Sisters in Crime
Page 26
‘I think,’ he said aloud to the inspector, ‘that we would be glad to have Mr Fiske tell us the circumstances that led to the writing of this manly and straightforward letter.’
George Fiske looked up at the sound of his name. ‘Has that come to light?’ he said, blushing a little at being thus suddenly brought into prominence. ‘I supposed it would, but somehow I didn’t want to refer to it until someone else discovered it.’
‘Tell us all about it,’ said Bayliss in his pleasant, chummy way, and at once Fiske began.
‘Last Saturday morning,’ he said, ‘Mr Hemmingway had a long talk with me. He expressed his satisfaction with my work as his secretary and kindly avowed his complete trust and confidence in my integrity. He then asked me if I would be willing to act as executor of his estate when the time should come that such a service was necessary. He said it was his intention to bring the whole matter before his lawyer in a few days but first wished to be assured of my willingness to act as executor. He told me, too, that he would add a codicil to his will leaving me a moderate sum of money. All of this was on Saturday morning, and when I left at noon, as I always do on Saturdays, he gave me a large bundle of securities and also his will, asking me to keep them for him for a few days.’
‘You have his will then?’ asked Inspector Garson quickly.
‘I have, and also the bonds of which I have given you a memorandum. They are all at your disposal at any time.’
‘Then Mr Hemmingway died without adding the codicil to his will in your favour,’ observed Bayliss.
‘Yes,’ replied Fiske, ‘but that is a minor matter in the face of the present tragedy.’ Bayliss felt slightly rebuked, but he couldn’t help admiring the manly way in which Fiske had spoken.
‘And this conversation occurred on Saturday,’ went on Mr Garson. ‘You took occasion to write to Mr Hemmingway on Sunday?’
‘I did,’ agreed Fiske. ‘I was so surprised at the whole thing that I was unable to express myself at our interview. I am always tongue-tied under stress of great pressure or excitement. So I sat down Saturday afternoon and wrote to Mr Hemmingway. I mailed the letter Sunday evening, and he had already received it when I reached here on Monday morning at ten o’clock as usual.’
‘Did he refer to your letter?’ asked Bayliss.
‘Yes. He said he was glad I wrote it and that he would answer it on paper that I might also have his sentiments in black and white. Then he said we would discuss the matter more fully after a day or two, and we then turned our attention to other matters.’
‘And this revelation he made to you?’ queried Inspector Garson, running his eyes over the letter.
Mr Fiske hesitated and looked not only embarrassed but genuinely disturbed. ‘That, Mr Garson, I want to be excused from telling.’
‘Excused from telling! Why, man, it may help to elucidate the mystery of Mr Hemmingway’s death!’
‘Oh, I hope not, I hope not!’ said Fiske so earnestly that both Bayliss and the inspector looked at him in surprise.
‘You do know something,’ said Mr Garson quickly, ‘that may have a bearing on the mystery, and I must insist that you tell it.’
‘It is because it may seem to have a bearing that I hesitate,’ said Mr Fiske gravely. ‘But, to put it boldly, as I told you I am not fluent under stress of excitement; in a word, then, Mr Hemmingway implied to me that … that he had a half-defined fear that some time his life might … might end suddenly.’
‘In the way it did?’
‘Yes, in that way. He feared that someone desired his death and that was the reason he asked me to care for his will and his valuable securities for a few days.’
‘Why were these things not in a safe deposit vault?’ asked Bert Bayliss.
‘They have been, but a few days ago Mr Hemmingway had them brought home to make some records and changes, and as it was Saturday he could not send them back then, so he gave them to me. I have a small safe at home, and, of course, I was willing to keep them for him.’
‘Then Mr Hemmingway feared both robbery and murder,’ said Bayliss, and Mr Fiske shuddered at this cold-blooded way of putting it.
‘Yes, he did,’ said the secretary frankly.
‘And whom did he suspect as his enemy?’
‘That I hope you will allow me not to answer.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Fiske,’ broke in the inspector, ‘but you have knowledge possessed by no one else. You must, therefore, in the interests of justice, tell us the name of the man whom Hemmingway feared.’
‘The man,’ said George Fiske slowly, ‘is the one who inherits the bulk of Mr Hemmingway’s fortune.’
‘Everett Collins, his nephew?’
‘His wife’s nephew,’ corrected George Fiske. ‘Yes, since I am forced to tell it, Mr Hemmingway feared that Mr Collins was in haste to come into his inheritance, and … and …’
‘You have done your duty, Mr Fiske,’ said Inspector Garson, ‘and I thank you. I quite appreciate your hesitancy, but crime must be punished if possible, and you need not appear further in the matter. After your evidence the law can take the whole affair into its own hands.’
III
The law took its course. Though circumstantial evidence was lacking, the statement of George Fiske and the undoubted opportunity and evident motive combined caused the arrest of Everett Collins. The will, when produced, left nearly all the estate to him, and as he was known to be a thriftless, improvident young man the majority of those interested felt convinced that he was indeed the villain.
The property of the late Mr Hemmingway, however, was of far less amount than was generally supposed, and also the large fortune which he had in trust for his ward, Miss Sheldon, had dwindled surprisingly. But this, of course, was in no way the fault of the nephew, and it was thought that Mr Hemmingway had perhaps been unfortunate in his investments. George Fiske became executor, as desired by the late millionaire, but probate of the will was deferred until after Everett Collins should have been tried at the bar of justice.
Collins himself was stubbornly quiet. He seemed rather dazed at the position in which he found himself but had nothing to say except a simple assertion of his innocence.
And he is innocent, Harris! declared Bert Bayliss soundlessly. No villain ever possessed that simple straightforward gaze. Villains are complex. That man may be a spendthrift and a ne’er-do-well, but I’ll sear he’s no murderer, and I’ll prove it!
Marvellous, Bayliss, marvellous! said Harris.
Bayliss had come to Clearbrook on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Collins was arrested. On Wednesday afternoon Bayliss shut himself up alone in the library to clue-hunt, as he called it. Acting on his conviction that Collins was innocent he eagerly sought for evidence in some other direction. Seating himself at Mr Hemmingway’s desk, he jotted down a few notes, using for the purpose a pencil from the pen tray in front of him. He looked at the pencil abstractedly and then he suddenly stared at it intently.
A clue! he said mentally to Harris. Hush, don’t speak, though Harris hadn’t. I sure have a clue, but such a dinky one.
He looked at the pencil as at a valuable curio. He glanced about the desk for others and found several. In a drawer he found many more. They were all of the same make and same number, and while those on the desk were all more or less well sharpened, those in the drawer had never yet been cut.
‘Oh!’ said Bayliss, and, putting carefully into his pocket the pencil he had used in making his notes, he began scrutinizing the wastebasket. There were not many torn papers in it, but the top ones were letters, envelopes or circulars, each torn once across. On top of these were some chips of pencil cedar and a trifle of black dust.
As if collecting precious treasure Bayliss, with extreme care, listed out the top layer of torn envelopes and, without disarranging the tiny wooden chips and black lead scrapings, laid all in a box, which he then put in a small cupboard and, locking its door, put the key in his pocket. Then he returned to the desk and picked up the packet of lett
ers which had been received on Monday and from which Mr Fiske’s letter had been taken. There were about a dozen of them, and he looked with interest at each one. Every one was cut open the same way, not by a letter-opener but with shears – a quick, clean cut which took off a tiny edge along the right-hand end. Each was stamped at the top with the rubber ‘Received’ stamp in red ink.
Clever, clever villain! mused Bayliss. I say, Harris, he’s the slickest ever! And nobody could have found him but Yours Truly.
Marvellous, murmured Harris.
Then straight to Inspector Garson Bayliss marched and asked to see the letter that Mr Fiske wrote to Mr Hemmingway. Receiving it, he stared at it steadily for a moment then, going to the window, scrutinized it through a lens.
Moved by an excitement which he strove not to show he returned it to Mr Garson, saying, ‘You’ve no doubt, I suppose, as to the genuineness of that letter and all that it means and implies?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ said Mr Garson, looking straight at the young man. ‘I have wondered whether there could be anything wrong about Fiske, but that letter is incontrovertible evidence of his veracity.’
‘Why couldn’t it be faked?’ persisted Bayliss.
‘I’ve thought of that,’ said Mr Garson patiently, ‘but it’s too real. Whether it was written Sunday or not, it was positively posted Sunday evening, and it was positively delivered to Mr Hemmingway Monday morning. The postmark proves that. Then Mr Hemmingway opened it, for it is cut open precisely the way he cuts open all his letters, and he dated it with his own dating-stamp and put it with his lot ‘To be answered’. Can anything be more convincing of Fiske’s good faith?’
‘And yet,’ said Bert Bayliss, ‘it is a faked letter, and George Fiske’s the murderer of Richard Hemmingway!’
‘My dear sir, what do you mean?’
‘Just what I say. Richard Hemmingway never saw this letter!’
‘Can you prove that?’
‘I can. Look at the envelope closely with this lens in a strong light. What do you see between the letters of Mr Hemmingway’s name?’
‘I see …’ the inspector peered closer ‘… I see faint pencil marks.’
‘Can you make out what they spell?’
‘No … yes … “G-e-o” … is it “George Fiske”?’
‘It is, though not all the letters are discernible. Fiske wrote this letter on Sunday and mailed it on Sunday, but – he addresses it to himself, not to his employer.’
‘Why?’ exclaimed Mr Garson in amazement.
‘Listen. He addressed it with a very soft pencil to himself, and traced the address very lightly. It reached his boarding-house Monday morning, of course, and then he erased the pencil marks and boldly wrote Mr Hemmingway’s name in ink. Then he cut off the end in precisely the way Mr Hemmingway opens his letters and put the whole thing in his pocket. All day he carried it in his pocket (I am reconstructing this affair as it must have happened), and at four o’clock he went home with the missive still there.
‘Late Monday night he returned. After the three visitors had left he strangled Mr Hemmingway. He knows he’s an athlete, and his employer was a frail man.
‘And then he used the rubber stamp on his own letter and tucked it into the bunch of ‘To be answered’. Then he rifled the safe with Mr Hemmingway’s own keys, turned off all the lights but one and swiftly and silently went home to bed. The rest you know.’
‘Mr Bayliss, I can scarcely believe this!’ said Inspector Garson, fairly gasping for breath.
‘What, you can’t believe it when the villain has written his own name as damning evidence against himself?’
‘It must be,’ said the inspector, again scrutinizing the faint trace of pencil marks. ‘But why did he do it?’
‘Because he wanted to be executor and thus be able to convert into cash the securities he has stolen.’
‘He returned those.’
‘Only a few. Oh, it was a clever and deep-laid scheme. Fiske has quantities of bonds and other valuable papers entirely unaccounted for and which, as sole executor, he can cash at his leisure, all unknown to anyone.’
‘How did you discover this?’
‘By the simplest clue. I chanced to notice on Mr Hemmingway’s desk a pencil, freshly sharpened, but sharpened in a totally different way from those sharpened by the man himself. I looked at all the other pencils on his desk, at the one taken from his pocket and at one in his bedroom – they are all sharpened in exactly the same way with numerous long careful shaves, producing a whittled pyramid. The pencil I spoke of – here it is – is sharpened by only five strong, clean cuts, making a short exposure of cut wood quite different from the long point of wood in the others. Then I looked in the wastebasket – which at your orders had not been touched since the discovery of the crime – and on top I found the chips and lead dust of this very pencil. They were on top of some torn envelopes whose postmarks proved they had come in Monday evening’s mail, which reaches the Hemmingway house about six-thirty. Hence, whoever sharpened that pencil did it after six-thirty o’clock Monday night and before the discovery of Mr Hemmingway’s dead body.’
Mr Garson listened breathlessly. ‘And then?’ he said.
‘And then,’ went on Bayliss, ‘I looked around for some pencils sharpened like that and found several on and in Fiske’s desk in the library. The pencil might have been borrowed from Fiske’s desk, but it was sharpened right there at Mr Hemmingway’s desk after half-past six. Fiske, as you know, testified that he left at four and did not return until Tuesday morning.’
Bayliss’s deductions were true. Confronted suddenly with the story and with the traced envelope, Fiske broke down completely and confessed all. He had been planning it for weeks and had the decoy letter ready to use when Mr Hemmingway should have a large amount of bonds in his own home safe. The whole story of the Saturday-morning interview was a figment of Fiske’s fertile brain, and, of course, Mr Hemmingway had no suspicions of his nephew. Fiske had known of the expected callers, had watched outside the house until the last one went away and then, running up the steps, had stopped Mr Hemmingway just as he was closing the door and requested a short interview. Innocently enough, Mr Hemmingway took his secretary into the library and, while waiting for his fell opportunity, Fiske talked over some business matters. While making a memorandum Mr Hemmingway broke his pencil point and, unthinkingly, Fiske obligingly sharpened it.
And to think, murmured Bayliss to Harris, that little act of ordinary courtesy proved his undoing!
Marvellous, Bayliss, marvellous! said Harris.
MIKE ASHLEY is a full-time writer, editor and researcher who has compiled over one hundred books, from studies including The Seven Wonders of the World and The British Monarchy to such specialist works as Starlight Man, the biography of Algernon Blackwood, and The Mammoth Book of King Arthur. With William Contento he compiled The Supernatural Index. He has also edited two companion volumes to Sisters in Crime for Peter Owen: The Darker Sex: Tales of the Supernatural and Macabre by Victorian Women Writers and The Dreaming Sex: Early Tales of Scientific Imagination by Women. He lives in Kent with his wife and three cats.
Also edited by Mike Ashley and published by Peter Owen
The Darker Sex:
Tales of the Supernatural and Macabre by Victorian Women Writers
The Dreaming Sex:
Early Tales of Scientific Imagination by Women
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This collection first published in Great Britain 2013 by Peter Owen Publishers
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