“Well, well. Your department seems to have done a spot of work, Macdonald.”
“Yes, sir. What we call ‘routine’ has kept us pretty busy to-day. Now for the other side of the road. There are seven occupied houses in the same length of Hollyberry Hill. Three of these are used as a hostel for University students, girls. The remaining four houses are occupied by families. I think we can accept the evidence of the occupants that everybody living in these houses was within doors during the time in question.”
“I see,” said Colonel Wragley, nodding energetically. “To put matters in a nutshell, you assume that one of those three pedestrians must have committed the murder?”
“No, sir. It’s not quite so limited as that. There were the occupants of the studio—”
“Each of whom has an unbreakable alibi, except the woman, Rosanne Manaton—an outlandish name,” barked Wragley. “Incidentally, what did you make of these people?”
“The two chess players, Cavenish and Mackellon, seemed to be reliable and responsible persons: Cavenish has been at the Home Office for years, and is regarded as a man of high character, able and trustworthy. Mackellon is a first-class chemist, a brilliant fellow in his own line, though admittedly a man of violent temper on occasion. The painter, Bruce Manaton, struck me as a much more reasonable fellow than his appearance would lead you to expect. I remember him saying: ‘We’re not entirely mountebanks; treat us reasonably and we respond’—a claim which he substantiated in the manner he gave his evidence. He is undoubtedly a very able painter and a first-class draughtsman. He and his sister have been badly hit by the war, as other artists have been. The actor, Delaunier, is probably the least stable of the four men, but, just because he is an actor, he is difficult to assess. He is always acting.”
“But since he was posing for his portrait when the murder took place, his qualities are not really of importance to us,” said Wragley. “What about Miss Manaton?”
“I find it difficult to formulate any judgment about her,” said Macdonald. “She gives an impression of being competent, and is certainly intelligent. I should think she finds life difficult, but she is a very reticent individual, and gives nothing away.”
“And she was, by her own admission, outside in the black-out somewhere between 8.35 and 9 o’clock—and yet she did not hear a shot fired?” enquired Wragley.
“I think the sound of the shot is going to be of no value save as a nuisance value,” replied Macdonald. “Owing to the fog, the railways were using the usual detonating signals, and I think it will be impossible to decide when the shot was heard. Possibly Miss Manaton was indoors again before the shot was fired. The room where the murder occurred had shutters over the windows, and heavy curtains in addition.”
“Yet the shot was heard in the studio, where all the windows were shut, with frames fixed over them?”
“Possibly,” said Macdonald. “Possibly not. However, to get back to more concrete facts, it seems plain that four people at least—two men and two women—could have approached number 25 Hollyberry Hill at the time in question. The two women both had means of access to the house—a latch-key. Of the two men, young Folliner had been at the house before, and could have obtained a mould of the door-key; that matter is being gone into. Mr. Verraby probably knew—what any intelligent person can observe—that the lock on number 25 is an old-fashioned lock with a barrel key. It is very easy to open such doors if you try a selection of similar keys on them: the variations are very slight. Mr. Verraby, having bought a number of old houses in the district, doubtless came into possession of their latch-keys.”
“And—motive, Macdonald, motive?” enquired Colonel Wragley.
“In every case—profit. There is a probability, so strong as to be nearly a certainty, that deceased, having realised his landed property for cash, had a very large sum of money in his room, which is no longer there.”
The Assistant Commissioner intervened here: “That motive is always a cogent one, but would it apply strongly in the case of Mr. Verraby, who is a man of substance, I gather.”
“Verraby is a speculator to some extent, a speculator in land values. Before the war he made a lot of money: to-day he is not very happily situated. Most of his capital is tied up in land which cannot be ‘developed,’ to use the current jargon, until building restrictions are removed. I should not be at all surprised if it turns out that he is short of ready money. I know that certain big groups of speculators are trying to buy up blocks of land for later development, and Verraby, of course, could dispose of his holdings in this way; but—and here I am in the realm of surmise—I have an idea that he is the owner of the block of property in Hollyberry Hill between Seton Avenue and Dayton Crescent, saving only number 25, Hollyberry Hill, owned by Mr. Folliner.”
Colonel Wragley gave a whistle. “By Jove, Macdonald, I begin to follow your reasoning. Naboth’s Vineyard, eh? Mr. Verraby could dispose of his property for ready money if he could buy number 25, but not without it.”
“That is my idea, sir, but I haven’t yet got all the facts to support it. I have one very important piece of evidence which goes to prove that Mr. Verraby was not speaking the exact truth. The photographers took very careful shots of the floor in number 25, in order to get all possible evidence from footprints. While many of the exposures are useless—the prints too blurred to have any value—we have two photographs which go to show that Mr. Verraby entered the house before Neil Folliner did, and not afterwards.”
“Good Gad, Macdonald, isn’t that conclusive evidence? If the fellow is lying, he’s given himself away.”
“He has given himself the lie, sir—but that does not prove that he committed the murder. It is still possible that Verraby found the front door open, as he said, and went upstairs and discovered the dead man, and then concealed himself when he heard Neil Folliner come into the house.”
“But, why, Macdonald, why?”
“Because he was afraid, sir,” replied Macdonald. “As Delaunier observed, the Special Constable was afraid.”
“If he was afraid, the probability is that he had something to be afraid of,” said Colonel Wragley. “One other point seems to arise—this matter of the faithful Private Brown. You say that he admits having stood at the corner of Hollyberry Hill and Dayton Crescent for an hour, and that he has been there frequently before. Isn’t there a chance that Brown might be involved? What proof have you that he did not enter number 25?”
“No absolute proof, sir. We have studied the footmarks inside and outside number 25 very carefully, with the aid of the photographer’s records, and the local men were very careful when they entered the house. Brown has very large feet, but we can find no trace of them in the house or garden. However, neither Brown nor his girl friend has been omitted from the investigation.”
Wragley smiled. “You don’t miss much, Macdonald, do you? Well, carry on, and report progress to-morrow. My own fancy veers towards the speculating Mr. Verraby.”
Chapter Seven
I
In a case such as Macdonald was handling now, time was a factor to be reckoned with in more senses than one. He realised that it would be all too easy to prove a case and get a Coroner’s verdict on circumstantial evidence alone. If Neil Folliner were brought before a Coroner’s jury, the bald facts of his arrest in the murdered man’s room would be enough to produce a verdict which would commit him for trial as a murderer. There was motive, means and opportunity: for his defence he had nothing but the bare statement “I didn’t do it.” On the other hand, if the evidence against Mr. Lewis Verraby were hastily collated and similarly put forward, a similar verdict might be given in his case. Each was obvious, on its own merits—or demerits.
Macdonald wanted time—time to investigate every possibility fully. It always seemed to him that the stigma of the pronouncement “guilty” on the part of a Coroner’s jury was a thing to be avoided when there was any doubt at
all. The procedure which he preferred—and which he hoped to follow—was this. Folliner, having been charged, was in the hands of the civil police, and, like any other person he would appear at the inquest, fixed for the following morning. (The murder had been committed on the evening of Monday, January 20th. The inquest was fixed for the morning of Wednesday, January 22nd.) At the inquest, Macdonald hoped for a brief sitting, in which the formalities of deceased’s identification, discovery and place of death should be stated by witnesses as the law required, and then an immediate adjournment, “pending the production of further evidence.”
Fortunately, the Coroner of the London district where the inquest would be held was an experienced and able man, who understood the desirability of co-operating with the police and not embarrassing them, as it was possible for an inexperienced or self-seeking Coroner to do. Furthermore, the present practitioner was a man who “would prevent his witnesses making fools of themselves,” as Jenkins had once put it. Macdonald guessed that Mr. Lewis Verraby, for instance, would be very firmly dealt with if he tried donning the mantles of both judge and jury in the Coroner’s Court. One retired Coroner of the Metropolitan Courts had once told Macdonald that he considered the main function of his office was to control the imbecilities inherent in human nature. “You always get at least one idiot on a jury—generally the sort of fellow who wants to draw attention to himself by asking unnecessary questions, and as for witnesses, it takes the patience of Job to keep them to the point and prevent them repeating hearsay as fact.”
Having arranged the time of the inquest and made such suggestions as to the calling of witnesses which came within his province, Macdonald had organised his further investigations. Inspector Jenkins was left to the task he had begun: that of going through the papers in Mr. Albert Folliner’s room. Inspector Ward was entrusted with the task of preliminary enquiries into the transactions of Mr. Lewis Verraby. Ward was one of the Hendon-trained officers of the C.I.D., still a youngster, and a very able one. A motoring accident which had left him slightly lame had prevented him joining-up with the armed forces, as some of his fellows had obtained permission to do. Ward was a lawyer’s son, and he had just the needful qualities to enable him to make the necessary enquiries about Verraby without doing that gentleman the injustice of prejudicing his position in the eyes of his business associates.
For the moment Macdonald himself wanted to concentrate on number 25, Hollyberry Hill, the studio, and immediate surroundings. The “obvious” channels were all being investigated. The Chief Inspector had a few ideas of his own concerning less obvious ones. Characteristically, Macdonald set down all evidence very fully in his official report, but he did not (sometimes to Colonel Wragley’s annoyance) consider it incumbent on him to set out all his own ideas until he had either “exploded or confirmed them,” to use his own phrase.
II
Detective Reeves had been given a number of small jobs to do in connection with the Folliner case, and he entered into them all with the enthusiasm which made him such a valuable member of the C.I.D. Reeves was only thirty years of age, and if he had had his way, he would have been expending his enthusiasm in the R.A.F., but the authorities considered that as a trained and expert detective, he was of more value in the C.I.D. Reeves had complained bitterly to Macdonald that he wanted to “have a crack at ’em”—meaning the enemy; “you’ve let all the beefy young idiots go, and I have to stick on here at the same old grind,” said Reeves.
Macdonald nodded. “So do I, you’re not the only chap who’d like to be somewhere else,” replied the Chief Inspector.
Macdonald had always liked Reeves, valuing his capacity for hard work, his Cockney wit and courage, but during the winter of 1940 a closer bond had tied the two men together. They had worked with the Rescue Squads when London was raided night after night, and had survived dangers and witnessed horrors unforgettable. There was no risk which Reeves would not take, but he used his wits all the time, and his wits saved many lives, as Macdonald had cause to know.
One of Reeves’ first jobs was to visit the A.R.P. headquarters for the Hollyberry Hill district, and to see the Head Warden.
“Have you had any trouble with inefficient black-out at number 25 or at the studio there?” he enquired.
“Not just recently, but a lot earlier on,” replied the warden. “The previous tenants of the studio were a tiresome lot, and I had to have them summonsed. However they packed up in August ’41, and the studio was vacant until three months ago. Miss Manaton is a sensible woman—she’s a lady, too—and I knew she was doing her best. It took a bit of fixing up to get that north light properly blacked out, it was necessary to paint six inches all round the glass, as the curtains never fitted properly, and even when they got a frame fitted up it showed chinks. Manaton himself is a tiresome customer—wanted to keep his blessed top-light clear, but his sister took no end of trouble over it. She made him get the glass blacked at the edges eventually, and she undertook to go out and inspect herself every night. I haven’t had any complaints since then. As for number 25, it was no end of a picnic. It took the old man some time to get it into his head that black-out regulations mean what they say. After he’d been warned once or twice, he took off every bulb in his house barring his bedroom. He’s got shutters there, and was in the habit of using them, but the shutters have got holes bored in them, and they fit badly. At last his charwoman got the job done, pasted up the holes, and made curtains out of every bit of old rag she could collect from the rest of the house. Anyway, as a black-out it functions all right. You can’t see a glimmer at nights now.”
“Thanks, that’s what I wanted to know,” said Reeves. “Incidentally, you don’t know where the previous tenants of the studio moved to, do you?”
“No idea. Out of London somewhere. They got the jitters. They just did a bunk one day, but they came back for their furniture a month or two later. D’you want to trace them?”
“Yes. There’s one or two points they might help with.”
“Hm… m.” The Senior Warden pondered. Like everyone else in the neighbourhood he was interested in the Folliner case. “I wondered a bit myself,” he said, “though it’s best to wonder under one’s breath, if you take me. The name of the tenant was Stort—Randall Stort—and a nasty bit of work he was, but a clever painter, I believe. He used to be in and out of number 25, because he had a lady-friend living there for a bit. Old Folliner used to let rooms to anyone who was green enough to take them, and a girl who was supposed to be an artist’s model was living on the ground floor there for a month or two before the outbreak of war. I’ve wondered to myself if Randall Stort had anything to do with Folliner’s end. There are such conflicting stories about the old man. Some say he was a pauper, some say a miser.”
Reeves nodded. “Yes, and those who believed that he was a miser would have assumed he’d got a hoard put away somewhere. Did you know Stort, personally?”
“Only on account of my job. I’ve been doing Civil Defence work in this district since ’39, and we got to know most of the people in our sections to some extent—first the gas-mask business, then black-out and shelter duties. I spoke to Stort a good many times, and I’ve been into the studio reading the riot act about his black-out, and giving him advice. He was what I call a mess—and so was his stable mate, a laddy called… what the hell was his name… it sounded French, and I always thought he was a fifth columnist, or worse. Listelle, that was it.”
“Did you see any of Stort’s paintings?”
“Yes, just to glance at. He did a lot of portraits, bold-faced wenches and shoddy looking men, but they were striking—vigorous work I’d call it.”
“Did you ever see a portrait he did of old Folliner?”
The warden shook his head. “No. How do you know he did one?”
“Mrs. Tubbs told us. I suppose you can’t remember the name of the firm who moved Stort’s furniture?”
“Yes, I
can, by gum! I happened to notice—it was Bickford’s van. Bright ideas you chaps have.”
Reeves laughed. “It’ll take a lot of my bright ideas before we arrive at anything. I know the game. We shall trace Stort to some safe little country cottage… and we shall find he didn’t stay there for long. Got bored with the fields, or too far from a pub. After a lot of trouble we shall trace him to three or four other places, and then find he came back to London one night and got his ticket in a raid. I’m used to that story.”
The warden laughed: “I should never have thought you were a pessimist—you don’t look one. Incidentally, it was Stort and Listelle who dug that hole in the garden of 25, silly fools! I had one good laugh over them: I bet the only time they’d ever bent their backs to a spade was when they made their ‘dug-out.’ They were frightened stiff, both of them. It took fear to make them work.”
“How old were they?”
“Stort might have been 50, or a bit less. Difficult to tell. He was grizzled, and face lined a bit. Listelle was younger, but he was an under-sized little rat—typical C3. None of the services would have looked at him. Incidentally, you know the studio and garden—so called?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ll have noticed that the gardens of Hollyberry Hill back on to Sedgemoor Avenue. Stort used to frequent a pub called the Spotted Dog; he painted their signboard incidentally. He found out that his quickest way home from the pub to the studio was by the garden of the house in Sedgemoor Avenue which backs on to 25 Hollyberry Hill. He’d got the devil of a cheek: he kept a ladder on his side of the wall, and drove a staple into the brick-work on the other side, and used that to give him a leg-up over the wall. The tenants reported it to the police—the Sedgemoor Avenue tenants that is—but he was never caught, although I know he often used his short cut. I wondered if he’d used it again. He’d have had a latch-key to number 25, and so would Listelle, probably.”
Checkmate to Murder: A Second World War Mystery Page 9