'From a find to a check:
from a check to a view:
from a view to a kill in the morning
'On Friday, January 3rd, last -'
XIII
'The Ink-pad is the Key'
BUT it was two o'clock in the afternoon, with the sensational testimony which had held the court beyond its morning sitting, before H.M., Evelyn and I sat again at lunch in the upper room of the Milton's Head Tavern, Wood Street. Nearly all of the pattern in this business lay before us: and yet it did not. H.M., a great Chinese image in the firelight, with a cigar stuck at an angle in his mouth, glowered and pushed his plate away.
'Well, my fat-heads. You see what happened now, don't you?'
'Most of it, yes. The links in it, no. And how the blazes did you get on to Quigley?'
'By sittin' and thinkin'. Do you know why I took up this case to begin with?'
'Of course,' said Evelyn quite sincerely. 'Because the girl came to you and burst into tears; and you like to see the young folks have a good time.'
‘I expected that,' said H.M. with dignity. 'Burn me, that's the thanks I get from anyone; that's the view you take of a strong silent man who - bah! Now listen to me, because I mean it,' and evidently he did believe in it so fiendishly that we listened. I love to be a Corrector of Cussedness. You've heard me talk a lot in the past about the blinkin' awful cussedness of things in general, and I suppose you thought that was only my way of lettin' off steam. But I meant it. Now, ordinarily, this cussedness is supposed to be funny. You can't help bein' amused even when you kick the waste-paper basket all over the room. I mean that the one morning you've got an important engagement is the one morning you miss the train. The one time you take your best girl out to dinner is the one time you call for the bill and find you've left your wallet at home. But did it ever occur to you to think how that applies to whackingly serious matters too? Just think back over your own life, and see whether most of the important things that happened to you were prompted by anybody's effort to do malice, or anybody's effort to do good, or, burn me, by anybody's effort at all: but simply by the sinful, tearin' cussedness of things in general.'
I looked at him with some curiosity. He was smoking furiously - the outburst being produced, I think, by relief. His chief witness had left Sir Walter Storm flat, without a rebuttal in the Attorney-General's nimble brain.
'You don't make a religion of that, do you?' I asked. 'For if you think that things in general are all banded together in a conspiracy to administer a celestial kick in the pants, you might as well retire to Dorset and write novels.'
'Y'see,' said H.M., with ghoulish amusement, 'that goes to show that the only sort of cussedness you can imagine is the kind that lands you in the soup. Like the Greek tragedies where the gods get a twist on some poor feller and he's never got a chance. You want to say: "Hey, fair play I - take a few wallops at him if you must, but don't load the dice so far that the feller can't even go out in a London fog without coram' home with sunstroke." No, son. Everything works both ways, especially cussedness. Cussedness got Answell into this affair, and the same sort of workin' principle handed me the way to get him out of it. The point is that you'll never explain it rationally -as Walt Storm would like to do. Call the whole process by any fancy name you like: call it destiny or Mansoul or the flexibility of the unwritten Constitution: but it's still cussedness.
'Take this case, for instance,' he argued, pointing with his cigar. 'As soon as that girl came to me, I saw what must have happened. You probably did too, when you heard the evidence. Jim Answell had got the wrong message and walked straight into the middle of a scheme designed to nobble Our Reginald. But neither Answell nor the Hume gal could realize that at first. They were too.
close to it; you can't see a piece of grit in your own eye. They only knew the grit was there. But when I sort of dragged the whole story out of her a month ago, and showed what must 'a' happened, it was too late - the case was up for trial. If she had gone to 'em then, they wouldn't have believed her: just as Walt Storm quite honestly and sincerely didn't believe her to-day.' He sniffed.
'But what the blazes, I ask you, was the girl goin' to think at first? She hears her father is dead. She comes home. She finds her fiancé alone with him in a space locked up like a strong-room, with his finger-prints on the arrow and everything pointin" straight to him. How is she goin' to suspect a frame-up against him? How is she goin' to connect it with Our Reginald, unless someone points it out to her?'
'And that somebody was you?'
'Sure. That was the position when I first began to sit and think about the case. Of course, it was clear that old Avory Hume himself had arranged that little bit of hocus-pocus with intent to deceive Our Reginald. You heard it all. He kept ringin' up the flat as early as nine in the morning - though right in the middle of Answell's original statement to the police is the news that Hume knew he wouldn't arrive until 10.45.He gave the cook and the housemaid an unexpected night off. He ordered the shutters in the study to be closed, so that nothin' could be seen. He called the butler's attention to the fact that there was a full decanter of whisky and a full syphon on the sideboard. He bolted the door of the study on the inside, when Answell was alone with him. He sang put the words loud enough for the butler to hear, "What's wrong with you? Have you gone mad?" That was a blunder. For, if you assume Answell really had drunk hocused whisky, no host in the world would ever naturally say: "Have you gone mad?" when he saw a feller topplin' into unconsciousness. He'd say: "Don't you feel well?" or "Are you ill?" or even: "Drunk, hey?"
'Granted, then, that Avory Hume was putting up some game. What did he intend to do? He intended to shut Our Reginald's mouth; but he didn't mean to offer money. Do we know anything about Our Reginald that might give an indication? I got it from the gal - as you tell me you overheard it to-day. Don't we know, for instance, that there was insanity in Reginald's branch of the family?'
For some time there had been in my mind a very vivid memory, of voices rising above the sound of feet shuffling down the stairs of the Old Bailey. Reginald Answell and Dr Hume were descending together; and between them there was a thick hypocrisy for the common good, with an edge of malice showing through. Reginald Answell had made the thrust, as though casually: 'There is insanity in our family, you know. Nothing much. Only like a touch of the tar-brush a few generations back -'
'But enough for the purpose,' continued H.M. 'Oh, quite enough. I wonder what those two chaps were thinking about then? Each of them knowin' the truth; but both
of them ruddy well goin' to keep their mouths shut. In any case, let's go on. There's insanity in Reginald's family. And Avory Hume's brother is a doctor. And a very rummy kind of drug must have been required for the purpose.
And one of Spencer Hume's closest pals is a Dr Tregannon, a mental specialist, who's got a private nursing home. And it takes two doctors to certify -'
'And so, as we know, they were going to lock Reginald up as a lunatic,' I said. H.M. wrinkled his forehead.
'Well, there at the start, I was only considerin' the evidence,' he pointed out, putting the cigar in his mouth and sucking at it in the fashion of a child sucking a peppermint-stick. 'But it looked probable that Avory and Spencer Hume had arranged just that game. Let's see how I the hocus-pocus would have worked out. It's true they made a howlin' error and got Jim instead of Reginald. But did that affect the details as we found 'em? Let's see.
'Reginald is to be invited to the house. Why might he, with insanity in his family, be presumed to go off his rocker? That's easy. He was known to be pretty well tied up with Mary Hume; even Jim Answell knew that.'
'Did he know about the photographs?' enquired Evelyn, with interest.
'Ho ho,' said H.M. 'The photographs. No, he didn't know it at the time; he knew it afterwards, in clink -because I told him. It caused me an awful lot of trouble. Jim Answell is no posturin' young hero who'd walk fat-headedly to the rope rather than let it be known his gal had been havin’ an a
ffair with another man. But that wasn't it. When it came to the question of the pictures, he couldn't - literally and physically couldn't - say all that in court, to be blurted out across the world. He couldn't do it to save his life. Could you?'
'I don't know,' I admitted, with visions which must have risen up before Answell. 'The more you think about it the more devilish it sounds.'
'She could, though,' said H.M. with great glee. 'That's why I like her: she's a perfectly sincere and natural gal. A nosegay also goes to the judge. When Balmy Rankin made that remark about this not bein' a court of morals - burn me, I almost got up and handed him a box of cigars. Thirty years I've been waitin' for a red judge to acknowledge the facts of life without comment; and I told you I had great faith in Balmy. But stop interruptin' me, dammit I I was telling you about the trick to nobble Our Reginald.
'Where was I? Ah, I got it. Well, it was known Reginald and Mary Hume were tied up together. It was also known he had no money at all, and that Avory Hume had squashed to earth any possibility of marriage. And then his rich cousin James gets engaged to her. And Reginald comes to see the old man - and goes berserk.
'You see the plan Avory had? High words are overheard. Presently witnesses (unprepared witnesses) come chasin' in. They find Reginald with his own gun in his
pocket - suggestin' violence. They find his finger-prints stamped on an arrow which has been so obviously (so blinkin' obviously) ripped down from the wall - suggest-in’ violence of a more than sane kind. They find his hair rumpled, his tie pulled out. They find Avory Hume with all the marks of a struggle on him. And what does Reginald himself say to all this, lookin' wild and a little stupid as though he don't know where he is? He says he's been given a drug, and all this is a frame-up. But here's a medical man to swear there's been no drug taken, and the spotless decanter full of whisky on the sideboard. Short of actually showin' the chap with straws stuck in his hair, I don't see what more could have been arranged.
'Well, I thought to myself, what'll' be the watchword when he's found? It'll be: "Sh-h! Hush! Keep it dark! This thing has got to be kept very quiet, known only to a few witnesses to prove it's genuine." It mustn't be known that the poor feller has lost his reason. The Commissioners in Lunacy mustn't hear of it. Does the chap keep babblin' something about Mary Hume, and some photographs, and a frame-up? All the more reason why such slanderous ravings mustn't be repeated, mustn't even be breathed by a lunatic. Why not take him to Dr Tregannon's nursing home under the charge of Spencer Hume? Even Jim Answell, when it's necessary to break the sad news to him, will hush it up as fierce as anybody. On the eve of his own wedding, he won't want it blared forth that a first-cousin of his had to be taken away under escort.
'Of course, the doctors in charge of the case will also take charge of his personal belongings: clothes, keys and the like. Wherever he's got those photographs stowed away, they'll be found and burnt in pretty quick time.' H.M. snapped his fingers, and then sniffed. 'And that's all there is to it, my fat-heads. It ain't even very expensive. Our Reginald will remain under duress until he promises to be good - and serve him right I It's an awful pity the scheme didn't work. Even if he won't promise, he can't prove anything, and he is still always suspect of a leaky steeple; and Avory Hume's daughter is married. It's happened many times before, y'know. It's the respectable way of hushin' up scandal.'
We considered it, more detailed than it had come from the witness-box in the cold voice of Dr Quigley.
'Avory Hume,' I said, 'was apparently a tough proposition.'
H.M. blinked in the firelight of the old room, surprised.
'Not particularly, son. He was simply respectable. Also, he was a realist. Someone was blackmailing him. Something had to be done about it. And so he did. You heard the father's daughter talkin' in court this afternoon. I don't mind his sort. As I say, in this amusin' little spectacle of dog-eat-dog, I'm rather sorry his scheme didn't come off, and shove our cool Reginald into cooler clink while he reflects that there are ways and ways of gettin' money. But I'm an old-fashioned lawyer, Ken, and a whole canine feast ain't goin' to let 'em hang my client. Well, right there at the start, I had to dig up 'a witness who knew somethin' about the scheme. If necessary, I was prepared to bribe Tregannon himself to spill the beans -'
'Did you say bribe?'
'Sure. But I got Quigley, because the Medical Council had already been after Tregannon. There was someone who actually overheard Avory and Spencer and Tregannon cookin' up the broth; someone planted in Tregannon's nursing home, and waitin' for an opportunity to expose Tregannon. That was what I meant, a little while ago, by speakin' of the cussedness which cuts the other way.'
'But what's the line of defence now?' 'Ar!' said H.M., and scowled.
'You've practically established that there was a plot. But will Storm throw up his brief just because of that? Is there any reason why Answell still shouldn't be guilty?'
'No,' said H.M. 'That's what's got me worried.'
He pushed back his chair, lumbered up, and took a few pigeon-toed turns up and down the room.
'So what's the line of defence now?'
'The Judas window,' said H.M., peering down over his spectacles ...
'Now, now!' he went on persuasively. 'Just you look at the evidence, and take it from the beginning as I did. Now that we've established a plot, there'll be a whole heap of helpful suggestions in the way that plot was worked out. I'll give you a hint. One thing in this scheme bothered me a bit. Avory and Spencer are workin' together to nobble Reginald - very well. But, on the night of the trick, Avory manages to get everybody out of the house except the butler. The cook and the maid are out. Amelia Jordan and Dr Hume are goin' off to Sussex. But I said to myself: Here! Spencer can't be going away like that. His brother needs him. Who's goin' to come in and cluck his tongue over the bogus loony: who's goin' to examine the loony: who's goin' to swear he took no drug, if not Dr Hume? He was the essential part of the scheme; he was the pivot.'
'Unless they got Tregannon.'
'Yes; but they'd hardly have Tregannon on the premises. It would look much too fishy. And there was the answer to the other question. If Spencer himself were too conveniently hangin' about with his stethoscope, if the whole thing flowed too smoothly, an eyebrow might be raised here and there. It was the Jordan woman, in all accident, who gave the hint away when she was burblin' in court yesterday: I heard her testimony a month ago, and I spotted it then. Remember what she was to do? She was to pick up Spencer in the car - pick him up at the hospital - and they were to drive into the country afterwards. Do you recall that?'
'Yes. What of it?’
'Do you also recall,' said H.M., opening his eyes, 'what Spencer had asked her to do for him? He'd asked her to pack a suitcase for him, and bring it along to the hospital so that he wouldn't have to bother. And, burn me, I don't recall a neater trick. She intended to go to Sussex; Spencer never did. The one way in this world you can be sure you won't get what you want is to tell someone, off-hand, to pack a suitcase for you. The person does his best, and shoves in what he thinks you'll need. But something is always wrong. In this case, all Spencer needed was a pretext. She was to arrive at the hospital luggin' the suitcase. "Ah," said Spencer affably, "I see you've packed it. Did you put in my silver-backed brushes?" Or it may be his dressing-gown, or his evenin' studs, or anything at all: all he's got to do is wade through the list until he finds something that's been omitted. "You left that out?" he says. "Good God, woman, do you think I can travel to the country without my whatever-it-is? My whatever-it-is is absolutely necessary. This is a most unfortunate nuisance" - can't you hear Spencer sayin' that? -"but I am afraid we shall have to go back to the house for it."'
H.M., patting his stomach and leering down from under lofty eyebrows, was giving such an uncanny impersonation of Spencer Hume that you could almost hear the doctor's voice. Then he broke off. He added:
'So they drive back to the house. And they arrive (accidentally but providentially) just in time
to find Avory Hume overcoming a maniac who has tried to kill him. Hey?'
There was a pause.
'It's rather a neat trick, and it would have been convincing,' Evelyn admitted. 'Was the woman - Amelia Jordan - in on the scheme to nail Reginald?'
'No. Otherwise there'd 'a' been no reason for the hocus-pocus. She was to be one of the unprepared witnesses. The other two were Dyer and Fleming -'
'Fleming?'
Taking the cigar out of his mouth, H.M., with a very sour expression, sat down at the table again. 'Look here! You heard what Fleming said in the witness-box. Avory' had told him to drop in at the house about a quarter to seven. Hey? All right. With Fleming's habits, he may even suspect that Fleming'll be a few minutes early. Now concentrate on the elegant timing of the whole business, as it was M E A N T to happen.
'Avory has told the prospective loony to come to the house at six o'clock sharp; and, considerin' an errand of blackmail, he can ruddy well believe Reginald will be on time. Avory has told Amelia Jordan that she's to start off in the car (which Dyer will bring round from the garage) at soon after 6.15. Gimme a piece of paper, somebody, and a pencil. Avory Hume was awful methodical, and he worked out this piece of crooked work as methodically as he'd have worked out the terms of a mortgage. Like this:
'At 6 p.m., Reginald will arrive. He will be seen by Jordan and Dyer. Dyer takes him to the study. Then Dyer will be sent to fetch the car. Dyer will probably linger at the study door for a couple of minutes; he's been warned the visitor is not to be trusted, remember. Dyer will leave the house, say 6.5. He should be back with the car between 6.10 and 6.15. Between 6.15 and 6.20, Amelia Jordan will be drivin' away in it to the hospital.
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