Three Inquisitive People

by Dennis Wheatley

  “Then that leaves—er—only your own man,” Simon suggested tentatively.

  “My two men,” the Duke corrected. “I keep a chef; but, as it happens, since I dined out that evening he was at liberty and did not return until past eleven; Max, my valet, has been with me for many years and is devoted to me. In fact I have to thank him upon more than one occasion for my life. We have travelled greatly together, Max and I; quite honestly I believe that no leisured respectability would compensate him for my death. He is that fine type of personal servant for whom there is no recompense except the appreciation and friendship of his master. With Max, in this matter, we shall not be concerned.”

  “This doesn’t seem to get us much further,” said Mr. Schatz, pursing his lips. “We’ll get the inquiry people to find out, too, just how old and shaky Mr. Vidal and his butler are, but I don’t think much is likely to come of that. You don’t mention the women in these flats, are they quite out of the question?”

  “Quite,” De Richleau nodded his head. “The base of the skull was badly fractured. It would have to have been a strong man to have dealt such blows. But let us hear now if the time of that all-important telephone-call has been settled.” He turned to Aron.

  “Yes,” Simon nodded. “I saw the people at the Club. They keep a record, we traced the number, and the call was put through at 10.03.”

  “Three minutes past ten,” Mr. Schatz repeated. “Now that is something definite to go on, a very fine point in our favour. I suppose you didn’t find out anything about the pearls?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I did.”

  “Come on, then,” laughed Rex. “Spill the beans.”

  Simon grinned. “I had a talk with one or two people I know in Hatton Garden, then I had a little bit of luck. I ran across the chap that made them.”

  “But what good fortune,” the Duke smiled. “And may one inquire when he made them?”

  “Early in August. Must have been just before Lady Shoesmith went to Deauville.”

  “This is most interesting. And did she give him instructions herself, or was it as we suggested, a thief who had them made for substitution?”

  “Ner—” Simon was thoroughly enjoying himself, he looked round the table, smiling broadly. “It’s very interesting, this—he was ordered to make the copies by Sir Gideon Shoesmith.”

  19

  Simon Aron Makes Insinuations

  “So the old man fixed it,” said Rex.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” Simon murmured, as he leaned back, both hands thrust into his trouser pockets.

  “And,” said the Duke, studying him fixedly, “may I inquire what you infer from that?”

  “All depends—perhaps he was acting on her behalf; curious, though, that it should have been just at the same time that the real pearls were restrung.”

  “How do the dates compare? I understand that Collingwood’s restrung the real pearls on August 9th. Sir Gideon left them in the afternoon and called for them on the following day.”

  “Then the dates do compare rather well, really.” Simon smiled. “He left them in Hatton Garden to be copied on the 8th. As it happens he was in no end of a hurry there as well—said he couldn’t leave them for more than twenty-four hours. Now, I don’t mind telling you, in the ordinary way they’d take a week to do the selecting of the false pearls from stock on a job like that, but this chap sat up matching all night; I bet it cost Sir Gideon something—those sort of people don’t work for nothing.”

  “We may assume then that Sir Gideon took them first to your man to be copied, and immediately he got them back he took them to Collingwood’s to be restrung. It’s certainly curious that on previous occasions the jewellers had always been allowed two days, and on this they were only given one.”

  “In other words,” said Mr. Schatz abruptly, “you infer that the pearls had been entrusted to Sir Gideon for restringing and he took the opportunity to have them copied as well?”

  Simon’s head nodded like a Chinese mandarin’s. “Exactly. D’you know, directly I heard he’d been in such a hurry, I thought there must be something fishy about it.”

  “You are assuming, of course, that Lady Shoesmith had no knowledge of the transaction?” asked Mr. Schatz.

  “Um!” Simon leant forward eagerly. “Let’s assume for a moment that Sir Gideon, for some purpose, never mind what, wanted to have Lady Shoesmith’s pearls copied without her knowledge. How could he do it? She always wore them. It would be a difficult job. He couldn’t just go to the safe and borrow them for a week, and he couldn’t have a copy made without handing over the original—not a good enough copy to deceive Lady Shoesmith, anyhow. His only chance would be when she had them restrung. He could offer to take them to Collingwood’s for her and take them to Hatton Garden instead.”

  “He’d have been in a nasty jam if she’d stepped into Collingwood’s to collect them when the other guy had the goods,” said Rex quickly.

  “Ner.” Simon shook his head. “Ner, I think he was clever there. He knew she wouldn’t call on Collingwood’s on the 8th because they always took two days. If she called on the 9th it didn’t matter—he’d say he’d forgotten to take them round the day before. If he’d had them restrung first, and copied afterwards, he might have been in a muddle—a very nasty muddle—if Collingwood’s had told her he’d collected them and he couldn’t produce the goods, but he avoided that.”

  “It certainly looks as if he’d done it without her knowledge.”

  “Um, otherwise why was he in such a hurry?” Simon pressed his point. “If Lady Shoesmith didn’t mind being without her pearls for a couple of days when they were restrung, surely she wouldn’t have minded being without them for a day or two more to have them really well copied.”

  “I still don’t see,” Mr. Schatz drummed upon the table with his podgy fingers, “how this can in any way affect Eaton’s case. He confesses to having taken the pearls and whether they are real or false is quite immaterial.”

  “You don’t see?” Simon looked at the lawyer with half-closed eyes. “But surely, there can only have been one reason for his wanting to have them copied—without Lady Shoesmith’s knowledge, I mean?”

  “Presumably he wished to pledge or sell the real ones.”

  “Exactly!”

  “You mean he must have been hard up?” “Exactly!”

  “I see your point. We have hitherto regarded Sir Gideon as a rich man, if that were not so, there might be some motive….”

  “Exactly! Apart from the legacies, he comes into Lady Shoesmith’s personal estate.”

  Rex laughed. “Oh, have a heart, Aron, it couldn’t have been Sir Gideon. He was out all the evening.”

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t.” Simon chuckled into the palm of his hand. “All the same, if he was sufficiently hard-up in August to risk copying the pearls to raise about three thousand—well, eighteen thousand might come in pretty handy in November. I don’t know—I’m just wondering, that’s all.”

  “Have you by any chance any accurate information about Sir Gideon’s financial situation?” the Duke inquired.

  “Ner,” Simon shook his head, still smiling. “He’s supposed to be a big man in Sheffield, I believe. He’s a chartered accountant. There’s a lot of money to be made by a clever chartered accountant; he sees the insides of so many people’s books.”

  Rex grinned. “Yes, they get the low-down there, all right, play the market in other people’s stocks. It’s a great game as long as you don’t come up against the unexpected—tariff wall, or prohibition or something of that kind—if you do, you take the air just as badly as the fellow who owns the books.”

  “Then—er—there’s the question of the Slough property,” Simon went on slowly. “Sir Gideon didn’t want Lady Shoesmith to sell that to help Richard—he didn’t want that a little bit.”

  Mr. Schatz looked up sharply. “D’you suggest that he wanted his wife to sell it to help him?”

  “I don’t know,” sai
d Simon innocently. “I’m only wondering. He might have thought it would come in useful if he wanted help himself later. On the other hand, the same thing may have happened to Slough as happened to the pearls.”

  “Say, that’s going a bit far!” argued Rex. “He couldn’t cash in that property without her knowledge.”

  “Don’t know—don’t say he has. Thanks,” Simon carefully selected another long Hoyo from the big box that the Duke pushed towards him. “But lots of husbands and wives have their accounts at the same bank, and the wife lets the husband act for her. Some women’ll sign anything you put in front of ’em, you know.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Schatz. “Had a case myself only last month. Man transferred a whole block of securities from his wife’s account to his own to cover a loan account. Did it years ago, she never knew a thing about it till he died, but she signed the papers at the time; and now, poor woman, she’s practically penniless—dreadful case.”

  “And you think, Aron, that something of the sort has taken place here.” De Richleau looked thoughtful. “If it had, of course, it then becomes an immediate explanation as to why Sir Gideon was so anxious to prevent Lady Shoesmith from helping her son. Had she decided to sell, the title deeds would have had to be produced; that would have meant immediate exposure for Sir Gideon. If we have any evidence to show that it was her intention to sell against Sir Gideon’s advice, that would provide a very strong motive for the murder.”

  “Exactly!” Simon’s bird-like head went up and down. “He would have been in a terrible muddle.”

  “I think you are allowing yourselves to be carried away to an almost fantastic degree of speculation,” said Mr. Schatz with a shake of his head. “To begin with there’s no proof that the pearls were not copied with Lady Shoesmith’s knowledge and at her request. As far as the Slough property is concerned, we know quite definitely that she had not the least intention of selling it without Sir Gideon’s approval, and your suggestion about him having lodged the deeds to cover an overdraft has not the slightest foundation. Above all, there is no single factor which might suggest that Sir Gideon was in the flat between seven o’clock and a little before eleven. He is miles outside our proved time limits, and not only was he not there, but we know that he was at a public banquet, where every moment of his time can be accounted for.”

  “I’ve forgotten for the moment what that banquet was,” remarked De Richleau.

  “The London and Yorkshire Commercial Association at the Park Lane Hotel—only half a block from Aron’s Club,” Rex volunteered.

  The Duke nodded. “Yes, of course, I remember now. But I confess I agree with Mr. Schatz. We have no real grounds for suspecting Sir Gideon personally. At the same time our inquiry about the pearls has not proved altogether fruitless. Thanks principally to Aron, we’ve secured some very interesting information, and I feel that we might well follow the matter up. Could you, for instance, Mr. Schatz, ascertain from Lady Shoesmith’s solicitors the present whereabouts of these valuable deeds?”

  “Certainly. I’ll make a point of it tomorrow.”

  “And could you, Van Ryn, through your banking interests over here, perhaps, secure some information regarding Sir Gideon’s financial stability, and more particularly the state of his accounts in recent months? I take it that in your position you would be able to press for a much more detailed statement than would be forthcoming through an ordinary banker’s inquiry?”

  “That is so,” Rex agreed. “Most times they’re close as oysters about personal accounts, but I’ll turn the inquiry over to the special branch, they get the dope all right.”

  “Admirable—and Aron, you perhaps could fill in any gaps that may appear in Van Ryn’s report by making a similar inquiry through Schröchild Brothers?”

  Simon gave his jerky little laugh into the palm of his hand. “I think we can manage that.”

  “And in addition,” De Richleau smiled, “if you could manage to have a further talk with some of your friends in Hatton Garden, we might learn if the real pearls have come on the market.”

  “Ner—I don’t think so. As a matter of fact I did have a chat with one or two people today, but they couldn’t tell me anything. I’ll tell you, it’s not easy; still I’ll see what I can do.”

  Mr. Schatz pushed back his chair and stood up. “Well, we can’t have too much information,” he declared. “But I don’t think you can seriously consider Sir Gideon. The pearls and the deeds have no bearing on the case, nor would the fact of his being hard up, if you found it to be true. He could not possibly have been the person concerned.”

  “No,” said the Duke slowly. “But if the motive was sufficiently strong, it is just possible that he employed some other person to act for him.”

  20

  How the Duke Wiled Away the Hours Between Twelve-Thirty and Three

  Two days later the Duke de Richleau stood admiring the ducks on the lake in St. James’s Park, many of which are said to be the lineal descendants of those placed there by Charles II.

  Earlier in the morning the Duke had sent a message to Simon Aron, carefully explaining the exact point in the park at which he proposed to be at twelve-thirty, and suggesting that Simon should join him there and, afterwards, for luncheon.

  De Richleau had carefully refrained from speaking to Aron upon the telephone, as he might easily have done, since he had felt that Simon being a very busy young man, might suggest that they should confine their meeting to lunch. For the same reason he had omitted to mention where the luncheon was to be, in order to give Simon no opportunity of keeping the latter appointment only.

  It was one of those rare mornings in November when London has a peculiar loveliness of its own; a pale but pleasant sunshine upon the falling leaves, and a nip in the air without the slightest malice. The Duke had decided that it was definitely a morning to walk in the park, and his only problem had been to choose an interesting companion. It was a problem which had come to worry him more and more in recent years. It seemed to him that only a little while ago nobody he knew had done anything at all. They might be in the army or the Diplomatic Corps; write monographs on Chinese art; or play some part in the government of a nation. In fact, they had all been busy people in their way, but it had been a charming, leisurely business. But now all that seemed changed. Everybody worked; only the old, the dull, the uninteresting, still had leisure, the rest were frantically active, keeping a million telephone transmitters buzzing with their conversations, and causing their secretaries to fill countless thousands of note-books with the high speed hieroglyphics of their dictation. They arrived late for luncheon, and abandoned their coffee with muttered excuses of having to get back to their offices. An infinitely pathetic world in the eyes of Monseigneur le Duke de Richleau.

  It had occurred to the Duke, therefore, that morning when he had been seated at breakfast in his Chinese robe, that it would be an interesting experiment to see if Aron’s curiosity regarding the Shoesmith affair would be sufficient to drag him from his office in the city, in the middle of the morning. If Aron turned up, as the Duke thought he would, the problem of spending the hours between twelve-thirty and three in a pleasant and interesting manner would have been solved; and De Richleau never disguised the fact from himself or his friends that the principal object of his life was to pass it in a pleasant and interesting manner.

  The Duke turned from his contemplation of the ducks, thinking how suitable it was that the royal birds should have had such numerous progeny, when Charles himself had been responsible for half the aristocracy who had used the park in after generations, and saw hurrying towards him down one of the gravel paths the slim figure of Simon Aron.

  Tightly buttoned into a smart blue overcoat that made his shoulders seem narrower than ever, with short quick steps Simon came hastening along. He waved his stick in greeting when he realised that the Duke had seen him.

  De Richleau sauntered to meet him, a smile playing about his thin lips. “Good morning, Aron,” he said lightly
. “Why do you hurry so, you will be out of breath, my friend?”

  “Thought I was late—man kept me at the office.”

  “It would not have mattered in the least if you had been,” the Duke smiled. “It only occurred to me at breakfast that it would be a delightful morning for a walk in the park, and I thought you might care to join me.”

  “Good God!” Simon exclaimed. “I wish I’d known that. I thought it was something important. I’ve got an awfully busy day on.”

  “Dear me!” De Richleau’s eyebrows went up, and he appeared to be most concerned. “That fool of a man could not have given you my message clearly. Just to think that I have brought you all this way from your office. I am indeed sorry.”

  Simon glanced to right and left, and then quickly at his watch. The Duke chuckled inwardly, thinking of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland and, in truth, Simon’s arc of nose lent colour to the likeness. “Can’t be done,” he said at last, resignedly, thrusting back his watch. “Well, anyhow, here we are.”

  “Yes,” said the Duke sweetly. “Here we are, let us walk a little.” And he began to stroll gently along the bank of the lake. “Tell me, Aron, do you come often to this charming park?”

  “I?—Ner—” Simon fell into step beside him. “To tell the truth, I don’t think I’ve ever been in it before in my life.”

  “Now, that I think is quite amazing, for you are a great lover of beauty, are you not? And this little park, when the flowers are out, is quite charming. Even as you see today, when the flowers are no longer here—providing there is a little sunshine—it is a very pleasant place in which to be.”

  “Don’t know how it is, but I never seem to have time.”

  “Ah, I know, it is so sad that lack of time. I am a fortunate person, incurably lazy; and I would not be cured of my laziness if I could. It enables me to enjoy so many pleasant things that other people have not the time to do.”

  “Do you come here every day?” Simon inquired.