Smallbone Deceased

by Michael Gilbert

  'You are being very clear,' said Hazlerigg. 'Please go on.'

  'Well, that was Abel's job—and, if I may say so, he earned his professional retainer a dozen times over. He knew the stock market as well as any broker, and he bought and sold to meet the demands of the day. That's why it isn't possible, without looking through all the recent files and folders, to say exactly what the trust fund ought to consist of. I can tell you what it does consist of. I'm having Sergeant Cockerill make a list of the securities at this moment. But most of the accounts which would have told me what it ought to have been—the history of the various investments, as it were— they were in that box.'

  'I see,' said Hazlerigg. 'Does that mean that you'll never know—?'

  'Oh, no. We'll find out,' said Mr Craine. 'It'll just take a little time, that's all.'

  'I see. Let me know what the answer is, please, as soon as you can get it.' Hazlerigg thought for a minute and then said: 'If Abel Horniman had been embezzling funds, do you think he would have taken them from this trust, or some other one?'

  He was watching Mr Craine as he said this, and found more interest in his reactions than in the actual words of his reply. One thing was quite evident. Mr Craine was neither surprised nor shocked at the suggestion. On the contrary, he was plainly very interested in it.

  'Yes,' he said at last. 'Yes. //we had embezzled money I think this was the trust he would have gone to.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'Tell me first.' Mr Craine looked the chief inspector shrewdly in the eye 'Have you any reason for your question —any grounds for your supposition?'

  'None at all. The case was purely hypothetical.'

  'On those grounds, then,' said Mr Craine, 'I'll answer it. As a hypothesis only. The Stokes Trust would have been a suitable vehicle for fraud for several reasons. First, because the only other trustee was a layman. Secondly, because the funds were all here, and under our effective control. They had to be. As I explained, Abel was constantly buying and selling; so no question would be asked. Thirdly, the beneficiaries were all charities. The secretary of a charity is, on the whole, so glad to see his annual cheque that he doesn't usually question its amount very closely. If he was told that all the investments in the trust were showing lower yields, or that some income was being put back for administrative reasons, he would probably accept the explanation without further question—far more readily, anyway, than a private beneficiary whose own pocket was being touched.'

  'Yes,' said Hazlerigg. T see. Thank you. You've been very frank. You'll tell me at once if anything is wrong with the trust fund. In the meantime, perhaps you would ask Mr Bohun to step along.'

  II

  Meanwhile, Detective-Sergeant Plumptree had made his way out to Belsize Park and was interrogating Mrs Tasker.

  Sergeant Plumptree was a pink-and-white young man, with the well-scoured look of one who has but recently emerged from his mother's wash-tub. His methods were unorthodox and some of the results which he achieved surprised even himself.

  'Young man,' said Mrs Tasker, 'pour yourself out a second cup of tea, do, and be guided by me. Never take in lodgers. Go to the poorhouse, go to prison, commit arson, larcency and what you like, but never take in lodgers.'

  'What—' began Sergeant Plumptree.

  'Take this Mr Smallbone. A quiet man. An inoffensive man. A good payer. Never should I have thought that by his deeds he would have brought anxiety to my bosom and police into my house—the sugar's behind the clock. Five years ago he came here to lodge. Put down six months' rent on the table, the one we're sitting at at this moment, and said to me, "Mrs Tasker, I'm a rolling stone. I gather no moss. But somewhere I must have to lay my head." "The first floor front pair's vacant," 1 said, "and use of the ring at the back for cooking." That's all that passed between us, if I go to my Maker tonight.'

  'Which—' said Sergeant Plumptree.

  'It wasn't as if he didn't warn me straight out. "I'm a collector, Mrs Tasker," he said. "Pots and pans there'll be in my room a-plenty. And if it's extra trouble for you to dust we'll come to an understanding." And another thing he said: "I'll come and go as I like/' And so he did. "Expect me when you see me." That was the rule. Last year he was in Italy, at his house in Florence. The address is on his card. You can see it for yourself. Three months he was away, and one morning back he came, without a word, with a carpet-bag full of flower-pots.'

  'How—' persevered Sergeant Plumptree.

  'And then this February he goes away again. The twelfth of February. I've marked it in the rent-book—see, Friday the twelfth of February. I'm going down to Kent, he said. I didn't catch the name. Stanton, I thought he said. It may have been Stancomb.'

  'I thought—' said Sergeant Plumptree.

  'I know what you're going to say,' said Mrs Tasker. 'But wait. He went away on the Friday. I'm going down to Kent, he said. And if I find what I'm looking for, that'll be the beginning of great things, Mrs Tasker. Great things. I'll be back tonight, he said.'

  'And he never came back?'

  'Certainly he did. That night, as he said. Then the next day he went out again. No luggage. Nothing. That was always his way. 'Ah,' I thought. 'He'll be off to Italy. He's found what he's looking for.' And when one week went by and then another, I knew I was right.'

  'You knew he—?'

  'I knew he was in Italy, where he is now,' concluded Mrs

  Tasker triumphantly. 'Enjoying the hot weather.'

  With a discretion beyond his years Sergeant Plumptree refrained from any comment on this interesting speculation.

  Ill

  'It's the question of access which is worrying me,' said Hazlerigg, 'and that's the sort of thing where you can help.' 'Access to what?' asked Bohun.

  'Access to that deed box in which we found the body,' said Hazlerigg. He added as an afterthought: 'Access to this room, to the office building, to Lincoln's Inn.'

  'Well,' said Bohun. 'Anyone can get into any of the public parts of Lincoln's Inn at any time by day. If you came in very late or very early—or on Saturday afternoon or Sunday —then you'd probably be noticed.'

  'Particularly if you were a prominent resident like Abel Horniman.'

  'Yes. The porters certainly knew him by sight. At any time during office hours you can get into the Inn by at least six routes and there's no check of any sort.'

  'Right,' said Hazlerigg. 'Now the office.'

  'That's more difficult,' said Bohun. T haven't been here long, and perhaps this week hasn't been exactly a typical one, but I really have been surprised at the number of people who wander through these offices without question. Not only staff but outsiders, too. On our side of the office we've got the reception-room—where the junior typists sit.51' All visitors to the office are supposed to look in there first— clients, messengers, clerks from other offices, people examining deeds, people selling office accessories, and even the friends and relatives of the staff. The other side is a bit more select. There are only these three partners' offices and the partners' secretaries' room. But even so, a lot of people who know the ropes short-circuit the system by going straight in

  See plan on page vi.

  to see the secretary of the partner they're interested in—or to bring messages—or collect mail—or wind up the clocks, or spray the telephones or clean the typewriters.'

  ‘In short,' said Hazlerigg, 'anyone who looked as if they had some business to transact could walk into either side of the office during business hours whenever they liked without anyone stopping them, and probably without anyone noticing them. After business hours no one could get into the Inn without a strong probability of being noticed—or into the offices?'

  'Certainly not into the offices,' said Bohun. 'Sergeant Cockerill locks the two doors at night. He leaves about seven. He's the last to go.'

  'Who has keys?'

  'No one has keys except him, I understand. If he's away he hands them over to someone else. He's the locker-upper in chief. He looks after the strong-room as
well.'

  'Supposing one of the partners wanted to get in?'

  'I'm not sure,' said Bohun. 'I asked John Cove and he said that no partner in a fashionable firm of solicitors ever did work after hours—that sort of thing being left, one gathers, to the shirt-sleeves brigade in the City. If a partner wanted to work late I suppose he would get the door keys from Sergeant Cockerill and do the locking up himself.'

  'Even Abel Horniman didn't have the keys?'

  'Not of the outer doors.'

  'I see,' said Hazlerigg. 'Well, that would seem to dispose of that. Not forgetting that any key can be copied—these big heavy door-keys easier than most. Now what about Horniman's room.'

  'In office hours,' said Bohun slowly, 'there is one very serious obstacle. If you look at the lay-out* you'll see that the partners' secretaries' room is really designed to control the entrance to all three of the partner's rooms. And at least one of the three secretaries—Miss Cornel, Miss Chittering or Miss Mildmay—had always to be in it.'

  'You say they have to be in it,' said the inspector, doubtfully. 'How well was the rule observed?'

  'Pretty well, I imagine,' said Bohun. 'First of all, this was a Horniman office and system's the watchword. But apart from that, the partners' telephone exchange was in the secretaries' room. It was all part of the system for keeping irritating or unwanted clients at arm's length—which is a fairly important thing in any solicitor's office. The actual telephone exchange—the one that connects up with the outside world—is in the basement and is looked after by Sergeant Cockerill or his young stand-in, Charlie. When a call comes for one of the partners it is plugged through first to the partners' secretaries' room and vetted there before being put through to the partner concerned. It really does mean that one of the secretaries has to be there the whole time.'

  'I see,' said the inspector. 'And they'd have noticed at once if Mr Smallbone had gone into Mr Horniman's office?. . .'

  'Not only would they have noticed it,' said Bohun, with a smile, 'but they'd have made a note of it in the journal, and when Smallbone finally left, the secretary concerned—Miss Cornel in this case—would have noted the length of time he'd been there—with a view to typing out an "attendance" on the subject later. How do you think we poor solicitors live?'

  Hazlerigg thought about all this for some time, but made no comment. Finally, he said: 'Well, then—that box.'

  'That's more difficult still,' said Bohun. 'You can see that it's a good lock—a five-lever—more like a strong box than a deed box. It can be forced, as Sergeant Cockerill demonstrated—but it wouldn't be easy to pick, I should think—not without leaving traces.'

  'Right,' said Hazlerigg. 'And the keys.'

  'The boxes were in sets. Each partner's room had a set. There was a master-key for each set, with a 'single variant' key for each box in the set. But no key of one set would fit another set. The partner concerned kept the ring of keys for his boxes, and the master-key, in case he lost an individual key.'

  'Wasn't that rather over-elaborate?'

  'You just didn't know Abel Horniman,' said Bohun. 'It was right up his street. One key—one box—one client. I don't think the other partners enjoyed the system quite so much. Birley lost all his keys in the course of time and had to have a new set made. Craine, I know, keeps his boxes permanently unlocked. But that doesn't affect the point at issue, since none of their keys would fit the Ichabod Stokes box, anyway. Only Abel Horniman had that key—and apparently he didn't have it either. I don't know what Bob Horniman's story is—but Miss Cornel says that he couldn't find either the key for this particular box, or the master. The other seventeen were there all right.'

  'Thank you,' said Hazlerigg. 'I think I'd better have a word with Bob Horniman.'

  Bob could tell him very little about the keys.

  'I was father's sole executor,' he explained. 'And I took everything over. There were a lot of keys. House keys as well as office keys. I knew that this bunch belonged to the office, so I brought them here and kept them in my desk drawer. I never realised that one of them was missing. I used the others from time to time to open various boxes—'

  'But, of course, you'd never had occasion to go to this particular box until this morning.'

  'Well, no, I hadn't,' said Bob. 'As a matter of fact I hadn't really done much about the Ichabod Stokes Trust at all. It had been on my conscience a bit—but a trust isn't like a conveyancing or litigation matter that has to be kept marching strictly along—and you know how it is. I was a bit rushed and the least urgent job went to the wall.'

  'I quite understand,' said Hazlerigg. 'Now, about your father. Can you give me some idea of his routine? When he arrived at the office, and so on. Particularly in the last months of his life.'

  Bob looked faintly surprised, but said: 'He had to take it quite easily. He was under doctor's orders for the last six months. I think they'd have been happier if he hadn't come to office at all, but that was out of the question with Dad. The office was his life, you know. He used to get here at about half-past ten and leave at about half-past four.'

  'I suppose that the rest of you arrived earlier than that.'

  'Good Lord, yes,' said Bob. 'Nine-thirty sharp. Even Mr Craine was usually behind his desk before ten o'clock.'

  'I see. Were you and your father living together?'

  'No,' said Bob shortly. 'I've got a flat.'

  'I suppose that your father's house comes to you under the will. Are you going to live there now?'

  Bob looked for a moment as if he was searching for some cause of offence in this question. In the end he said: 'No. Certainly not. I couldn't possibly keep it up. It's a great barracks of a place in Kensington.'

  IV

  Sergeant Plumptree would have assented to this description. It wasn't an attractive house. In colour it was greyish-yellow. In size it was enormous. It was designed on the sound Victorian principle which kept the kitchen in the basement, the family on the ground and the first floor, the guests on the second floor, the servants on the third floor and the children in the attic.

  A bearded lady with one stationary and one roving eye opened the door and showed Sergeant Plumptree into a morning-room heavy with black satinwood and maroon chenille. She motioned him to a penitential chair, folded her plump white hands, and awaited in silence whatever indignities her interrogator might see fit to heap upon her.

  'Well, ma'am,' said Sergeant Plumptree pleasantly. 'It's a question of times—'

  Without too much prompting he obtained the following information. It would have seemed that Abel Horniman was as much a creature of habit in his home as in his office, particularly during the last six months of his life. Everything had been done to render his course smooth. A nurse had always been in attendance. Sergeant Plumptree noted her name and address, feeling glad of a chance of corroborative evidence. Abel Horniman had got up at eight-thirty and had his breakfast at nine-fifteen and had read his Times and his Financial Times until the car came to fetch him at five past ten. In the evenings he had always been home by five o'clock for tea, and had then liked to sit and listen to the wireless before changing into a dinner jacket for dinner. 'Did he ever go out at that time?'

  The housekeeper looked faintly surprised. 'Certainly not,' she said.

  'Never,' persisted the sergeant. 'I'm sorry. It's just that we must be certain—'

  'Mr. Horniman'—the housekeeper pursed her lips—'was a dying man. He never went out in the evenings.'

  'Thank you. And then . . .'

  'After that,' said the housekeeper, 'at ten o'clock he retired to bed. The nurse had the bedroom across the passage and I had the room next to her. Between us we were certain to hear if he cried out. His attacks, you know—very sudden.'

  'Thank you, ma'am,' said Sergeant Plumptree.

  It seemed to him to be pretty conclusive. There would be just time, he thought, to call on the nurse, before reporting back to Inspector Hazlerigg.

  V

  Dr Bland, the pathologist,
was a dry man but an enthusiast.

  The photograph which he exhibited for Hazlerigg's attention looked, at first blink, like an aerial view of the Grand Canyon of Colorado. There were the innumerable fissile crevices running in from either side towards the centre, the gulfs and gullies, the potholes and pockmarks of the surrounding terrain; and there down the middle, as if ruled off by a draughtsman, was the deep, steep-sided indenture of the canyon itself, and far down at the bottom the dark line of the stream.

  'Effect of picture-wire on the human neck,' said Dr Bland. 'Two hundred magnifications.'

  'Extraordinary,' said Hazlerigg with distaste. 'I suppose that dark line at the bottom is the—just so. You needn't explain. What does it all prove?'

  'Quite a lot,' said the doctor. 'Would you like a picture of the weapon. Subject to very slight possible errors, here it is. Take a short piece of ordinary seven-strand brass picture wire. Drive a small hole between the strands, about two-thirds of the way along—you could do that with a nail, or a sharp gimlet. Then thread one end of your wire through the hole. That gives you a nice smoothly-running noose, or slip-knot. I suggest that you then fasten toggles of wood— anything to afford you a good grip—one at either end of your wire. There's an inexpensive, neat, household model of the garrotter's loop—'

  'Inexpensive,' said Hazlerigg. 'Neat, and untraceable.'

  'Oh, quite,' said the pathologist. 'It's a household weapon. Anybody could make one.'

  'Thank you.'

  'I haven't done yet,' said Dr Bland. 'That's a picture of the weapon. Would you like a picture of your murderer?'