Trent Intervenes and Other Stories

by E. C. Bentley

  Trent put his hand mechanically to his handkerchief pocket, looked surprised, then searched several other pockets in vain. ‘I’m sorry. I must have mislaid my case somewhere.’

  ‘No,’ Colonel White said. ‘It was in that outside pocket of yours all right. I noticed this afternoon that you carry it there. I have it now. Here it is.’ He held out the case to Trent, who took it with a slightly bewildered air. ‘I took it when I faced right up to you a minute ago, and emphasised my remarks by poking you in the upper vest. That was how I attended to Somerton’s billfold – only with him it was much easier, because he has the reckless habit of carrying his money in his hip-pocket. Now that is all I’m going to say before I leave you, and I don’t expect we shall meet again.’

  ‘I hope not, most sincerely,’ Trent said. ‘I look forward to reading the explanation of your proceedings; but on the facts, as far as I know them, you seem to be a spiteful and unscrupulous rascal. Do you make a living out of that little accomplishment you were giving me a display of just now?’

  Colonel White shook his head. ‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘playing off that little accomplishment on our friend Somerton has cost me some thousands of dollars, one way and another. And don’t try to make me lose my temper, Mr Trent – you can’t do it. I am feeling perfectly satisfied. I have done what I came to Monte Carlo to do, and I leave for Paris tonight. The Hotel Meurice will find me for the next ten days, in case Somerton should want to start anything; but he won’t. You will receive my letter in the course of the evening.’ The Colonel turned away with a slight bend of the head, and, looking more distinguished than ever, faded away into the hotel.

  While Trent was dressing for dinner at his own hotel, two hours later, Colonel White’s letter was brought to him. The neat, clear handwriting covered a number of sheets of Artemare notepaper. There was neither date nor signature, and the document began without preliminary as follows:

  ‘I was born in Islington, London, 38 years ago. My mother, who was Spanish, was a good woman, and brought me up well, but my father was an English pickpocket, as his father was before him, and I took after him, especially in having the right sort of hands. It is not highly thought of as a profession, but my father was at the top of it and made a decent living out of it. He was very seldom caught, I believe, never in the ten years that I remembered him. Before he died I had learnt all he could show me, and he said I was better than he was, but probably that was parental pride.

  ‘I always worked alone, as he did. It is much more difficult than when you work with stalls, and as regards class there is all the difference in the world. I had had a fair education. I could pass anywhere as far as appearance and dress and speaking good English went. I spoke as my father did, it was natural to me. How he got his quiet, unaffected, upper-class way of talking I don’t know. I never met another man who could do it without being born to it.

  ‘When I was seventeen I was caught in the act, by a piece of bad luck. I came up before the North London magistrate, Mr Somerton. He was a recent appointment, and he wasn’t popular with the crooks. I knew that, but I was surprised at the way he treated me. As it was my first appearance, I thought I might be bound over, or get off with a month at the very worst. But it was clear from the start that he had taken a dislike to me. When the police had told him that I associated with criminals and was a bad influence, and I said it was a lie, he kept a vicious eye on me, and finally said he could not take a lenient view of this case, and gave me three months.

  ‘Not long after I came out, I came before Somerton again. There had been a jewellers’ window smashed and a lot of stuff taken, and a policeman, a man with whom I had had some unpleasantness, gave evidence. There were three men in it, and he had come up just as they were making off. He gave chase, and they got away, but he swore that he recognised one of them, and that I was that one. Actually I had been nowhere near the place at the time, but I couldn’t prove it, and when I said the cop was trying to frame me because we were not on good terms, the magistrate got to drumming with his fingers and looking more and more sour. He gave me six months. I didn’t like being punished harshly, on insufficient evidence, for something I never did, a spite sentence, and being treated as if my word against the cop’s wasn’t worth a damn, but the worst was what he said before passing sentence. He need not have said it, it was simply meant to hurt, you could see that by the way he glared at me as he said it. He told me I thought I looked like a gentleman, but what was I but a common thief, who could never enter a decent house or mix with decent people. There was more, but those words were what I never forgot. The thing I decided Somerton should pay for one day, and what he has paid for, was using his position to insult and browbeat me.

  ‘Every day while I was serving that sentence I was thinking about Mr James Lingard Somerton, and what I would do to him one day. I’m not what you would call a vindictive man in the ordinary way, I think, but all my life when I have got set on a thing I have kept that thing before me and fixed my will on it, and I was very much set on making Somerton pay.

  ‘I knew it was going to be a very long job. I meant it to be. I meant to make good, in the first place. I didn’t mind his telling me I was a thief, because I was, but I objected to his saying I thought I looked like a gentleman, because I knew I looked like a gentleman, and a lot more like a gentleman than Somerton did, or does now. In my business it was necessary to look that way; all first-class dips do. And I wasn’t going to be told I could never mix with decent people, either. That was telling me I didn’t have character enough to become a good citizen, and the consequence was that I got set on becoming just that thing, which was very far from what Somerton intended.

  ‘When I came out of prison I knew just what I meant to do. I went to my mother’s brother, who was a fruit merchant, and told him I was going to go straight for the future. I asked him if he would pay my passage to America, so I could begin life again. He agreed to do that, and I emigrated. There was no difficulty about getting into the United States in those days. I soon found employment clerking. To make a short story of it, in five years’ time I had a good position with a firm in Harrison, Colorado, and was saving money. When I was twenty-eight, some land I had bought near the town for a speculation turned out to be mostly copper-ore under the surface, and the first thing I knew I was a millionaire.

  ‘After that I engaged in all kinds of business, and prospered still more. I donated a library and a hospital to Harrison, founded professorships at Denver and Boulder, subscribed liberally to charities. I was a prominent citizen and a public benefactor. The Governor of the State appointed me a member of his personal staff with the rank of Colonel. That was just an honour, I didn’t have to do a thing for it. I liked being a colonel, for I thought it might be useful when I got after Somerton. I had plenty else to think about, but I never forgot him.

  ‘Three years ago I put a private inquiry agency on to Somerton. I had reports of his position, his health, his way of life. I got the addresses he had lived at during the years since I last saw him. I found he had come into a lot of money and resigned from the bench; and among other things I heard he had the habit of spending a month in Monte Carlo after Christmas, staying at the Artemare.

  ‘Well, the next time he went there, last year, I went there too. We became acquainted, we got on well together. When I left to attend to my business interests at home, we both hoped we should meet again next year, that is to say, this year. During those few weeks I learnt a lot more about him than I knew before, I had spied out the land for my enterprise, and I had my little scheme ready for a year ahead. The hotel staff knew me as a man who tipped extravagantly. I was on the best of terms with Madame Joubin at the paper-stand and I had wasted a lot of money with old Grangette.

  ‘When Somerton arrived at the Artemare a fortnight ago I was already here. He was delighted to see me, and I spent all my time with him and his daughter and their friends. After a few days I started on him, in the way you know. The hotel servants, who disliked
him, entered thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. The people who spoke to him in the street would have done a lot more than that for a 100-franc bill.

  ‘I have told you, in part, how I managed the matter of Somerton’s billfold. I expected he would be going to the bank for money some time, and I had been practising for months till my hands had the old dexterity again. I was with him when he went to the Crédit Lyonnais, saw him draw his ten bills, returned with him to the crowd watching the regatta. Lifting something from a hip-pocket is one of the easiest things an expert dip ever does. I put in ten more milles, returned the case, watched him turn white when he made the discovery. That was good! A minute later I had the case out again, removed my own ten, put it back. It all went over very smoothly.

  ‘The newspaper trick was done in this way. Passing through London I had obtained from The Times back-date department copies of the paper covering a fortnight of this time last year. Madame Joubin willingly agreed, for a consideration, to help me work a practical joke on Somerton. She was to hand him a year-old paper the first time we both came to her stand together. I timed that for the day after the billfold incident. I already had in my coat pocket a Times of the right date, which I had provided myself with an hour before. When he took his paper from Madame Joubin I bought a copy of Esquire, which is a large-size American magazine, and I held my own Times ready underneath it. When he did notice the date on his paper, and exclaimed about it, I very naturally held out my hand for it. Looking him in the eyes, as I did with you, you may remember, I changed the papers in an instant, and then remarked that the date was all right. His ghastly face as I handed it to him was well worth all my trouble and expense, believe me.

  ‘What I had in mind when I got Somerton’s old address was this. The year before, he had sent his wife a birthday present, which I had helped him choose, from Grangette’s. I gambled on his doing the same again, and he did, but if he didn’t, I thought I would be able to make a good use of that address some way. As it happened, he actually asked me to go with him to Grangette’s again, for the same purpose, for he had confidence in my judgement. As you know, I didn’t make the mistake of offering Grangette too little; he would probably have done it for much less, but I wanted that thing done.

  ‘Of course, it went wrong because the inquiry agent made a couple of errors in giving me that old address. I do not blame him for that. No man could have thought of the slight change in the postal direction since Somerton lived there, and the mis-spelling of Talfourd was a very natural slip. I am not worrying, anyway. I got the effect I wanted. And I have found it quite a pleasure telling this story to an intelligent person who can appreciate it.

  ‘I believe that is all. I have had a very interesting and happy time. Somerton will miss me, I am afraid. He can put in the time thinking about all the pleasant little talks we have had together, beginning in his own police court twenty years ago.’

  ‘A very interesting and happy time!’ Trent repeated to himself. ‘Monte Cristo in miniature!’ He turned back a few sheets. ‘A prominent citizen and a public benefactor, was he? And a private malefactor in his spare time. Well, Somerton won’t like this; but I dare say he will like it better than being driven out of his mind. All the same, I don’t think I’ll deliver it by hand.’

  He telephoned to the porter’s office for a chasseur.

  X

  The Little Mystery

  It was early on a Saturday afternoon that Philip Trent, passing through Cadogan Place, caught sight of a trim figure in the portico of one of the tall old houses. The girl came down the steps as he stopped his car.

  ‘How goes it, Marion?’ he said. ‘It must be all of a year since I saw you last.’

  ‘Why, Phil! What a surprise!’ She glanced back at the door she had just left. ‘Have you come to see the doctor? But no, you can’t do that without an appointment – and besides, he’s just going out himself.’

  Trent got out of the driving seat and shook hands with Marion Silvester, whom he had known for most of her twenty-two years. ‘So this is a doctor’s. Ah yes, I see – brass plate so tiny you don’t notice it’s there. A great man, evidently – the smaller the plate the bigger the doctor. Still, I don’t want to see him. I have just been lunching in Chelsea, but it wasn’t as bad as all that.’

  ‘Well, you will see him, whether you want to or not,’ she said in a low tone as the door opened, and a tall, gaunt man, black-bearded, came out. He took off his hat to Marion, with a swift glance at Trent as he returned the salutation, and passed on his way.

  ‘He’s not a doctor, really, he’s a surgeon,’ Marion explained. ‘But he is a Pole, and it seems that whatever degree you take in his country, you’re called a doctor.’

  Trent examined the brass plate. ‘Dr W Kozicki. There is something very tragic about the look of your Dr W Kozicki, Marion. An interesting, cultured face. And he has very small ears, with hardly any lobes. Beautiful hands; and he has had the left one badly bitten by a dog, or possibly a patient – some years ago by the look of the scar. No baldness, though he must be over fifty. Short nose, long upper lip – he wouldn’t look nearly so handsome if he was clean-shaved.’

  She laughed. ‘Isn’t that just like you! You see a person for a split second, and you’ve got him photographed. Well, I’m his secretary, and as Saturday’s a short day, I get off after lunch.’

  ‘Is there anywhere I can take you? I am free for the next hour.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘You know, Phil, meeting you like this is really rather lucky. Several times I’ve wished I could tell you about something that’s been annoying me, because I can’t understand it, and perhaps you could, though it’s not one of your crime problems. If you could take me home, I could explain it best there. I suppose you don’t know Reville Place.’

  ‘I know where it is.’

  ‘Then you know it’s where a quite nice neighbourhood shades off into a dingy one. I’ve got a cheap top floor at number 43.’ Trent opened the door of the car, and she took her place. ‘It’s not a very cheery spot, but my flatlet is all right once you’re inside the door. Mother let me have some decent furniture and things, and it’s airy and comfortable.’

  The car started, and Marion continued, ‘Yes, I am on my own now. Of course, we haven’t met since father died. We weren’t any too well off, as you may imagine, knowing him as you did.’

  Trent nodded. He had indeed known Colin Silvester well enough to be surprised that he had left anything at all. Probably, he reflected, Mrs Silvester had her own income. As a writer of popular thrillers, Silvester had made money easily and abundantly, but he had loved entertaining on a generous scale, and loved yet more anything in the nature of a gamble for high stakes. He had been well known and popular in the social world, though a malicious wit had made him not everyone’s friend; which had added a spice to the news that, at his death, he had left behind him the material for a volume of memoirs, to be published in due time.

  ‘Mother has the house in Wallingford,’ Marion said, ‘and not too much to run it on, when Fred’s school bills have been paid. I had a little capital of my own, enough to keep me while I was learning to make a living, so I decided to come to London and train for a secretary’s job. I took this place we’re going to, and started a course at Needham’s.’

  Trent asked when she had finished her course.

  ‘Why, I never did finish it,’ Marion said. ‘I hadn’t been at it three months when Paula Kozicki looked me up. You wouldn’t know her – she’s my boss’ daughter, of course, and she was my greatest friend at school. She had all her education in England, and you would never know she was a Pole. She’s lived with her father since he came to London. He had a son who went to the devil, Paula told me, and since then the old man has been entirely devoted to her. Well, when she called on me, she told me her father wanted a new secretary, and nothing would do but that he must have me for the job.

  ‘I was astonished. I had only seen him once in my life, when Paula brought him to tea i
n Reville Place. I had heard about him sometimes from father, who for some reason didn’t like him, and I had always imagined he was very disagreeable; but when he came I quite took to the old chap, he so evidently doted on Paula. But of course I hadn’t ever dreamed of an offer like this. Well, she made me come round and see him; and he was most charming – said he had been so much touched by Paula’s story of me and my doings – he laid it on rather thick, really. You know the sort of thing men say when a girl doesn’t merely curl up and collapse when things get difficult.’

  ‘Yes, I do know,’ Trent said with feeling. ‘Your pluck, your self-reliance, your – ’

  ‘All right, I see you’ve got it by heart,’ interrupted the girl of the period. ‘So when we had got over that part, he asked if I could come to him, as his secretary was leaving him for a better position – which I knew from Paula; only she also told me the doctor had got her another post because he wanted to have me. I said how gratified I was, but that I had had very little training and no experience; and he said any fool could do the work – though he didn’t put it quite that way – as it was just keeping a list of appointments with patients, and receiving them when they came, and taking some correspondence, and noting up the fees. And then he offered me about double what I should have expected for my first job.

  ‘Well, I took it. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it; and there still isn’t, after a month of it. The work’s not hard, and in fact there’s often not much to do, so that I can get a little work done on father’s book. Oh! I didn’t tell you that I was putting his rough notes for his memoirs into shape for the publishers. They’re very rough ones, and I have to write the whole thing out myself. I take some of the stuff to the doctor’s every day. There’s quite a lot of it – I haven’t read it all yet, in fact; but a good deal of what I have read is pretty scandalous, believe me.’