Death Knocks Three Times

by Anthony Gilbert

  John had been listening to this story with a face of absolute anguish.

  “But that wouldn’t help,” he exclaimed. “The tongues would wag faster than ever.”

  “Ah, but it’s one thing to proceed against a scheming nurse and quite another when said nurse has become a wife,” Crook warned him. “Don’t tell me he actually pulled it off?”

  “He did not, but that was because he was suddenly carried ofiE by a heart attack before he could put his plan into action. Well, there was nothing very surprising about that …”

  “But damned convenient for Miss Bond,” suggested Crook, putting John’s thoughts into words.

  “Quite,” agreed Mr. Twemlow dryly. “The surprising thing came later, when she wrote to me that she wished the provisions of her father’s unsigned will to be carried out.”

  Even Crook was silenced for a minute by that; the more impetuous John burst out: “I don’t believe it. Why should she?”

  “That’s the point,” Crook agreed. “Why should she? You say he hadn’t signed the new will?”

  “He didn’t intend to do that until he was actually married.”

  “Then there can’t be any question of Miss Bond destroyin’ it. Now, now, my dear chap, keep that face for your clients. You and me know what the world is. Miss Bond didn’t give away half her fortune without she had to. And if she had to do that it was because this woman had something on her. Question is, what could it, be?”

  “I have sometimes wondered,” Mr. Twemlow conceded with unusual recklessness.

  “Good luck to you,” crowed Crook. “But her nephew and me, we don’t have to wonder. We’re pretty sure we know.”

  John, taken aback by this correct reading of his mind, began to stammer an incoherent denial.

  “No, no, I didn’t say a word. I mean, it’s out of the question—I realize, of course, you’re hinting at blackmail …” He stopped there, remembering the old saying that history repeats itself, and at the time of her death Miss Bond was still being blackmailed. “But this was her own father.” ‘7bAnd here his inconvenient , memory banged at the door to say. And the last time it was her own sister, wasn’t it?) He felt himself caught up in a whirlpool. “She couldn’t,” he concluded weakly. “It’s unthinkable.”

  “Only putting on the clock a little,” urged Crook, unabashed. “Well, there had to be some motive, and what else could nursie have held over her head?”

  They thought about that for a moment, then John said thinly: “What, in effect, did Miss Bond do for this nurse?”

  “She carried out her father’s wishes. Half the capital was to be made over to this lady; on the other half she and Miss Isabel would live. That had been her father’s intention, and to that, she insisted, she would adhere.”

  “Had Papa confided in her?” asked Crook. And answered his own question. “Yes, of course he must have—or else she found out by irregular means. Did Miss Isabel know?”

  “Miss Bond enjoined me most earnestly never to let her sister know the facts. She must think they could continue to live on their previous comfortable scale. The income, of course, deteriorated considerably during the war, and when it became obvious that

  these various social-service schemes were to come into being, she took my advice and sold out all her remaining investments—she had had to call some in during the war to meet current expenses— and purchased an annuity on which she and her sister lived as simply as possible until Miss Isabel’s death.”

  “Suppose the sister had suddenly decided to get married? That would have let the cat out of the bag,” said Crook.

  Mr. Twemlow smoothed his neat upper lip with his neat little fingers.

  “Fortunately that contingency did not arise. If it had. Miss Bond would have been compelled to warn her that she would be a dow-erless bride, apart from the very small interest she had under her mother’s will, and unfortunately very few of those shares have been paying their way since 1939.”

  “No wonder …” began John, and stopped.

  “Pray continue,” said Mr. Twemlow.

  “I meant, no wonder she didn’t encourage suitors for Aunt Isabel.”

  “I always understood that Miss Isabel was delicate, not only physically but mentally. Marriage, therefore, was out of the question.”

  “She must have been as tough as an ostrich egg to have stood up to the old lady all those years,” objected Crook. “Still, you do see Miss Bond’s point. She might have found herself in quite a spot if she’d had to tell the truth.”

  “Yes, indeed,” agreed John, his voice choked with fury.

  Twemlow was looking from one to the other with little hostile eyes.

  “I should point out that you have no grounds for the amazing suggestion you have made,” he observed.

  “Don’t give me one of your old-fashioned looks, Twemlow,” Crook said pleasantly. “You know what I mean. When did you ever know the old girl to make a gesture like that? I bet she was the kind that brings out last year’s poppy on November the eleventh, and then you’re asking us to believe she’d part with half her ill-gotten gains just to reverence her daddy’s memory.”

  Mr. Twemlow shivered. It seemed obvious that such an explanation had not previously occurred to him.

  “I—I can hardly believe …” he mumbled.

  “It was mighty convenient for Miss Bond that the old gentleman died when he did, or would have been if nursie hadn’t had something on her. That’s the worst of these amateurs,” he continued, blissfully disregarding Mr. Twemlow’s horrified attempts at interruption, “they think nobody’s goin’ to be as clever as they are. No, I think it’s pretty safe to assume the old lady slipped up and the other gold-digger on the premises was on her neck at once, and eventually they settled down and decided to diwy the swag.”

  “Murder is murder—since you appear to prefer plain speaking, sir—even if the victim’s expectation of life is no more than a few days,” Mr. Twemlow pointed out severely.

  “Just what I’m trying to tell you,” said Crook, looking a little bit injured.

  “If that’s true,” said John thoughtfully, “it would make it much easier to understand about Aunt Isabel. I never understood how someone so afraid of heights as she was came to fall over the edge of a balcony.”

  “You’re coming on,” said Crook, admiringly. “First you suggest that the old lady gave the old gentleman a helping hand to the tomb and now you think she followed it up …”

  “Well, Aunt Isabel was talking of getting married,” John defended himself. “And what would have happened then? She’d have to have learned the truth, and if she didn’t put two and two together, you can be sure Marlowe would. If Marlowe had learned what Mr. Twemlow has just told us, the matter wouldn’t simply be whispered about among ourselves, it would be shouted from the housetops. She’d never have lived that down. I think Mr. Twemlow should tell his story to the police,” continued John, excitedly. “It would provide them with a motive for self-destruction. Oh, I know I told them I didn’t believe Aunt Clara would ever take her own life, but then I didn’t know the facts. No one knows what Aunt Clara told Aunt Isabel about Marlowe. She may have thought life was worth nothing if she was just to go on being Clara Bond’s sister for the rest of her days. There are more ways of killing people than deliberately laying hands on them.”

  Here Mr. Twemlow managed to get a word in edgewise. “You clearly have no knowledge of law, Mr. Sherren, The law requires proof of accusations, far less serious accusations than these. The doctor gave a certificate of death from natural causes in the case of

  Colonel Bond; the jury brought in a verdict of death by misadventure in the case of his daughter, Isabel.”

  “Ah,” said Crook, on an unwontedly serious note, “and what’s the jury going to say about the death of Miss Clara? That’s what we’re concerned with, and if anyone likes to bet a pony …”

  But no one accepted the challenge. Even Crook was grave as a judge now.

  “Marlowe,”
began John after a minute, and: “Hold everything,” said Crook. “Speak of the devil. Here he is.”

  18

  THE swing door of the hotel opened and Marlowe came in, accompanied by a plain-clothes man. Marlowe was perfectly at his ease. When he came abreast of the three in the lobby, he said: “Hallo, Sherren, this is an unexpected development, isn’t it? Not that I’m particularly surprised myself. I thought the old lady was in a considerable dither …”

  “It was that last letter,” said John, with a glibness that surprised himself.

  Marlowe’s brows went up. “Letter? Another of the anonymous ones she spoke about? I didn’t know …”

  The man at his side touched his arm, “The Inspector’s waiting, Mr. Marlowe,” he said, and they moved on.

  In Hammond’s room the Inspector said sharply: “Mr. Marlowe, why did you leave the hotel so hurriedly as soon as you heard of Miss Bond’s death?”

  “I was expecting a letter containing a remittance.” As Mary had Calais engraved on her heart so would Roger Marlowe have this phrase carved on his. He had never been anywhere without using it at the end. “I’d given the post office here as my address. I didn’t know where I’d be staying. In fact, if I hadn’t contacted Miss Bond in the hall here I might have been sleeping on the beach.”

  “Had the remittance arrived?”

  “As a matter ol fact it hadn’t. Damned inconvenient,” said Marlowe. “Got delayed in the post, I suppose. I shall have to have a

  word with the manager here. I’m temporarily pressed, thanks to this hold-up. Of course, if Miss Bond were here she’d have franked me all right, but, as I say, it’s very unfortunate. Mind you, it’s not surprising. Heart failure …”

  “It wasn’t heart failure. It was an overdose of a sedative.”

  He looked up, a startled expression on his face. “Is that so? Poor old lady. Well, well, who’d have thought it?”

  “Thought what, Mr. Marlowe?”

  “She’d have thrown up the sponge after all these years. I thought she was tough right through.”

  “It hasn’t been decided that it was suicide,” the Inspector reminded him dryly. “That’ll be for the coroner to say.”

  Marlowe looked dubious. “A mistake? She wasn’t that sort, I’d have said.”

  “And you knew her well?”

  “I knew her sister. She talked a good deal about Miss Bond, and of course I had met her two or three times. She gave me the impression that even if she was old she was anything but ga-ga.”

  “Mr. Marlowe, did you come down to Brakemouth for the express purpose of seeing Miss Bond?”

  “I? why on earth … ?”

  “You were overheard to say last night that your offer remained open until midday today. What offer was that?”

  “She had said something about going to the police about some letters, and I offered to accompany her. I thought an old lady like that …”

  “You didn’t know her nephew was down here and was available if she had wanted help?”

  “I don’t think we discussed her nephew, but in any case she said she was quite capable of managing her own affairs. She was a tart old lady and she knew her own mind.”

  “Did she tell you what these letters were?”

  He had to think fast. He knew nothing of the letters the Inspector had in mind, but was it possible that the Inspector knew something about Isabel’s? His first action, when he knew Clara Bond was dead, was to destroy the letters. He had packed them into the pockets of his overcoat and gone out to a solitary place on the cliffs. Here he had burnt the lot. For form’s sake he had inquired

  at the post office, in case the police checked up on his story, but the remittance didn’t exist. He wondered if the poKce believed a word of his story and decided most likely they didn’t. All these considerations flashed through his mind while the Inspector waited for his reply.

  “She didn’t show them to me, but I gather they were letters of a threatening nature. I know all about speaking no harm of the dead, but I’d say she was a lady with plenty of enemies.”

  “And she confided all this to you, Mr. Marlowe?” The Inspector knew he was up against a man almost as good in his own line as he, the Inspector, was in his, a man, moreover, who was in a very strong position, since he wasn’t deterred by scruples.

  “Oh, the letters exist all risjht,” he said. “We found them in her bag. There was another last night …”

  “After I saw her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, perhaps that may have clinched things.”

  “There’s one point you perhaps don’t appreciate, Mr. Marlowe, and that is that the sleeping draught was taken in the tea she drank downstairs—before she had seen the last letter.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” said Marlowe. “I’m afraid I can’t help you. Inspector.”

  “And your offer only remained open till midday today?”

  “I was proposing to leave Brakemouth immediately after lunch.”

  “Well, naturally you realize that’s out of the question until after the inquest.”

  Marlowe shrugged. “If you can persuade the manager to house me free of charge,” he said.

  “But surely—your remittance. It must come in the afternoon post.”

  “No must about it,” said Marlowe. “Up in town I could have made inquiries in person.”

  “The telephone,” suggested the Inspector.

  “You know how it is. Some clerk says the matter’s being looked into. You get no satisfaction from long-distance calls.”

  “Mr. Hammond may not be prepared to agree to your leaving Brakemouth without settling your bill.”

  The Inspector didn’t appear to be looking at Marlowe, yet he

  perceived the precisely identical change overwhelm those thin features as had shocked and intimidated old Miss Bond the night before.

  “So that’s the attitude you propose to take up?”

  “This may turn out to be a very serious case, Mr. Marlowe. You don’t need me to tell you that. Until after the inquest I should prefer all the witnesses to remain in the neighborhood.”

  “Anything else I can do for you at the moment?” Marlowe snatched up his hat.

  “Just one more point. What time did you go upstairs last night?”

  “About ten-thirty. I understand it was the porter’s last trip. Miss Pettigrew and one or two other people came up with me, if you want confirmation.”

  “Then, as you passed through the hall, did you happen to see a letter addressed to Miss Bond on the table?”

  “As a matter of fact I didn’t, but you can’t draw any conclusions from that. I wasn’t expecting any mail myself, not at Green-glades, that is, so I shouldn’t notice if there was any for anyone else.”

  Crook wasn’t a psychologist, but even he would have made something out of that admission, and presumably the Inspector did the same. All the Inspector said, however, was that he hadn’t any more questions at the moment, adding that he would like Marlowe to keep in touch for the next day or two.

  When Marlowe came into the hall, Twemlow and John had vanished, but Mr. Crook still sat in his armchair, like the hotel mascot. When he saw Marlowe he said “Any luck? The Inspector seems to be taking the hair off most of his witnesses.”

  “It’s what he’s paid for,” said Marlowe, with his pleasant, public-school smile. “It looks like a clear case of suicide to me.”

  “Any reason why she should obligingly put herself out of the way?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. What about these letters everyone’s speaking of? Mind you, I never saw them, but she was upset about something, all right. Spoke of going to the police this morning …”

  “And then puts herself in a situation where the police have to come to her? Don’t add up to me. I’d say someone was pretty damn anxious she shouldn’t go to the police.”

  Marlowe relaxed by inches. “Trust a lawyer to look on the black side,” he suggested. “Still, if that’s so th
ere’s a sort of rough justice about it. I’ve always believed she had a hand in her sister’s death, even if she didn’t actually push her off the balcony.”

  “I get you.” Crook nodded. “All the same, I wouldn’t pull that one at the inquest. You were goin’ to marry the lady, weren’t you?”

  “I was, if that accident hadn’t happened. It’s enough to make any man suspicious.”

  “Didn’t attend that inquest?” suggested Crook.

  “No. I didn’t know till after the funeral. My letter was answered by Miss Bond, but she took good care not to post it for a couple of days.” He looked speculatively at Crook. “You know a lot more than you say, don’t you?”

  Then the Inspector came out of Mr. Hammond’s room and looked at them curiously. Crook nodded and strolled off. Marlowe went out of the hotel, feeling he was under police supervision. The least relaxation from the law would be dangerous now.

  “Have to trust my luck,” he told himself stoutly, and sure enough it stood him in good stead. He was passing The Running Horse when a voice hailed him by name, and there was Crook inviting him in and saying, “What’s yours?” in a voice that made him certain there’d be luncheon to follow, even though it was improbable he’d raise a loan. His spirits lifted at once. If the police chose to keep him here for their convenience, they could settle his hotel bill. And what a relief to know that for once he needn’t act a part. No sense trying to bamboozle this tough lawyer from London. After two or three drinks he loosened up.

  “Marriage,” he said, “is the most delightful of the impermanen-cies of life.”

  For which observation alone Crook thought his money on drinks had been well laid out.

  Meanwhile the police were at work tracing the anonymous letter. Whoever laid it on that table had to pass die desk coming or going, and any stranger would attract attention. It seemed pretty certain that the letter had been left where it was found by someone, who, if not actually a resident, was known to the management. The reception clerk went off duty at ten-fifteen, but Hart was on duty until ten-thirty, and neither he nor any of the members of the final party he took upstairs, consisting of Miss Pettigrew, Commander and Mrs. Potter, Mr. Marlowe, and a lady called Fisher, had any recollection of seeing the letter in the hall. It appeared, therefore, either that the letter had been brought into the hotel between ten-thirty and, say, ten forty-five, when John and Miss Bond left the small drawing room, or else someone, a resident, had slipped into the hall after Hart had made his final journey to the upper floors, and left the letter where it was subsequently found.