The Milliner's Hat Mystery

by Basil Thomson

  “You have seen a lady recently about a new job?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Think again.”

  The man looked a little uneasy. “Well, I’ve seen quite a lot of people, but nothing’s come of it.”

  “What made you give the address of your late master as a reference when you knew he was dead?”

  “Well, I had to give some address.”

  “But you knew a dead man couldn’t give a reference.”

  “I said that I’d worked at that address when Mr Pitt was alive.”

  “I see. Well, if you do get a job you can give me as a reference.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  “Well, thank you for this list of names. I must get on and see the people.”

  “Have you found the murderer of Mr Pitt yet?”

  “Not yet. When we do you’ll see it in the papers.” Vincent was studying the list of names as he left the house, but he did not visit any of them; he drove back to the Yard to find Sergeant Walker and get from him the key of the garage and the chauffeur’s quarters over it.

  “You’d better jump up and come with me, Walker, bringing the keys with you. I have a feeling that that chauffeur knows more than he’s told us. I didn’t take to the man at all.”

  They drove straight to Hampstead and without communicating with Anton they stopped the car and walked to the garage, which stood out of sight of the house. The car was still there. They made a methodical search of all the pockets but found only an expired insurance policy and a road map. Upstairs the rooms were neat and fairly clean. There was a little stale food in the kitchen cupboard and in the table drawer there were a few papers relating to motorcars and accessories.

  “Nothing much here,” began Vincent, and then he stopped with a sharp exclamation. “This is interesting! A car licence for a Lanchester car owned by Mrs Pearson.”

  “It’s a common name,” observed Walker.

  “It is; it would be strange if it turned out to be the Mrs Pearson we are looking for, and, by Jove! It has the lady’s address. We may as well call on her at once. This is one of those expensive flats in Piccadilly. I know them. We’ll park the car in Berkeley Square and walk.”

  It was a service flat. The uniformed porter directed them to the third floor and they were admitted to Mrs Pearson’s flat. She proved to be a woman in the thirties, and Vincent judged from her surroundings that she had ample means. Although plain in feature, she had a fair share of the chic of her countrywomen and bore no outward signs of being a drug addict.

  “I am sorry to trouble you,” he said, “but I have to get some information about a chauffeur who was formerly in your employment, named Arthur Green.”

  “Arthur Green? Yes, he was a good driver and he knew the West End of London fairly well.”

  “Why did you part with him?”

  “He left me of his own accord, saying that as I had told him that I might want him to drive me in France, he would prefer to leave.”

  “Of course, Madame being French would naturally wish to visit her own country.”

  “I am English by marriage.”

  “But M. Laurillard, your father, is French.”

  “The service to which you belong seems to be loaded with unimportant details. My parentage has nothing to do with my former chauffeur, about whom you have come to enquire.”

  Vincent smiled enigmatically. “How long ago did he leave you?” he enquired.

  “About a year as far as I can remember.”

  “When he left you I understand that he went to a Mr Bernard Pitt. Did you know Mr Pitt?”

  She hesitated for a moment; her hesitation was not lost upon Vincent. “Pitt is not an uncommon name in England.”

  “I mean Mr Bernard Pitt.”

  “I knew a Mr Pitt who was cashier at my bank, but not socially.”

  “Mr Pitt had a large circle of friends who did not know that he was employed in a bank, but you knew him only as a bank cashier?”

  “That’s all.” Behind her apparent indifference Vincent marked an undertone of anxiety.

  “I think you know a woman named Alice Dodds.”

  The lady appeared to search her memory. “Alice Dodds? No. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name before.”

  “Was she never employed by you?”

  “No, because in that case I should remember her name.”

  “But your Lanchester car is seen not infrequently at the door of her lodgings.”

  “Oh, then all I can think of is that my chauffeur drives there occasionally without my permission.”

  “You would have no objection, I’m sure, to my interviewing your chauffeur.”

  “Not at all, but it will take some minutes. I have always to call him by telephone when I want him.”

  “Never mind. I will wait.”

  “Very well, then I will telephone to him. I will leave the door open; you will like to listen,” she added with an arch smile.

  She spoke in French very rapidly and Vincent failed to catch anything that might have been construed as a warning. She returned to the room.

  “You will like to assure yourself that I have no communication with him before you see him.”

  She handed him an illustrated magazine and picked up some unfinished embroidery. Ten minutes passed before the chauffeur made his appearance. He was a Frenchman and their conversation was conducted in French. Pressed by Vincent, he made a shame-faced acknowledgment that he had occasionally used his mistress’ car without her permission to visit Alice Dodds, whom he had met casually in a little restaurant. He apologized for this breach of decorum to his mistress, who with dignity replied that she would discuss the matter with him at some future time.

  Turning to Vincent, she said: “Do you wish to question him any further?”

  Vincent shook his head; he had decided not to press either of them any further at this juncture, and took his leave.

  As he took his seat in the car beside Walker, Vincent said: “I think that an interview with that bank manager might be useful. It struck me that the hesitation of the lady’s manner showed that her connection with Pitt was closer than that which subsists between a lady and her bank cashier. Also she and her chauffeur both lied about her visits to Alice Dodds. We mustn’t forget that she is Laurillard’s daughter.”

  “And I suppose it’s her brother Charles who runs that drug factory in Belfort,” said Walker. “Things seem to be fitting in, don’t they? You’ll go to the bank manager’s private address, I suppose. The bank closed hours ago.”

  “Yes, we may have to drag him from his dinner table, but I’m sure he’ll give us all the help he can.”

  As soon as Vincent sent in his card, the maid returned to show him into the morning room. Close upon her heels came the bank manager with his table napkin still in his hand.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you at this hour,” said Vincent, “but I won’t keep you more than a minute.”

  “It’s about the Pitt case again, I suppose,” said the manager.

  “It relates to that case. What I want is any information you can give me about one of your customers, a French lady by birth—a Mrs Pearson.”

  The manager pondered a moment. “Mrs Pearson? A French lady? I can’t tell you very much beyond the fact that she has never overdrawn her account and that she gives us very little trouble.”

  “Can you tell me whether the late Mr Pitt transacted any business for her outside the ordinary banking business?”

  “I can’t answer that question offhand, but I can see some of the junior clerks and let you know what they say.”

  “It might be very helpful if you did. Perhaps you would send me a note addressed to Scotland Yard.”

  “I will with pleasure. You will, of course, keep my name out of the business?”

  “Most certainly.”

  As they left the bank-manager’s house, Vincent said: “I think we’ve done enough for today. We haven’t discovered much, but we have opened up fr
esh lines of enquiry.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  ON THE following morning a letter marked “Personal” was delivered to Vincent by hand. It was from the bank manager, informing him that registered letters from abroad in stiff envelopes used to arrive at the bank addressed to Mrs Pearson, c/o B. Pitt, Esq., Asiatic Bank. The clerk who gave this information could be seen by Chief Inspector Vincent if he cared to come round to the bank.

  Vincent lost no time in setting out for Lombard Street. He was shown into the manager’s room and the clerk was sent for. He was an intelligent young man with a good memory.

  “Now, Mr Carruthers,” said the manager, “I want you to answer any questions which Mr Vincent puts to you. You need not regard any of the bank business as confidential in the matter which Mr Vincent has in hand.”

  The clerk smiled and turned towards Vincent to invite his questions.

  “I understand that you saw the letters that used to come addressed to Mrs Pearson, c/o Mr Pitt. Will you describe what they looked like?”

  “Well, they were in thick foolscap envelopes and addressed as you say, but they were marked ‘Personal’ and ‘Confidential’, so they were delivered to Mr Pitt.”

  “Do you know how Mr Pitt disposed of them?”

  “Only that he took charge of them to deliver personally to the lady.”

  “Did it strike you that they contained papers only?”

  “Well, now you come to mention it, they seemed to me to be rather more solid than papers would be. Mr Pitt gave me to understand that they contained French notes and certainly there was paid into her account, after one of these letters had arrived, a certain sum of French money.”

  “When Mrs Pearson called at the bank did she ask for Mr Pitt?”

  “No sir, never. She cashed cheques over my counter because I deal with customers whose names begin with a ‘P.’ That was all the business that she did.”

  Vincent thanked the manager and made his next call at the National Insurance Bank, where Pitt had had an account. Here he had the task of persuading the manager to allow him to inspect Pitt’s account.

  “You will understand, of course, that your customer is dead and that I am charged with tracing the cause of his death by the police authorities. Otherwise, I should not have ventured to ask you to allow me to inspect a customer’s account.”

  “I quite understand,” replied the manager. “You need not be afraid that I shall put any obstacles in your way. I do not wish to be indiscreet, but I confess that it would interest me to know whether the suspicion of foul play attaches to any particular person.”

  “It is a little early for me to answer that question,” replied Vincent, “but the police authorities are not going to shroud the case in mystery. You will see the result of their enquiries in the press as soon as they are complete.”

  The manager touched an electric bell on his table. The uniformed messenger appeared. To him was handed a slip of paper to be given to the chief cashier and a minute later the messenger returned bearing a huge ledger.

  “You will understand, Mr Vincent, that Mr Pitt closed his account here on the day before his death and his passbook was handed to him. Would not his cheque butts give you all the information you require?”

  “No doubt they would if we had them, but they have either been destroyed or stolen from his house. There was a mass of burnt paper in the fireplace of his library. In any case it is the credit side of his account as well that we want.”

  The manager turned over the leaves of the ledger until he came to the name he was looking for and then pushed the book over to Vincent, who ran his eye down the page.

  “You will permit me to make notes, I suppose?” he asked the manager.

  “Certainly.”

  Vincent made rapid notes in pencil in his notebook. The manager watched him, hoping that something would be said to satisfy his curiosity, but when Vincent closed his book and rose to take his leave, he told him nothing.

  “Have you got all the information you hoped for?”

  “I think so, thanks to your kindness.”

  “If you could give me a hint of what you are specially looking for, I may be able to help you still further,” said the manager, feeling that he was being ruthlessly bereft of a sensation.

  “Thank you very much, but I need not trespass further on your kindness. I have found all I want.”

  It seemed to Vincent a case in which a word from his chief constable would be valuable. He went back to the Central Office and found Richardson alone.

  “I’m sorry to bother you again, sir, but I’d like to talk over with you the latest developments in the Pitt case. To begin with, I have established a connection between Pitt and a Mrs Pearson, who is the sister of Charles Laurillard, one of the directors of the drug factory that has just been raided at Belfort in France.” He related what he had heard about the registered packages that had been received by Pitt at the bank.

  “You think that they contained drugs in powder?”

  “I think that it is very probable that they did, but there is no proof.”

  “Of course the profit accruing from the sale of drugs is large, but so far the methods of importing them that you have discovered would not account for large quantities.”

  “No sir; I think we shall find that other means are being used. The woman Dodds, who might be useful to us if she were in a fit state to be questioned, is still in the hands of the police surgeon, who says that nothing that she told us in her present state would be reliable. According to information obtained from the landlady of the flats where Alice Dodds lives, a lady in a Lanchester car used to call there to see her. We have ascertained that this car belongs to Mrs Pearson, who denies any knowledge of Alice Dodds. According to the story of her present chauffeur—a Frenchman—it was he who called on the woman unknown to his mistress. I don’t think the story is true but I haven’t been able to disprove it. I have also discovered that the chauffeur of Pitt was formerly in Mrs Pearson’s service.”

  “Can’t you question that chauffeur?”

  “I saw him yesterday and I can’t say that I took to him. He is drinking. At that time I didn’t know that he had worked for Mrs Pearson, but now, of course, I shall see him again.”

  “A chauffeur out of work can’t afford to get drunk at the present price of liquor. He must be getting money from somewhere. Don’t lose sight of him on any account.”

  “In the one interview I had with Alice Dodds she talked about a woman she called ‘she’, apparently a drug addict. This could not have been Mrs Pearson, who, I am quite sure, is not herself given to drug taking, although probably she supplies it to others.”

  “The illness of the woman Dodds is bad luck for you, because she changed one of the notes drawn from Pitt’s account by himself the day before he was murdered. You haven’t traced that any further, I suppose?”

  “Not yet, and no more notes have come to light.” Vincent opened his notebook. “I made notes just now of certain entries in Pitt’s account at the National Insurance Bank. A good deal of money has been passing from Pitt to a man named Thelusson. The only other cheques for large sums drawn on that account were to ‘self.’”

  “Do you know anything about Thelusson?”

  “His was one of the names given me by the chauffeur of people that Pitt used to visit.”

  “I suppose that you will follow this up?”

  “Yes sir; that’s what I want to consult you about. Shall I make preliminary enquiries about the man, or go to him direct?”

  “You would be in a far stronger position for interviewing him if you armed yourself with information about him. In your place I should get all the information that you can about him confidentially, before you see him. But the thing I want to know is who paid in money to Pitt’s account. I suppose you made notes about that?”

  “He opened the account in the first place by paying in one hundred pounds in treasury notes. Very few cheques had been paid in—I have the particulars here�
��but quite frequently, sometimes twice a week, sums were paid in notes.”

  “Large sums?”

  “They varied from fifty to a hundred pounds.”

  “Was the account large when he closed it?”

  “Five thousand six hundred pounds.”

  “How long had he had the account going?”

  “About three years.”

  “Well, you’ve got your work cut out in making judicious enquiries about the people who paid in cheques, although I suspect it is the sums that were paid in notes that would interest us most. Let me know the result, but first of all I advise you to concentrate on Thelusson.”

  “Very good, sir, I will.”

  Vincent sought out Walker and gave him the list of persons whom he was to question discreetly about cheques paid by them to Pitt.

  “I have struck out one of them—Mr Brooklyn— because it will give me an excuse for seeing that gentleman again and getting some further information from him.”

  “Very good, sir; it shall be done.”

  Vincent looked at his watch. There was still time for his visit to Brooklyn before lunch. He made his way to Jermyn Street.

  Mr Brooklyn, he learned, was at home, but was shortly going out to lunch at his club. He sent up his card and was at once admitted to the flat. He found the gentleman in a more serious mood than on the occasion of his last visit. “Come in, Mr Vincent,” he said; “you are always welcome. What can I do for you?”

  “I have come to bother you again about that Pitt case, Mr Brooklyn. I see that a good deal of money seems to have passed from Pitt to a Mr Thelusson. Was this in settlement of gambling debts, do you think?”

  Brooklyn wrinkled his brow in thought. “It can scarcely have been that,” he said. “Pitt was a careful sort of bloke and no gambler. There was some funny business going on between those two men which I have never been able to make out.”

  “What was Thelusson’s profession?”

  “I had always understood that he dealt in fancy soaps and women’s beauty apparatus—cosmetics and such like.”

  “But the sums that passed would have been sufficient to keep the beauty parlours of all London in cosmetics for years. The address which I have for Thelusson is 41, Arkley Street. Do you know if he has his beauty parlour there?”