by Peter Main
“Yes,” he said listlessly, “I see. Do you know what Mr. Carr was doing in this hotel?”
“Why shouldn’t he stay here?” the Professor demanded gruffly, “Mrs. Rattigan was his aunt, an’ so far as I know there’s no law in this country forbidden’ a man to go an’ stay wi’ his aunt if he wants to do so. Speakin’ for meself I avoid me aunts as much as possible, an’ they avoid me, but then I ain’t got aunts o’ the calibre o’ Lottie Rattigan.”
The Chief Inspector looked at me. He smiled like a well-fed Persian cat.
“And what do you think of this, Max?” he asked.
“I don’t,” I said, “not if I can help it. I was planning a day’s work and then this happens and God alone knows when I’ll get back to my work. All I want is a quiet life to attend to my plants, but the old man pulls me out on murder cases. I can’t leave him alone as he gets into such a mess and then I have to get him out of it.”
“Well,” said the Bishop seriously, “see if you can keep him out of trouble in this case and good luck to you.”
I thought I would need all the good luck that was going. There was something in Professor Stubbs’ appearance that said, as clearly as he could bellow it, that he would like getting into mischief.
The Chief Inspector moved slowly round the table to where the enormous body of Mrs. Lottie Rattigan still lolled in her rocking chair. Her face was suffused. Round her neck was a piece of electric flex. I realised that one end of the flex was attached to a small standard lamp on the carved table. The other end, with the plug, lay on the floor. Where the flex went round her neck it had disappeared in the flesh. She did not seem to have put up much of a struggle, but then, I reflected, she had been so bulky that she could not move of her own volition at the best of times.
The old man was stooped forward examining the flex round her neck. He grunted to himself and blew clouds of hot ash from his short black pipe. He straightened up and looked at the Chief Inspector. There was something cagey about his appearance which said that he was feeling very clever.
“It wasn’t robbery,” he said deeply, “for she’s still hung wi’ all her gewgaws an’ rings, an’ it seems to me that whoever did her in must ha’ bin someone she knew, for ye can’t persuade me that she just sat there an’ let someone twist the flex round her neck, when she had a bell at her hand.”
“A bell?” said the Bishop, looking faintly puzzled, and the old man nodded his head wisely. He pointed to the carved projection on the over-carved table.
“It’s all right, Reggie,” he said benevolently, “ye needn’t think I’m a magician. I was havin’ a drink wi’ the old girl last night an’ I noticed that she pressed this knob when she wanted more to drink.”
“Oh,” said the Chief Inspector thoughtfully, “so you were here last night, were you? I hadn’t got round to that yet. Sometimes,” his voice was unusually bitter, “I wish I could put you in a strait jacket, John. Where you go there I’ll find trouble—murder seems to follow you like your shadow. But what you say is true. Whoever killed Mrs. Rattigan must have been in her confidence. Looking at the line of that flex, I’d say that the murderer pulled it out of the plug-holes in the wall—maybe he tripped over it—and then he got behind her under the pretence of replacing it and threw it over her head.”
The Professor nodded solemnly. I noticed that the lamp had not been upset, or if it had that someone had put it upright again. And it did not seem likely that the second action had been taken, for odd papers which scattered the desk had flowed over its base and anyone setting up the lamp in a hurry would doubtless have placed it on top of these papers and not have bothered to give the appearance of its not having been moved. There could be no possible reason for doing that.
“Ah,” the Chief Inspector seemed to be half-asleep, “now if you don’t mind, John, I’d like to know exactly what you know about Mrs. Rattigan. I know nothing so far, though I’ve no doubt that I’ll find out plenty in the course of the next few hours, but it might be useful to have your impressions of her and to hear exactly what you know about her.”
The Professor sucked at his pipe and scowled at the rotund and well-fed figure of Chief Inspector Bishop.
“Can’t say I know much,” he said, “only met the old bird for the first time last night. Gathered from her that she’d bin under the protection o’ some bigwig who’d left her this hotel, and that she’d also tried her hand at runnin’ a bawdy house in Brussels, from which I gathered she’d made herself a tidy sum. Know, o’ course, that she’s Ben Carr’s aunt, but that don’t help much, as he seems to have the devil o’ a lot o’ relatives an’ all o’ them are more crackers than the last. The old girl had a pretty seamy line in’ the way o’ personal reminiscence.”
He paused thoughtfully and glared at me. The opportunity was too good to be missed.
“Yes,” I said slowly, “her story of the Professor’s father dancing the can-can dressed in lavender silk combinations, for instance.”
“Bah!” the old man exploded hastily, “she was mixin’ me father up wi’ someone else o’ the same name. Not that I’d mind if it had bin me father, for he was a dull dog if there ever was one, but sh’d bin, as I say, mixin’ him up wi’ some namesake. Ye’d better ask Carr for all the details about his aunt’s subrosa life. He’ll tell you.”
“Hullo, hullo, hullo,” it was Mr. Carr himself, “who’s taking my name in vain?” He looked seriously at the Chief Inspector. “Sticky business, yes? Poor old Aunt Lottie. She hadn’t a bad thought in her mind and was as kind-hearted as you make them. Many’s the time I’ve borrowed the odd fiver from the old girl to help me over a sticky patch. She’d hum and she’d haw and she’d tell me that I couldn’t expect her to pay for my incontinence, but she’d fork out in the end. Dirty mind she had, though. Whenever my ex-wife had another kid, she’d send a telegram asking me why I didn’t go to the pictures in the evening and give my wife a chance. I’m bloody sorry that someone has killed the old girl. She didn’t look a good life, but judging from my mother and the rest of my aunts I’d say she was good for at least another dozen years. I was fond of the old girl.”
He did not seem to be very subdued but there was an unusual worried look about his face which make him look older than he usually did. As a rule he looked about twenty-five, but this morning I could see that he would not know his fortieth birthday again.
The Chief Inspector looked sleepily at Mr. Carr.
“I don’t suppose,” he began, “that you know anything about the terms of your aunt’s will, do you? I gather that she was a woman of considerable wealth?”
Mr. Carr looked pensively at the body of his aunt, propped in her usual chair. I wished that the proper authorities would come and take her away. I’ve never got used to hobnobbing with corpses, even though I’ve shared a fox-hole with a couple of them, but that was at a time when I might have expected to do so, and perhaps it was that occasion which made me allergic. I’m definitely off corpses, of all sorts and sizes—and conditions.
“Her will,” said Mr. Carr slowly, “her will? Her will, my dear old cock, is a matter about which only Aunt Lottie and her overworked lawyer know anything. I may be in it or I may not. I kind of fluctuated. It depended on the state of her liver. When I brought her a chicken or a dozen eggs I was sure to be in it, but if she felt kind of peevish with me about anything—why, out I went. And I think that the same sort of thing applied to everyone else she knew. For all I know to the contrary she’s as likely as not to have left every bean to someone who died in 1920. No, Inspector cock, if you’re looking for a motive in Aunt Lottie’s will, you’ll soon find that you are barking up the wrong tree—and you’ll find no cat at the top of it. Aunt Lottie’s will was as unpredictable as a blob of quicksilver. One minute everything might be left to one person and two days later you’d find the whole lot broken up into little globules which you could hardly see with a magnifying glass. She’d sit here in her chair and would make a list of everyone she’d ever known, usual
ly getting their names wrong, and then she’d ring up her lawyer and make a will including them all. She’s quite likely to have left all she owns to King Edward VII. She’d a great admiration for him. Said he was one of the boys. To tell you the truth,” his face was serious, “I’m afraid that Aunt Lottie was more than a little odd in the head. She loved lawyers like the Professor here loves his beer, and she’d fight any law case that she could think up, without the least regard for the facts of her possibility of winning it. Her lawyer? Oh yes, their name is Smellman, Hewitt, Seldes, Renner, Smellman and Smellman. I think you get hold of the last Smellman on the list.”
Chapter 4
Lawyer’s Outing
THE LAST Smellman on the list, Mr. Hillary St. John Smellman, was a small and dried-up man who gave me the impression of a leaf of China tea. He sat behind one of the tables in the large dining-room of The Boudoir and placed his rimless glasses carefully on his nose. His grey hair was cropped over to an equal length of about half an inch and he wore the thickest soled boots I have ever seen. The ends of his trousers were ever so slightly frayed. He looked at the gathering with stern disapproval, reserving the severest rays for the Chief Inspector, the Professor and me. The waves of distaste which he emanated hit me like the vile smoke of a smoke screen.
The gathering consisted of the following people. I must make it clear that in filling out details here I have made use of information which I did not acquire until much later.
There was Mr. Carr, who sat looking with horror at his cousin, a lank and unpleasant looking young man called Roland Grimble, who apparently made a profession of living on whatever he could pick up from the more generous or foolish members of his family. He had apparently decided upon his way of life while still at school and had not deviated from it by a hair’s breadth ever since. He was one of Lottie’s permanent lodgers, one of those whom she supported by adding their expenses to the bills of those whom she knew could afford to pay and would not question her charges.
Miss Annie Aspinall seemed to have been crying. Her eyes were rimmed with pink and rather bloated beneath. All the time she dabbed at them with a quite inadequate pocket handkerchief.
Arthur Niven, the aged waiter, dressed in his evening clothes even at that hour of the day, sat beside Miss Aspinall. He seemed to be rather privileged as an old family retainer. Janet Morgan, who appeared to be the official chamber-maid of the establishment, looked as though she had been imported by Lottie from the Belgian establishment. She was pretty and, I guessed, as hard and businesslike as a stockbroker. What she gave she gave for money and plenty of it. She might, in the famous words of Sophie Tucker, be a girl who believed in giving Tit for Tat, but she’d certainly want the hell of a lot of Tat for what she gave.
The cook, Sarah Roberts, sat well to the back. So far as bulk was concerned it seemed that Lottie had not had much on her. Her amiable and friendly face was contorted into an appearance of solemnity and sorrow, and finally there were Mr. and Mrs. James Baker.
I could not make out the Bakers. They seemed to be rather too smart for the surroundings. Mrs. Baker, whose name it transpired was Sybil, was enamelled like a snuff-box. If you’d bent her she’d have cracked. Anything that Janet Morgan showed in the way of hardness was nothing compared with her hardness. And, to top it off, she was as beautiful and about as dangerous as a fully-grown mamba. James Baker, in perfectly-creased trousers and an Old Etonian tie, looked perfectly at ease. One would have said that he was quite used to attending family gatherings which followed murders.
It was quite clear that Mr. Smellman did not like any of us very much.
He sniffed, looked round the room and then sniffed again. He took off his glasses and polished them carefully with a piece of chamois leather. Then he replaced them carefully, settling them to his satisfaction before he took another look round the room.
“This,” he said unpleasantly, “is a most painful occasion for me.”
He looked round as if expecting one of us to contradict him. I thought I heard young Grimble mutter, “I should say so. Aunt Lottie must have been worth a lot to you.” I think Mr. Smellman heard it too, but he gave no sign.
“As you may or may not know,” he went on stiffly, “looking after the—er—late Mrs. Rattigan’s affairs was no sinecure. She was, if I may say so, a lady who was devoted to litigation, and she was also, I may add, inclined to be hasty about the matter of bequests. How often, how very often indeed, have I said to her, ‘My dear lady, let us not be hasty. Let us consider how much we wish to make this alteration in our will.’ And how often has she told me that she had given the matter careful attention and then, a week later, asked me to delete the bequest. I may, I think, state without fear of contradiction, that Mrs. Rattigan was a woman of impulses.”
“I should say so,” said Mr. Carr out loud, and was promptly quashed by a glance from the lawyer.
“It was only yesterday,” Mr. Smellman continued, “that I was here, making some minor alterations in her will.”
I looked round the room to see if anyone seemed to be surprised by this intelligence, but so far as I could see no one was even interested to hear it. The Chief Inspector was slightly restive. I knew he was wishing that Mr. Smellman would cut out a few of the preliminaries and get down to business.
“It is most unusual, most unusual,” said the lawyer, “for me to be called upon to divulge the contents of a will under circumstances like these, but I have been called upon to perform this duty under these most painful circumstances,” he glared at Roland Grimble, “and I am not, I may say, a man who shirks his duty, however unpleasant he may find it.”
He opened his dispatch case and took out a mass of papers which he spread out on the desk before him. The rustle of the stiff legal paper echoed through the silent room like distant thunder. He straightened his glasses and selected one of these papers.
“I gather from Chief Inspector Bishop,” he said stiffly with a bow-like nod in the direction of the Bishop, “that there is no need for me to go into any great detail at the present juncture, and I may say that I am glad of that, for I believe in doing things at the correct time, and this is certainly not the correct time for the reading of a will. It will be sufficient if I merely outline the major bequests.”
He coughed dryly and ran a handkerchief across his lips. His glance round the room was not friendly. He cracked the paper in his hands and glanced down at it. He mumbled slightly as he read the opening passages.
“Ah, here we are,” he said finally, “um, um, um. To my nephew Benjamin Paul Carr, um, um, um. Yes. Mr. Carr, you are, I may say, the principal legatee under your aunt’s latest will. You inherit all of what she possessed with the exception of certain personal legacies which I will now proceed to outline. First, there is the matter of Mrs. Rattigan’s other nephew who is here, Mr. Roland Grimble. Mrs. Rattigan leaves him the sum of three thousand pounds.”
Roland Grimble looked positively cheerful. “Good old Aunt Lottie,” he said, and I thought he was about to burst into song. The lawyer looked upon him dryly.
“Ah, but Mr. Grimble,” he said, “I think you will find that there is a condition attached to your aunt’s bequest. Your inheritance is only to become yours when you are in a position to prove to the executors, of whom I am the chief, that, for a period of not less than two years you have earned the sum of five hundred pounds per annum, by your own unaided efforts.”
“She was mad,” said Grimble, beginning to rise to his feet, ‘“she must have been mad. I’ll contest the will. I’ll prove that she did not know what she was doing when she inserted that clause.”
“You would be ill advised, Mr. Grimble,” said Mr. Smellman dryly, “to consider contesting Mrs. Rattigan’s will. She has added a further clause to the effect that, should you consider contesting her will, you are to be requested to pay the not inconsiderable number of I.O.U.s with which you presented her at various times. I may add that I hold these I.O.U.s and that my instructions are that I should destroy th
em upon the day when you claim your inheritance, but not before.”
Roland Grimble looked sulkily round. His eye came to rest upon Mr. Carr, who was sitting still as if frozen. It seemed to me to be quite obvious that he had not expected that his aunt would leave him all her money. I thought that his expectations had been somewhere in the region of a lump sum rather like that left to Grimble.
“It’s not fair,” said Grimble in a high voice, “why should she have chosen to victimise me in this manner? What has he,” pointing to Mr. Ben Carr, “done to deserve this? He only came to see Aunt Lottie when he wanted to borrow money or to have a drink. But I was here all the time and no one will ever know how much I did for her. He was just a casual visitor and she picks him out as her favourite. If I’d had my rights she’d have left it to me, for, after all, I lived in the hotel and I knew all about it.”
A slightly spiteful smile hung for the fraction of a second on Mr. Smellman’s thin lips. It disappeared as quickly as it came.
“Perhaps, Mr. Grimble,” he said smoothly, “that was the reason for your aunt’s bequest. She knew you.”
Mr. Grimble subsided, grumbling. He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke across the table at the lawyer as if hoping that the action would annoy or worry him. He might just as well have hoped that it would upset the compositure of a brass Buddha.
“Ah, yes,” said the lawyer, “where was I now. Mr. Grimble, ah, yes. The other bequests of any size are quickly dealt with. Miss Aspinall is to receive the sum of five thousand pounds, free of all conditions.”
Miss Annie Aspinall gave a deep gulp and covered her eyes with her scrap of handkerchief. She was shaken by sobs.
“Mr. Arthur Niven, in recognition of his long and faithful service, receives the sum of two thousand pounds, and Mrs. Rattigan noted that in return he was to remember that she preferred Geneva gin to the London variety.”
The old waiter straightened himself in his chair. He looked straight at Mr. Smellman.