by Molly Thynne
“I ought not to sit down,” went on Miss Webb, seating herself firmly. “What I’ve got to tell you won’t take a moment, after which I must fly.”
She bent forward and spoke in an impressive undertone.
“It’s about some people in Romney Chambers. Of course, I know how particular the landlord is about references and all that, and Adams really is an excellent and most conscientious caretaker. He really does keep an eye on the tenants, which is more than you can say for some of the porters in much more pretentious buildings, and what with his collecting the rents, and his wife working for most of us, he’s pretty well au fait with what goes on in the building. If he noticed anything irregular, out that tenant would go. I often say that I don’t know what the landlord would do without him. He’s an ex-soldier, you know, with such a good record. My brother has seen his papers.”
She paused for breath, and Fenn, who, though prepared to let her have her head to a certain extent, had other things to do that morning, took the opportunity to lead her gently back on to the track.
“Is it about Adams you want to see me?” he asked.
“Oh dear no! On the contrary, I was just saying what a trustworthy man he is. In fact, it’s partly what Mrs. Adams told me, added to what I couldn’t help noticing for myself, that made me feel I ought to come to you. Of course, not knowing the flats, you wouldn’t realize what a very pleasant little coterie we have always been till now. Until this terrible thing happened to poor Sir Adam there has never been the smallest unpleasantness. The place had a nice atmosphere, if you understand me. I can’t think of any other way of expressing it.”
Fenn, stifling a sigh, hoped devoutly that she would not try.
“And now something further has happened?” he suggested.
“Not happened exactly. It’s more that a strange element has crept into the flats. I know there are others who feel as I do.”
She paused again, leaving Fenn completely puzzled.
“Until a short time before Sir Adam died we were, as I said, a very congenial little community: neighbourly and friendly, people of the same kind, if you know what I mean. Then the flat above Dr. Gilroy’s changed hands. The old lady who had it went to live with her married daughter in the country, and, I assure you, nobody was more sorry than myself. That may have made me a little prejudiced against the new-comers, but I don’t think I was unfair, and I know my brother agrees with me. You’ve seen these people, the Smiths, haven’t you, inspector?”
“I had an interview with Mr. Smith not long ago,” said Fenn non-committally. Bless the woman, did nothing escape her? “It was just part of the usual routine.”
“Then you’ll understand what I mean when I say he’s not the kind of person we’ve been accustomed to. Ever since they moved in there’s been something—well, I won’t go further than ‘fishy’—about the Smiths.”
The corners of Fenn’s mouth twitched in spite of his efforts.
“Is that what you came to tell me?” he asked.
“Oh no. However I might feel privately about them, I should never have said anything. This is something much more peculiar. I am practically certain, inspector, and so is Mrs. Adams, that the Smiths are hiding some one in their flat!”
She sat back in her chair triumphantly, her little round eyes bright with excitement. Certainly she had succeeded in jerking Fenn out of the apathy into which he had fallen.
“What makes you think this, Miss Webb?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you. Mrs. Adams, as perhaps you know, works for most of us. Dr. Gilroy has his own charwoman and I have some one in to do the rough work, but Mrs. Adams comes every day to do the cooking, and until now she has always put in a couple of hours first in the Smiths’ flat. Well, the day after Sir Adam Braid died, Mrs. Smith told her that she couldn’t afford to have extra help just at present and would have to economize for a time and do her own housework. Mrs. Adams wasn’t surprised, really, because, as she said to me, she had always looked upon the Smiths as happy-go-lucky people, the sort who are rich one day and poor the next. It was only when she noticed that they were taking in just twice the quantity of bread and milk that she began to think their way of economizing was rather odd.”
Fenn looked dubious. He had hoped for something better than this.
“If that’s all you have to go on—” he began.
But Miss Webb cut him short.
“But it isn’t! Mrs. Adams sweeps down the stairs every morning. That’s how she came to notice the provisions standing outside the door. Two days ago she was doing the landing outside the Smiths’ flat when the door opened and a woman came out and took in the milk. And the woman was not Mrs. Smith!”
“But there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have a guest. I mean, it doesn’t even follow that she was sleeping in the flat, does it?”
Miss Webb’s voice was almost tart as she answered.
“What else should she be doing at half-past six in the morning? Besides, if they have a guest, why not say so? I happened to meet Mrs. Smith in the hall yesterday evening, and she stopped and said something about the weather. She was carrying a parcel of rubbish down to the dust-bin, and I made some quite harmless remark about her finding the housework rather trying with a guest in the house. She simply looked at me as if I’d insulted her, and said she didn’t know what I meant. So then I asked her point-blank whether she hadn’t a friend staying with her, and she flatly denied it. Now, that was not true, inspector. The Smiths have got some one in their flat, and, what’s more, that some one never goes out! She is never seen on the stairs; and living, as I do, on the ground floor, I should certainly have caught sight of her if she’d ever left the flats. I’ve kept a sharp look-out, I assure you!”
Fenn was quite ready to believe her. And knowing what he did about the Smiths, her story was not without interest. It was quite on the cards that they were shielding some friend who was temporarily “in trouble.” The questions in Fenn’s mind were: To what branch of Smith’s precarious profession did that friend belong, and did she make her appearance at the flat before or after the murder?
He was only speaking the truth when, after thanking her warmly for her trouble, he told Miss Webb that he would look into the matter at once. It was no doubt her anxiety to get back at once to Romney Chambers, so as to be there when he made his first move, that made her so easy to get rid of. In the course of bidding him good-bye, however, she managed to sandwich in various extraneous bits of information.
Gilroy, it appeared, was seeing a good deal of Miss Braid. She had met them twice on the stairs, and, for her part, she considered them an excellently matched couple: especially as she understood that Miss Braid was inheriting the whole of her grandfather’s money. Matrimony seemed to be in the air, as it were. Johnson, also encountered casually, had told her that he was setting up a small tobacconist’s business. Was Fenn aware that he had moved out of the flat and was living in the next street? Fenn, who, ever since he closed the flat, had been keeping Johnson under observation, thanked her gravely for the information, closed the door firmly behind her, and having given her time to get clear of the premises, went out to lunch, marvelling at some people’s capacity for collecting information.
He was to have immediate proof that at least one item of her news was correct. When he got back to the Yard he was told that Dr. Gilroy and Miss Braid were waiting to see him.
He greeted them with becoming gravity, and there was nothing in his manner to suggest that he had had to wait outside the door of his room for a full minute to compose his countenance before entering.
“I persuaded Miss Braid to take a morning off at the Zoo,” explained Gilroy, avoiding his old friend’s eye. “The fact is, we both needed a holiday. I very nearly rang you up to see if you could lunch with us.”
Fenn made a somewhat sardonic note of the “very nearly,” but contented himself with saying that he had gone out early and that they probably would not have caught him.
“It’s really my
fault that we’re bothering you now,” said Jill Braid apologetically. “But Dr. Gilroy told me something at lunch that I think you ought to know. He doesn’t consider it important, but, as I told him, every little thing matters, from my point of view.”
She flashed an appealing glance at him.
“I’m grateful for any grist that comes to my mill,” answered Fenn. “What is it?”
“Pure gossip, for all I know,” said Gilroy disgustedly. “Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything to it. Only you seemed so pally with our friend Smith the other day that you may like to add this to your bag. The funny old party who works for me, Mrs. Cotswold by name, came to me this morning full of a story that seems to be going round the flats that the Smiths have got some one tucked away in their flat, and that, for some reason, they’re keeping it dark. I shouldn’t have thought twice about it if it wasn’t for the fact that more than once lately I’ve heard the voices of two women talking and laughing late at night overhead. The floors are pretty thin, you know, and I should imagine they were probably calling to each other from the bedrooms. Unless Mrs. Smith has suddenly developed a habit of talking to herself there is an extra person in the flat. I don’t suppose it’s of the smallest importance, but I give it you for what it’s worth.”
“It’s all my fault,” said Jill apologetically. “I simply had to drag him here. He said it made him feel exactly like Miss Webb!”
She was totally unprepared for the Homeric peal of laughter that Fenn was unable to control. It was some time before he could speak, and when he did, he declined to give an account of himself.
“Sorry,” he said, mopping his eyes. “But the thought of Miss Webb was too much for me. I’m all right now, so you can take that professional look out of your eye, Robert. I’m not hysterical. What’s your programme for the afternoon?”
“Miss Braid’s got to get back to work, so she declares,” Gilroy informed him.
Jill nodded.
“I’ve got to make attractive drawings of three perfectly hideous dresses and get them off to my paper this evening,” she said. “The only bright spot in my sad life is that they don’t ask me to compose the appalling captions that will go underneath them. Some other poor wretch will tear her hair over those.”
“Then I’ll keep Robert, if you don’t mind, and pick his brains some more. There may be something in this Smith affair. Anyway, you were quite right to bring him.”
“Sure you’ll get home all right?” asked Gilroy, with such unnecessary solicitude that Fenn turned away to hide a smile.
“Her faith in you is rather pathetic,” he went on, after she had gone. “She believes you’ll clear her.”
“If you were a fair example of the average juryman, I’d undertake to do it,” was Fenn’s dry rejoinder.
Gilroy’s face flushed a dull red. For a moment it seemed as though he were going to take offence at the implication, then his sense of humour triumphed and he laughed in spite of himself.
“I suppose I’ve been asking for it,” he admitted. “But I have honestly tried to be impartial, Fenn, difficult though it’s been. I’ve never been much of a lady’s man, and I’m a bit uncomfortable with them as a rule—I suppose because I’m no good at small talk and that sort of thing. But you can’t help getting on with Miss Braid, somehow. I put it down to the fact that she’s a worker herself.”
Fenn bent down to poke the fire.
“I’ve no doubt you’re right,” he agreed, in rather a stifled voice. “Am I to understand from this that you’ve abandoned your strictly scientific attitude?”
“Very funny, aren’t you?” said Gilroy serenely. He had regained his composure, and showed no reluctance to discuss his attitude towards Miss Braid. “Roughly speaking, my point of view is this. I may be as big a fool about her as you are, but I have tried to keep an open mind. If she’s not the most transparently honest person I ever set eyes on I’ll eat my hat. And she couldn’t possibly be guilty of this particular crime. Given the circumstances, I suppose we’re all capable of killing in a fit of rage, but a deliberately-planned murder for money is a different thing. I agree with you that she is incapable of that. I’m willing to accept her word that Braid was alive at seven o’clock.”
“That gives the murderer twelve minutes, roughly, in which to kill his man and get away,” remarked Fenn. “It doesn’t help us much.”
Gilroy agreed, gloomily enough. Then an idea struck him.
“Who searched the flat when the murder was discovered? Webb or Johnson?” he asked.
“Johnson. Miss Braid was there by then, and Webb stayed with her in the passage, ready to intercept anybody who tried to get out. Johnson swears there was no one in the flat.”
“And then Webb and Miss Braid went downstairs and left the flat empty and the road clear for any one who wished to get away.”
Fenn nodded.
“Except for Johnson. It’s funny how things come round to him. I’ve had him and Stephens on the mat and I can get nothing out of them. Stephens is, apparently, only too anxious to talk, and Johnson’s in such a state of nerves still that I don’t believe he’d be capable of concealing his connection with Stephens if there was one. I cannot bring myself to believe that there was.”
“Then we come back to the old problem. If Johnson did leave the door open, who was he expecting?”
“Not Stephens. For one thing, the chisel he said he was carrying to force the lock was found in his pocket when he was arrested. I’m not saying that that’s conclusive. He might have had it handy for any drawers or boxes in the flat, but it does serve to corroborate at least part of his story. And, you must remember, he’s a man with very little power of invention.”
“So Johnson’s still nervy, is he? He ought to have got over the shock by now.”
“If you ask him a sudden question he swerves like a shying horse. But, try as I will, I can’t corner him. One thing, though, I did get out of him. He admits now that Braid kept large sums of money in the flat and that he knew of it. Says he used to feel nervous about it, so nervous that he never spoke to any one of it outside. He swears he never mentioned it at ‘The Nag’s Head.’ Stephens, by the way, declares that he has never been inside that particular pub, and he certainly is not known there. I’ve had that looked into. I tackled Johnson as to why he’d kept back such an obviously important piece of information when I asked him if anything of value had been taken from the flat and he said he had not thought it of any importance at the time.”
“Johnson’s not such a fool as all that, by any means,” said Gilroy. “Does he know where the money was kept?”
“Some of it, the money Braid used for current expenses was in the dispatch-box; but Johnson declares now that the old man had a larger hoard that he kept elsewhere. Where he kept it, he doesn’t know. We went over the place pretty thoroughly, and Compton, Braid’s solicitor, has looked through everything since. We’ve neither of us found anything.”
Gilroy rose to his feet impulsively.
“Let’s go down there now and give the place a look over,” he suggested. “If the old man had a hiding-place it’s pretty obvious it wouldn’t jump to the eye.”
Fenn agreed. He wanted to see Smith, in any case, and could take the flat on the way.
Gilroy proved a systematic worker. He fetched tools from his flat, had the carpet up in the bedroom, and even pried up a couple of loose boards under the hearthrug. But the accumulation of dust underneath showed that they had not been moved recently. Fenn confined his attention to the drawers and cupboards, and drew a complete blank.
As a last resort he dragged a table over to the wardrobe, climbed on to it, and peered over the cornice at the top. His explorations were rewarded by a cloud of dust.
“It doesn’t look as if the old gentleman had been in favour of spring cleaning,” he remarked. Then, with quickened interest, “Hallo, that’s queer!”
On the top of the wardrobe, near the centre, was an oval-shaped space, completely clear of dust
.
“Something stood here and has been moved quite recently,” he said. “A hat-box, by the look of it. I’m certain there was nothing on the top of this cupboard when we went through the flat after the murder.”
He climbed down and dusted his hands.
“Johnson will have to give an account of this,” he said. “And I hope, for his sake, it will be satisfactory.”
“A hat-box is as good as anything for hoarding money in,” commented Gilroy, who was engaged in putting back the carpet. “Get off the edge, that’s a good chap, while I give it a pull.”
He was on his hands and knees by the wardrobe, tugging at the edge of the thick carpet. He sat back on his heels and looked up at Fenn.
“How tall was Sir Adam, would you say?” he asked unexpectedly.
“Getting on for six feet, I should think. I remember noticing his height when they were putting him on the stretcher. He was a tall man, though he’d obviously shrunk as he grew older. Why do you ask?”
Gilroy was staring at the carpet.
“I’d have given him all of that myself,” he agreed. “If he had climbed on a chair he could have reached the top of the wardrobe easily. Come and look at this.”
Fenn bent down. On the thick pile of the carpet, in front of the wardrobe, were a number of small round impressions. Amongst them he could see the fainter square indentations made by the table he had just used himself.
“Chair legs,” he said. “And made by that chair, if I’m not mistaken.”
He pointed to a heavy carved oak chair that stood by the wardrobe.
“He used it pretty often, too,” added Gilroy, “by the look of the carpet. I think we’ve found out where he kept his money, all right.”
“We haven’t found out who took it, though,” said Fenn. “Johnson’s shorter than I am. He couldn’t have used the chair, and there’s only the one set of table legs.”
“That’s not conclusive,” objected Gilroy. “He’s lighter than you are, for one thing, and I doubt if even those marks you’ve made are permanent. Sir Adam was a very heavy man and he must have used the chair pretty often, otherwise the traces would hardly be so clear. Remember, it would be easy enough for Johnson to add a hat-box to his other luggage when he moved out of here. It wouldn’t arouse any comment.”