Smallbone Deceased

by Michael Gilbert

  T work for Merryweather and Matlock,' he said. 'You may have seen our shop. It's about half-way down the Strand, opposite the Tivoli Cinema. We sell leather goods and luggage. We specialise in hikers' and campers' stuff.'

  Hazlerigg said he knew the shop.

  T read in the newspapers about Miss Chittering being murdered in that lawyers' office. We were going to be married.'

  Hazlerigg said nothing. Construing his silence as a demand for further explanation, Mr Hayman went on hurriedly :

  'She was a little older than me. Well—six years, to be exact. But she was a wonderful girl. She had a wonderful mind. She used to surprise me, Inspector. The things she told me about the law.'

  'Well, now,' said Hazlerigg. 'Perhaps you can tell me one or two things. When did you see Miss Chittering last?'

  'Last Saturday. She used to come up from Dulwich every Saturday. When she wasn't working at the office she'd come in, and we'd have a talk—I'm in charge of the campers' department, you know.' (He said this with all the pride of a colonel announcing his first command.) 'Then she'd go out and get a cup of coffee and wait till I was finished—we shut up at half-past twelve on Saturdays—and we'd have lunch and go somewhere in the afternoon; we were both very fond of pictures.'

  'You went to the cinema?'

  'No, no,' said Mr Hayman. 'Real pictures. The National Gallery or the Tate. Hours we spent there—we were both partial to the Dutch School. On Sundays I would usually go over to see her at Dulwich, after lunch, and we'd go for a hike.'

  It seemed an innocuous courtship. Hazlerigg could not say what he felt—that no marriage with a woman six years one's senior would be likely to thrive on a sole bond of intellectual admiration. That was not the sort of thing you said to witnesses. Therefore he contented himself with the usual formula.

  'Well, Mr Hayman. It was very good of you to come forward. If there's any way in which you can help us, I'll be certain to let you know. We have your address, haven't we?'

  'There's one thing,' said Mr Hayman diffidently. 'Perhaps I oughtn't to say this. But I think she was afraid of the man she worked for. What was his name—Birley. She didn't say so in so many words, you know.'

  T think he bullied her,' said Hazlerigg gently. 'But, of course, that's no proof that he—'

  'No, of course not,' said Mr Hayman. 'I just thought I ought to mention it.'

  He departed, and Hazlerigg sat, for a long time after he had gone, quite motionless. Only the blinking of his eyes showed that he was alive. Curiously enough he was not thinking about Mr Hayman at all. He was searching for something. A single, tiny, unrelated fact, in the storehouse of his memory.

  It was almost eight o'clock, and quite dark, before he got back to Lincoln's Inn. He found Mason, the porter, in his lodge. When he had introduced himself, and broken the ice by admiring Mason's collection of pewter jugs, he said: T wanted to hear again from you, if you wouldn't mind, exactly what happened last night. It might be easiest if we went outside and walked over the ground.'

  Mason was agreeable. As they went out the Chapel clock started striking.

  'There, now,' said Mason. 'That's just how it was—only seven o'clock, not eight. I'd just finished locking the library and I came out in front of Stone Buildings here as Mr Cockerill came in the gate. He and I walked together, down towards the Square. I can't remember what we talked about. We didn't hurry—but we didn't dawdle either. The lights were all out in the office—like it is now. . .' He pointed. The premises of Horniman, Birley and Craine were as dark as the tomb.

  T see,' said Hazlerigg. he stared at the blind facade. 'Then Cockerill went in, and you walked on.'

  'That's right. No, of course, I forgot. That was when I saw the cat.'

  He explained about Chancery and the pigeon.

  'Was that before Cockerill went in?'

  'No,' said Mason. 'After. Just when I was walking off.'

  'Then you were looking at the dead bird, and prodding about in the flower-bed—and then you heard Sergeant Cockerill cry out?'

  'That's right.'

  'And that would have been—how much later?' 'Oh. Not very long.' 'Two or three minutes?'

  'Yes. I expect so. What's it all about, Inspector?'

  'Just a matter of routine,' said Hazlerigg. He looked at his watch before he put it back in his pocket. It showed seven minutes past eight.

  IX

  When Hazlerigg got to bed that night he did not go to sleep immediately. Ordinarily, he had the professional's ability to shutter his thoughts: he left his work and his worries behind him at his desk. If it had been otherwise, he could hardly have slept at all. Tonight, however, a current of thought got through the insulation.

  It started with this proposition. 'The murderer could not have anticipated the electricity failure.' The first deduction from this was that the murderer had to be a person whose late arrival home could cause no comment. Someone who lived alone. Or someone who was dining out. But was that a sound deduction? Had the murderer not very possibly prepared an ingenious alibi, some watertight excuse for being home late, which they had never had to use. The heaven-sent and unexpected gift of the electricity failure had served instead.

  Having disposed of that one, Hazlerigg turned over once more in his search for sleep.

  But at the back of his mind, like the particle of sand in the oyster, lay one hard grain of fact. It was a fact which he had learnt in his talk with Herbert Hayman, Miss Chittering's fiancé. And it matched up with something he had heard: something, he rather thought, that Bohun had once told him.

  The street lamps outside formed patterns on the white ceiling. They would be turned out soon after midnight.

  'I'll go on thinking about it till the lights go out,' he said to himself. 'If I haven't got it by then I'll give it up.'

  The next thing he was aware of was the clamour of his alarm-clock calling him to another day.

  Chapter Eleven

  THURSDAY A.M

  Capital Appreciation

  Years passed and he sat in the same place, wrote out the same documents, and thought of one thing, how to get back to the country. And little by little his distress became a definite disorder, a fixed idea—to buy a small farm somewhere by the bank of a river or a lake. —CHEKOV: The Gooseberries.

  T say,' said John Cove, 'have you heard?' 'No. What?' 'Eric's going.' 'Then you did—'

  'No,' said John. T didn't. That's the scrumptious part about it. My conscience is absolutely clear. But Eric was so convinced that I should split on him—judging others by his own shocking standards—that he came to the conclusion it would be more dignified and grown-up if he got his own say in first. So he demanded an interview with Bill Birley and handed in his resignation all gentlemanly-like.'

  'What happened then?'

  'Well, I only got this part from Charlie—you know what those basement stairs are like—so you mustn't take it for gospel. But apparently Bill Birley was suffering from a number-nine hangover from this Chittering business and the police and what with one thing and another he definitely wasn't at his mental best. When Eric stalked in and said: "I wish to resign," Birley just gazed at him in a suffering way for a moment and said, "All right, when?" and the whole scene fell a bit flat. Eric, apparently, in an endeavour to waken a flicker of interest, said, "And I don't mind about notice. If it's all the same to you I shall leave tomorrow." However, even this didn't stir the great man, who simply moaned and said—Oh, hello, Eric. We were just talking about you.'

  ! 1 -r r- 'in

  'I expect you were,' said Eric Duxford. He was obviously in that uncomfortable state of mind when one is spoiling for a row without knowing quite who to have it with. 'I hear you called round at my office on Tuesday night.'

  'Well, I didn't actually know it was your office,' said John, tilting back his chair to a dangerous angle. 'It seemed, from the information painted on the door, to belong jointly to a Mr Smith and a Mr Selverman.'

  'Smith's retired,' said Eric shortly. 'Henry Selverma
n's my partner. And a damned good business man.'

  'A one-man firm?'

  'And what of it?' said Eric. 'He knows more about the law than any two of the stuck-up ducal bootlickers in this office.'

  'No doubt,' said John. 'I should say he must have a very close—almost a personal—acquaintance with certain branches of the law. Breach of contract, for instance, or that lovely, old-fashioned tort, seduction of servants—'

  'Look here,' said Eric. 'If I thought you'd gone and told Birley—'

  'You know damned well I didn't,' said John coolly. 'And if it's any consolation to you, I never intended to. However, since you have chosen to award yourself that order of the boot which, in my opinion, you so richly deserved—'

  'You filthy cad.'

  'Control yourself,' said John. He tilted his chair to an even more impossible angle. 'You're too fat for fighting and, in any case, we are both long past the age when exhibitions of personal violence have anything to recommend them.'

  'I have no intention,' said Eric, 'of demeaning myself by laying hands on you.'

  'That hissing noise you heard,' said John to Bohun, 'was me sighing with relief.'

  'But I will say this'—Eric paused at the door—'I'm bloody glad I'm not staying in this place. It makes me sick. Day after day: "Yes, me lord, no, me lord. May I have the honour of blacking your lordship's boots for you." You're not solicitors. You're flunkies. I can tell you, I shall be glad to get into an office where we do some real work. It mayn't be as swanky as this, but we are our own masters.

  Bohun listened, fascinated. Excitement was rubbing all the careful gloss off Eric's speech, and the brass was showing through in increasing patches.

  'That's the boy, I should slam the door, too. It's almost the only way of rounding off a good sentence like that.'

  Eric gave him a final annihilating look and stalked out.

  'Do you know,' said John, when he had gone, 'if he'd had the guts to say that whilst he was employed here—actually on the pay-roll, I mean—I'd almost have been forced to applaud him. There was a good deal of truth in it. As it is, however, it seems a bit like spitting and running away.'

  II

  Hazlerigg, at this moment, was considering a series of reports. They dealt in great detail with the letter which had been found under Miss Cornel's desk.

  'The exhibit,' said the first, 'corresponds in twelve distinct instances with the test sample supplied. Texture, colour, weave, depth of impress, colour of impress, etc. etc'

  T have examined the two samples of handwriting under a magnification of one hundred,' began the second. 'The number of characteristics which correspond in each sample is too high for me to come to any other reasonable conclusion than that they were written by the same person at about the same period.'

  And then a very interesting note from Mr Allpace, stationer, of Belsize Park. T supply Mr Smallbone with writing paper and have in my possession the die-stamp for heading the same. Mr Smallbone wrote to me early in February ordering a new supply and stating that his present supply was nearly exhausted. I had five hundred sheets stamped but they have never been called for. I have written twice to Mr Smallbone reminding him that his notepaper was ready, but have had not reply.'

  Sergeant Plumptree said: 'That's quite right, sir. When I went up to get a sample of Mr Smallbone's notepaper, on your instructions, I had some difficulty in finding a piece. There was none in his writing-case or desk. In the end I got a bit from Mrs Tasker. Apparently when he paid his rent he used to fasten the cheque to a sheet of notepaper and leave it on the table outside her sitting-room, so luckily she was able to produce a piece.'

  'Then it looks,' said Hazlerigg, 'as if the notepaper was genuine, and it looks as if the signature was genuine. And yet—was there any sign of a typewriter?'

  'No, sir. He never had a typewriter. Mrs Tasker said she thought he used to type his letters in a friend's office. She didn't know the name of the friend or anything else about him—'

  'Well, it's feasible,' said Hazlerigg.

  He said it absent-mindedly. In fact, his thoughts were far away. When Sergeant Plumptree had gone he sent for Miss Cornel.

  'Something's just occurred to me,' he said without preamble. 'Should have thought of it long ago, but what with one thing and another . . . However, here it is. Where are the papers and files and books and things which ought to have been in that deed box? All the Ichabod Stokes stuff. It must have added up to something fairly bulky. Not the sort of thing you could take away under your coat. Well, where is it?'

  T can tell you one thing for certain,' said Miss Cornel slowly. 'It's not in the office.' 'What makes you say that?'

  'In any other solicitor's office,' said Miss Cornel, 'a bundle of papers, a couple of account books, a folder of documents, might get pushed away and overlooked—not here. Not in a Horniman office.'

  T see,' said Hazlerigg. 'How much was there—roughly I mean?'

  Miss Cornel made a vague gesture with her hands.

  'It's difficult to say,' she said. 'The box was about half full. There were all sorts of odds and ends. More than anyone would care to have to lug around with them.'

  'Yes,' said Hazlerigg. 'Yes. That's just what I was thinking.'

  Ill

  Bob Horniman, exiled from his own office and driven for the time being to work in the deed examination room, a dismal apartment in the basement, had got into the habit of spending a good deal of time in dropping in on other people, and Bohun was therefore not surprised to receive a visit which corresponded with the arrival of his eleven o'clock tea.

  'You can have John Cove's cup,' said Bohun. 'He's out at a completion.'

  'Thanks.' Bob sat on the edge of John's desk, swinging his legs, until Miss Bellbas had removed herself, and then said: 'I'm glad Cove's out, because there's something I've been wanting—well, to tell you the truth, something I've been plucking up the courage to ask you for some time.'

  'Yes,' said Bohun cautiously.

  'Oh, it's nothing to do with this police business,' said Bob, noting his reserve. 'It's—look here, your father's got money, hasn't he?'

  'A pound or two,' admitted Bohun.

  'I'm sorry. I'm not doing this very tactfully. I remember being told that he was something in the City, and I've always heard of him as a sort of mystery financier with millions at his fingertips.'

  T don't think it runs to that,' said Bohun. T don't think anyone really has millions nowadays. He has certain capital resources which he is free to invest—'

  Bob seized on the word. 'That's it. That's just what I meant. It would be a sort of investment.'

  'Perhaps,' said Bohun patiently, 'you would explain exactly what it is you have in mind.'

  T want to sell my share in this firm,' said Bob. T thought you might like to buy it,' he added.

  'Are you serious?'

  'Oh, absolutely.' Now that Bob had got it off his chest he seemed much happier. 'It's not a thing I'd offer to anybody, but—well. I know you, and Craine seems to cotton on to you all right, and Birley—well, quite frankly, if he gets a few more shocks like he's had lately, I don't think he'll last out much longer.'

  'Yes, but why do you want to do it—why are you getting out? Dash it all, you can't just throw everything up as if. . .' Bohun, looking round helplessly, happened to catch the eye of a large photographic portrait of Abel Horniman which glared back at him. 'It's your vocation.'

  'Vocation, my foot,' said Bob. 'Look here, I've never told this to anyone in my life, but you might as well know exactly where you stand. I hate the law. I loathe and detest all this pettifogging round with words and figures, and hours and days and weeks spent mangling bumph and sitting on my bottom worrying about whether Lady Marshmoreton's annuity should be retained in Consolidated Mines or shifted to 3V2 per cent Non-Cumulative Preferential Fish Paste, and whether Lord Haltwhistle has got the power to appoint an eighth part of the fifteenth part of the funds in his great-aunt's will trust to his nephews and nieces in equal shares, an
d if not why not.'

  Bohun grinned. For the first time since his arrival in the office he remembered Bob as he had last seen him at school, with a serious inky face, broken glasses, and a pair of black boots two sizes too large for him.

  T think maybe you've got something there,' he said, 'but what do you want to do?'

  'Sailing,' said Bob, 'and farming. I know of just the place in Cornwall where you could run a small stock farm with one cowman, and there's a creek runs up actually through the farm. It's deep enough for a small sea-boat. It would only cost six thousand, and perhaps another three or four thousand to stock it. I'd have to have a reserve, because I don't suppose I should make it pay at first.'

  'I see,' said Bohun. 'And how much did you—how much were you expecting to get for your share in the equity of the firm?'

  'Twenty thousand,' said Bob. 'And it ought to bring in an absolutely safe four thousand a year.'

  There was a short silence. Bob Horniman thought of a meadow, knee-deep in the first pasture of early summer; of a silver river running through the meadow; of the murmur of flies; of mighty udders, rhythmically a-swing. Bohun thought of the Duchess of Southend's Marriage Settlement.

  'I'll see my father at lunch-time,' he said. 'Where money's the question he usually makes his mind up quickly. I'll probably be able to give you an answer by tomorrow evening.'

  IV

  Mr Bohun (senior) had for his offices the third floor of one of the noble buildings on the east side of Lombard Street

  .

  His offices were almost spartan in the simplicity of their arrangements. On the right, as you came out of the elevator, a door invited your enquiries. On the left was a similar door, without anything on it at all. Henry opened this door and went into an anteroom, in which sat an old-looking young man, who earned a four-figure salary by insulating Mr Bohun from the outside world. He looked up as Henry came in, nodded, and returned to the study of an elaborate graph which he was plotting in six different coloured inks.

  Mr Bohun, who was sitting in a leather arm-chair beside an open fire (the only one allowed in the building), got up, said 'Hullo, Henry' in an absent-minded sort of way, and sat down again. He didn't click switches or talk into boxes and tell people he wasn't to be disturbed, because there were no switches or boxes in the room, which looked like a smoking-room. Anyway, the young man outside would see to all that.