“I think that’s all, sir. Thank you for your help. I’ll probably be round again as the case develops. Sir Gideon’s medical adviser holds quite an important place in our field of investigation, I’d imagine.”
“Yes? Well, here’s to our meeting again, Inspector. Meantime, I wish you good morning. My patients are still waiting.”
Preedy showed Littlejohn to the door himself, and when left alone on the doorstep, Littlejohn had the depressing feeling that he’d been put-off with half a tale and that he would have to be content with it for the time being.
CHAPTER SEVEN - LAYMEN AT THE FEAST
Mr. Edgar Kingsley-Smith had the most sumptuous office in the Town Hall and Littlejohn found him there, lounging in a padded chair, dictating letters to a typist who had one leg crossed above the knee of the other and looked fresh from the cover of a ladies’ magazine.
“Right, Miss Travers. Better leave us. I’ll ring when I want you again. Good morning, Inspector. Glad to meet you. What can I do to help?”
The Town Clerk shook hands with his visitor, giving him a hot, dry grip like that of a man with a fever. He was past his prime. His grey hair was thin and the skin-deep sunburn on his long, lined face might have concealed a bilious or even jaundiced hue. A man of the world, cultured and well-bred, yet whose natural indolence had carried him no farther than the Town Clerkship of his native town. He uncurled his long, slim body from his seat, stood with his back to the fireless grate, and waved Littlejohn to a chair.
“According to information, sir, you were sitting next to the Mayor when the tragedy occurred. I wondered if you saw or heard anything which might throw some light on how it happened.”
Kingsley-Smith took a slim cigarette case from his pocket and offered it to Littlejohn, who, however, said he preferred his pipe and, filling it, began to smoke.
“To be candid, Inspector,” said the Town Clerk, lighting his cigarette slowly, “in spite of my ringside seat, I saw no more than anyone else. The whole business is as much a mystery to me as to everybody else.”
He drawled his speech. His self-possession was wonderful and he showed not the least sign of regret or any other emotion.
“Sir Gideon was served from the same dishes as everyone else?”
“Yes. I’ve been asked that before and I presume you’ve already been told of it.”
Littlejohn remembered that Kingsley-Smith was a solicitor and liked to show his acumen.
“Yes, sir, I have. But I’m trying to draw you out to tell me the story in your own words …”
“I don’t see the use. I will say, though, that I’ve looked at the happenings from every angle and I can’t for the life of me see how Ware could have been given poison that would kill him alone and not affect a dozen others at least.”
“I agree with you, sir, from what I see of the affair. The only way of approaching it is to delete the impossibles from the list of names, and then go steadily through the probables until by elimination we get among the real suspects …”
“The animal, mineral, vegetable method?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m among the probables, I gather?”
“Not quite that, as yet, sir. As chief officer of the Corporation and one in constant contact with the Mayor, can you tell me of any likely motives for murder?”
“Dear me, Inspector, what a question!” Kingsley-Smith puffed disgustedly at his cigarette and shook off the ash on the hearthrug. “You probably know by this, that Ware’s arrogance and domineering ways made enemies for him wherever he went. Nil nisi bonum, and all that of the dead doesn’t apply in this case. It’s murder, so I must be frank. I don’t think Sir Gideon had a single real friend among any of those present at the banquet. He also took a delight in setting off one official against another. If you could have seen the arrangement of the guests at the tables on that day, you’d have understood. Sworn antagonists sitting cheek-by-jowl … Ware’s scheme and his idea of a joke!”
“Yes, but it needs a lot to make one man kill another in cold blood.”
“I agree with you. I regarded Wilmott Saxby, the guest of honour, yes, the guest of honour, as the one with the greatest grievance and most motive for killing Ware. You see, Ware had just undermined Saxby’s life-work, by arranging for Westcombe to swallow up the little place where Saxby’s the Chairman of the U.D.C. The poor fellow, a native of Hinster’s Ferry … that’s the place … has fought for years to prevent it. Yet, knowing Saxby, I say impossible. Not the type.”
“I shall be seeing him later, I hope, and will judge for myself. How did you get along with Sir Gideon, sir?”
Kingsley-Smith shrugged his shoulders and flung away his cigarette end.
“No better than the rest. I had sharp words with him from time to time. I refused to tolerate any interference with my office by the Mayor or anyone else. Sir Gideon was a born meddler and, if I’d allowed him, would soon have been running this department for me, just as he’d have made the magistrates’ court into a sort of Star Chamber if Brown, the Clerk, hadn’t put his foot down.”
“Is it true that when he settled down in Westcombe, Sir Gideon found in you a good friend?”
“Yes. He arrived as a prominent builder, and we met frequently. The Corporation owns a lot of the land here and all building ventures require proper consent, as you’re no doubt aware, by the local authority. As principal legal adviser to the Council, I often met Ware. We got quite friendly and when he came to live in Westcombe, I introduced him to various people and clubs. He was much more reasonable then. Once he’d got settled down, however, he seemed to get the idea that he owned the place and grew somewhat obnoxious.”
Littlejohn had already formed the impression that the Town Clerk had a strong personal dislike, bordering on enmity, for the dead Mayor. There was a deeper motive for this than mere departmental pin-pricking. He was seeking a way of broaching the matter of the Town Clerk’s debts to Ware, when Kingsley-Smith surprised him by almost reading his thoughts.
“Unless I’m mistaken, Boumphrey’s already told you that at one time, I owed Ware considerable sums of money …”
“Yes, sir, he has.”
No use beating about the bush!
“I thought so. I once caught him reading private correspondence on the table of my room when I was called out. He thought I wasn’t quick enough to spot him … A word of warning, Littlejohn. Don’t believe all that Boumphrey tells you. Confirm it if you can. His appointment was practically forced through by Ware, who had a lot of influence in the right quarters. That’s all I have to say on that matter. Meanwhile, I’m not evading the issue about owing Ware money. When he died, I was indebted to him to the tune of about two thousand pounds. I now owe it to his executors. He held a mortgage on my house in the town. He began to press for repayment recently. All I had to do was to shift the mortgage from Ware to the bank or a building society and pay him off. So, you see, Boumphrey only got half a tale. I had a series of large expenses many years ago—operation and such like—and Ware offered to lend me the money …”
Littlejohn rose. There wasn’t much more to be gathered from the Town Clerk, who seemed more anxious to go one better than Boumphrey in laying bare his finances, than to give any objective background to the case.
“I’m very grateful for the information, sir, and I’ll probably call again later in the investigation.”
“Anything I can do to help, don’t fail to let me know, Inspector. Good-bye.”
The Town Clerk rang the bell for the blonde typist again and she eagerly resumed her place at his side, and again found that she could not firmly establish her notebook without showing an extraordinary extent of legs, knees and silken hose.
Meanwhile, Littlejohn was trying to hold a conversation with the Borough Treasurer.
Mr. Ralph Arthur Oliver, custodian of finances of Westcombe, was a small, sandy, busy man of middle age, who had an extravagant and domineering wife and a wealthy, tight-fisted aunt. Between the two of them, he di
dn’t know whether he was on his head or his heels.
Boumphrey’s deductions concerning defalcations, put right by a loan from the wealthy maiden relative, were never confirmed but might have been quite true. Mrs. Oliver wore expensive clothing and moved in the best circles; Miss Manciple, the aunt, never gave Ralph Arthur a stiver and was always hatching schemes for making him pay for her. The annual published accounts of Westcombe showed Oliver’s salary at £1,000. How he made ends meet with two silly women sucking him dry, only he knew!
Oliver was on the defensive against Littlejohn from the start. He laboured under a disadvantage, too. On the day before, Mr. Oliver had had all his upper teeth extracted and, in his exalted position, being unable to put in an edentulous appearance at the office, he was wearing a temporary denture. This encumbrance left its moorings now and again during conversation with a choking, gnashing noise.
“Yes, I sat in full view of the Mayor, Inspector,” said Oliver. “Or rather, side view. Fr’instance …”
And he demonstrated by means of a diagram on his blotting-pad, how he was seated on the inside of one of the arms of the subsidiary tables, at right angles to the high table, side-on to His Worship.
“You saw nothing unusual in the course of the luncheon, sir?”
Mr. Oliver wrestled with his temporary teeth.
“Nothing,” he gnashed. “Fr’instance, the band was playing, there was a hum of conversation, and the dishes were served as at any other function of that sort. I sat opposite Oxendale of Cotts’ Bank. Now, he had a full view of Sir Gideon all the time. We’ve compared notes since and Oxendale says he saw nothing extraordinary …”
At the latter word, Mr. Oliver’s dentals refused to function further and he had to adjust them for another spasm with the help of his handkerchief.
“Did you get on well with Sir Gideon yourself, Mr. Oliver? “
The Borough Treasurer turned pale and his teeth chattered.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“As civic chief, I hear he was difficult to satisfy. I have been told he meddled in municipal departments. For instance, were you troubled?”
Littlejohn made a note to guard against becoming infected with Oliver’s catchword.
“No, we had no trouble,” answered Oliver, too eagerly, Littlejohn thought. “He left my department alone, thank goodness.”
“Yet you had a personal quarrel with him lately at the golf club, didn’t you, Mr. Oliver?”
The Treasurer had apparently hoped that the Inspector was ignorant of the episode and showed great alarm at this new development.
“It was nothing, Inspector, I assure you. Just a passing brush between us, but soon smoothed over.”
“What was it all about, Mr. Oliver? I’d better have a proper story, first-hand, in justice to you. Please be easy in your mind, however. I’m not suspecting you of the crime. Take it easy.”
“A lot of silly stories have gone round about that incident,” said Oliver, grinding his teeth to keep them steady. “Fr’instance, somebody said I’d actually struck Sir Gideon. What I did was, I held his arm until the dog he was beating got away.”
“Tell me about it from the beginning, sir.”
“It was at the eighth green. There was a setter running about there. One of the members’ dogs—Fenwick’s. Just as Sir Gideon played an approach shot, the dog picked up his ball and started scampering round with it. Ware was furious, rushed at the setter, got it by the collar and set about it with his putter. I’m very fond of dogs and I must have seen red, for, before I knew where I was, I had rushed from the ninth tee, where I was waiting to drive off, and snatched the putter away. That was all. But, as I’m usually even-tempered, this show of aggressiveness caused a bit of joking among the wags of the club. Ware was very annoyed with me and didn’t speak to me for a fortnight. But it all blew over.”
“How long since was that?”
“About six weeks ago.”
“Did Sir Gideon threaten you, Mr. Oliver?”
The Borough Treasurer turned pale again.
“No, no, Inspector,” he managed to say sibilantly, and then his telephone rang. Littlejohn seized this opportunity to bid him good-bye.
Dr. McAndrew, whose office was in the same building, was out in conference with Harris, the police-surgeon, concerning the autopsy on Ware, so Littlejohn arranged to return after lunch for an interview. Meanwhile, he turned his attention to the Magistrates’ Clerk, Harold Brown, who, since the seizure of his offices by an evacuated department of the civil service, had been housed over the Police Courts.
There was a hush in the court building when Littlejohn entered, for the magistrates were in session. An attendant policeman informed the Inspector that the last case was being tried—it was one of twenty for drunken and disorderly conduct—and that if he cared to wait, Mr. Brown would soon be free.
The ante-room, a perfect salle des pas perdus, held a number of disgruntled witnesses, who had arrived early, bright and breezy, to give their testimonies and had been told that they would have to wait their turns, which had been put off until after lunch.
“Am I bloody mad!” confided a small man with the hanging chaps and loose-lidded eyes of a bloodhound, speaking in a reedy voice, which struggled for exit among his vocal cords. “Had to shut up my hoop-la stall to witness against two blokes who got tight and wrecked the next bloomin’ pitch to mine, a pin-table do. There’s only me in my business, but there’s two brothers on the pin-table. One of ’em’s here gettin’ his revenge, while the other opens the stall and pinches all my customers and takin’s. The ruddy perlice all over, that is. No mercy on the feller tryin’ to earn an ’onest livin’ … Not the perlice, are yer? You are? Well, why the ’ell didn’t yer say so, ’stead of lettin’ me go ramblin’ on? Even if you are one, you know it’s the truth an’ I don’t withdraw a ruddy word, see?”
Whereat the little bloodhound made his exit with the other disgusted witnesses.
At length, Mr. Brown sent word that he was free. He was a small, portly man, with solid flesh of apparently great specific gravity. His hooked nose looked like a misfit hastily assumed, his eyes bulged and his curly hair was black and well pomaded. You could smell his hair-oil all over the room. He wore a perpetual, mirthless smile and when he was annoyed, he amplified it by baring his teeth.
“Well, well,” smiled Mr. Brown, “and what can I do for Scotland Yard?”
Littlejohn told him. The same story as before.
“No. Although I sat almost facing Sir Gideon, I didn’t see a thing. I’d no idea what was going on until I noticed his colour go. Just like that …”
He snapped his fingers like a mesmerist reviving his victim.
“… then he seemed in distress, gathered himself together and finally collapsed.”
“Everything seemed to be quite normal before that?”
“Absolutely.”
“ How did you find Sir Gideon, sir?”
Mr. Brown’s smiling lips parted to disclose two copious sets of teeth crowding upon one another like passengers for the last bus.
“Candidly, he was a thorn in my side. Always kicking against the legal pricks. A man for heavy sentences—outrageous ones—for those to whom he took a dislike. Only last week, he wanted to send a lad to prison or Borstal for breaking windows in the offices of Ware and Company. I’d to remind him that the boy was a first offender and merely called for a small fine and nominal damages. He didn’t like being told and wouldn’t stand corrected until I told him pretty plainly that there’d be an appeal to a higher court and a reversal with censure.”
“I hear he was spiteful, Mr. Brown. Did he try to get his own back on you for opposing him?”
Even more of Mr. Brown’s teeth showed themselves through his smile.
“You seem to know a lot, Inspector. Well, this constant friction in court puts me in a dilemma. It’s as much as my job’s worth to let Ware have his own way. Fiat justitia … and I’m answerable to others besides Ware. On
the other hand, I’m not made of money.”
“But surely, you weren’t dependent on Ware that way, sir?”
“Yes and no. I may as well tell you everything, Inspector. To my dying day I’ll regret putting myself in Ware’s power. I have two sons, twins. Thanks to Ware, they’re both now half-way through the University … becoming doctors.”
Brown’s smile suddenly vanished and he looked Littlejohn proudly in the face.
“They’re clever boys, both of them, and will go far. They did well at the local grammar school. Of course, I hadn’t enough money to bring them both up as doctors and they were mad to take it up together. They got scholarships … the Gideon Ware Scholarships! I curse the day they ever got them. They won them in open competition, of course. No favours, and impartial examiners. But, whereas any decent fellow endowing a scholarship would have placed down a lump sum to cover the course, Ware, just as always, had to be different. No. He’d foot the bill year by year. And whereas a real benefactor would have felt in honour bound to see the thing through, Ware, when he and I got at cross-purposes on the bench, started to talk about reducing his expenses, due to taxation. One day, after we’d had a passage of arms in court, he casually remarked, ‘I’m thinking of cutting down my overheads, Brown. Charities first, too. If things go on like this, those lads of yours’ll have to look somewhere else for their fees.’ I could have killed him …”
Brown halted suddenly and his smile returned.
“I’d nothing to do with killing him, Inspector. You couldn’t suspect me, now could you? That just slipped out. A figure of speech, so to speak.”
“Quite so, Mr. Brown,” said Littlejohn and began to fill his pipe. “I suppose, though, now that Ware is dead, his executors will honour his obligations.”
“Ah. You’re pinning a motive on me, eh? Well, you might as well know, that in his better days, Ware arranged for his executors to continue the fees. I made sure of that. But, naturally, in his lifetime, he could have annulled the trust …”
“You knew that, too.”
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