The Case of Naomi Clynes

by Basil Thomson

  Williams cleared the cupboard of its contents, ranging them on the tiny table. “The bottles are nearly all empty, Inspector. Here’s one paper packet marked ‘Camphorated chalk’ and it smells of camphor.”

  “You’d better pack them all in that attaché-case whether they’re empty or not. Now for the wardrobe in the next room. There’s one thing worth remembering. When people want to hide letters or thin paper packets, they put them either under the carpet or they turn a drawer upside down and fasten the thing to the bottom with a drawing-pin, so a search is never complete until you’ve examined the underside of each drawer.”

  Williams went to work methodically and exhibited the bottoms of the drawers guiltless of any sinister concealments, but he treasured the hint for use in the future.

  The top shelf was too high for any but a very tall woman to reach without a chair. At the extreme back of it Richardson found a small leather jewel-case locked, but one of the keys in the dead woman’s handbag fitted it. He spread out its contents on the table. There were three or four pieces of jewellery in ancient settings—probably heirlooms, for they were too clumsy to be worn in these days. At the bottom of the jewel-case he came upon part of a torn envelope bearing a French postage stamp for one franc fifty and a postmark.

  Richardson pulled out a reading-glass and scrutinized it. “Here, Williams, your eyes may be quicker than mine. See what you can make of the postmark.”

  “It’s pretty faint, but it’s a place with a double name, and the stamp is French ‘C-L-E-R—’ I can’t make out the next two letters, but N-T are clear enough. Then the next word starts with an F. ‘F-E-R-R—’”

  “Isn’t there a place right in the middle of France called Clermont-Ferrand? See how that fits the letters.”

  “By Jove! I believe you’ve hit it. Yes—Clermont-Ferrand it is.”

  “Now, Williams, set that brain of yours to work. Why should that poor woman have kept that postage-stamp among her jewellery? She wasn’t a stamp-collector.”

  “Sentiment, I should think. Perhaps her young man who was killed in the war wrote to her from there.”

  “Go to the bottom of the class. You haven’t looked at the date, man, 13-2-34. That means that someone wrote to her from Clermont-Ferrand three months ago. What do you make of that?”

  Sergeant Williams scratched his chin in deep thought. “I give it up, Inspector.”

  “You must never give things up, least of all the trifles you come across in a case like this. On this postage-stamp may hang the solution of this murder. After all, smaller things than this have brought men to the gallows. Give me one of those official envelopes and I’ll seal up this stamp in your presence.”

  The stamp, having been duly sealed up and labelled, Richardson slipped on his coat.

  “Have we finished here?” asked Williams.

  “Yes; I went over the floor thoroughly the first day. I don’t think that I left a square inch of it unsearched.”

  “Where are we going next?”

  “To interview Mr. Peter Stammer, the Hebrew gentleman who keeps a curiosity shop at 173 Fulham Road. We’ll put him through the hoop.”

  “Yes, and I fancy that you’ll come upon something a bit more promising than a postage-stamp.”

  “We may, or we may not. At any rate we shall have some fun with him.”

  The shop front at No. 173 Fulham Road proved to be artistically arranged. True, the antiquities exposed in the shop window were not priced, but in all other respects they were attractive enough to catch the unwary. The shop door rang an electric bell which continued ringing until the door was shut. Out of the gloom of the back shop emerged an oily-looking young Hebrew like a spider from the corner of its web.

  “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he inquired, washing his hands in invisible soap.

  “Am I speaking to Mr. Peter Stammer?”

  “That is my name, sir,” replied the gentleman, after some hesitation.

  “I am Inspector Richardson from New Scotland Yard.” Richardson knew how to open hostilities with this type of tradesman, and saw with satisfaction that the shot had told.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You were in the office at the top of 37A Seymour Street on Tuesday night.”

  “No, sir, you are mistaken.”

  “I think not. You borrowed the latchkey from Miss McDougall, the clerk of your committee. I learned that from questioning her. She did not volunteer the information.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s quite true, but I didn’t use it. Didn’t she tell you that too?”

  “No, she did not. Come, Mr. Stammer, you’d better own up. You went up to the office a few minutes after half-past eight that evening.”

  “If anyone says that he saw me he’s a liar, and I’ll tell him that to his face.”

  “I suppose that you’ve heard that a woman was found dead next morning in the flat below your office.”

  The man became livid with fear, but he made a brave attempt to bluster. “So that’s what it is! You detectives aren’t equal to finding out who was responsible, so you’re going to try and fix it on me! If that’s your game you’ll find out your mistake. I can apply to the courts for protection, and get it, too.”

  “Your best method to get protection, as you call it, is to tell the truth about your visit to the house at night, and what you went there for. You know very well that you had no right to borrow that key. When your chairman comes to know about it, he’ll have something to say.”

  “I tell you I never used the key,” he said doggedly.

  “Very well, Mr. Stammer. If you think better of your denial you know where to find me. Good day.”

  When they were clear of the shop Williams remarked, “I hoped you were going to press him further, Inspector. He was getting frightened.”

  “I know he was, but I would always rather have a voluntary admission than a confession wrung from a man by fear.”

  “But do you think that he’ll make a voluntary admission?”

  “I rather fancy that he will before we’ve done with him. I’m going to try the method of open observation this evening, but he’s seen you, and I’d like him to find a new face on the job. I’m going to call in Sergeant Hills for a few minutes this evening. Mean-while we’ve got the other members of the committee to see. We’ll tackle the chairman first.”

  Ernest Hartmann, the chairman of the Jewish committee, lived at 8 Jubilee Road, Fulham. It proved to be a furniture shop, and they found its proprietor in a little glazed office at the back of the shop. He was a very different kind of man from the blustering Stammer—an old man with a grey beard and a kindly look in his eyes which inspired confidence.

  “Can I have a word with you in private, Mr. Hartmann? I am Inspector Richardson from New Scotland Yard. Here is my card.”

  “Certainly, sir. We shall be quieter in the back shop, I think. I’ll show you the way.”

  He led them into a store-room for spare furniture, pulled out three chairs and dusted them, inviting his visitors to sit down.

  “You are chairman of a philanthropic society with an office in 37A Seymour Street, I am told.”

  “Yes, sir, I was the founder of the committee and am now its chairman and treasurer.”

  “What are its objects, may I ask?”

  “To help the poorest of our co-religionists in this part of London. We collect funds from the more wealthy Jews and distribute them in the form of help in kind, not money, because to give them money is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it. I started the work single-handed, but I soon found that it was too much for one man, and I formed a committee, sending the names to the subscribers for approval. We do not interview applicants for relief in our office, but each member of the committee makes himself responsible for visiting a certain number of the cases in their homes, and, in deserving cases, helping them.”

  “No doubt you have heard of the tragedy in the flat below your office on Tuesday night.”

  “No, sir. I haven’t
been to the office these last few days. What was it?”

  “The occupant of the flat below your office was found gassed.”

  “You don’t say so. Was it an accidental death?”

  “No. The doctor who examined the body thinks that it was a suicide. There is to be an inquest.”

  “I passed that lady on the stairs once. She seemed very cheerful and polite.”

  “So everybody says. I have seen Miss McDougall, your secretary, and she can throw no light on the matter. I understand from her that she is the only person entrusted with a latchkey.”

  “Yes, and she has strict orders not to lend it to anybody—not even to a member of the committee. I do not think that she would dare to disobey that rule.”

  “My reason for asking is that it has been suggested that the dead woman had a visitor that evening, and I thought it possible that someone might have gained access to your office and hidden himself there. I understand that the door of your office is not kept locked.”

  “That is because occasionally a charwoman comes in to clean it, and there is no fixed hour for this. But I can’t think that anybody could have got in.”

  “Every member of your committee knows, I suppose, that he must not ask your secretary for the loan of her key?”

  “Yes, every member. If I knew that the rule had been broken it would go hardly with the member and the secretary. Is it suggested that it was a murder and not a suicide?”

  “We shall know that after the inquest, Mr. Hartmann. The doctors will give evidence of the cause of death. The case is an interesting one, and the verdict of the jury is sure to be published in the Press. Now I must take up no more of your time.”

  “One thing before you go, sir. You seemed just now to think it possible that the rule about that latch-key might have been broken. If you find any evidence that it was, I hope that you will not fail to let me know.”

  “Certainly, if I get the permission of my chiefs to do so.”

  There was nothing new to be learned from the other members of the committee. All four were elderly Jewish shopkeepers with unblemished records, and had been engaged in charitable work among their poorer co-religionists for several years.

  At the end of the last interview Richardson told Williams to return to the Central Office and write a precis of the statements made to them by members of the Jewish Committee. He himself sought out Sergeant Hills, a colleague whose home lay in Fulham, and made him a proposal.

  “It’s a fine evening, George. Why shouldn’t you walk home with me?”

  “What are you getting at? You don’t live in my direction.”

  “No, I don’t, but I want you to help me in a little job of observation. We can start as soon as you like.”

  “Young man, if you think that I’m going to give up any of my free time to keep observation in one of your cases…”

  “It’s not an ordinary case of observation, and it won’t take you more than ten minutes.”

  “A funny kind of observation!”

  “Yes, it doesn’t follow any of the rules we learned in the class. It is what I call open observation. You know that Jew-boy’s curiosity shop at No. 173 Fulham Road? You must have passed it every morning ever since you married.”

  “I’ve passed it, but I’ve never been into it.”

  “Well, I want to give the owner a turn. He’s a persistent kind of liar, and he’s inclined to be uppish, but when he sees two detectives posted outside his shop when he pulls down the shutters, and one of them following him home, he’ll pass a sleepless night and come running down here to see me to-morrow morning—that is, if he’s the kind of worm I take him for.”

  “All right, I’ll come, but remember I’m booked to take my missus and kiddy to the pictures this evening, and if I’m late I shall get it in the neck. We’d better start right away.”

  Lest it be thought that in their free hours men of the C.I.D discuss their cases with one another, or read detective fiction, let me hasten to assure the reader that they leave the cares of office behind them when they go off duty, and that their nearest approach to violence is watching a boxing-contest between police officers of the A Division. As these two walked westward at a brisk pace, Hills asked his companion whether he went to the pictures.

  “No,” said Richardson, “when I go to shows at all I like the stage, and you see one gets a few complimentaries during the year.”

  “I used to be like you,” said his companion; “I’d no use for the pictures, but it’s different when one’s married. My missus is wild about them, and gradually she’s roped me in.”

  “Certainly there’s this about the pictures—that they can show you things that you can never see on the stage.”

  They were nearing their destination. Richardson was looking at his watch, for he wanted, if possible, to hit off the moment when Peter Stammer would be putting up the shutters of his shop. It was a little soon for that; his attention would have to be attracted to the street by some other means.

  “You stand here, George, well forward to the kerbstone, and stare at the shop while I cross the road and do a little peering.”

  He dodged behind an omnibus, and after pausing for a few moments in front of the shop window, he approached the door, stooped and peered in. He could see no sign of life, but he crossed the road to his friend and asked him to watch any movement behind the plate-glass window while he strolled up and down the pavement in full view of the shop. Hills recalled him with a peculiar whistle which he knew.

  “Your Jew-boy is on the move; he’s watching us with his eyes on stalks, like a prawn’s. He looks as if he was scared stiff. Oh, here he comes.”

  Mr. Peter Stammer came out of his shop with a brave show of indifference. He carried out the shutters and lifted them into their places and, having locked up his shop, emerged boldly with his nose in the air and set out at a brisk pace.

  “Thank you, old man. Good night. I’ll have to step out or I shall lose him.”

  The corner of a side street gave the fugitive Stammer an opportunity of glancing behind him to see whether he was being followed. The glance was not reassuring. His figure as he resumed his walk was furtive: he had become the hunted quarry. He walked so fast that Richardson was quite glad when he boarded an omnibus that had just pulled up to set a passenger down. It was away before Richardson could reach it, but that, too, was a relief, for now he felt sure that the charm would work. It is a depressing experience for anyone to know that he is being followed.

  When Richardson got back to the Central Office to gather up some papers to take home with him, he learned from a messenger that a conference was in progress in Charles Morden’s room.

  “Did Mr. Morden ask you where I was to be found? The conference may have to do with that case of mine.”

  “He said nothing about you, Inspector. If you want to go off duty, in your place I should go. They’ve only just started their conference, and if you wait you may be here half the evening.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Well, there’s Sir Gerald Whitcombe, the Home Office pathologist; there’s the coroner, and Mr. Morden himself.”

  “Oh, very well, then I’ll be off.”

  In Charles Morden’s room Sir Gerald Whitcombe was speaking. “I would much prefer to know that only formal evidence were taken to-morrow, and the inquest adjourned for a week.”

  “Without calling any medical evidence at all, Sir Gerald?” asked the coroner.

  “Oh, no; I should take Dr. Wardell’s evidence. Of course he was with me throughout the post-mortem and is in full agreement with me that there was not one cause of death, but two, either of which would have proved fatal. In default of other evidence it might be held that the woman drank the aconitina out of the coffee-cup found in the kitchen, and then put her head into the gas-oven to make sure of the job. That, no doubt, would be the line of defence in a murder trial, and no purely medical evidence could refute it. In cross-examination both Dr. Wardell and I would have to admit it.
All that Dr. Wardell would say would be that he was present when the body was found, and that its appearance was consistent with gas-poisoning. In adjourning the inquest you could tell your jury that it is taking time to find the friends of the dead woman and to obtain the results of the post-mortem examination, and that in your opinion it would be premature to find a verdict before all the available evidence was put before them. What do you say, Mr. Morden?”

  “I should prefer an adjournment too. Let me put all my cards on the table, Mr. Coroner, and you shall judge for yourself. We have definite evidence that the dead woman was not alone in the flat that night. A typed but unsigned letter headed, ‘To all whom it may concern’ was found in her typewriter. It declared her intention to commit suicide, but in the opinion of people who can speak with authority, it was not written by a skilled typist as her typing shows her to have been, but by an unskilled amateur. This view is further borne out by a fingerprint found on the spacing-bar of the machine, which is not the print of any of her fingers.”

  “But if she used the machine, surely there must have been marks made by her fingers on the spacing-bar,” objected the coroner.

  “You know what these professional typists are, especially when the machine is their own property. They treat it like a sick child; wipe and dust every flat surface in it before they put it away. Then there is evidence that she never smoked, and yet a cigarette of an expensive make was found on the floor together with traces of cigarette-ash on the carpet. There was no ash-tray in the room.”

  “Shall I have evidence of all this?”

  “You will, and when the inquiry is complete I believe that you will have a good deal more. One of our best men is carrying out the inquiry, but I won’t undertake that in the next eight days he will have sufficient evidence to enable your jury to find a verdict of murder against any particular person. All that we want now is to give him time without having a crowd of reporters waylaying him whenever he goes out. A mystery of this kind will set Fleet Street humming, whereas none of them will worry about what appears to be an ordinary suicide of a lonely woman.”