Trent Intervenes

by E. C. Bentley

  ‘Some lectures.’ The captain had a pleasant smile. ‘Then what it comes to is that this is just a blind, planted near the scene of the crime for us to pick up. Somebody being clever, in fact. And we had already come to the conclusion that it’s in a disguised hand. Now, what about the watermark? I saw you spotted that. You can see on the long slip the end of a word, “KOLAJ”.’

  ‘Or a name. Well, you know as much about that as I do. Words ending with a J don’t belong at this end of Europe; at the other end they’re as common as blackberries. Our friend couldn’t have faked that, anyhow.’

  ‘Just so. It’s another point for us to think about. Now, I told you I thought Mr Gemmell here might be able to help us possibly, with you in support, as it were, Mr Trent—knowing all you do about the doctor’s life abroad. You attended to his correspondence, Mr Gemmell, I suppose?’

  Mr Gemmell’s tight-lipped Scottish mouth opened for the first time since he had entered the room. ‘I made yesterday a full statement about myself and my recent movements to Inspector Clymer,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you have not seen it, Captain Hildebrand.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Well, I mentioned in it the fact that I have been only three weeks in Dr Howland’s employment. Until I came, he had done without a secretary. So it’s not much that I can tell you about his correspondence.’

  ‘Hm! That’s a pity,’ the captain said. ‘What I was going to ask is whether he had ever received anything in the nature of threatening letters, or ever answered anything of that kind.’

  ‘I cannot say what he may have received or what he may have answered personally,’ said Mr Gemmell with caution. ‘From my brief experience I would say that his correspondence was not large. Since I came, he has dictated only a few letters to me, all of a business or formal character. My work was principally in connection with his legal studies and the book that he was writing.’ Mr Gemmell produced a notebook from his breastpocket. ‘I have here my shorthand notes of the letters I took. The addresses were E. L. Chambers & Son, booksellers, 92 Ermine Street, London; Mr H. T. Saltwell, tailor, 143 Jermyn Street, London; the Manager, Henson’s Bank, Bridlemere; Messrs. Quin & Barnard, stockbrokers, 54 Copthall Avenue, London; the Editor of The Deipnosophist, 11 Henrietta Street, London; the Secretary of the Cassowary Club, Singapore; Mr L. G. Minks, antique dealer, 38 Godden Street, Maidstone. And the Bridlemere Gas Company, Bridlemere. That’s all.’

  ‘None of them any use to us, I should think,’ Captain Hildebrand said. ‘Well, Clymer, you and I must be getting along. Sorry to have brought you here for nothing, Mr Gemmell. We shan’t be going by Fairfield again, or I’d offer you a lift back. Very many thanks for your help, Mr Trent—your very valuable help. Good morning.’

  The captain and his satellite went briskly out. Mr Gemmell rose and began to follow them at a more leisurely pace, paying no attention to Trent; but at a word from him the young Scotsman paused.

  ‘I am thinking about one of those names you read out to us, Mr Gemmell,’ Trent said. ‘Chambers & Son, of Ermine Street. You have your note of the letter. As it is only a business letter, would it be in order for you to tell me what was in it? It has just occurred to me that there might be something worth following up.’

  Mr Gemmell regarded him with a wooden face for a few moments. ‘In my opinion,’ he then said, ‘it would be highly irregular. It is no part of my duty to give such information to any private individual. Good morning to you.’ And he walked out.

  Trent, not at all discomposed by a snub which he had fully expected, set off for London in his car a little later. During the hour’s run, he gave more thought to the question he had broached so unsuccessfully to the faithful Gemmell, and decided in favour of a little scouting. He had never had any dealings with the firm of Chambers & Son; but he happened to know—most people interested at all in the book world knew—that they specialized in foreign literature, stocking the books of the day in half a dozen languages, and would produce for a purchaser any foreign book that was still on sale. And was there not a foreign flavour about the whole business, about all of Dr Howland’s record, about the relic of French or pseudo-French script on which his advice had been sought? It was, he thought, a trail worth following. He would assist the police, and incidentally the Record, and satisfy his own inquisitive taste, by following it himself.

  A little before noon he visited Chambers’s establishment. The only shopman visible was attending to a customer, and Trent wandered among the neatly-kept shelves and tables, with their array of paper-covered volumes, until a little man wearing pince-nez, and radiating consciousness of his own importance, came down a staircase at the back and asked if there was anything he required. Trent, visited by an inspiration, wondered if a copy of Victor Hugo’s Quatre-Vingt-Treize was to be had; the shopman, with the negligent air of a conjurer producing a rabbit from a hat, at once fished out the book from the recesses of a deep drawer.

  Trent, showing himself properly impressed, talked with the little man, who seemed to have read, or to know all about, everything in the shop, and was very willing to display his erudition. When at length Trent asked if his friend Dr Howland was a customer of Chambers’s, the man shook his head. He did not know the name, he said; though anyone, of course, could buy books without the person who served him knowing who he was.

  Trent, presuming on his having made a purchase, next asked to see the manager, whose name, he was told, was Mr Nauck, and whom he saw in a little office on the first floor. Mr Nauck was a tall and bulky person, shaven-faced and crop-headed, whose correct and fluent English was marred only by a slight difficulty with the letters W and V. He knew Dr Howland by name, but not as a client of Chambers’s; he had been shocked to read of the brutal assault made upon him.

  Had no letter been received from Dr Howland? None, said Mr Nauck. The firm dealt with a very large correspondence, both home and foreign; but Mr Nauck had an excellent memory, and he was sure that there had been no such letter. In any case, if the letter had been received, it could easily be traced through the firm’s files. Could Trent give the date of it?

  Trent knew only that it had been dictated at some time during the past three weeks. Mr Nauck, after a reference to his filing cabinet, declared positively that no letter from anyone of the name of Howland had been received for a clear month past. It was clear that if the letter had been written, it had somehow gone astray. He was sorry to have been of no assistance to Trent, and took leave of him with a Nordic bow.

  The little shopman was putting on his hat and overcoat, it being no doubt his time for lunch, as Trent passed through the shop on his way out. He returned to his house in Grove End Road, and passed an hour in mental review of the facts; then wrote and posted a letter to Inspector Clymer at Bridlemere.

  The inspector met Trent the next morning, as he had suggested in his note, at a tea-shop in Ermine Street at the hour of noon. From a table by the window, Chambers’s shop, on the other side of the way, was well in view; and they sat down to cups of coffee.

  ‘I don’t know what to make of your letter, Mr Trent,’ Inspector Clymer began. ‘You say you think you may have got a line. You don’t say much more and if it wasn’t that you have a reputation, and the way you dealt with those bits of writing, I don’t know that I should be justified in leaving my investigation on the spot. Not that it’s led to anything yet. It isn’t easy to trace a man that you know nothing about but the size of his foot. Nobody in the Wargate neighbourhood noticed any stranger about the place that evening. He could have got away by car, or cycle, or train from Bridlemere, or any of three coach-services that halt near the station. Nobody there could give me anything—why should they? There’s plenty of traffic on Sunday evenings.’

  ‘And I suppose Dr Howland has not been able to say anything yet. Is he doing as well as they expected?’

  ‘Making a wonderful recovery, they say. He is conscious, and able to speak, but not much. The doctor allowed me to see him early this morning, and stood over me while I
put a question or two on the main point—whether he saw anything of the man who attacked him. Nothing at all, the old man whispered—I could barely make out what he was saying. But he had heard the man talking to himself after he coshed him—something about “smash you”, “trying to smash me”, and then “think nobody’s a swell but yourself”. Which doesn’t seem to make much sense. After that, he says, he heard Edward barking—that’s the dog, we all know him in Bridlemere—and then he passed out. That was all I got; they wouldn’t let me question him any further. But it does tell us something. If those bits of a letter were dropped by the criminal on purpose, which I think is a moral certainty, they were dropped by a man who spoke English, and what you might call colloquial English at that, when he thought he had knocked a man silly, and fully intended to finish him off properly.’

  Trent nodded. ‘And a man who talks to himself in English—’

  ‘Is not a Frenchman, anyway; or any other kind of foreigner. It shows you we’re right about those scraps being a blind, Mr Trent, and that somebody was being clever, as the captain says. And now about that letter you wanted a copy of. I saw Gemmell this morning, and asked him to type it out for me from his shorthand note. He thought it over, and then said that in his opinion the proper procedure would be for me to take his carbon copy of the letter as sent. When I thanked him, he said it was his duty to assist the police, and that he would require a receipt. Well, I thought, Lord knows what will happen to the West Sussex force if we lose this precious document; so I had it copied at the station, and here’s one that you can keep—have it framed, if you like.’

  Trent took the envelope from him, and glanced over the contents. ‘You shouldn’t let Gemmell annoy you. He is the slave of duty, and he isn’t one of the glad hearts, without reproach or blot, who do its work and know it not. Well, Inspector, I am glad you got this. I think it is going to be helpful. Let me just go through it again.’

  The letter ran as follows:

  FAIRFIELD,

  WARGATE,

  SUSSEX.

  24th September, 19—

  Messrs. E. L. Chambers & Sons,

  92 Ermine Street

  London, W.1.

  Dear Sirs,

  Some weeks ago I asked your firm to procure for me the following books:

  Darstellung der Leibnitzschen Philosophie

  By Ludwig Feuerbach

  Die Grundformen der Gesellschaft

  By Eugen Eschscholz

  When I visited your shop to give this order, I took the trouble, in order to prevent mistakes, to spell care-fully the titles and the authors’ names to the person who took the order.

  After about a fortnight, having heard nothing from you, I wrote to a friend of mine in Leipzig, who sent me the books required. They arrived this morning.

  I think that if it is not worth your while to make inquiry for books not published recently, and possibly seldom asked for, I should have been told so.

  Yours faithfully,

  Trent looked up at the inspector. ‘A very nasty letter indeed,’ he remarked approvingly. ‘Clear, precise, not a word wasted, and yet calculated to make Chambers & Son foam at their respective mouths. Did you ask, as I suggested, if it was quite certain the letter had been signed and posted?’

  ‘Yes. Gemmell was quite sure of it.’

  ‘All right. Now, Inspector, I am going to explain to you what my notion is, but time presses, it’s nearly 12:30. I want to confront Chambers’s manager with this letter, and I want to do so while his chief assistant is not within call. The assistant goes out to lunch, unless I’m mistaken, just about now, and if you will take it on trust from me, you ought to have a look at him while I am interviewing the boss. If you will do that, and meet me here in half an hour, say, I’ll tell you the whole thing.’ Trent paused, his eye on Chambers’s doorway. ‘I may say it’s possibly a chance for you, if you care about that.’

  ‘You bet I do!’ said Inspector Clymer fervently. ‘Here! Is that him coming out now—the cocky little chap?’

  ‘That’s the man. Is it a cosmic law, d’you think, that conceited men’s hats are always too small?’ But the inspector, in no mood for probing the mysteries of the universe, was already at the door, bent on not losing sight of the little man.

  ‘Veil, Mr Trent,’ the manager said, as he took the copy from its envelope, ‘I shall be interested to see this letter. If it is as you say, I ought to see it, as I deal with the firm’s correspondence, and it should haf been delivered here—’ he glanced at the date—‘nearly three weeks ago.’

  Mr Nauck read; and as he did so his broad, bland face was transfigured to a mask of rage. As he finished the last paragraph, he struck the table with an enormous fist and exploded in a seven-syllable German oath; then, curbing his emotion with obvious difficulty, he turned to his visitor.

  ‘I beg you to excuse me, Mr Trent. Perhaps you don’t see vot a bad business this is. It comes to this: that I am being deceived by a man I haf trusted. It is evident that my chief assistant, Mr Votkin, took that order, and nefer passed it on to me, as he should haf done, for the sending of the necessary letters.’

  ‘But he might have mislaid it and then forgotten it,’ Trent suggested.

  ‘Yes, that vas going to be his story,’ Mr Nauck said grimly. ‘If Dr Howland had inquired further about his order, that is vot Votkin could haf said, and he might expect to get off with a sharp reprimand and a caution. But he did not reckon on Dr Howland doing vot he did, and then writing this—’ here Mr Nauck appeared to swallow something; probably, Trent thought, a vivid German epithet—‘this letter. Vot does this letter mean, Mr Trent? It means that the firm has lost an order—a small matter, yes, but it also means that ve haf lost an important client, and that our reputation is compromised. Think vot Dr Howland may haf been saying about us! If I had seen this letter, I should haf sacked Votkin on the spot and vell he knew it!’

  Trent considered a moment. ‘But how could he know anything about it? You say the letter was never delivered.’

  ‘Oh yes, it vos! I know now vot happened. You see, Mr Trent, my assistants come here in the morning a little earlier than I do, and it is Votkin’s job to open the letters and sort them for my attention ven I arrive. He read that letter. He saw vot it meant for him, and he simply suppressed it.’

  ‘You think that was it? I see.’ Trent was, in fact, beginning to see somewhat further than did Mr Nauck. ‘But what could have induced the man to act in this way? Why, I mean, should he have ignored that order in the first place?’

  ‘Vy? Because Votkin is a puffed-up mass of conceit, Mr Trent, and because he has a violent temper. I gif him his due; he is an excellent linguist and a valuable man for our business. His conceit is nothing to me, nor is his temper. He got nasty with me vonce, but he didn’t do it again,’ said Mr Nauck with significance. ‘But I vouldn’t have his touchiness interfering with business, and more than vonce I haf censured him severely for being disrespectful to clients. Vell, you see vot Dr Howland says here.’ He tapped the letter. ‘He took the trouble to spell the names carefully to the man who took his order. He treated him like some commonplace, ignorant fellow, perhaps.’

  Trent called on his memories of the Doctor in past years. ‘He had rather a crushing manner at times. Eminent barristers often have.’

  ‘There you are!’ Mr Nauck exclaimed. ‘He must haf got Votkin into such a raving passion that he would do anything to spite him, and the only thing he could do was to keep him vaiting for his order. It vas an idiotic trick, of course; but it’s just the sort of thing these irritable, vindictive fools do. Vell, I don’t lose my temper often, but I am going to haf it out with Mr Votkin as soon as I see him.’

  Trent took leave of the seething Mr Nauck, and went out to wait for Inspector Clymer.

  ‘He went to the St Alban’s buffet,’ the inspector reported, ‘having a drink at the bar first. I sat near him at the counter. He had a ham sandwich for lunch, which he didn’t finish, and two more double whiskies, which
he did. That’s a badly frightened man if I ever saw one, his nerves are all to pieces. I left him there when I thought I had seen enough. And now, perhaps, Mr Trent, you will let me know what all this means, and why you wanted me to join you here.’

  Trent let him know. He told how the name of a foreign bookseller, where half-sheets from foreign letters with foreign watermarks would be easily come by, had caught his attention. He told of Mr Watkin’s innocent display of his familiarity with French authors, and of his failure to remember Dr Howland’s name, although he had ordered books to be sent to him at his address. He told what Mr Nauck had said of Watkin’s disposition, and the story that Mr Nauck had pieced together from the evidence. Finally, Trent told what he himself now guessed to be a later chapter of that story.

  The inspector listened keenly, his face full of a restrained eagerness. ‘One thing’s clear,’ he said. ‘It is my business to interrogate this Mr Watkin, and the sooner the better. Look! There he comes now.’ And with Trent in attendance he left the tea-shop and hurried after his unconscious prey.

  They entered the book-shop, and saw Mr Watkin hanging up his hat and coat in a cupboard under the stairs at the back of the shop. He turned at the sound of their footsteps and came towards them; but the polite inquiry was checked on his lips, and his face turned white and frightened as he recognized Trent and took in the unmistakable appearance of Inspector Clymer.

  ‘You are Mr Watkin, I believe,’ the inspector said. The terrified man only stared at him in silence, putting a hand to his throat. ‘I am a police officer, and—’ Here he broke off, for Watkin had turned and made as if to rush to the stairs. But coming down them at that moment appeared Mr Nauck, wearing a tigerish scowl and holding out in a hand shaking with fury the paper which Trent had given him.

  ‘Votkin!’ roared the big man. ‘Vot does this mean? I hear this morning that you haf concealed from me a letter addressed to the firm, and not only that, but you haf—’