We know from Mrs. Comboise that Ralph did not go out by the window at five thirty, How did he get out of the library?”

  Querk contrived to look disappointed.

  “That, surely, is unimportant in itself. If you are inviting me to speculate—is there not some mechanical means of locking a door on the outside while the key remains inside? The object being, of course, to throw dust in the eyes of the police.”

  Crisp made no answer. Querk was unruffled. He was sitting with his fingers arched like the traditional consultant, unaware of his danger.

  “Our experts agree that the die-stamp was the weapon that shattered the plate in Watlington’s skull and that the assailant was standing in front of his victim when he struck. The die-stamp was found on the mantelpiece, where you placed it shortly after five fifteen. You remember telling us why you removed it from the table and put it there?”

  “Perfectly. Pray continue, Colonel, I am all attention.”

  “At about five twenty eight—if Ralph came back after you had gone upstairs—he must have walked round the writing table to pick up the die-stamp, walked round to the other side of Watlington to strike him, and then walked back again to replace the die-stamp on the mantelpiece before making his escape.”

  “Indeed! I had not realised that it was as complicated as that. In moments of such febrile excitement man will behave strangely and even irrationally.”

  “The remarkable thing is this!” Crisp spoke as if in deep perplexity. “In spite of the febrile excitement and the rest of it, Ralph left no finger prints on that die-stamp.”

  “Remarkable, but not unprecedented, I think!” said Querk. “At moments of emotional storm, a part of the brain often remains cool enough to take protective action. Presumably he wiped off his finger prints with his handkerchief.”

  “On that metal, the prints would be invisible to the naked eye.”

  “Obviously, he would wipe the whole thing, not merely the part that he believed he had touched.”

  “Hm! Yes! Of course he would!” Crisp put his empty cup on the tray and rose, creaking, from the wicker chair.

  “Your finger prints were found on that die-stamp!”

  Their eyes met and for an instant the barriers were down —but only for an instant.

  “That Ralph failed to wipe the part of the die-stamp which I had touched,” beamed Querk, “is a vagary of chance I cannot hope to explain. You speak almost as if it were necessary that I should be able to explain that—er— vagary of chance.”

  “Mr. Querk, you don’t believe any more than I do that he came back at five thirty and murdered his uncle!”

  The smile
broadened until it threatened to engulf the entire expanse of face.

  “In the spirit of your little joke, my dear Colonel—what does it matter what I believe, since Ralph’s confession—”

  “What if the plea of guilty is withdrawn and the confession negatived?”

  “Let me see, now!” Querk spoke as one consenting to play make-believe with a child. “Mrs. Cornboise, I think, would be safe. Not so, Fenchurch, Miss Lofting, and myself. Possibly it would be a joint charge—wouldn’t it, Chief Constable?—for the guilt of one would rivet the guilt of the two others as accessories.

  “But I think you will find,” continued Querk, “that the confession will not be negatived. Tell poor Ralph that Miss Lofting was deceiving him—that she is really the wife of that excessively exuberant young man—and I doubt whether he will be as shocked as I am. I even doubt whether he will express surprise. He will certainly not withdraw the plea of guilty.”

  Chapter Twenty

  After leaving Querk, Crisp returned to headquarters to clear up a few oddments of desk work.

  He dropped Glenda’s statement into the basket for Benscombe to file in the morning. Not until he was leaving did he suddenly snatch up the statement and stare at it—at the typescript itself.

  He held it up to the light and looked through it, then examined the back of it.

  “The full stops cut the paper. But that’s fairly common.”

  From a cabinet, he brought out the piece of brown paper that had made Claudia laugh and Querk chortle. The blue pencil, marking registration, crossed the gummed label on which the address had been typed, blurring one or two letters. The face of the type was the same. In itself, that meant only that the same make of typewriter had been used for both. Was it the same typewriter? The full stop had cut the label also.

  In ten minutes he had established four additional points of resemblance. The spacing after capital ‘W’—the blurred curl of the small ‘r’—a ‘g’ blind in the lower loop but not in the upper—most valuable of all, the uneven impression of the capital ‘L,’ the horizontal stroke barely registering, though the vertical stroke showed but little wear.

  “Short of evidence, but invaluable as a clue!” he said aloud, as if Benscombe were present. “If we do want it for evidence, Scotland Yard will see us through.”

  The next morning he rang Benscombe from his flat.

  “I shan’t be at the office until the end of the morning. I want you to go to Querk at Watlington Lodge and delay him until I’ve had time to go to his office and get clear. Talk any poppycock you like—or crock his car.”

  At a quarter to ten he was in Querk’s office. Miss Randle was of the type that likes being a secretary and will obviously remain one all her life, at very slight periodic increases of salary.

  “Miss Randle, have you read any of the Press reports of the murder of Lord Watlington?’

  “No!” Miss Randle shuddered. “I never read that kind of thing. I can find better employment for my limited leisure.”

  Crisp believed her.

  “On the morning of Saturday, the fifth, you sent a registered parcel to Lord Watlington, I believe?”

  “Wait a minute, please.” Miss Randle consulted a diary, opened a drawer and produced a registered receipt slip, which she handed to Crisp.

  “Thank you, Miss Randle. What did the parcel contain?”

  “I have no knowledge. I collected it at Mr. Querk’s instruction and forwarded it unopened.”

  “Where did you collect it?”

  “Wait a minute, please.” There was the same business with the diary. This time the methodical Miss Randle copied an entry on a memo slip.

  ‘Brieux et Cie, 318 Turl Street, W.1,’ read Crisp.

  “What are Brieux et Cie?” he asked.

  “I have no knowledge,” answered Miss Randle.

  Crisp ‘derived no knowledge’ from contemplating a discreet brass plate in Turl Street. On the first floor, in a small but expensively furnished office, an expensively dressed girl with a Cockney intonation astonished him by saying:

  “What-is-your-pleasure-please?” Crisp, who was in plain clothes, produced his official card and asked for the manager.

  In a still more expensively furnished office, which still gave no clue, an expensively tailored man bowed and begged him to be seated.

  “On Saturday, the fifth, Mr. Querk’s secretary called here for a package. Will you tell me, please, what that package contained?”

  “Why, a wig, Colonel!” He added: “We are posticheurs.”

  “I couldn’t tell that from the outside,” remarked Crisp.

  “Three men out of four are as sensitive as women about their wigs. They would never come here if we were to hang out a sign,” the manager explained. “The wig was made for Lord Watlington. Mr. Querk originally ordered a wig for him many years ago, when he was ‘Mr. Cornboise.’ He was not content with the service he received in Africa. We moulded the original from the measurements of a wig made in Johannesburg.”

  The registered package on the table in the hall had contained a wig! A fact known to Querk—almost certainly known to Querk alone.

  Crisp knew next to nothing about wigs. With half a dozen questions he obtained more knowledge than is possessed by most wearers. The manager, flattered by the intelligent interest of a Chief Constable, offered to show him the workrooms. He was taken through an outer workroom where two men and five girls were treating hair in the crude form in which it was received from the factory : thence to the room, part workshop part studio, where three highly skilled operatives were engaged upon the final stages.

  Each man was sitting at his own bench, before him a wooden head, faceless, like the head of an artist’s lay figure. The walls of the room were lined with tiers of numbered lockers, each containing the dummy of a client’s head.

  At one of the benches an operative was leaning over his dummy, stroking the wig with an instrument looking very like a domestic flat-iron. He stopped working, to explain to Crisp what he was doing.

  But Crisp was not listening. He was staring at the wig. The colour was iron grey, but the shape and the set of it reminded him vividly of Watlington’s wig.

  Suddenly he picked up the flat iron, swung it with moderate force and crashed it onto the crown of the wig, cracking the crown of the dummy.

  “Hold him—he’s mad!” cried the operative.

  The manager gaped with horror, convinced that he had been entertaining a man with a perverted mania.

  “I’m quite safe. I’m a police officer investigating the murder of one of your clients in one of your wigs. I’m sorry I’ve spoilt your careful work. Before long you’ll know why I did it, and perhaps you won’t mind.”

  Crisp studied the dummy. The sides of the wig jutted out over the temples of the dummy.

  “Why does it stick out like that over the temples?” he asked.

  The operative explained how the plectyt mounting for the hair is shaped. Crisp asked a few questions and made another experiment with the remains of the wig.

  Having made satisfactory arrangements covering the cost of the damage Crisp departed in a state of mind not far removed from jubilation.

  The next item on his programme was Glenda Parsons. He drove to the flatlet in Brondesbury, which she was sharing with another girl who was in employment. Glenda was ‘resting’ and was found at home, unglamorous in a cotton house frock,, which served as a dressing gown.

  “Oo! Has anything gone wrong?” Taller than Crisp, she looked down at him with stupidly frightened eyes.

  “I don’t know yet.” This woman had been the indirect cause of the murder—a non-moral creature, the prey of ansemic fear and an equally anaemic greed, too vacillating to exploit her physical beauty with any consistency. He ascertained that there was no one else in the flatlet.

  “I have seen the statement you signed for Mr. Querk!”

  “There now! He promised faithfully he wouldn’t show it to anyone!”

  “He lied to you.
As you lied to me when you told me you were waiting in that car for an imaginary Mr. Harris.”

  “I was only being tactful.”

  “Well, don’t be tactful again or you may have reason to be very sorry for yourself. Was that statement you signed true?”

  “Yes. He questioned me again and again about it, and all over again when we got to his office,”

  “Where did you pick up that piece of brown paper?”

  “In that awful little room where you were going on at me. It was in the chair. I pulled the chair out from the table and sat down without looking. There was something hard, and that paper. And as I wanted the paper—”

  “What was the something hard?”

  “I don’t know. I pushed it down behind me while you were talking. It’s one of those carpetty chairs, if you remember—brocade—and I suppose it slid down into the fold at the back. Don’t you remember you told me not to crackle with the paper?”

  That was all Crisp wanted.

  “It’s safer to lie to Querk than to lie to the police,” he remarked. “If he asks you whether I’ve seen you, you’d better deny it. Just say ‘no.’ Don’t try and prove it, or he won’t believe you.”

  On his way back to headquarters, Crisp turned into Watlington Lodge. Querk had gone to his office and the servants were in sole possession. Claudia, he knew, was staying at the Red Lion.

  He went into the morning-room, pulled one of the upright chairs from the table—a brocaded chair, with the tail of the back folded under the seat.

  He worked his fingers under the fold and produced a pair of pliers. He wrapped the pliers for microscopic examination and placed them carefully in his pocket.

  “Bessie, I want a pair of pliers. Can you help?”

  “Yes, sir.” Bessie went to the hall table, pulled out a rather ill-fitted drawer.

  “There was a pair here, sir, but it’s gone. Now I come to think of it, one of those Harridge’s men’s probably borrowed it for keeps. I’ll ask cook if she knows of another pair.”

  “Dont bother, thanks,” said Crisp. “I’ll manage without.”

  That, Crisp reflected, clicked into place.