by John Rowland
“Heaven knows what ye want this for, Henry, old man,” he said. “Seems a bit out of your usual line to me. Still, you know your own business best, and I’ve got the information you asked for.”
“You heard what I wanted, did you?” asked Henry. “We had a dreadful line, and I could scarcely hear what you were saying over the ’phone.”
“Oh, yes, I heard all right,” returned the other. “You wanted to know all about a man who died in the British Museum Reading Room about a year ago, or less. Reports of his death, details of the findings at the inquest, and so on. Though, as I said, why on earth ye wanted all this information is more than I can imagine.”
“You’ll know in good time, Macgregor,” Henry told him. “In fact, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if I could put you in the way of what I believe you call a scoop.”
“What do you want to know first?” asked Macgregor.
“Who was the man?”
“His name was Wilkinson. He was Professor of English Literature at Northfield University.”
“What?” Henry nearly jumped out of his skin. “Was he the great authority on the Elizabethan drama?”
“That’s the fellow. Had some patent theory of his own that Shakespeare’s plays were written by two people together—one was Shakespeare himself and the other Kit Marlowe. He worked it out very well, though ’twas all balderdash, of course.”
“When did he die?”
“Let’s see.” Macgregor referred to the bundle of cuttings.
“It’s now June 20. It was exactly five months ago—on January 20 of this year.”
“What was the verdict of the inquest?”
“Natural death. It was proved that he’d been suffering from some form of heart trouble—I don’t understand the queer jargon of these doctor fellows. Still, everybody agreed that he was in such a condition that he might be expected to pop off at any moment, and it was just chance that he did so in the British Museum. He was handling some damned great book weighing about half a hundredweight, and he just collapsed on the floor and died. He was absolutely stone-dead before they could get him to the ambulance, let alone getting him near the hospital.”
“Was there a post-mortem examination?” Again Macgregor consulted the papers he had brought with him from the office.
“It doesn’t mention it here, and I shouldn’t think that there was anything of the sort, or they’d have made a special point of reporting it,” he said at length.
“Very careless of the coroner,” said Henry.
Macgregor looked at him cautiously. “Why would ye say that, now?” he ventured to ask. “After all, the whole business, though it was a nasty business, taken all round, was not mysterious. ’Twas a clear enough case. The poor old devil had had a groggy heart for years, and ’twas just unlucky chance that it gave out in that gloomy old mausoleum, and not in some more pleasant place. Anyhow, I dare say that he would have been quite pleased at dying in such circumstances. He seems to have been a regular old bookworm, and to die among his books would please him.”
“Difficult to explain, Macgregor, until I know a little more of the facts,” said Henry.
“Well, what facts do ye want? I’ve got ’em all here—all that were made public, anyhow.”
Henry sighed wearily. “Now, don’t you start that stuff about things being concealed from the public,” he warned his friend. “I get enough and to spare of that from Sarah, who thinks that there is a sort of conspiracy between the Press and the Government to keep all kinds of valuable information secret from her.”
Macgregor grinned. “Ask your questions,” he said. “If you think there’s some fishy business going on here, and can give me the low-down on it, I can promise you that it’ll be published from Land’s End to John O’ Groat’s—and farther.”
“At the moment,” explained Henry, “that’s the very thing that I don’t want. After all, publication often ruins everybody’s chances of catching a murderer.”
Macgregor whistled. “So you think the dear old Professor of English Literature was murdered, do ye?” he asked. “And why would that idea be entering your sweet head, I wonder? After all, ye’re not a suspicious man by nature, and don’t look on all your fellow-men as sunk deep in iniquity, as every born journalist like myself does.”
“Let me explain,” said Henry. “Wilkinson was a Professor of English Literature in an English university.”
Macgregor nodded. “Sceptic though I am,” he said cheerfully, “I’ll grant ye that.”
“Curse that perverted sense of humour of yours,” said Henry with a giggle. “Do please stop fooling in that way, and just listen to what I have to say.”
“I’m all attention, me dear fellow,” said Macgregor.
“He died,” Henry went on, “apparently of heart-failure in the Reading Room of the British Museum some six months ago.”
“Five,” Macgregor interrupted.
“The dates are immaterial,” said Henry. “He died in that way.”
“Yes.”
“Who gave evidence at the inquest?”
Once more Macgregor looked at the pile of papers that lay before him.
“His doctor, his son, and his friend,” he announced at length.
“His friend?” Henry at once seized on what he thought was the important piece of information.
“Yes.” Macgregor peered at the cutting. “Be damned,” he said at length, “if I’m not the world’s clumsiest fool. I’ve cut this paper so badly that a name is missing.”
“What name?”
“The name of the friend.”
“Can you get any of it? Any letters of it, I mean, so that there’s some chance of seeing who the fellow is?”
“’Tis difficult,” said Macgregor, peering into the smudgy print that lay before him. “It looks as if the name ends in two L’s, though even there I can’t be certain. You see, it comes at the top of a column, and with my clumsy scissors I’ve managed to slice off a piece of the damned paper, so that I can only make out the bottoms of the letters. And it may be they’re some other letters.”
Suddenly a thought came to Henry. It was a thought that almost made the meek little man’s blood run cold, so amazing was it in its clarity.
“Does it say anything about what the friend did?” he asked. “After all, the friend of a Professor of English Literature might easily occupy some sort of official position in the university. It would be perfectly easy to trace him then, if he’s a lecturer or anything.”
“Good idea,” said Macgregor. “Let’s see. Oh, yes; Professor Emeritus in English Literature in Portavon University.”
“God!” Henry’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He removed his pince-nez and polished them in an agitated manner.
“What’s the matter with ye, man?” demanded Macgregor. “You’re as white as a sheet. You look as if you’re going to faint. Explain yourself, quick! Shall I get a drop of brandy? What the devil’s the matter with you?”
Henry smiled the faintest of smiles. Then he perched his pince-nez perilously on his nose. He looked around him with what was almost a satisfied smile, and the colour slowly flowed back into his cheeks.
“Wull ye answer my questions, me mannie?” asked Macgregor, lapsing into his native dialect more and more in his agitation. “What the de’il’s the matter wi’ ye, that ye got so excited at that news? What the hell does it matter if the felly what gave evidence was professor at some crack-pot university in the south of England? Tell me.”
“Only this,” said Henry, and his voice was thin and clear. “Professor Julius Arnell, Professor Emeritus in the University of Portavon, died in the British Museum Reading Room this afternoon—died under my very eyes.”
And Macgregor, old hand as he was at the tackling of mysterious crimes, felt his blood run cold within his veins.
Chapter IV
“Now, Cunningham,” said Shelley, with a smile. “What’s the next move? Any suggestions?”
Cunningham ponderously considered the matter, frowning deeply.
“I should think, sir,” he said, “that an interview with the old man’s daughter would be the best thing.”
“Capital idea,” Shelley announced. “It’s now—let me see—seven o’clock. Wonder if they’re on the ’phone.” He picked up a directory, ran his fingers rapidly down the columns, and found the number.
“Better ring her up,” he added, “and more or less prepare her for the shock. After all, she’s an only daughter, according to the reference books, and this will be a bit of a blow for her, I should think.”
He asked for the number, and was soon in communication with Miss Violet Arnell.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Miss Arnell,” Cunningham heard him say, when the preliminaries of identification had been got over.
“Yes,” he went on. “Your father. He has met with a serious accident, and I shall have to come around and get some particulars about his work, and so forth. Will you be in for the evening? You will? Good. I will be around in three-quarters of an hour or less.”
It was actually only about half an hour before they were driving along the main street of Pinner—a forlorn relic of the past, the village street of old-world charm, now surrounded by a wilderness of typically suburban red-brick and stucco, hideous in its unutilitarian sham-Gothic.
Professor Arnell had lived in a delightful old cottage, however, tucked away in a little side street off this main thoroughfare. It boasted a pleasant little flower garden and a fresh green lawn, and Shelley and Cunningham breathed in the fragrant scent of the stocks before they went to the front door.
Miss Violet Arnell was a kindly looking woman in the early thirties, her face and figure a modified and feminised version of her father’s aggressiveness. What in him had become flaming red hair was in her a delightful shade of auburn. She was tall, lithe, and upright, and she greeted her visitors with a quiet smile, not unmingled with the sadness appropriate to the occasion.
There was no heart-broken grief or zealous anxiety in her voice, however, as she asked Shelley and Cunningham if they would each like to have a glass of sherry.
“Thank you, Miss Arnell,” said Shelley; “I think I will. And I know that the Sergeant here never refuses a kindly offer of that sort.”
Cunningham grinned somewhat sheepishly, and accepted the glass of excellent sherry which was placed in his hand.
“Now,” she said, when these preliminaries were over, “what is all this about, Mr. Shelley? What has my father been up to? He’s caused me plenty of worry with his absent-mindedness and his funny ways.”
“You are quite prepared for a shock, then, Miss Arnell?” Shelley asked.
She nodded calmly. “Quite prepared for anything where my father is concerned,” she replied.
“Your father,” said Shelley bluntly, seeing that this girl was possessed of strong nerves, not likely to relapse into hysteria, “is dead.”
Again she nodded, almost phlegmatically. “I feared as much when you warned me to be prepared for a shock,” she said in quiet, unemotional tones.
“You are not surprised?”
“Why should I be?”
“Well, your father was by no means an old man. He was, I should think, almost in the prime of life. One does not feel surprise when a man of eighty years dies, but a man of your father’s age…”
She interrupted swiftly. “My father has been in bad health for years,” she said. “That was why he gave up his job at Portavon. He could not stand the strain of working regular hours. His heart was in a very groggy state, and there were days when he would stay in bed, just lying still and not daring to move, for fear the awful pain would come on again. Where did he die?”
“I think that this will probably be a worse shock than the news that he is dead,” said Shelley. “He died in the Reading Room of the British Museum, and he was murdered.”
Miss Arnell went white as a ghost. All the blood seemed to drain from her face, and she gripped the arms of the chair in which she sat. The veins on the back of her hands stood out in vivid relief against the sudden whiteness of her skin.
“Murdered? That can’t be. Harry would never…” Her murmuring voice died away into sudden silence.
Swiftly Shelley seized on the point. “Harry would never do what?” he asked.
“Did I say Harry?” she asked in return, getting control of herself with obvious difficulty. “I don’t know what I was talking about, Mr. Shelley. Honestly I think that the sudden shock must have sent my mind wandering along some strange bypaths of thought.” The obvious artificiality of the phrase set Shelley pondering. What on earth, he asked himself, was the girl thinking of? There must be some reasonable explanation of this sudden change of face. Who was Harry? That was the obvious line of investigation.
“Had your father any friends who could give us information about him?” he asked, dissembling his interest in the hope that, if he could set her talking again, she might give herself away somehow.
“Not many,” she said. “My father was rather a strange person. He made friends with great difficulty. I think that Professor Wilkinson of Northfield University and Dr. Crocker of Oxford were the only people who were really in his confidence over things—and they were really more acquaintances than friends, interested in the same subjects.”
“I see,” said Shelley thoughtfully. “And did they often visit him here?”
“Never.” She was very emphatic. “No one ever came here except friends of mine.”
“Friends of yours?” Here was his chance, Shelley thought, and grasped the opportunity without delay. “Could you mention any friends of yours who were in any way regular visitors to this house, Miss Arnell? You see, in a case like this it is important to get hold of anyone who knew your father, as we may be able to get some sort of pointer on his ways of thought—and a comparative stranger often notices more than an intimate relative like yourself.”
There was a distinct pause before she replied. Then she said, slowly: “Miss Elizabeth Atkins. She’s my closest friend. She was often here. But she didn’t see much of father, I’m afraid. You see, he was the sort of man who keeps himself very much to himself, and he usually appeared only at meal-times if a visitor was here.”
“What would he do at other times—other times than meal-times, I mean?”
“Just shut himself up in his study. He was a curious person, really, and I often thought it queer that a man like that should have a daughter like myself, fond of brightness and company.” She showed every sign of going on with this line of thought, but Shelley was determined not to be led from the point, as he thought the conversation was just becoming of interest.
“Any other visitors?” he asked sharply.
“Well…” She appeared unwilling to answer this, and paused with an air of irresolution.
“Any men, for instance?” Shelley was intent on getting the information he required. “A man will often see something about other men which a woman will miss.”
“There is Mr. Baker,” she conceded.
“Who is he?”
“He is the teacher of science at the school around the corner here.”
Shelley smiled gently. “And does he come here very often?” he asked.
“Very often,” she replied, and paused again. “You see…you see…I am going to marry him.”
“And did your father approve of the engagement?”
Miss Arnell paused for a moment, and then burst into tears. Her whole body shook with great sobs. She was convulsed with sorrow, and wept as if her heart would break.
“I think,” she managed to blurt out between great bursts of tears, “that you are most unfair. The way that you w
orm things out of people. It may be your idea of doing a gentleman’s job in life, Mr. Shelley, but it’s not mine.”
Shelley looked at her sternly. “You seem to forget, Miss Arnell,” he said, “that your father was murdered. My job is not to deal with things in any kid-glove fashion, but to obtain all the information which seems to me at all likely to help in the investigation. I have no desire to hurt anyone, but one must occasionally be brutal in order to find out what is necessary in solving a very difficult problem.”
She dried her eyes on a microscopic handkerchief. “I understand, Mr. Shelley,” she said, gulping back her sobs. “If you want to ask any more questions I shall be pleased to answer them as well as I can.”
“I presume,” said Shelley, without further comment, “that your father did not approve of your engagement to Mr. Harry Baker.” The “Harry” was a shot in the dark, and Shelley was pleased to observe that she apparently did not notice the assumption.
“No,” she said. “He thought that Harry was just a fortune-hunter, after my money, and that I should get someone much better and richer for a husband.”
“I suppose,” said Shelley, “that there is a good deal of money in your family.”
“Oh yes,” she replied more cheerfully. “Father was a very rich man, you know. I don’t know where his money will be left, but there must be a will somewhere.”
“Who are his lawyers?”
“Samuel, Grant, and Samuel, of Chancery Lane.”
“Make a note of that, Cunningham,” said Shelley. “We shall have to see them tomorrow.”
“And anything else?” she asked.
“Your fiancé’s name and address.”
“Henry Baker, Manor School.”
“That’s close to here, I think you said.”
“Yes. In the next street.”
“Well,” Shelley went on, “I think that is about all for the moment, Miss Arnell. Oh, there is one thing more. Do you happen to know if your father was fond of almonds? The sugar-coated ones, I mean.”
She smiled. “His one vice, I called it,” she said. “He would chew sugared almonds all day long. He was not a heavy smoker, and he drank very little, so he used to say that he was entitled to his one little bit of dissipation.”