The Case of Naomi Clynes

by Basil Thomson

  “The real tenant?”

  “Yes; you see we let the flat by the year to Mr. Guy Widdows, but he’s travelling abroad most of the time, and then the house-agents let his flat for him by the month. He’s out in Algeria now, and we forward his letters to him.”

  “Was she employed anywhere? What did she do with her time?”

  “Oh, she was an authoress, I believe, but her charwoman you saw downstairs might be able to tell you more about that.”

  “I’ll see her presently. Now tell me, who was sleeping on the premises last night?”

  “No one but my roundsman, Bob Willis. He sleeps in that little room at the back of the shop.”

  “Where do you and your wife sleep?”

  “We’ve got a room at 78 King’s Road.”

  “Who has the floor above this?”

  “It’s an office of some Jewish society, but no one sleeps there. A girl clerk goes up there once or twice a week to open their letters, but that’s all.”

  “Have they got a latchkey to the door in Seymour Street?”

  “Yes, they have, otherwise they would have to come through my shop.”

  The doctor entered the room from the kitchen and addressed Sergeant Hammett. “It’s a clear case of gas-poisoning, Sergeant. If you’ll give me a hand we’ll carry the body into this room.”

  “Very good, sir. Can you form any opinion about the hour when death took place?”

  “Before midnight, I should say. At any rate the woman’s wrist-watch stopped at 5.10, so she hadn’t wound it up overnight.”

  “There is no trace of violence?”

  “Not a trace, except a slight bruise on one of her wrists, but she might have got that in knocking it against the kitchen range. I shall know more when we get the body down to the mortuary. Now, if you’ll come along.”

  The three men carried the body reverently into the bed-sitting-room and laid it out on the divan-bed. Corder was sent downstairs for a sheet to cover it, and to call Annie James, the charwoman, to answer Sergeant Hammett’s questions.

  “You’ll report; the case to the coroner, sir?” said Hammett, “and, if you are passing the police-station, perhaps you will give the word for them to send along the ambulance to take the body to the mortuary.”

  “I will. I suppose that you’ll be able to tell the coroner’s officer when he comes where the woman’s relatives are to be found. The coroner is always fussy about that.”

  “That’s the trouble, sir. Nobody here seems to know that she had any relatives, or for the matter of that, any friends. She had no visitors, they say. Perhaps you’ll mention this to the coroner when you ring him up. I’m going to inquire at the house-agent’s on my way to the station.”

  “Then you are not going to search the flat?”

  “No, doctor. I’m going to take a statement from the charwoman, and then I shall have to ask for help from Central. You see my inspector is away on leave, and I’ve more on my hands than I can do without this case.”

  Annie James, the charwoman, knocked at the door. The doctor nodded good-bye to the sergeant and stumbled down the dark staircase. The woman entered the room timidly and shook with emotion at the sight of her late employer lying pallid and still on the couch.

  “Please, sir, I’ve brought the sheet.”

  “Then help me to cover her up.”

  “Oh, pore thing! Pore thing! It’s awful to think of her being took like that, and that I shall never hear her voice again. So kind, she was, to me.”

  “I want you to sit down there and answer my questions. Is your name Annie James?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “And you used to do charing here for this lady, Miss Clynes?”

  “That’s right, sir. I got to know of her through an agency. She wanted a lady’s help, and of course, knowing me as they did, they said, ‘You couldn’t do better than take Mrs. James—that is, of course, if she’s free to oblige you, and…’”

  “And she engaged you. How long ago was that?”

  “Let’s see: it must have been eleven or twelve weeks ago. I know it was ...”

  “Did you find her cheerful and happy?”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, sir. She would pass the time of day with you, but she was never what you might call chatty. Very reserved and quiet I’d call her.”

  “Did she ever talk to you about her friends?”

  “No, sir, not a word. And another thing I thought funny. She never had anyone to tea—at least I never saw more than one cup and plate used in the flat. She seemed to spend all her time tapping on her typewriter. She was so busy at it that sometimes she didn’t seem to hear me when I spoke to her.”

  “She had letters, I suppose?”

  “Very few that I know of, sir. Sometimes I used to see an envelope or two in the dustbin.”

  “Did she ever say what part of the country she came from?”

  “No, sir. I did ask her once, but all I could get out of her was that she came somewhere from the north. She cut me quite short.”

  “But she didn’t seem to you to be depressed—as if she had something on her mind?”

  “No, sir. If she wasn’t talkative, it was just her way, I think. Some are born like that, aren’t they, sir?”

  “And so it was a great surprise to you this morning to find that she had taken her own life?”

  “Yes, sir. I can’t tell you what a shock it’s been.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. James. I have your address in case we shall want you again.”

  After calling on the house-agents in Lower Sloane Street, Sergeant Hammett took the Underground from Sloane Square to Westminster and sent in his name to the Chief Constable.

  He was standing in the Central Hall when a gentleman of middle age, who appeared to be in a hurry, was stopped by the constable on duty and asked to fill up a printed form stating his name and his business.

  “Nonsense! Everybody knows what my business is. I’m the coroner for the South Western district, and I want to see the Assistant Commissioner of the C.I.D. at once.”

  “Then please put that on the form, sir.”

  “This is quite new. I’ve never had to do this before.”

  “Those are the Commissioner’s orders, sir. You can put on the form that you are in a hurry, sir.”

  “Oh, well, if those are your orders—there, but please see that the form goes to Mr. Morden at once. I’ve no time to waste.”

  The constable carried the form upstairs, and two minutes later returned with the Assistant Commissioner’s messenger. “Please step this way, sir.”

  The coroner was conducted to a large room on the first floor where Charles Morden was sitting at his office table.

  “You seem to be full of red tape since I was here last.”

  Morden laughed. “Yes, it’s a new rule, but there is a useful side to it. What can I do for you?”

  “My officer reported to me this morning that the Chelsea police had failed to find the address of any relations or friends of a woman who committed suicide last night by gassing herself. How can I hold an inquest with nothing but the medical evidence to go upon? It’s absurd! The woman must have had friends somewhere.”

  “Let me see; the divisional detective inspector is away on leave, but the first-class sergeant ought to be working on the case.”

  He rang the bell for his messenger. “Find out whether Sergeant Hammett from B Division is in the building,” he said. “Send him in if he is.”

  In less than a minute Hammett was ushered into the room.

  “This is the officer in charge of the inquiry,” said Morden to the coroner. “He will tell you how far he has got. The coroner wishes to know whether you have found any friends of the woman who gassed herself last night?”

  “I’ve questioned everybody in the house, sir, and I think that they are telling the truth when they say that the woman received no visitors at her flat, and, as far as they know, received very few letters. I’ve called at the house-ag
ents’, and there I’ve got a little further. She was required to furnish two references before entering into possession. I have their names and addresses here.” He took out his note-book. “A clergyman, the Vicar of St. Andrew’s, Liverpool, and a Mr. John Maze, a solicitor of Liverpool. Both references were satisfactory: both were shown to me.”

  “Did you find any correspondence in her flat?”

  “To tell you the truth, sir, I haven’t had time to search it yet. Our hands are pretty full with that big burglary in Tedworth Square, and that shopbreaking case in Lower Sloane Street, and I came on here to ask for help over this case.”

  “Um! It seems, on the face of it, to be quite a simple case—one that the division ought to be able to clear up without calling in help from outside. Still—if you are really pressed—I’ll see what can be done.” He pressed a button on his table and picked up the receiver of his desk telephone.

  “Is that you, Mr. Beckett? Is there an inspector free in Central to undertake a case?”

  “…”

  “Yes, he would do all right. Will you send him round?” Turning to Sergeant Hammett, he said,

  “Inspector Richardson will take over the case. You’d better have a talk with him as you go out.”

  The coroner rose. “I suppose,” he said, “that this inspector will get into touch with those people in Liverpool and let me know all that he finds out about the woman?”

  “Yes, I’m sure he will.”

  “He’s a good man?”

  “About the best of the younger men; he’ll make a name for himself some day: he has had very quick promotion.”

  Chapter Two

  HAMMETT KNEW all about Inspector Richardson by repute. He was one of the first-class sergeants who imagined that they had a grievance against him because he had been promoted out of his turn, but Richardson was gradually overcoming this prejudice by his unfailing courtesy and good temper; indeed, very few of the malcontents bore him any ill will at this moment.

  Hammett went to the inspectors’ room and found him packing up stationery and instruments in his attaché-case.

  “Mr. Morden has put you in charge of a case in my division, Mr. Richardson. He wants me to tell you how far we’ve got up to date.”

  “A case of suicide, Mr. Beckett said.”

  “So far as the police surgeon could say after his first examination of the body, it was an ordinary case of gas-poisoning.”

  “I fancy that you must be in a hurry to get back, Sergeant. We might take the Underground and talk as we go.”

  They walked across to the Westminster Underground Station and took up their seats at the end of a car where they were free from possible eavesdroppers.

  “You say that the dead woman had a servant?” asked Richardson.

  “Only a charwoman who came in for a couple of hours in the morning.”

  “Intelligent?”

  “Too much so. She’s one of those women who don’t know how to stop talking until you pull them up. She’s enjoying herself over this suicide, I can tell you.”

  “You say the deceased woman was an authoress?”

  “So they told me at the milk-shop; at any rate she had a typewriter.” He said no more until they were approaching Seymour Street. “Here we are, Inspector. This is the door by which the tenants upstairs went in and out.”

  The number—37A—was painted on the door. One stone step raised the floor from the street level. Richardson noticed that the step was whitened and that the keyhole and knocker on the green door were clean and polished, and so was the brass of the letter-box. There being no means of opening the door without the key, Hammett took Richardson round to the milk-shop and introduced him to the Corders.

  “This is Inspector Richardson from New Scotland Yard, Mr. Corder. He’ll have to have the run of the flat for a day or two.”

  “Very good, sir. While you were away the ambulance called and I helped the men to get the body down the stairs. There was quite a crowd outside to see it go off, and everyone stops to point out the house of the suicide, as they call it. It’s a bit unpleasant for us.”

  “Oh, they’ll soon forget all about it; there’ll be some fresh attraction for them to-morrow. Now, Mr. Richardson, if you’ll follow me I’ll take you upstairs.”

  They climbed the back stairs and reached the flat, Hammett briefly explaining the general layout of the house as they went. “You see, if it was a case of murder or even burglary, one might suspect that this office upstairs where the door is never locked was used as a hiding-place by the guilty person, who might have got in unobserved when the shop was empty for a minute, but the police surgeon seems satisfied that it was a clear case of suicide by gas-poisoning. I shall be curious to hear whether you find any relations or friends; it seems extraordinary that a woman in fairly easy circumstances should have no one in the world related to her.”

  “I’ll let you know, and now as you’re a busy man, don’t trouble to wait any longer: I’ll get to work.”

  Richardson had his own way of searching a room. He took off and folded his coat and turned up his sleeves to the elbows. Then he turned the key in the door. His first step was to go over the entire surface of the floor with a reading-glass: very carefully he moved out the divan from the wall and examined the surface of the cork linoleum that lay under it. Here he made his first discovery. Half hidden under the fringe of the Oriental carpet he found a cigarette of an expensive make. He was not himself a connoisseur of cigarettes, but he noted two points about this one—that it was gold-tipped and expensive-looking, and that when rolled gently between the finger and thumb the tobacco was not dry to the touch. This caused him to give a closer attention to the surface of the carpet than he would otherwise have done. Here again he was rewarded, for in front of an armchair a few inches from its right leg he came upon a little core of cigarette ash. Leaving it where it lay, he moved back the divan to its place against the wall and continued his search. His first concern was to ascertain whether there was a box of cigarettes in the room, or an ash-tray. He made a quick scrutiny of the cupboards and shelves. They had neither one nor the other. The deceased lady, he thought to himself, was no smoker, but this conclusion would have to be verified by the charwoman. He made a mental note of this and continued his search of the floor.

  Failing to find anything noteworthy on the other part of the carpet, he continued his search on hands and knees into the little kitchen which opened out of the sitting-room. The light was not very good at this point; the floor of the kitchen was covered with a dark green cork linoleum, and as he crawled forward on his knees his trousers were caught by a nail, happily not so firmly as to tear the cloth. He turned and examined the spot under his reading-glass. He found that the edge of the cork, which had been securely nailed down with flat-headed tacks, had begun to crumble away, leaving one of the tacks to protrude above the surface. Here he made his third discovery. Caught under the head of the tack was a minute shred of dark green wool, of a darker shade even than that of the cork lino. Very gently he detached it from the nail, and opening the back of his watch case he slipped it in and snapped it down again. That was material for another inquiry that must be undertaken the same afternoon. Then he proceeded to make a search of the kitchen itself. It was scrupulously clean and neat, except for a few unwashed articles of crockery lying in the sink—the relics of the dead woman’s last meal. On the little kitchen table stood a coffee-pot and boiler combined, and one unwashed coffee-cup. There was an inch deep of cold coffee in the pot and the usual sediment that one finds in a coffee-cup. There was nothing unusual in any of these things, nor did he find anything suspicious in the bathroom beyond. He returned to the sitting-room.

  His first care in this room was to open the typewriter, a portable Remington. Without touching the keys or the frame he pulled out of the carrier a half-written letter and read it eagerly.

  “To all whom it may concern.

  I, Naomi Clynes, have come by easy stages to believe that life is not worth
living and that it is no crime to put an end to it. I am sorry for the trouble that I may be causing to a number of worthy people who have been kind to me, but I have neither kith nor kin dependent on me. I have as far as I know no creditors, but in case there are any such you will find in the corner of the drawer in this table a sum of £25 to pay the wages of my charwoman and any other debt that may be justly due. Out of the remainder the simplest possible funeral can be defrayed and the balance paid to Mr. Corder to whom my death may cause trouble.”

  Richardson now embarked on a proceeding that would have puzzled people who did not know him. He brought his magnifying glass to bear on the spacing bar of the machine and took out from his attaché-case a wide-mouthed bottle of fine white powder. Dipping a camel-hair brush into this, he dusted the powder over the spacing bar and blew off the superfluity. Immediately fingerprints appeared on the black varnish with startling clearness.

  Carefully replacing the unfinished letter in the machine, he opened the drawer and examined its contents. Besides the usual adjuncts of the typewriting outfit—rubber, oil-can, paper and carbon, he found £25 in Treasury notes, the sum mentioned in the unfinished letter. These he placed in an official envelope, labelled it and stuck it down. Then he ran downstairs to the milk-shop and asked Mrs. Corder to send Bob, the roundsman, to fetch Annie James, the charwoman, as quickly as possible, and also, if possible, the girl clerk to the Jewish organization on the floor above the flat. Then he returned upstairs to continue his search.

  His first discovery on opening the wardrobe was a handbag of black leather. He turned out its contents on the table—a letter in its envelope, £1 17s. 3d. in silver and copper, and a latchkey. He ran downstairs to try it in the lock of No. 37A Seymour Street and found it fitted perfectly. He put it into his pocket for future use.

  The letter also he annexed after running over its contents. It was from a firm of publishers—Stanwick & Co.—signed by a member of the firm, with a name he knew—“J. Milsom.” It was the last name in the list of the directors embossed on the left-hand corner of the firm’s notepaper. The letter was encouraging to a budding authoress. There was nothing in it to hint at professional disappointment.