Methylated Murder

by Methylated Murder (retail) (epub)

  “So why not tell it all?” asked Sleet. “But I’m tired, utterly worn out. Is this the man?”

  Harrison nodded.

  “He looks as if he would let me sleep,” said Sleet, wearily.

  While Metman again guarded Sleet, Harrison quickly explained to Rutley what had happened up by the war memorial. The man looked sadly at Harrison as he heard the details of Clem Tarrack’s end.

  “But who is going to tell his mother?” asked Rutley.

  “It would be best for you to,” answered Harrison.

  “I don’t like the job, Mr. Harrison, I can tell you quite frankly,” said the sergeant. “You see the way I’m being treated now by the village. I really don’t want to take it on unless you say it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Just a minute,” said Harrison. He turned to Dorice who was standing a little way off with Henry, Eric and Peary. “I want a word with you, Miss Locket.”

  Dorice came towards him with a smile. Harrison found it hard to believe that this was the hysterical, panic-stricken girl of the cave of only a short while ago. He marvelled again at the astonishing spirit of the genuine Cockney. After the most terrifying experiences they spring back to the normal with surprising speed. He had seen it in Henry, time and again, he had seen it in the Great War, but it was still a marvel to him.

  “Miss Locket,” he said, “this is Sergeant Rutley.”

  “Yes,” she said, doubtfully, her manner showing her objection to dealings with the police.

  “He wants you to help him,” Harrison went on. “You told me that Clem Tarrack was gentle, didn’t you?”

  “I did and I meant it. I take back everything I said about him. If ever there was a real gentleman, it was Clem. He didn’t look it, but that wasn’t his fault. I know.”

  “Clem’s mother lives near here, Miss Locket,” said Harrison. “She has to be told.”

  “You want me to tell her?” asked the girl.

  “You’re the best person to,” said Harrison.

  “I can’t.”

  “Before you decide quite so definitely, Miss Locket,” said Harrison, “I want you to tell me something. Why did Clem fight Manners?”

  “He was angry because Manners had treated me so badly.”

  “Exactly,” said Harrison. “And would it be fair to say that, if Manners had not killed him, Clem would have killed Manners?”

  The girl looked troubled and did not reply.

  “For you,” urged Harrison.

  “I suppose so,” mumbled Dorice.

  “You admit that he was ready to kill Manners for your sake; I am not going to insist that Manners killed him because of that. I think he may have had some quite different reason, but I may be wrong. Surely it’s not asking too much for you to go and speak to his mother?”

  “But what shall I say?”

  “You will know best yourself,” answered Harrison. “Mrs. Tarrack worshipped her son, and you, more than any one, can make things easier for her. I can assure you, too, although you must put this very carefully, that this was the best way out for Clem.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the girl.

  “When he had no control over himself,” said Harrison, “Clem did some terrible things.”

  Dorice looked with loathing towards where Sleet was standing. “He made him?” she asked.

  Harrison nodded.

  “Very well,” answered Dorice, turning to the policeman, “let’s get it over.”

  “Thank you, Miss Locket,” said Harrison, with a smile. “I knew I could trust you.”

  “Trust me? You?” answered the girl, some of her pertness returning, “That’s a new one.”

  “I’m going straight back to town,” Harrison went on. “What are you going to do?”

  “I shall go back to the flat.”

  “After what has happened?”

  “Why not? I like it there. I’m not likely to be thrown out straight away, am I?”

  “Hardly, I should think,” answered Harrison. “You won’t find your sister there.”

  “That’s one consolation,” was the cheerful reply.

  Harrison smiled again. Dorice’s buoyancy had a refreshingly tonic effect on him. With all their strange habits and superficial vulgarities these Cockney girls were made of rare metal. He said good-bye to her and she went off down the village street with Rutley, while he and the others made for the policeman’s cottage. Leaving Sleet in charge of Metman, he and Peary, Eric and Henry, packed themselves into the motor-car and were soon on the way to London. There was no sign of the landlord as they repassed the inn, but Henry commented on the possibility of their being under the strictest observation.

  “Rutley will put all that right,” said Harrison. “And now, Eric, I think Henry and I are entitled to some explanation of your desertion from the post of duty and appearing here in such an undignified position?”

  “Force, sir,” answered Eric, importantly.

  “That’s no excuse,” said Henry, crushingly.

  “Well, sir, it was like this,” said Eric, with a little less assurance. “Not long after you went, a man called. Remembering you had told me to keep my eyes open I was very cautious, but he was so obviously someone who wanted you on business, and he said it was very important, that I let him in.”

  “So you actually let Sleet into the chambers, Eric?” said Harrison.

  “I had no idea who he was, sir,” apologised Eric. “Directly he got in, sir, he closed the door and stood against it. I didn’t understand what he was up to, so I asked him what I could do for him. He looked queerly at me and said he was Moriarty. Then I didn’t quite catch it, so he said he wanted to talk things over with Messrs. Holmes and Watson.”

  “That was a shock, Eric,” said Harrison.

  “And explains why Bonnington’s boy was hanging around to have a good look at him,” commented Henry.

  “He laughed as if he thought it was a good joke,” Eric continued, “And then he produced a revolver, sir, and told me not to try any tricks. I might be a clever young man, but he was cleverer than I was. I had made a mistake to interfere with him. No one interfered with him and got away with it. Not even Clay Harrison. By the way, he said he supposed I knew what had happened to my respected master. Very unfortunate that it had to be so, but it was his own fault for interfering. Dead as a doornail.”

  “That was a surprise for you, Eric,” said Harrison.

  “More than that, sir, it riled me,” was the reply. “Even though he had revolver, I couldn’t let that go. ‘Quick work,’ I said, ‘Mr. Harrison was pretty much alive when he left here not so very long ago. I suppose he had a heart attack in the Strand.’”

  “That’s a nice way to go on, Eric,” said Henry. “You might have messed everything up.”

  “Eric didn’t know about the arsenic, Henry,” said Harrison.

  “I know, sir,” protested Henry. “But still—”

  “To my mind, Henry, it was providential,” said Harrison.

  “I don’t understand,” said Henry.

  “I can’t stop and explain now,” answered Harrison. “Let Eric get on with his story.”

  “Well, sir,” said Eric, “the man’s face went a bit green and his eyes seemed to pop out of his head. Then he looked fiercely at me, and his voice seemed to get very loud, even though he didn’t seem to raise it, if you know what I mean, sir, and he said I was lying. He waved the revolver about and said he’d shoot me like a dog for not telling him the truth. But he really was convinced, I could see that. I said nothing, and then suddenly he said, ‘That alters things,’ and became quite normal again.”

  “Our Mr. Sleet is certainly a very remarkable man, Henry,” said Harrison. “Even with a blow like that he can immediately decide on a new plan of campaign. Go on, Eric.”

  “All quietly, sir,” said Eric, “he stood there and turned things over in his mind. Then he seemed to make it up, and he felt disposed to be funny again. He started mocking me about Holmes and Watson. He wou
ld pay me the compliment of being smart enough to think of it myself, but he had no doubt Clay Harrison had put me up to it. Still, if I was so smart, it was a pity not to reward me suitably. That was the sort of thing he could not do suitably in the chambers, so if I would accept his invitation to join him in his car it would be a better arrangement.”

  “And you found it impossible to refuse anything so pressing?” said Henry.

  “He explained that he would have the revolver in his pocket trained on me all the time,” answered Eric. “And I thought then he would have used it. So I went with him, and he carefully closed the door behind us. It was queer walking across to King’s Bench Walk, knowing the person next to you was willing to shoot you at the slightest suspicion. We must have looked so natural and ordinary to the other people about. A friend of mine even nodded to me. I wondered to myself, sir, how often that sort of thing might happen in the Temple without anybody else realising it.”

  “An astonishing thought, Eric,” commented Harrison.

  “I watched every chance as we got into the car, and there wasn’t an earthly,” said Eric. “When we got well out of London into the country he stopped the car in a tiny lane and made me get out. ‘Lucky for you,’ he said, ‘I can’t kill a man in cold blood.’ So he tied me up and pushed me in the back of the car and there I was until you found me, sir.”

  “And that remark of his made you wonder whether he would have shot you in the Temple after all, Eric, is that so?” asked Harrison.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you say, Henry?”

  “I should have done what Eric did—taken no chances,” answered Henry.

  “I agree,” said Harrison. “There is only one regret I have over leaving the chambers unoccupied, and that is that Mrs. Cant and her guardian angel may be having a dreary wait on the stairs.”

  “Are you expecting them, sir?” asked Henry.

  “Well, if Sleet was seen by a policeman in that district, it seems fairly obvious that he was calling or had called on them. Going a bit further, we might assume that he was driven away with the aid of the timely revolver. And then I think we are entitled to expect that they would immediately make for me, or, at any rate, you, Henry, for protection.”

  “It seems to me, sir,” said Henry, “that Mr. Sleet was very busy paying calls this morning. Doesn’t that strike you as rather peculiar when his main idea must have been to get out of the country safely?”

  “It certainly needs a little more explanation,” answered Harrison. “But we ought to be able to make a satisfactory guess. Mr. Sleet does not like loose ends. He plans in detail, and wants everything tidily cleared up. We can’t dispute that. Still, here we are at the chambers and now we can verify my prophecy.”

  Peary having announced that it was essential for him to spend the whole of the rest of the day with Harrison, they mounted the stairs, but saw no sign of two women camping out by Harrison’s door. Even when they had opened it, there was no card or note to show that visitors had called.

  “Surprising,” said Peary, with a smile.

  “And a bit worrying, too,” commented Harrison.

  They were hardly settled down, however, in Harrison’s room when Henry announced that Mr. Bonnington himself was on the telephone.

  “Of course,” said Harrison, a note of satisfaction in his voice, as he took up the receiver.

  “Excellent,” Harrison explained to Peary when his telephone conversation was finished. “Our solicitor friend is still a bit truculent, but the two ladies are with him, and insist on his bringing them around here. He says they have some cock-and-bull story about his Mr. Sleet threatening them, and having to be kept out of the house by a display of firearms. I’m afraid he is going to have a very nasty shock when he arrives.”

  “And I am going to be here to see it,” announced Peary.

  The visitors were not long in arriving, and Harrison was even more impressed with the sanity of Mrs. Cant than when he had first seen her. Her clear-eyed look and calm beating were guarantee even to the most sceptical. He liked the look of the lady known only to Henry and himself as “the dragon.” She was buxom, middle-aged, and seemed to exude kind-hearted common sense.

  Bonnington himself was obviously flustered and irritable, and immediately protested at the presence of Peary and Henry. Harrison explained that Peary was there as a barrister who might be needed in any proceedings which might result from the conversation of which it was certainly necessary for Henry to make careful notes.

  “I cannot agree,” snapped Bonnington.

  “Then you can withdraw, Mr. Bonnington,” said Harrison, stiffly.

  “I will do no such thing,” was the reply. “It is all highly irregular and unprofessional, but if you insist I shall continue under protest.”

  “Good,” said Harrison, and suggested that they should all be seated.

  “I have been trying to get you all the morning,” Bonnington continued. “Eventually I arranged for you to be telephoned every ten minutes until I received a reply.”

  “Would you like to know what I have been doing, Mr. Bonnington?”

  “I certainly should.”

  “Making successful arrangements for your Mr. Sleet to be arrested for murder,” said Harrison, slowly.

  Miriam Cant gave a little cry as she clutched the arms of her chair. An “I told you so” look spread over the face of the dragon, while Bonnington himself quivered with disbelief of this impossible announcement.

  “Rank madness,” he said; “Sleet of all people.”

  “I don’t propose to go into any details now, Mr. Bonnington,” said Harrison. “You will find quite sufficient for your purpose in the evening papers. It will be enough to say that Sleet is one of the most calculating and systematic blackmailers it has been my lot to come across.”

  “I can’t believe it,” said Bonnington, feebly.

  “What makes it worse,” went on Harrison, “is that your implicit trust in him actually made things easier. Still, we can’t go into that now. I want to hear what Mrs. Cant has to say.”

  Mrs. Cant looked at Bonnington as if for permission, but that gentleman was reduced to silence by what he had just heard. He sat with his large jowl pressed down into his collar, staring miserably in front of him.

  “We came to you first, Mr. Harrison,” she began, and Harrison could not refrain from looking at Peary, who was seated in a remote corner. “When we found we could get no answer I suggested going on to Mr. Bonnington, but Mrs. Leffer,” she indicated “the dragon”, “objected very strongly. Then we realised how we had been misunderstanding one another, for Mrs. Leffer had been taking for granted that, as Mr. Sleet had always used Mr. Bonnington’s name, he himself was Mr. Bonnington. Of course when I explained that to her, she agreed at once, but only on condition that we came to see you—and your assistant—as soon as we could.”

  “Your misunderstanding of Mrs. Leffer was something more than that of course?” asked Harrison.

  “I admit it,” answered Mrs. Cant, “and I realise now what a fool I have been, but I think I was justified in thinking she was in the plot against me, even to spying on me if it was necessary. That’s why I wouldn’t talk to her or even listen to her. Had I known she was in touch with your assistant, things might have been very different. It was only this morning, when she told me how she had scared off Mr. Sleet, that I understood things, and listened to her. Really, Mr. Harrison, I’m thoroughly ashamed of the way I’ve behaved to her.”

  “No need for that, my dear,” interposed Mrs. Leffer. “You weren’t to know.”

  “Now tell us about Sleet,” said Harrison.

  “Directly after you had been to see me, Mr. Bonnington and Mr. Sleet came together,” answered Mrs. Cant. “They questioned me about your coming and seemed quite sympathetic. But next day Mr. Sleet appeared with Mrs. Leffer here, and told me that as I was on the verge of a very bad nervous breakdown, Mr. Bonnington had very kindly arranged for a trained nurse to look after me. I s
aid I didn’t need one, and Mrs. Leffer soothed me down. So much so that I got really angry and was ashamed of myself. Mrs. Leffer seemed determined to stay, and I couldn’t do anything.”

  “You see, Mr. Harrison, all my clients go on like that,” explained Mrs. Leffer, apologetically; “I expect it.”

  “I soon realised the horrible truth that they really thought I was mad,” went on Mrs. Cant; “even Mrs. Leffer. I was terribly indignant, but I knew a scene would make things worse, so I decided to keep as quiet as I possibly could, hoping that you would be able to keep your word to me. Then the day before yesterday Mr. Sleet came again and talked to me alone. He said I looked much better and that, of course, he knew I was quite sane, but nothing would convince Mr. Bonnington of it.”

  “He dared to say that,” cried Bonnington.

  “And that all the plans had been made for putting me in a private asylum,” went on Mrs. Cant. “He had done everything he could to alter Mr. Bonnington’s decision, but that was hopeless.”

  The solicitor looked round the room in speechless indignation.

  “Then he said there was only one way out, as far as he could see,” said Mrs. Cant. “That was for me to marry him. I laughed, Mr. Harrison, I couldn’t help it. It seemed so absurd. But he said he was quite serious. Mr. Bonnington couldn’t do anything if I was Mrs. Paul Sleet. His tone changed as he said it, and he looked at me in a queer way. Then I began to realise what kind of a man he was. Very quietly he began to explain what he wanted me to do. He did not know how long Mr. Bonnington would be before taking a decision. It might be a day. It might be ten. Anyhow, I must be ready to go away with him directly he gave the word. We should go straight to Paris. Of course, we should travel as Mr. and Mrs. Sleet, but he would guarantee we were married as soon as we got there.”

  “Words fail me,” cried Bonnington.

  “But that wasn’t the worst,” said Mrs. Cant, speaking with an effort, as if the memory was almost too painful to recall.

  “He went on to describe, in the same quiet way, what it would be like in an asylum. I saw it so clearly and vividly that I wanted to shriek and tell him to stop. But I couldn’t. He fascinated me into listening to everything. When he did finish, he said he must have my decision at once. He knew if I gave him a promise I would carry it out, so what was it to be? What could I do, Mr. Harrison? I felt worn out. I did not feel I could struggle any longer. So I promised, thankful to get rid of him.”