Never Give a Millionaire an Even Break

by Kane, Henry

  It’s late.

  I rang you up the minute I got home.

  Then I turned it off.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “You heard it?”

  “Interminably.”

  “Okay. I don’t know who murdered Earl Stanhope, but I say that Earl Stanhope murdered Monique Lyons.”

  “And why do you say this?”

  “Because whoever called her to come out in the middle of the night was laying for her with my car as the murder weapon.”

  “Whoever called her then, you judge to be the murderer.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “It is likely.”

  “All right. Stanhope was an Englishman. Now you heard the tape, and heard it and heard it.”

  “And heard it,” he said and smiled.

  “‘I rang you up the minute I got home.’ That’s strictly British. An American would say ‘I called you up …’ No American, ever, would say ‘I rang you up …’”

  “Very good, Peter.”

  “Did you get that, Alfred?”

  “No, must admit I didn’t. I am so accustomed to our own colloquialisms, I forget they are not the colloquialisms of our cousins overseas. But why Stanhope, Peter? Motive?”

  “The guy had picked up twenty thousand from Ingrid Holly and then fifty thousand from Barney Croyden. He was playing for marriage with Monique, but there was no guarantee. That money would go to support Monique while she was squeezing for millions from Tommy Lyons, and that money could be spent before she ever got a dime from Tommy Lyons. Then, suppose after she got—then she gave the air to the actor …”

  “Possible.”

  “And suppose that possibility occurred to the actor?”

  “Believe I see where you’re going on this, Peter.”

  “The guy had hold of seventy thousand dollars. If he gets rid of Monique, he owns that seventy thousand dollars and who can say him nay? He comes back here to England, and with seventy thousand dollars he’s a hell of a rich man, able to pursue his profession at leisure, beholden to no one, able to pick and choose. Follow?”

  “Ta. Good thinking, lad. One thing, though. Why would he want to involve you? Why your car?”

  “Who knows? Christ, Alfred, who better than you knows how inexplicable is the criminal mind? He had heard I’m a private richard, and he knew that I was mixed up with these people. Hell, a private eye is always a good fall guy. If he was going to use a car, why not mine? It would certainly becloud the issues, and it would certainly push him far to the rear of suspects.” I reached down to the briefcase and I brought up that segment of cardboard that bore the fingerprints. “Alfred, I haven’t told you all about this fellow yet. I’ve heard something about him but none of it has been corroborated. A check on these prints may do that corroboration. Would you?”

  He took it from me. “Stanhope’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be happy to process it.” He pushed a button on his desk and a constable came in. He handed the prints to the constable. “I want a report on these, urgent at once, if you please.”

  “Yes sir, Superintendent. Urgent at once,” said the constable and clicked his heels and touched his forehead in a form of salute and went out and Alfred Barnes refilled his pipe and I lit a cigarette and we talked of social matters: we talked of bombs and communism and capitalism and missiles and rockets and space exploration, and then we talked of plays and books and paintings and music, and we were back on politics when there was a knock and the constable came back with my piece of cardboard and a long sheet of typewritten paper.

  The constable did his tentative salute again and departed and Alfred Barnes studied the typewritten sheet and I studied Alfred Barnes and I saw consternation tighten to a frown between his eyes but when he spoke his voice was even. “I’m afraid the man whose prints you gave me could not have killed your Monique, dear Peter.”

  “Why the hell not, dear Alfred?”

  “Because that man has been dead for the past ten years.”

  Twenty-Seven

  I CAME UP out of my seat as though goosed by an asp.

  “You’re nuts,” I said.

  “That is moot. But the expensive machinery of the Yard, the computers, the extraordinary robots of our time—there is nothing moot about them. These prints are the prints of Adam Bradford and Adam Bradford has been dead now for about ten years. Where did you get these, Peter?”

  “Something’s crazy,” I said.

  Sternly Alfred Barnes said, “Where did you get these prints?”

  “Not out of heaven and not out of hell. Off a glass at a party in New York.”

  “No,” he said softly and breathed the smoke from his pipe.

  “Yes,” I said, “and the guy’s not dead and if you’d like to see his picture I can show you.”

  “I should like that, if you please.”

  I brought out Earl Stanhope’s photograph.

  Without change in expression Alfred Barnes studied it.

  “This is not Adam Bradford,” he said.

  “Of course not. That’s Richard Buzzell.”

  “You said Stanhope.”

  “Earl Stanhope is his stage name. Richard Buzzell is his real name. And you ought to recognize the photograph. The guy was once a detective here at the Yard.”

  He narrowed his eyes at the picture. “Does look somewhat familiar, I’d say, but one cannot possibly remember every chap that’s been at the Yard.” He touched his button and he got his constable. “Harry, let them have a go at this.” He gave the picture to the constable. “This is Richard Buzzell and it appears he was once a detective here at the Yard.” Now he handed across the photograph of the fingerprints. “And have them compare his file-prints with these.”

  Harry went out and I stood up.

  Alfred Barnes smoked and I walked.

  Some of it was coming through but it was awfully hazy.

  I walked and Alfred Barnes let me walk in silence and then Harry was back with the photo and the prints and more reports and quickly Alfred Barnes scanned the reports.

  “Buzzell,” he said, “was one of our chaps; fact he was one of the chaps investigating the Bradford thing. But the prints are not his and you may be on to something rather spectacular, Peter …”

  And then suddenly it hit.

  There had been two glasses on the bar.

  Sadie had plucked the wrong glass.

  “Croyden, Barney Croyden,” I said. “Those are his fingerprints.”

  Barnes was on his feet. “Harry!”

  “Yessir?”

  “I want the Adam Bradford file. And get cracking, please!”

  On the plane to New York, with frequent references to the bulky file, we reviewed the Adam Bradford affair.

  Adam Bradford came to England twenty years ago. He was then thirty-two, an American come to London to head up the American Divison of Wickersham & Beffington, stockbrokers. It was a newly created concern, a combination of two famous brokerage houses, one American—Wiskersham & Loeb—and one British—Beffington & York. Adam Bradford had been a genius of a kind: well-educated, attractive, an hypnotic salesman, a skillful business man, and an ambitious executive. Within one year of his arrival in London, Adam Bradford had resigned from the firm of Wickersham & Beffington and had become the sole owner of his own stock brokerage house, president of the firm of Adam Bradford and Co.

  Within that one year he had married a wealthy woman and had become the son-in-law of an aged, wealthy man.

  He had become acquainted with and had courted Miss Nora Richardson, the only child of Sir Algernon Richardson. Miss Nora had then been a spinster of forty-three; Sir Algernon had been the owner of an old conservative firm of stockbrokers, Algernon Richardson and Co. Sir Algernon, then eighty-four years of age, but acute and spry, had been the active head of his firm and its sole owner, a firm of stern and unimpeachable reputation and a firm with many wealthy clients. Sir Algernon was a widower and, for his age, in an excellent state of health.r />
  Adam Bradford, within one year of his arrival in London, had married Nora Richardson and had become the sole partner of Sir Algernon in the firm of Algernon Richardson & Co. He had brought over to his new firm several of the important clients of Wickersham & Beffington and he had ingratiated himself with all of the clients of Algernon Richardson & Co. Within that same year Sir Agernon had died in bed of natural causes in his stately home in Surrey, then also occupied by his daughter and his new son-in-law. Years later, when Adam Bradford burst into notoriety, this death by natural causes was questioned but no proof to the contrary could be adduced.

  Adam Bradford took over the firm of Algernon Richardson & Co., and changed its name to his own name and Adam Bradford, head of the house of Adam Bradford & Co., flourished impressively. Nora Richardson was of the Establishment, acquainted with the rich of England, and Adam Bradford’s brilliant salesmanship weaned many of them away from their own financial advisors, and through his own charm, acuity, social contacts, and subtly advertised proven ability, he won to his firm more and ever-more clients. Within a short period, Adam Bradford was one of England’s new millionaires. He entertained lavishly, he spent money lavishly, he lived lavishly, and all of that added to his reputation as a genius in the guidance of investments.

  The house in Surrey flamed with parties—rich Englishmen, rich Americans, rich Greeks, rich South Americans, rich Australians, the rich of the Continent, the international rich, the playboys and the playgirls in the upper brackets from all over the world: the brilliant Badfords were the talk of London: they earned millions and spent millions and earned further millions.

  Later, in discreet investigation, more intimate matters became the private knowledge of the police. Nora Richardson had certain peculiar sexual idiosyncrasies: she had a marked preference for young ladies. Adam Bradford also had certain sexual idiosyncrasies, although not peculiar: he had a marked preference for young ladies. Adam understood Nora’s preferences and Nora understood Adam’s preferences; frequently they shared a preference; but there was no vestige of doubt that Nora Richardson Bradford was deeply and inextricably in love with her husband no matter their mutual permissiveness or perhaps because of their mutual permissiveness.

  They lived high, wide, expensive, and handsome, the brilliant Bradfords, and when the debacle occurred, sincere consternation overwhelmed the envy: the astonishment was real.

  For almost ten years they were the talk of London and the envy of other parvenu exhibitionists and when they thudded in debacle there was universal sympathy except from those who had been fleeced, and they were many.

  It started when the market suddenly descended and it was brought to the attention of the Yard when an elderly dowager, a widow of the peerage, appealed, quietly but stringently, for attention. Alfred Barnes was put in charge by the Commissioner with admonishment to creep on catspaws but Alfred Barnes, incorruptible, was ineluctably tenacious. The complaint of the dowager had been that when she had requested that all her securities be liquidated to cash—millions—there had been delay and soft words, but delay upon delay.

  Alfred Barnes had gone to others—large investors—and Alfred Barnes had invested them with fear and there is no more importunate fear, aside from the fear of death, than the fear of losing money. He had clubbed at them despite themselves, using fear as a truncheon, and he had prevailed that they request immediate liquidation of all their holdings, and they had been stalled with soft words, but stalled and stalled. All the while the intricate mechanism of the Yard had been put to the investigation and it had been discovered that many of the alleged purchases that Adam Bradford and Co. had made for its clients—had never been made.

  Bradford’s operation had been exceedingly simple. A trusted broker holds the stock of his clients. Bradford reported the purchase but did not make it, using the money for his own speculations. His books listed the purchases; he paid the dividends; and when there was an order to sell, he first bought the stock and then sold it. With the market high, he was always ahead of the game; and he plunged on his own with the fortunes of his clients; and reaped and spent large fortunes of his own. Had the market been high at the time of the investigation, his genius and personality might have shunted down the suspicions and accusations; he could have covered up his embezzlements and explained away the alleged peculations; but the market was at bottom and client after client, simultaneously, was demanding total liquidation of all securities.

  Given time, he might have avoided disaster, but Alfred Barnes did not give him time, and when Adam Bradford was arrested he was out of time to the tune of three hundred million dollars.

  Ruined in reputation and his business in the hands of receivers, Adam Bradford was possessed of sufficient temporary funds to retain the finest solicitors who postponed his trial for many months and months and kept him fluid and out of jail by reason of the posting of a large sum as bail: one hundred thousand pounds.

  In the fifth month of his fluidity, he committed suicide.

  “What do you think?” Alfred Barnes said.

  “Your pigeon is alive.”

  “So say the prints.”

  “And so say I.”

  “You ought to know, Peter. You were in London during the time we had him in for initial questioning. You were a fellow-American and I had you in the office as sort of amicus curiae. You were an observer of one of your countrymen, and I was most anxious for your reaction. Remember?”

  “Certainly I remember.”

  “And yet when you met him in New York you didn’t know him.”

  I did a sigh for the superintendent. “Hell, man, you didn’t even recognize one of your own detectives. Ten years is a long time; people change. And this guy changed all the way: a full Van Dyke and all grey. Now tell me about Barney Croyden.”

  “Croyden was utterly unimportant to us. He was one of the people in Bradford’s employ. Croyden was an American, three years the chauffeur for the Bradfords. After the arrest, he was the last of the servants to be let go.”

  “And where did he go?”

  “Home, we were told; back to America. He was of no interest to us; none of the servants were.”

  “And Bradford’s suicide?”

  “He drove off from his house one night, drove the seventy miles to Dover, and rode off a high cliff, smashing to smithereens, burning to a crisp. Left a lengthy suicide note in his study. Frankly, we were relieved. The chap was entirely done. Our case was closed. Of course there were many civil suits against his estate, and some parts of the peculated funds were recovered.”

  “Any insurance?”

  “Three million pounds in favor of the wife.”

  “How much?”

  “Three million.”

  “That’s almost nine million dollars.”

  “Quite correct.”

  “And the company paid?”

  “They had no other recourse, dear fellow. The man was a millionaire, the policy was seven years old, the premiums were paid regularly—”

  “But didn’t they make sure the guy was Bradford?”

  “Certainly they did. All was burned, but scientific tests of ash and such showed the clothes to be his, the jewelry, even teeth …”

  “But how …?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Yeah, your case was closed.”

  “Hmm, see what you mean but that’s not quite correct. Who commits suicide? A chap who’s ruddy ready for it. The man was ruined, the man left a note, the man did the act in his own car, the identification of the charred corpse was sufficient: the widow made claim and the widow was paid. Actually, the sum involved is not unusual with people of that station.”

  “What about the creditors? Didn’t they catch up with any of that dough?”

  “The proceeds of life insurance vest in the beneficiary. The wife was the beneficiary and as a matter of fact she paid the premiums. Please remember—she owed nothing to anyone. No, the creditors were his creditors, and the policy money was hers, not his.
Point of fact, she also owned the house in Surry and that also could not be touched by his creditors. She sold the house for one hundred and fifty thousand pounds and she then went off to America and that’s the last we heard—until now.”

  I stirred in my seat. “But how in hell did the guy pull this deal?”

  “I expect we’re about to find out.”

  Twenty-Eight

  WE LANDED at Idlewild at five in the morning. I called Parker at Homicide from the airport. Parker was not at Homicide. I called Parker at home and his wife woke him. I hummed a portion of the tale across the wires and Parker commanded that we meet him at Homicide.

  We met him at Homicide at six in the morning.

  Parker was acquainted with Barnes and Barnes brought Parker up to date.

  “It’s all yours,” said Parker.

  Parker looked sleepy but that was not it. Noblesse oblige. This was the Englishman’s case and the American was duty-bound to do nothing except run interference.

  “May we go now to collect him?” said Barnes.

  “I approve of the timing,” Parker said grinning wanly.

  We went, a strung quartet, high-strung: the superintendent, the lieutenant, a uniformed policeman, and I, all neatly wedged within an unmarked police car, and at 7 East 79th Street I was given the honor—since I was the only one who had been there before—of ringing the bell.

  I rang the bell.

  It took a long time ringing before it was answered.

  Hell, it was only six-thirty of a pristine morning in dirty old Manhattan and millionaires are not wont to be sporting about, nor their servants, at ungodly hours.

  At length the door was opened, but a crack, hinged upon a solid chain.

  Parker went into his chant, “Police. Open up,” and I was replaced at the crack by the uniformed officer.

  The door closed, there was the rattle of the chain, and the door opened.

  The lantern-jawed butler, still white with sleep, was loose in a bathrobe that looked like a blanket.

  “Yes? Please? What? Gentlemen?” he said as we pushed through and past him into a living room.