“You might give me the gist of the information you’ve gathered.”
“I’ve gathered, sir, that Mrs Esther is very unhappy and has gone all to pieces these last few days.”
“Why?”
“The maid can’t make out why. Her husband is away and is expected back in a day or two, but this doesn’t account for her unhappiness, because she is very fond of him.”
“Then it’s not a case of another man?”
“Oh no, sir; the maid gives her a very good character on that score. I suggested that she had card debts, and the maid agreed with me that that might have been the case a week or two ago, because she had left lots of bills unpaid and even the maid’s wages, but suddenly she became quite flush with money and paid up everything. The maid didn’t know where she had got the money from to do it, and I said perhaps she had pawned something. The young woman said, ‘Well, I thought that too, but I have charge of all her jewellery—it’s worth millions—and there’s nothing missing, so it couldn’t be that.’”
‘‘Did you ask whether she had any male visitors?”
“I did, sir, but she said that there were only one or two, and none that called frequent.”
“I think you’ve done very well, Sergeant. You can knock off observation now. I’ll let you know if I want you to do any more.”
An idea had crossed Richardson’s mind. He felt that he could follow it up better alone than through any of his subordinates. It entailed a tour of jewellers’ shops, but we would shorten the quest by beginning with the most likely. He argued that in the transaction he suspected, Mrs Esther would not have been likely to go to any of the jewellers in the West End of London. She would have gone to some firm in North or South London, where she could not personally be known. For one man alone it was going to be a formidable enquiry, but from his knowledge of those in the trade he thought he could shorten it.
At Marsham’s, where he was a familiar figure from other days, he drew blank. Mr Marsham welcomed him.
“It’s not often we see you now, Superintendent Richardson. Indeed, I don’t think that I’ve had the opportunity of congratulating you on your promotion. What can I do for you today?”
“I want to ask you confidentially whether you have lately undertaken to make a copy in imitation of any article of jewellery brought by a lady, and whether you purchased the real jewels?”
Mr Marsham sniggered. “It’s not quite so unusual a transaction as many people think. I won’t say that I haven’t done such a thing, but not lately.”
Richardson had undertaken to visit the most likely of the firms, but he drew blank at two more on his list. At the fourth shop he gained heart again. The proprietor, so far as he knew him, was an honest man, half jeweller, half pawnbroker, in North London.
He invited him into a little room at the back of the shop after calling an assistant to take charge. Richardson put his question to him. The man grinned.
“You know, Mr Richardson, when I see you come into the shop cold shivers run down my back, but I’ve nothing to fear this time, because the transaction you mention is a perfectly legal one. I took steps to see that everything was in order before I touched the business. A lady, who gave me her name and address in confidence and allowed me to call upon her at her home, commissioned me to do the very thing that you mention.”
“Did the lady come to you alone?”
“No; I’ll tell you how the business came to me. A gentleman called and proposed the business of copying a genuine pearl necklace of great intrinsic value in cultured pearls. I said that I could do it. Then he asked me whether, if I was satisfied with the value of the genuine pearls, I would purchase them. This was quite an unexpected proposal. I said that I would have to see the owner and satisfy myself that the transaction was an honest one. I said that I did not impugn his good faith in any way, but that that was a rule of the house. He assured me that everything was in order, and if I would guarantee to undertake the business he would give me the lady’s name and address and I could call upon her.”
“I think I can give you both the name and address without asking you to violate the lady’s confidence. It was Mrs Esther of 9 Parkside Mansions.”
Plainly the jeweller was startled. “I don’t know how you gentlemen at the Yard get to know these things. I am quite sure that you didn’t get that information from Mrs Esther herself.”
Richardson smiled. “It is by the very simple process that we all learn at school: it’s called putting two and two together. Did the gentleman who called on you give you his name?”
“No, but I can give you a fairly accurate description of him. He was tall and slim and very well dressed, with a slight—very slight—cast in one eye. I think in the left eye.”
“Did he strike you as a man in whom you would have confidence?”
The jeweller hesitated a moment. “Well, he was dressed like a gentleman, and he spoke like one. I can’t say that he impressed me as a man—well, as a man that I would trust with the care of my stock, without further enquiry. In fact I must confess that I wouldn’t have undertaken the business at all if I had not seen Mrs Esther personally and satisfied myself that she was the lawful owner of the pearls. One has to be so careful in these days. I got the name of her banker as a reference.”
“What bank was it?”
“The National.”
“And you did complete the transaction?”
“Yes sir, I did, but as the pearls were of such value I had to get friends in the trade to share the transaction with me. There was one point that worried me a bit. The lady declined to accept a cheque in payment, but insisted upon being paid in bank notes.”
“Of what denomination?”
“Well, as far as I remember, in fifties and twenties.” Richardson left the jeweller, well satisfied with the result of his enquiry. If Mrs Esther had changed any of these notes for treasury notes with which to pay Stella Pomeroy, she would have had to sign her name on the back. Here was another job for Sergeant Hammett. He rang him up at Ealing Police Station.
“There is one question that I forgot to ask you,” he said, when he had Hammett on the line. “Did you find out at what shops that lady is accustomed to deal?”
“Yes sir, I did. She does nearly all her shopping at Harringtons.”
“Well, I want you to go tomorrow morning to Harringtons and find out whether she has changed any big notes for treasury notes. If you draw blank there I will call on her bankers myself, but I want to avoid doing that if I can.”
“Very good, sir. I know the cashier at Harringtons.” Richardson changed the telephone number to that of Jim Milsom’s flat.
“Hallo!” exclaimed an impatient voice. “Oh, it’s you, Superintendent. What’s the new trouble?”
“If you haven’t any other engagement this evening I’d be very grateful if you could look in at that place.”
“And poison myself with the scent of Balkan humanity. I gather that you’re hot on the scent, or you wouldn’t dare ring me up again so soon.”
“I’ve got some new dope for you. The gentleman in question has a very slight cast in one of his eyes.”
“Poor devil! I wonder he hasn’t taken to honest courses instead of risking recognition by that obvious defect. I suppose the truth is, that when you get your nose to the ground on a hot scent you don’t want any sleep and so you keep me from my virtuous pillow for company. Very well, I’ll sacrifice myself once more, and if you’ll come round to my flat at half-past nine, I’ll tell you about your friend and stand you a spot of supper into the bargain.”
“I think I told you that these people are like ordinary criminals in that they do things in the same way and at approximately the same hour. You were last at that sink of iniquity at eight o’clock or thereabouts. They’ll probably be found there each evening at the same hour.”
“Right! I’m starting off now, and I’ll expect you at half-past nine.”
Richardson put in the time by writing up his notes on Mrs Esther, wh
o was becoming so important a factor in the case. At nine-thirty precisely he was rapping at his friend’s door. Milsom had returned; his tone was portentous.
“Come in, my friend, and let me unburden myself. Your knowledge of the psychology of these Johnnies is startling. What beats me is why they haven’t more imagination. Why frequent the same gambling hell at the same hour night after night? It must be so deadly dull, and they stretch themselves out on the operating table for you police quite oblivious of the danger they are running.”
“It all depends on whether they guess that they’re being followed. When they are put on the alert you’d be surprised at the variety of artifices that they have up their sleeves. I gather from your buoyancy of manner that you found our two friends in the same place as on the last occasion when you saw them.”
“Yes—sitting on the self-same chairs, I could bet.”
“After seeing them for the second time what is your opinion? Are they friends or just casual neighbours?”
“Friends; I’d stake my life on that. And what’s more, I’d stake my life on the other man being the one I spotted in the photograph album of Sergeant Thoms— Bertram Townsend alias Frank Wills.”
“And as Thoms told us, Townsend always works with Burton, and Burton, I find out, has been doing what I think are shady transactions with Mrs Esther. A jeweller I have seen this evening gave me the description of a man who, I think, is Burton: tall and slim, very well dressed, with a slight—very slight—cast in one eye.”
“That’s the blighter to the life, the fellow who was there this evening with Townsend.”
“And in some way which I have not yet got to the bottom of, Townsend and Burton are mixed up with that fellow Otway.”
“Yes, of course; I saw them make signals to one another.”
“More than that, they’ve sent Grant down to get hold of Mrs Esther’s bag on the excuse of wanting a memento of his dead sister.”
“I’m glad that I haven’t got you on my heels. I should never sleep soundly again if I had. You must be nearing the end of the puzzle.”
“We’re getting on,” said Richardson, “but we’ve several bad patches to cross before we get home on the murder.”
“I refuse to attempt to cross any bad patch until I’ve fed. Let me ring the bell.”
A waiter appeared in obedience to the summons, and Milsom gave the order with a look of enquiry at his guest at every dish on the menu.
As soon as the first pangs of hunger were assuaged, Richardson related the results of his tour round the jewellers’ and his discoveries about the proceedings of Mrs Esther.
“You see, this wretched woman, by letting Burton into her confidence, has delivered herself into the hands of the gang.”
“Do you think that murdered woman was one of the gang?”
“Not the Burton gang. I think that she came into it by accident—the accident that she stole Mrs Esther’s bag with something compromising in it.”
“What?”
“Probably we shall find that it was nothing more than the bill of the jeweller for having substituted cultured pearls for real ones.”
“So this poor Mrs Esther is up to her neck in a sea of troubles. These ruffians are blackmailing her with the jeweller’s receipt by threatening to show it to her husband. Then another happy home will be broken up, for her husband will never forgive her. Jewels are the apple of his eye. He inherited the passion from a long line of Jerusalem ancestors.”
“I’m going to try and squeeze a confession out of her in her own interests, poor wretched woman. Her husband, I learn, is away. I’ll get as much as I can settled before he comes back.”
“Well, more power to your elbow. Don’t let my telephone number slip your memory.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
RICHARDSON was in the superintendent’s office at New Scotland Yard the following morning, when his telephone bell rang. It was a message from Sergeant Hammett to say that he was speaking from a call office. He had just returned from Harringtons, where he had verified the fact that Mrs Esther had changed two notes of large denomination for bundles of treasury notes.
This report was sufficient to warrant Richardson’s calling on Mrs Esther, and he was just putting on his overcoat when the telephone bell rang again.
“I want to speak to Superintendent Richardson,” said a man’s voice. “I am Principal Warder Parker, speaking from Brixton Prison.”
“Superintendent Richardson speaking.”
“We have a prisoner here, sir, who has applied to the governor for a private interview with you.”
“What’s his name?”
“James Maddox, sir.”
“A private interview?”
“Yes sir. That means in sight but out of hearing of a prison officer, but that does not preclude you from bringing a second police officer with you to act as a witness, because I might tell you confidentially that the prisoner is not a man whose word can be trusted.”
Richardson decided that Brixton Prison should be his first port of call in order to give time to Mrs Esther to be up and dressed: a lady might object to be called on by a police officer at half-past nine. Huggins was directed to drive to Brixton Prison. He parked the car at the gate, and Richardson asked the gatekeeper to keep an eye on it while he and Huggins were in the visiting room. They had to wait for a few minutes while the prisoner was brought from his cell.
When the warder had brought him to the wire screen and had withdrawn out of earshot, Richardson said,
“I understand from the governor that you wish to see me.”
“Yes sir, I do. I’ve made a fool of myself, and I deserve anything the Court may give me, but I’m not the worst in this business. I was put up to it by another chap, and I think there’s dirtier work behind all this that you ought to look into.”
“If you like to make a statement I’m ready to take it down.”
“Well, I’ll begin right at the beginning. Just as Mr Colter died in New Zealand, my brother Ted met with a serious accident out motoring. He was too ill to travel, but he sent for me and gave me all the letters and the will and asked me to take them over to the lawyers in England. Well, I started, but when I got down to Wellington I got a telegram to say that poor Ted was dead. I’d got my ticket by then, and so I came just the same. We were one day out when I ran across Otway in the smoking room. He got very friendly, and I told him all about my brother’s death and the legacy. Well, then he got me playing cards, and it was uncanny the way that man had all the luck. One night he kept plying me with drinks until I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing, and the next morning he showed me an IOU, signed by me in a very shaky hand, for five thousand pounds. I was knocked all of a heap, but he was very nice about it, and said that there was no hurry and he wouldn’t have pressed me at all if it wasn’t that he himself was being pressed to pay a gambling debt.
“He used to ask me about my family. I told him that there were seven of us until Ted died, and he said, ‘What a pity: you’ll have to share the estate with five brothers and sisters.’ And then a day or two later he said, ‘I’ve been thinking over your affairs. If you had been your eldest brother you would have inherited the lot. Why shouldn’t you impersonate your brother Ted when you see the lawyers in England? They won’t know the difference, and you’ll get the lot. Mr Colter had quite a big fortune, and you can be generous to your brothers and sisters.’”
“But Stella Pomeroy knew your brother Ted,” said Richardson.
“Yes, and that was the snag, but that devil had an idea for getting over that. There was a codicil to the will about founding an agricultural college for emigrants. He said that he could cut that off in such a way that no one could spot it; that I ought to go straight to Stella Pomeroy with the will and tell her that if she’d agree to say that I was Ted we’d cut that off and share the whole lot between us. As luck would have it, when I got to the bungalow I found that she was dead, so it all seemed plain sailing.”
“What a
bout her brother?”
“Well, I met him at the funeral and he didn’t seem to know that I wasn’t Ted, but Otway said we had better keep him under our thumb. It wasn’t difficult, because the lawyers unbelted and paid out cash by the week. Otway was a trial all this time. He was clamouring for the five thousand on my IOU, and sometimes he was quite threatening about it.”
“Why did you send Grant down to the bungalow to get a lady’s black handbag mounted in gold?”
“I didn’t send him: it was Otway; and that’s what I was coming to. There’s something dirty behind that business of the bag. I don’t know what it is: it’s for you to find out; but Otway’s got some shady friends.”
“Didn’t he tell you why he wanted the bag?”
“Oh, he told me a cock-and-bull story about a friend of his who was supposed to have given it to Stella Pomeroy and was afraid that his wife might get to hear of it.”
“Did he introduce you to a man named Burton?”
“Yes. He told me that they had met in New Zealand when Burton was on a trip round the world. Burton said, ‘Are you the man who was co-heir with Stella Pomeroy?’ I said, ‘Yes, but how did you know?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it was all in the papers—how you had gone to her bungalow with the news that she had come into a fortune and found that she had been foully murdered half an hour before your arrival. They made quite a song and dance of it.’”
‘‘Well, this ought to be a lesson to you: you can’t get away with frauds of this kind in England.”
“Of course if I told you that I don’t care two pence about becoming a rich man you wouldn’t believe me, but that’s the fact, and as long as I don’t have to pay Otway his five thousand I don’t care. The funny thing is that when we came out of chapel this morning I found myself walking just in front of him. He whispered, ‘A still tongue, remember, makes a wise head.’ I wonder what he’d think if he knew what I’ve been telling you this last twenty minutes?”
Who Killed Stella Pomeroy? Page 19