by John Rhode
The superintendent made no comment and changed the subject. But he put the same question to other clerks of long standing in the firm. They all agreed that the business of Slater & Knott had been on the upgrade since Mr Slater had retired.
This was directly contrary to what Mr Slater had told Jimmy. He had complained that the profits were falling off and had expressed some anxiety as to the future. He would not have done this without some definite motive. Had he wished to afford an explanation of his opposition to the granting of the bonus to Victor Harleston? Rather a clumsy falsehood, if so. Surely he must have some deeper reason. And if so, it was legitimate to link that reason with murders of Harleston and of Knott. Hanslet became still more convinced that Mr Slater’s machinations had led to these murders.
Hanslet left Chancery Lane and went to St Martha’s Hospital, where he eventually unearthed the friend of Mr Knott. This man, he discovered, had known Mr Knott fairly intimately; they had frequently spent an evening together. In fact, Knott had arranged for them to dine together on the previous Friday evening.
‘Did Mr Knott keep the appointment?’ Hanslet asked.
‘No, he didn’t,’ the other replied. ‘I waited a good half-hour for him, then went off somewhere else. And when I rang up his office next morning to find out what had happened to him, they told me that he had not returned to London.’
‘You knew that he had gone down to Torquay the previous day?’
‘Oh yes, I knew that. He told me that he was going down to Torquay to see his partner, but that he would be back in time for our meeting. He mentioned that he had an important appointment at his office at three o’clock that afternoon.’
‘You persuaded Mr Knott to offer himself for transfusion of blood should emergency arise?’
‘Yes, I did. And as it happens he might have been a very useful person to call upon. As I dare say you know, there are four classes of human blood. And if you’ve got a patient whose blood is class four, for instance, and it becomes necessary to employ transfusion, you’ve got to be careful that the person whose blood you take is also of class four. If you don’t, your trouble’s wasted, for the wrong class of blood is no use. Consequently, when anybody offers themselves for transfusion, we take a sample of their blood and test it. We then record the name of the volunteer, under his own particular class. Now, as it happens, we are rather short of volunteers of class one. Consequently, when I tested Knott’s blood and found it belonged to that class, I was very pleased.’
Hanslet returned to Scotland Yard with this additional piece of evidence. It was not, of course, conclusive in itself. But it was useful to know that Mr Knott’s blood had been of class one. For this was the class of blood that had been found upon the articles brought by Jimmy from Torquay.
In the superintendent’s opinion everything was beginning to fit together pretty well. He was annoyed that he had been unable to force a confession from Philip. It seemed to him absolutely certain that Philip must have been in the plot. He no longer believed that Philip had been the actual murderer of his half-brother. But he must certainly have connived at it, if only to the extent of indicating where the nicotine might be procured. But his experience was that criminals frequently broke down when confronted with the first piece of real evidence. Hanslet had every confidence that this piece of evidence would soon be forthcoming.
So when Jimmy entered the superintendent’s room upon his return from Torquay he was greeted expectantly.
‘Well, have you found anything?’ Hanslet asked.
Jimmy produced the tin which he had found in Gavin Slater’s room and placed it on the table before the superintendent.
‘I found that,’ he replied without attempting to disguise the note of triumph in his voice.
Hanslet’s eyes sparkled. ‘I rather fancy that I’ve seen tins like that before,’ he said slowly. ‘Any objection to my opening it?’
‘None at all,’ Jimmy replied with a satisfied smile. He watched Hanslet open the tin, sniff at the contents and then replace the lid hurriedly. ‘The smell seems a bit familiar, doesn’t it?’ he continued.
‘Familiar?’ Hanslet exclaimed. ‘That’s nicotine and you know it. Sit down, my lad, and tell me all about it.’
Jimmy obeyed. He gave a detailed account of his last visit to Torquay, and of the events which had resulted from it. Hanslet listened eagerly. He nodded his head several times as though he had already anticipated the principal points of the story.
‘Pretty good!’ he exclaimed at last. ‘All that confirms my theory, doesn’t it? The Slater family, for some reason that we cannot quite fathom yet, decided to murder both Harleston and Knott. They were successful in both cases, but it oughtn’t to be very difficult for us to lay them by the heels. This tin of nicotine is just the clue I’ve been wanting. I’ll ring up the Professor and ask if we can go along and see him this evening. He’ll be glad to hear that we have solved the problem.’
Dr Priestley’s permission having been obtained, Hanslet and Jimmy arrived at Westbourne Terrace shortly after nine. The superintendent was in the highest spirits.
‘We’ve solved that nicotine business between us, Professor,’ he said triumphantly. ‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Dr Priestley replied. ‘As you know, where any problem is concerned, the steps towards the solution are of greater interest to me than the solution itself. I should be very glad to hear how you arrived at the happy result.’
Hanslet, nothing loath, launched into a description of his own and Jimmy’s efforts. Dr Priestley listened attentively, but without showing any signs of approval. He waited until Hanslet had finished and then looked at Hanslet inquiringly.
‘Well?’ he asked.
Hanslet had expected at least a word of approbation.
‘Well, the whole thing’s pretty plain now,’ he said rather lamely.
‘To you it may be,’ Dr Priestley replied. ‘But to my less profound intellect, several obscurities appear to remain. Since the sequence of events appears to you to be so clear, perhaps you will explain it.’
Dr Priestley’s manner was not exactly encouraging. Hanslet imagined that the solution of the problem without his intervention had slightly ruffled his amour-propre.
‘You’d like me to explain what must have happened, Professor?’ he asked.
A faint smile appeared on Dr Priestley’s face. ‘Most certainly, I should,’ he replied.
‘Well then, here goes,’ said Hanslet. ‘You remember saying, the last time we were here, that there were certain discrepancies between the statements. As an example, you took the granting of the bonus to Victor Harleston, and pointed out that Slater and Knott had given different accounts of this matter. I have since found an even more serious discrepancy. Slater bewailed to Jimmy that the profits of the firm were decreasing. On making inquiries at the office, however, I found that this was not the case. On the contrary, since Slater’s retirement, the position of the firm has greatly improved.
‘That shows that, in two instances at least, Slater wished to deceive us. In my opinion, that throws a doubt upon the whole of his evidence. He must be considered at least a possible accomplice. And therefore we cannot rely upon what he has told Jimmy. For instance, we have believed hitherto that Knott’s visit to Torquay was at his own suggestion. But since now we cannot trust Slater’s account it is quite possible that Knott went to Torquay because his partner sent for him.
‘However, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. I don’t know yet what was at the bottom of it all. But it seems to me pretty obvious that Slater for some reason wished to secure the silence of both Knott and Harleston. No doubt we shall discover that reason in due course. I don’t think there can be any doubt that it existed. Dead men tell no tales, they say. And Slater decided that the most effectual way of shutting the mouths of his partner and his clerk would be to contrive their exit from this world.’
‘You have not yet determined the motive, then?’ Dr Priestley remarked blandly.
‘I can’t tell
you why Slater wanted to secure the silence of these two men,’ Hanslet replied. ‘That he did so, seems to be the only explanation of what follows. Slater, being too old and infirm to take any active steps for himself, enlisted the aid of his son and possibly of his daughter-in-law. It was decided to tackle Harleston first, and the method agreed upon was poisoning by nicotine.
‘Now Slater himself admits that he knew that Philip Harleston was established at Hart’s Farm. Philip won’t at present admit that he had any communication with the Slaters, but that’s a detail. No doubt Slater got into touch with him, probably through his son. Philip divulged where the nicotine was kept, and a very elementary theft was staged. I learnt, on one of my visits to Lassingford, that an unknown man in a car had inquired for Philip at a time when he was out. That man was probably Gavin Slater. The same idea occurred to Jimmy when he tried to trap him into an admission. As it happened, he failed at the first attempt, but he may be more successful later.
‘Having provided himself with the nicotine. Gavin Slater set out to buy a razor and a tube of shaving cream. We have already been into the details of that dodge. The parcel was no doubt posted to Victor Harleston from Torquay. I think that girl Janet Harleston must have been in the secret. At all events she was very careful to get rid of the paper in which the parcel had been wrapped. The postmark was too valuable a clue to be left lying about.
‘Then we come to the man whom Janet says she saw on the doorstep. The trouble about this case is that we can’t trust any of our more important witnesses. Did this man exist, or did he not? Janet’s statement is entirely unsupported. She may have removed the shaving cream from the bathroom, and poured the nicotine into her half-brother’s tea. On the other hand, if the man did exist, who was he? Probably, I think, Gavin Slater. Janet’s statement that she cannot give a description of him must not be relied upon. We mustn’t forget that she stood to gain by her half-brother’s death, and was probably hand-in-glove with his murderer.
‘Victor Harleston having been disposed of, the next step was to get rid of Knott. Probably Slater invited him to Torquay on the pretext of talking about some matter of business. One thing is perfectly certain. We have abundant evidence from several different sources that Knott intended to be back in London by three o’clock on Friday afternoon. This would have been possible had he left Torquay at ten-thirty. His sudden decision, as reported by Gavin Slater, to return by the seven-twenty seems incomprehensible.
‘The finding of the tin of nicotine in Gavin Slater’s bedroom, is to my mind most significant. Jimmy saw that at once. Nicotine having proved remarkably effective in the case of Victor Harleston, the Slaters had decided to repeat the experiment with Knott. But with Knott, for some reason, nicotine was not employed after all. Jimmy thinks that Gavin Slater tried the dodge of putting nicotine in Knott’s whisky. The missing glass seems to bear this out. In that case, Knott may have jibbed at the smell. On the other hand, Gavin Slater may have changed his mind at the last moment and decided to make use of the knife.
‘There is no doubt that the knife was used. Gavin Slater admitted handling it, no doubt because he guessed that his fingerprints had been found on it. He waited until Knott was asleep, then stabbed him as he lay in bed. This done, he dismembered the body and carried it in the suitcase to the shore. Then, feeling a bit shaky, no doubt, he polished off the whisky that remained in the decanter and went and lay down in his dressing-room. To my mind the case against him is perfectly clear.’
A silence followed Hanslet’s exposition. Then Dr Priestley turned to Jimmy. ‘Do you share that opinion, Inspector?’ he asked.
‘Well, sir, all the evidence seems to point in that direction,’ Jimmy replied diplomatically.
Dr Priestley fixed his eyes upon the ceiling. ‘Then in that case any comment on my part would be superfluous,’ he murmured.
‘Not a bit of it, Professor,’ Hanslet exclaimed hastily; ‘the reason we came here was to hear your suggestions.’
‘My suggestions!’ said Dr Priestley mildly. ‘I can only offer one suggestion, that is, that you should consider and compare the technique of these two crimes.’
Hanslet looked a trifle puzzled. ‘I think we’ve done that pretty thoroughly,’ he replied.
‘You may have considered them, but you certainly have not compared them,’ said Dr Priestley severely.
‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you’re driving at, Professor,’ said Hanslet.
‘Then I will endeavour to explain. You believe that two murders—that of Victor Harleston and of Mr Knott—were planned and executed by the same person or persons. Is that correct?’
‘That’s right, Professor. Slater, I fancy, did the thinking and his son did the execution.’
‘Very well. Now let us consider these two crimes. First of all the murder of Victor Harleston. Here we have an ingenious plan boldly carried out. Every effort is made to remove incriminating evidence. We must believe that the discovery of the razor employed is due to the victim having thrown it out of the window. Had he not done so, but laid it down on the shelf in the bathroom, it would no doubt have been removed with the shaving cream and the towel. In that case, no clue would have remained which could have implicated anybody.
‘Now let us consider the second crime. Here, you will say, the criminal successfully overcame the gravest difficulty with which the murderer is confronted. He was able to dispose of the body in such a way that you have not been able to discover it. But he made no attempt whatever to destroy incriminating clues. On the contrary, he seems to have made a triumphant display of them. Let me enumerate a few of the most striking of these. He omits to wash the knife with which the crime was committed, and hangs it up in its bloodstained condition in a spot where any observant person would be bound to notice it. He disposed of such of the victim’s clothes as he thought proper. Why he packed some of these and not others in the suitcase is a problem upon which I will not at present dwell. But he left his victim’s overcoat hanging up in the cupboard. Not content with this, he commits an even graver blunder. The pyjamas, perhaps the most damning evidence of all. The rent in them, surrounded by blood, has apparently told its own story. But these pyjamas, instead of being disposed of in the same manner as the body, were hidden at the bottom of an oak chest. Further, as though to implicate himself beyond all possibility of doubt, the murderer hides his alternative weapon, the nicotine, in his own chest of drawers. Then, regardless of any possible risk to himself, he makes his final journey with the suitcase to the shore, at a time when there was not only a possibility but a likelihood of his being observed. Lastly, as a crowning act of folly, he cashes one of the notes which he has stolen from his victim in such a way that it can easily be traced.
‘Now, I do not pretend to be a detective. But I claim to have some slight knowledge of human nature. A criminal who displayed such skill in the commission of the first crime would surely never blunder so repeatedly in the case of the second. For this reason alone I cannot believe implicitly in the correctness of your theory, Superintendent.’
‘There’s something in what you say, Professor,’ Hanslet replied. ‘But we’ve learnt a little about Gavin Slater’s habits. We know that when he has had too much to drink he becomes hardly responsible for his actions. When the first crime was committed he managed to remain sober. But when the second crime was committed there was a decanter of whisky on the spot, and he couldn’t resist the temptation. No doubt, when he had disposed of Knott’s body, he got so tight that he didn’t know what he was doing.’
‘A plausible explanation, certainly. But he cannot have remained consistently drunk until Inspector Waghorn’s first visit to Torquay. Even if he were incapable of destroying the clues immediately he had plenty of time to do so subsequently.’
Hanslet shook his head. ‘He grew careless, I suppose,’ he said. ‘It’s no use, Professor. If he didn’t murder Knott, who did?’
‘You may find it easier to answer that question when you discover M
r Knott’s body.’
‘We shall never do that now, I’m afraid. Those lobsters that Jimmy heard about have grown fat upon it by now. It’s a matter of simple logic. Knott was murdered sometime during Thursday night in Slater’s house. The only person in that house who was capable of murdering him and of disposing of the body was Gavin Slater. Unless you’re going to suggest that somebody from outside broke in and did the job?’
‘No, I should certainly not suggest that,’ said Dr Priestley.
‘Very well, then. You have to admit that Gavin Slater, however clumsily he behaved afterwards, was the murderer. You pointed out yourself the probability that there was a connection between the two murders. That means, I suppose, that the same motive was behind them both and that the same people carried them out?’
‘I certainly suggested that connection. But I implied, I think, that it was a connection of motive. Now, as you yourself admit, you have failed to establish the motive in either case. Until the disappearance of Mr Knott, you were convinced that the motive of Victor Harleston’s murder was to be found in his half-sister’s discontent with her life with him. Now, in order to support your theory of two crimes having been carried out by the same hand, you are forced to imagine a fresh motive. You suppose, without adequate reason for doing so, that Mr Slater had a reason for wishing for the death of Victor Harleston and his partner. It would be just as logical, it seems to me, to imagine that Philip and Janet Harleston had a motive for desiring the death of Mr Knott.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Hanslet. And then, suddenly realising the absurdity of the suggestion, he added, ‘but of course, that’s ridiculous. Those two young people can’t have murdered Knott while he was staying at Torquay. That, at least, is certain, for they were under observation at Lassingford at the time.’
‘I did not suggest that the Harlestons had murdered Mr Knott,’ Dr Priestley replied. ‘I merely endeavoured to point out the weakness of your argument. It amounts to this. Appearances, as you say, suggest that Mr Knott was murdered by Gavin Slater. But no motive for this act is apparent. Instead of endeavouring to seek for the true motive behind both these crimes you invent one which will fit in with appearances. And that, as I hardly need point out, is not only illogical, but dangerous.’