“Well, for a start, how long had he been rooming with you?”
“Oh, not long. Not long at all. A matter of a few weeks. Just before Christmas it was, he came. Well, the beginning of December, like.”
“Do you know what he did for a living?”
“I really couldn’t tell you, Inspector. I did wonder at first if he might be a writer.”
“What made you think that?” Reynolds asked.
“Well, for one thing he never seemed to have a regular job to go to—not an office, or anything like that. And then he’d be up in his room most of the day, hitting away at that great big typewriter.”
“He’s got a big typewriter in his room, has he?”
“Oh, not anymore. It was just before Christmas, I came downstairs one morning and found him in the hall, trying to open the front door with this great big machine in his arms. “Here, let me help you, Mr. Finch,’ I said. ‘Where are you going with that typewriter? Has it gone wrong?’ ‘No, Mrs. Busby,’ he said. ‘It’s too big. I’m trading it for a smaller one.’ Well, that seemed sensible to me. And sure enough he came back later in the day with a nice little portable. But after that he didn’t seem to do so much writing. Well, it was Christmas, of course.”
Reynolds said, “Yes, tell me about Christmas. Did he go off and spend it with his family?”
Mrs. Busby shook her gray head sadly. “He didn’t seem to have anybody in the world,” she said. “Of course, I didn’t like to pry. I just asked him if he’d be going home for Christmas, and he said no, he’d stay here. Well, it’s a shame, isn’t it? All my other young men went home—he was the only one left. I had him down here for Christmas dinner with my sister and her husband—but he only pecked at his food and hardly said a word.”
Without much hope, Reynolds asked if Finch had had many friends to visit him. No, not one that Mrs. Busby could remember. Did he get much mail? Very little. Just a few typewritten letters that looked like they came from a lawyer’s office. The same name over and over, if the inspector knew what she meant.
“Quince?” Reynolds asked.
“That’s it. Quince and Quince and Quince and—I don’t know how many, I’m sure. There were one or two catalogs and advertisements and that sort of thing. I don’t remember any letters what you’d call personal.”
“Telephone calls?”
“Just the one.”
“When was that?”
“Let’s see—where are we? Saturday today, isn’t it? Yes, well then it must have been Thursday, round about lunchtime. Mr. Finch wasn’t in. He’d go out every day around one o’clock to get something to eat. So I took the call.”
“Please tell me about it as exactly as you can, Mrs. Busby.”
“There’s not much to tell. I picked up the telephone and said ‘Hello,’ and this voice asked to speak to Mr. Finch.”
“Male or female voice?”
“Oh, it was a man all right. American, I’d say, although I can’t be sure.”
“So what did you say?”
“I said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Finch is out having his lunch. I daresay he’ll be in later if you want to call back.’ But he said, ‘No, no, that’s not necessary. Can you take a message?’ I said I could, and he said, ‘I’m speaking for Mr. . . .’ What was that name again?”
“Quince.”
“That’s right. Wait a minute—I wrote it down. Let’s see if I can find it.”
Mrs. Busby bustled out into the narrow hallway—Derek Reynolds reflected that she always seemed to move at a half run, as though late for an appointment. A minute later she was back, triumphantly waving a scrap of paper.
“Here it is. I daresay you’ll want to keep it.”
Reynolds read, penciled in neat script, the message: “Mr. Finch. Mr. Ambrose Quince’s office rang. Please be there for your appointment on Saturday at 9:30, not 10. M. Busby.”
“I take messages for my lodgers, you see,” Mrs. Busby explained, “and I leave them in a little box by the telephone. They look in there as they come in, and if there’s a message they generally take it away with them. But I happened to notice that Mr. Finch left his in the box. He must have read it, though, because I heard him leave the house really early this morning. I was just getting a cup of tea in the kitchen when I heard the front door bang, and saw him going past outside. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘he’ll be catching the six o’clock up to London. Very wise. The six-thirty wouldn’t really give him enough time to get to a nine-thirty appointment.’ And now you come and tell me he’s dead and gone . . . I can’t believe it. I really can’t.”
Inspector Reynolds averted a new outburst of tears by requesting to see Mr. Finch’s room. It was small, clean, and quite devoid of any personality. The new portable typewriter was there, and some typing paper and carbons, but no papers or correspondence except for Ambrose’s letters, which were in a cardboard folder with QUINCE written on the outside. The wardrobe and chest of drawers contained a minimum of clean shirts, socks, and underwear, one pair of gray flannel trousers and a blazer, and a couple of inexpensive ties. The only books were a paperback of collected crossword puzzles and a heavy legal tome.
As Reynolds examined the latter, which appeared to concern itself with the laws of inheritance in the United Kingdom, Mrs. Busby, hovering at his shoulder, said, “He was a serious young man. Almost too serious, I’d say. But he paid regular.”
“By cash or check?”
“Oh, always by check. He had an account at the Sussex National.”
Reynolds put down the book, took another look at the portable typewriter, and then broke the bad news to Mrs. Busby that, in the absence of any traceable relatives, he would have to ask her to accompany him to London to identify the body. After an initial reaction of dismay, the prospect of a drive in a police car—“And we’ll pay your fare back, of course” — seemed to cheer Mrs. Busby, and she promised to be ready when the inspector returned an hour later.
The inspector’s next port of call, the bank, was predictably unfruitful. The establishment was closed, of course, it being a Saturday, but the local police had arranged for Inspector Reynolds to meet with the manager in his office. Simon Finch, it seemed, had opened his account on December 12 with a deposit of five hundred pounds in cash. No proof of his identity had been asked of him—it never was. Anybody might open an account in any name, and so long as it was in credit. . . No, there had been no further deposits. Withdrawals had consisted of a ten-pound weekly check to Mrs. Mary Busby, cash to the amount of fifty pounds, and twenty-five pounds fifty to Southern Typewriters, Ltd. The credit balance stood at three hundred and seventy-four pounds and fifty pence.
Southern Typewriters was a small shop on a side street, selling both new and used typewriters. The young man behind the counter remembered the transaction. Mr. Finch had bought a secondhand Remington portable in excellent condition—a great bargain at twenty-five fifty. Here was the sales slip. Paid by check. An old one in part exchange? No, nothing like that. Just a straightforward sale.
Derek Reynolds looked in again at the police station before he left Westbourne, and asked the local force to cooperate in trying to locate a large, elderly typewriter, probably an office model, which might have been pawned or traded recently. He had no real hope that anything would come of it. Then he went back to Seaview Gardens and picked up Mrs. Busby.
As he drove back to London, Reynolds diverted his mind from his passenger’s chatter by rehearsing mentally the report that he would give to Chief Superintendent Tibbett.
The man’s a phony. You take my word for it, sir, his name wasn’t Simon Finch and he was almost certainly a petty villain. All the hallmarks are there—no papers, no friends, no family. This Finch thing is a new and temporary identity. Bank account and mail order catalogs to build it up, but nothing else. You run his mug through CRO, sir, and you’ll find who he really was, or I’m a Dutchman. As for the Simon Warwick thing—forget it. Funny, wasn’t it, that the only book in his room was a legal work on
the laws of inheritance. He’s a phony, sir. Take it from me.
While Derek Reynolds and Mrs. Busby were still driving up the wet January roads from Westbourne to London, Henry Tibbett was sitting beside a comforting log fire in Ealing, sipping sherry and talking to Rosalie Quince. She was so sorry, she explained, but Ambrose had had to go out.
Rosalie frowned and smiled simultaneously—an attractive combination—and said, “A dull but important client is giving a cocktail party, Mr. Tibbett. Ambrose simply has to put in an appearance, but you can’t imagine how thankful I was that I could truthfully say I had to stay at home until you arrived. Now, Ambrose tells me you are interested in the little dinner party we gave last week.”
“I gathered from Mr. Quince,” Henry said, “that it was rather more than just a party.”
Rosalie’s dark eyes opened wide. “What do you mean?”
Henry smiled. “I’m sure you know exactly what I mean. All the guests were people closely concerned with Lord Charlton’s will, and they were brought together to be told that Simon Warwick had been found.”
“Can we be sure that he was found, Mr. Tibbett?”
“Yes,” said Henry. “I think we can be sure. I spent the afternoon reading your husband’s file on the subject. I don’t think there can be any possible doubt that Simon Finch was Simon Warwick.”
“Oh, I grant you that,” said Rosalie Quince, with a quick smile. “But do we know that this poor young man who was killed was really Simon Finch? You must admit the evidence is pretty scanty.”
Henry said, “You have a very acute mind, Mrs. Quince—but I’m investigating a murder, not an inheritance case. I think we must assume that the man was killed because somebody thought that he was Simon Warwick. He was not a known criminal—I’ve checked with the Criminal Records Office. He carried the most convincing proof that he was Simon Warwick— and that fact provides the only known motive for his murder. So, until I find a better one, that’s the assumption I’m going on. If, later on, it turns out that he wasn’t Simon Warwick after all —well, that would be outside my terms of reference.”
Rosalie frowned again. “Yes, I see what you mean. All the people at that dinner party had some sort of interest in having the old will restored.”
“Can you tell me about them, Mrs. Quince?”
“Of course. Here’s a list of names and addresses. You can see that it wasn’t a big dinner.”
Henry glanced quickly through the list, and then said, “I’d be grateful for a little background on these people.”
“I’ll be glad to give it, Chief Superintendent,” said Rosalie. She leaned back in her chair and took a sip of sherry. “Let’s start with the Crumbles. Percy and Diana. Percy is managing director of Warwick Industries. Worked his way up from the bottom in true free-enterprise, do-it-yourself style. He started as a rough diamond, and now he’s become a sharp one. As poor old Charlton got older and lazier and more complaisant, Crumble weaseled in and got everything done the way he wanted it. I don’t like Percy Crumble,” added Rosalie unnecessarily.
“So what does the change in the will mean to him?” Henry asked.
Rosalie laughed shortly. “What? Everything. If Simon Warwick is found, he inherits all Lord Charlton’s shares—which makes him the majority shareholder and chairman of the board. Percy Crumble goes back to being managing director—just that and no more. Under the old will, Charlton’s shares are sold for the benefit of various charities, and split up into a multitude of convenient proxy votes that Crumble can easily manipulate. And if Simon Warwick turned out to be an astute young man . . . well, don’t quote me, but Percy might not relish a new chairman poking his nose into all the Crumble transactions.”
“Indeed,” said Henry. “And his wife?”
Rosalie shrugged. “Lady Diana Crumble—in her own right, of course. Nothing to do with poor Percy’s little knighthood. She was born Lady Diana Gregory, Lord Ratherstone’s daughter. She’s not a bad old soul, even though she has a face like a horse and no sense of humor. It wasn’t exactly the romantic wedding of the year. Her family needed money and Percy needed a leg up socially. Nobody else rich wanted to marry Diana, and nobody else socially prominent would have looked twice at Percy. Marriages may be made in heaven, but what was made here below was horse-trading.”
Henry looked sharply at Rosalie. She was sitting engulfed in a big armchair, her legs tucked up under her, gazing into the fire. He said, “What about the Hamstones? I believe Bertram Hamstone is the other executor of the will, isn’t he?”
Rosalie seemed to come out of a reverie. She said, “Yes, that’s right. Well, I think you can cross them off your list, because an executor doesn’t stand to gain or lose either way, whatever happens to the will. Bertie’s with Sprott’s, you know. The private bank. Elizabeth is a nice enough old thing. Bertie’s only interest could be if Sprott’s and the charities had somehow . . . but that’s ridiculous. I mean, Sprott’s is an institution, isn’t it? Now, Cecily Smeed is a different proposition altogether.”
“What do you mean by that, Mrs. Quince?”
“Well, Cecily is a spinster of a certain age—she was old Charlton’s secretary absolutely forever. Ambrose said the other evening that it was over thirty years. I suppose she knows more about Warwick Industries than anybody else alive. Come to think of it,” Rosalie added, “she might even know something about the adoption of Simon Warwick. She was around back in those days. Anyhow, Ambrose has told me that in the original will she was left two hundred thousand pounds.”
Henry nodded. “That’s right. I’ve seen the will.”
“In the new will,” said Rosalie, “she gets old Charlton’s inkwell and a word of thanks. Ambrose did try to get Charlton to leave Cecily’s legacy intact, but the old man was absolutely fanatic— Simon must get everything. Ambrose says if Charlton had lived a bit longer, he thinks he might have talked him into reinstating Cecily. But as it is—well, I don’t suppose she thinks much of an inkwell as a reward for a whole lifetime of service. I wouldn’t, would you?”
“I can understand her being disappointed,” said Henry. “Now, who’s the last one—Mr. Denton Westbury?”
“Oh, poor Denton—he’s such a sweetie. Not very bright really, but terribly nice and amusing and useful as an odd man at dinner parties.”
“He’s not married, then?”
Rosalie gave a little arpeggio of laughter. “Denton? Heavens, no. He lives with some little Cockney boy—a musician, I think, plays an oboe or something in a band. Of course, Denton never takes him anywhere, and nobody is supposed to know, but everybody does. The trouble is, it’s difficult for a nice person like Denton to find a good job, especially as he really has no qualifications, except that he knows a whole lot of people.”
“Yes, I can imagine that,” said Henry.
“Well, Ambrose had the bright idea of getting Denton to run the Charlton Foundation, which was to administer the charity funds. Of course, Ambrose and Bertie would have done the real financial work—but you see, Denton knows all the right people on the right committees, and he really does know the deserving and well-run charities from the phonies. It seemed the perfect niche for him. Poor darling Denton. He was very brave the other night, but I could see how upset he was. Anyhow, he’s a realist. He’s looking for another job already.”
“He is?”
“Yes. It was in the personal column this morning. ‘Experienced fund raiser seeks position with prominent charity’—something like that. Here, I’ll show you . . . Oh, bother, it’s not there. Never mind. As soon as I read it, I said to myself, ‘That’s Denton, all right. Good luck, boy.’ ”
Henry said, “Let me get this straight, Mrs. Quince. I thought that under Lord Charlton’s original will, certain charities were to get certain specific bequests—”
“Well, no, not exactly. The idea was that Lord Charlton’s shares in Warwick Industries were to be sold, and this big trust fund set up, which Ambrose and Bertie would administer. Lord Charlton had ap
proved a list of charities which might apply to the fund for help. It would then be up to Denton to advise Ambrose and Bertie on the allocation of the money. Or it would have been, I should say. Or perhaps—well, if the man who was killed really was Simon Warwick, then the Charlton Foundation will go ahead, won’t it. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Somebody had, Mrs. Quince,” said Henry. “Well, thank you very much for the sherry—and the information. Tell your husband I’ll be in touch.”
It was half-past seven when Henry got back to his office at Scotland Yard. He telephoned Emmy, saying that he would be home as soon as he could manage it, and then picked up the carefully worded report of Inspector Derek Reynolds’s visit to Westbourne. Reynolds had been disappointed not to be able to convey his impressions in person, but his skepticism came loud and clear through the official language of the report. It ended with the information that the body had been formally identified by Mrs. Mary Busby, the deceased’s landlady, as being that of her lodger, Mr. Simon Finch.
Reading it, Henry felt a quickening of excitement and interest. He had been taking it for granted that Simon Finch was Simon Warwick—the documentary evidence seemed overwhelming. He had also—he now admitted to himself—been very close to taking it for granted that Harold Benson, Jr., had killed his rival claimant to the Charlton fortune. The mysterious American who had telephoned both Susan Benedict and Mrs. Busby bore out the theory. And yet . . . it was too neat, almost contrived. Harold Benson might well prove to be guilty in the end, but Henry was beginning to feel that he was being led by the nose down a broad, inviting trail. Too broad and too inviting.
On one point he would be able to reassure Inspector Reynolds in the morning. The man who called himself Simon Finch was no petty criminal, as Reynolds had presumed. The Criminal Records Office had no trace of his name, and a painstaking search through the files of photographs by Reynolds’s assistant, Sergeant Hawthorn, had failed to turn up a face that corresponded to Ambrose Quince’s picture of Simon Finch.
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