Parker raised his eyebrows.
“That’s a very pretty set of finger-prints you’ve been pulling up there. What is it? Forgery?”
“No nothing of that sort. I just want to know whether the same bloke who wrote these cheques made the notes too.”
Parker rang a bell, and requested the attendance of Mr. Collins.
“Nice fat sums involved, from the looks of it,” he went on, scanning the sheet of notes appreciatively. “£150,000 to R., £300,000 to G. — lucky G. — who’s G? £20,000 here and £50,000 there. Who’s your rich friend, Peter?”
“It’s that long story I was going to tell you about when you’d finished your crate problem.”
“Oh, is it? Then I’ll make a point of solving the crate without delay. As a matter of fact, I’m rather expecting to hear something about it before long. That’s why I’m here, dancing attendance on the ’phone. Oh, Collins, this is Lord Peter Wimsey, who wants very much to know whether these two handwritings are the same.”
The expert took up the paper and the cheques and looked them over attentively.
“Not a doubt about it, I should say, unless the forgery has been astonishingly well done. Some of the figures, especially, are highly characteristic. The fives, for instance and the threes, and the fours, made all of a piece with the two little loops. It’s a very old-fashioned handwriting, and made by a very old man, in not too-good health, especially this sheet of notes. Is that the old Fentiman who died the other day?”
“Well, it is, but you needn’t shout about it. It’s just a private matter.”
“Just so. Well, I should say you need have no doubt about the authenticity of that bit of paper, if that’s what you are thinking of.”
“Thanks. That’s precisely what I do want to know. I don’t think there’s the slightest question of forgery or anything. In fact, it was just whether we could look on these rough notes as a guide to his wishes. Nothing more.”
“Oh, yes, if you rule out forgery, I’d answer for it any day that the same person wrote all these cheques and the notes.”
“That’s fine. That checks up the results of the finger-print test too. I don’t mind telling you, Charles,” he added, when Collins had departed, “that this case is getting damned interesting.”
At this point the telephone rang, and Parker, after listening for some time, ejaculated “Good work!” and then, turning to Wimsey,
“That’s our man. They’ve got him. Excuse me if I rush off. Between you and me, we’ve pulled this off rather well. It may mean rather a big thing for me. Sure we can’t do anything else for you? Because I’ve got to get to Sheffield. See you tomorrow or next day.”
He caught up his coat and hat and was gone. Wimsey made his own way out and sat for a long time at home, with Bunter’s photographs of the Bellona Club before him, thinking.
At six o’clock, he presented himself at Mr. Murbles’ chambers in Staple Inn. The two taxi-drivers had already arrived and were seated, well on the edges of their chairs, politely taking old sherry with the solicitor.
“Ah!” said Mr. Murbles, “this is a gentleman who is interested in the inquiry we are making. Perhaps you would have the goodness to repeat to him what you have already told me. I have ascertained enough,” he added, turning to Wimsey, “to feel sure that these are the right drivers, but I should like you to put any questions you wish yourself. This gentleman’s name is Swain, and his story should come first, I think.”
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Swain, a stout man of the older type of driver, “you was wanting to know if anybody picked up an old gent in Portman Square the day before Armistice Day rahnd abaht the afternoon. Well, sir, I was goin’ slow through the Square at ’arf-past four, or it might be a quarter to five on that ’ere day, when a footman comes out of a ’ouse — I couldn’t say the number for certain, but it was on the east side of the Square as might be abaht the middle and ’e makes a sign for me to stop. So I draws up, and presently a very old gent comes out. Very thin, ’e was, an’ muffled up, but I see ’is legs and they was very thin and ’e looked abaht a ’undred an’ two by ’is face, and walked with a stick. ’E was upright, for such a very old gent, but ’e moved slow and rather feeble. An old milingtary gent, I thought ’e might be—’e ’ad that way of speakin’, if you understand me, sir. So the footman tells me to drive ’im to a number in ’Arley Street.”
“Do you remember it?”
Swain mentioned a number which Wimsey recognised as Penberthy’s.
“So I drives ’im there. And ’e asks me to ring the bell for ’im, and when the young man comes to the door to ask if the doctor could please see General Fenton, or Fennimore or some such name, sir.”
“Was it Fentiman, do you think?”
“Well, yes, it might ’ave been Fentiman. I think it was. So the young man comes back and says, yes, certingly, so I ’elps the old gent aht. Very faint, ’e seemed, and a very bad colour, sir, breathin’ ’eavy and blue-like abaht the lips. Pore old b… I thinks, beggin’ yer pardon, sir, ’e won’t be ’ere long, I thinks. So we ’elps him up the steps into the ’ouse and ’e gives me my fare and a shilling for myself, and that’s the last I see of ’im, sir.”
“That fits in all right with what Penberthy said,” agreed Wimsey. “The General felt the strain of his interview with his sister and went straight round to see him. Now how about this other part of the business?”
“Well,” said Mr. Murbles, “I think this gentleman, whose name is — let me see — Hinkins — yes. I think Mr. Hinkins picked up the General when he left Harley Street.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed the other driver, a smartish-looking man with a keen profile and a sharp eye. “A very old gentleman like what we’ve ’eard described, took my taxi at this same number in ’Arley Street at ’alf past five. I remember the day very well, sir; November 10th it was, and I remember it because, after I done taking him where I’m telling you, my magneto started to give trouble, and I didn’t ’ave the use of the ’bus on Armistice Day, which was a great loss to me, because that’s a good day as a rule. Well, this old military gentleman gets in, with his stick and all, just as Swain says, only I didn’t notice him looking particular ill, though I see he was pretty old. Maybe the doctor would have given him something to make him better.”
“Very likely,” said Mr. Murbles.
“Yes, sir. Well, he gets in, and he says, ‘Take me to Dover Street,’ he says, but if you was to ask me the number, sir, I’m afraid I don’t rightly remember, because you see, we never went there after all.”
“Never went there?” cried Wimsey.
“No, sir. Just as we was comin’ out into Cavendish Square, the old gentleman puts his head out and says, ‘Stop!’ So I stops, and I see him wavin’ his hand to a gentleman on the pavement. So this other one comes up, and they has a few words together and then the old—”
“One moment. What was this other man like?”
“Dark and thin, sir, and looked about forty. He had on a grey suit and overcoat and a soft hat, with a dark handkerchief round his throat. Oh, yes, and he had a small black moustache. So the old gentleman says, ‘Cabman,’ he says, just like that, ‘cabman, go back up to Regent’s Park and drive round till I tell you to stop.’ So the other gentleman gets in with him, and I goes back and drives round the Park, quiet-like, because I guessed they wanted to ’ave a bit of a talk. So I goes twice round, and as we was going round the third time, the younger gentleman sticks ’is ’ed out and says, ‘Put me down at Gloucester Gate.’ So I puts him down there, and the old gentleman says, ‘Good-bye, George, bear in mind what I have said.’ So the gentleman says, ‘I will, sir,’ and I see him cross the road, like as if he might be going up Park Street.”
Mr. Murbles and Wimsey exchanged glances.
“And then where did you go?”
“Then, sir, the fare says to me, ‘Do you know the Bellona Club in Piccadilly?’ he says. So I says, ‘Yes, sir.’”
“The Bellona Club?”
“What time was that?”
“It might be getting on for half-past six, sir. I’d been driving very slow, as I tells you, sir. So I takes him to the Club, like he said, and in he goes, and that’s the last I see of him, sir.”
“Thanks very much,” said Wimsey. “Did he seem to be at all upset or agitated when he was talking to the man he called George?”
“No, sir, I couldn’t say that. But I thought he spoke a bit sharp-like. What you might call telling him off, sir.”
“I see. What time did you get to the Bellona?”
“I should reckon it was about twenty minutes to seven, sir, or just a little bit more. There was a tidy bit of traffic about. Between twenty and ten to seven, as near as I can recollect.”
“Excellent. Well, you have both been very helpful. That will be all today, but I’d like you to leave your names and addresses with Mr. Murbles, in case we might want some sort of a statement from either of you later on. And — er—”
A couple of Treasury notes crackled. Mr. Swain and Mr. Hinkins made suitable acknowledgment and departed, leaving their addresses behind them.
“So he went back to the Bellona Club. I wonder what for?”
“I think I know,” said Wimsey. “He was accustomed to do any writing or business there, and I fancy he went back to put down some notes as to what he meant to do with the money his sister was leaving him. Look at this sheet of paper, sir. That’s the General’s handwriting, as I’ve proved this afternoon, and those are his finger-prints. And the initials R and G probably stand for Robert and George, and these figures for the various sums he meant to leave them.”
“That appears quite probable. Where did you find this?”
“In the end bay of the library at the Bellona, sir, tucked inside the blotting paper.”
“The writing is very weak and straggly.”
“Yes — quite tails off, doesn’t it. As though he had come over faint and couldn’t go on. Or perhaps he was only tired. I must go down and find out if anybody saw him there that evening. But Oliver, curse him! is the man who knows. If only we could get hold of Oliver.”
“We’ve had no answer to our third question in the advertisement. I’ve had letters from several drivers who took old gentlemen to the Bellona that morning, but none of them corresponds with the General. Some had check overcoats, and some had whiskers and some had bowler hats or beards — whereas the General was never seen without his silk hat and had, of course, his old-fashioned military moustache.”
“I wasn’t hoping for very much from that. We might put in another ad. in case anybody picked him up from the Bellona the evening or night of the 10th, but I’ve got a feeling that this infernal Oliver probably took him away in his own car. If all else fails, we’ll have to get Scotland Yard on to Oliver.”
“Make careful inquiries at the Club, Lord Peter. It now becomes more than possible that somebody saw Oliver there and noticed them leaving together.”
“Of course. I’ll go along there at once. And I’ll put the advertisement in as well. I don’t think we’ll rope in the B.B.C. It is so confoundedly public.”
“That,” said Mr. Murbles, with a look of horror, “would be most undesirable.”
Wimsey rose to go. The solicitor caught him at the door.
“Another thing we ought to really know,” he said, “is what General Fentiman was saying to Captain George.”
“I’ve not forgotten that,” said Wimsey, a little uneasily. “We shall have — oh, yes — certainly — of course, we shall have to know that.”
Chapter IX
Knave High
“Look here, Wimsey,” said Captain Culyer of the Bellona Club, “aren’t you ever going to get finished with this investigation or whatever it is? The members are complaining, really they are, and I can’t blame them. They find your everlasting questions an intolerable nuisance, old boy, and I can’t stop them from thinking there must be something behind it. People complain that they can’t get attention from the porters or the waiters because you’re everlastingly there chatting, and if you’re not there, you’re hanging round the bar, eavesdropping. If this is your way of conducting an inquiry tactfully, I wish you’d do it tactlessly. It’s becoming thoroughly unpleasant. And no sooner do you stop it, than the other fellow begins.”
“What other fellow?”
“That nasty little skulking bloke who’s always turning up at the service door and questioning the staff.”
“I don’t know anything about him,” replied Wimsey, “I never heard of him. I’m sorry I’m being a bore and all that, though I swear I couldn’t be worse than some of your other choice specimens in that line, but I’ve hit a snag. This business — quite in your ear, old bean — isn’t as straightforward as it looks on the surface. That fellow Oliver whom I mentioned to you—”
“He’s not known here, Wimsey.”
“No, but he may have been here.”
“If nobody saw him, he can’t have been here.”
“Well, then, where did General Fentiman go to when he left. And when did he leave. That’s what I want to know. Dash it all, Culyer, the old boy’s a landmark. We know he came back here on the evening of the 10th — the driver brought him to the door, Rogers saw him come in and two members noticed him in the smoking room just before seven. I have a certain amount of evidence that he went into the library. And he can’t have stayed long, because he had his outdoor things with him. Somebody must have seen him leave. It’s ridiculous. The servants aren’t all blind. I don’t like to say it, Culyer, but I can’t help thinking that somebody has been bribed to hold his tongue… Of course, I knew that would annoy you, but how can you account for it? Who’s this fellow you say has been hangin’ round the kitchen?”
“I came across him one morning when I’d been down to see about the wine. By the way, there’s a case of Margaux come in which I’d like your opinion on some day. The fellow was talking to Babcock, the wine steward, and I asked him pretty sharply what he wanted. He thanked me, and said he had come from the railway to enquire after a packing-case that had gone astray, but Babcock, who is a very decent fellow, told me afterwards that he had been working the pump-handle about old Fentiman, and I gathered he had been pretty liberal with his cash. I thought you were up to your tricks again.”
“Is the fellow a sahib?”
“Good God, no. Looks like an attorney’s clerk or something. A nasty little tout.”
“Glad you told me. I shouldn’t wonder if he’s the snag I’m up against. Probably Oliver coverin’ his tracks.”
“Do you suspect this Oliver of something wrong?”
“Well — I rather think so. But I’m damned if I know quite what. I think he knows something about old Fentiman that we don’t. And of course he knows how he spent the night, and that’s what I’m after.”
“What the devil does it matter how he spent the night? He can’t have been very riotous, at his age.”
“It might throw some light on the time he arrived in the morning, mightn’t it?”
“Oh — Well, all I can say is, I hope to God you’ll hurry up and finish with it. This Club’s becoming a perfect bear-garden. I’d almost rather have the police in.”
“Keep hopin’. You may get ’em yet.”
“You don’t mean that, seriously?”
“I’m never serious. That’s what my friends dislike about me. Honestly, I’ll try and make as little row as I can. But if Oliver is sending his minions to corrupt your staff and play old Harry with my investigations, it’s going to make it damned awkward. I wish you’d let me know if the fellow turns up again. I’d like to cast my eye over him.”
“All right, I will. And do clear out now, there’s a good fellow.”
“I go,” said Wimsey, “my tail well tucked down between my legs and a flea in each ear. Oh! by the way—”
“Well?” (in an exasperated tone).
“When did you last see George Fentiman?”
&nbs
p; “Not for donkey’s years. Not since it happened.”
“I thought not. Oh, and by the way—”
“Yes?”
“Robert Fentiman was actually staying in the Club at the time, wasn’t he?”
“Which time?”
“The time it happened, you ass.”
“Yes, he was. But he’s living at the old man’s place now.”
“I know, thanks. But I wondered whether — Where does he live when he isn’t in town?”
“Out at Richmond, I think. In rooms, or something.”
“Oh, does he? Thanks very much. Yes, I really will go. In fact, I’ve practically gone.”
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