Who Is Simon Warwick

by Patricia Moyes

  “I know that,” said Sally ruefully, rubbing her arm.

  “A copy of the Times laid over the dead man’s face made sure that Benson wouldn’t realize that Goodman was dead until he’d been in the office long enough to have committed the crime himself.”

  Emmy said, “Quince was lucky that Goodman had a paper with him.”

  “But he didn’t,” Henry said.

  “I thought the girl—the secretary—said that he did.”

  “So she did. But she now admits that she really didn’t notice one way or the other, but that Ambrose pretty well put the words into her mouth while waiting for us to arrive at the office. Since then, thinking about it, she has realized that Goodman didn’t have a paper, because the thought crossed her mind that he’d have nothing to read in the waiting room but some old magazines. She asked Ambrose if she should come to me and change her story, and Ambrose, of course, forbade her to do any such thing. In fact, it was the business of the newspapers that first put me onto Quince.”

  “How was that?” Sally asked.

  “Well, Quince couldn’t bank on Goodman bringing a paper with him. On the other hand, he couldn’t use his own—he bought one every morning from the same newsvendor, and he had to be able to produce it. He particularly wanted to keep exactly to his normal routine that morning. But he needed a second copy of the Times. So he did the obvious thing—he brought his copy from home. When I went to talk to his wife that day, she wanted to look something up in the Times, but couldn’t find the paper; yesterday, on the other hand, when she wanted to check something, the paper was in its usual place, right by the telephone. It was a very small thing, but it made me wonder. If Quince had taken the paper from home, and bought another one, and if Susan Benedict’s evidence was right, then there should have been three copies of the paper in Quince’s office. But there were only two.”

  “It must have been an awful blow to Quince when he found he’d killed the wrong man,” Emmy said.

  “It must indeed,” Henry agreed. “Worse than that, he knew that if Harold Benson could make good his claim, a second murder would get him nowhere. Goodman had been unmarried, with no legitimate child. Quince assumed that young Harold was Benson’s natural son, and so would inherit even if his father were to die. He explained to Westbury that only if Benson’s claim could be disproved definitely, or if Benson withdrew it, could they be sure that the foundation would go ahead. Westbury, who is not very bright, decided to take matters into his own hands and try to frighten Benson into withdrawing his claim by an apparent murder attempt and a threatening note. He wasn’t to know that his ridiculous ploy would succeed, because Harold Benson interpreted it as a threat to Sally.”

  “But in the end. Quince found out who I was,” Sally said. “How could he have done that?”

  “He knew as soon as he heard about your strange eye coloring,” Henry said.

  “But how?”

  “I remembered,” Henry said, “that the Quinces had visited your home in Charlottesville. I telephoned there this evening and spoke to your maid, Bettina. She confirmed that there’s a big color photograph of you in the house.”

  “But that’s in Harry’s study! What was he doing in there?”

  “Talking to Bettina, apparently. Rosalie, his wife, didn’t go in there and so didn’t see the picture. Quince remembered your eye coloring—it’s very striking, after all—but thought no more about it until his wife came and told him about my conversation with her and Lady Diana. It made you an immediate candidate for murder.”

  Sally frowned, and then said, “Of course. If I was Simon Warwick, then Hank would have to be adopted, and not eligible to inherit.”

  “Exactly. No wonder your husband wanted to keep you away from England. Knowing that he himself hadn’t killed Goodman, he knew there was a murderer at large.”

  “How did Quince manage the telegram from Charlottesville?” Emmy asked.

  “Not difficult. He knew Sally’s maid, Bettina. He called her, posing as Benson’s English lawyer. Having made sure that Sally had already left home, he spun a story that Sally wanted Bettina to send a cable for her, as she had changed her plans. Bettina believed him. He thought he had arranged matters so that if Sally disappeared, she wouldn’t be missed for several days, on either side of the Atlantic.”

  Sally shivered. “And I would have disappeared, permanently, if it hadn’t been for Emmy.”

  Emmy said, “So I suppose Miss Deborah Smith was Susan Benedict?”

  “Right,” Henry said. “She was besotted about Quince, and would have done anything he told her to. She swears she had no idea she was getting involved in a murder plot. She says Quince put it to her as some sort of practical joke, and I’m inclined to believe her. Her job was to pose as Colby’s secretary, arrange the hire car—Quince couldn’t risk her going to the airport and perhaps being recognized—and then pick Sally up at the phony address in Hounslow and deposit her at the London Metropole, where Quince, posing as Colby, would take over. After the murder, of course, she would have been up to her neck in it as an accessory before the fact. She wouldn’t have dared open her mouth.”

  Emmy said, “Poor Susan. She looked completely flummoxed when she saw me with Sally. She made a gallant attempt to get rid of me in Sloane Square.”

  Sally said, “Yes, she told Emmy we were heading for someplace called the Sloane Palace Hotel, so that Emmy wouldn’t have an excuse for riding with us any longer. Then, as soon as Emmy had gotten out of the car, she conveniently remembered that I was booked at the Metropole after all. It was clever of you to follow us,” she added, to Emmy.

  “Not clever,” said Emmy. “Just desperate. I saw that the car wasn’t headed for the Sloane Palace, and I was darned certain that Mr. Colby’s office wasn’t over a grocery shop in Hounslow. But then, in the hotel, it all seemed so reasonable—and of course I didn’t suspect Ambrose Quince for a moment. . .”

  “I did,” said Sally. “First, there was the business about the hotel. Then, although he passed it off as a misunderstanding, he definitely introduced himself as Reginald Colby. We were to have a drink and then drive down to the remand center. Why didn’t I just leave my cases, he said. No point in bothering to check in right away. For a moment, I thought you might have been somehow in on the plot, too, Emmy. Believe me, I got out of that Metropole Hotel the very first moment I could.”

  “When the real Mr. Colby arrived?” Emmy said.

  “No Mr. Colby arrived,” said Sally. “I just hightailed it out of there when neither of you was looking.”

  “Then where did you go?” Emmy asked.

  Henry and Sally exchanged a broad grin. Sally said, “Scotland Yard, of course. Where else? Quince made a bad mistake, telling me who you were. He told me at the same time the name of the police officer in charge of Harry’s case. I grabbed a cab, drove to Scotland Yard and asked for Chief Superintendent Tibbett.”

  “So all that time . . . when I was so worried about you . . .” Emmy was almost speechless.

  “Yes,” said Henry. “She was right next door, being entertained by Inspector Reynolds. And neither hysterical nor suicidal, I need hardly add. Of course, I had spoken to Colby and found out that he never asked Ambrose Quince to meet Sally at the hotel — nor had he had time to go there himself. He agreed to cooperate by putting through a call to me, when I knew you would be in the office, giving me a thoroughly mendacious account of Sally’s second disappearance.” Henry smiled at Emmy. “I’ve said I’m sorry, darling, but I couldn’t risk the danger that—believing Quince to be innocent— you might give something away. I was setting up a rather elaborate trap, you see.”

  Emmy sighed, in mock resignation. “All right. I know I’m a rotten actress and a rotten liar.”

  “Whereas Sally,” said Henry, “is magnificent as both.”

  “How did you work it?” Emmy asked.

  “Very simply. It just meant that Sally had to risk her life.”

  “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,”
Sally said. “I knew that roof was knee-deep in cops.”

  “Then why did you write that letter to your husband?”

  Sally made a face, and laughed. “All right. Touché. But I was never really in any danger—was I?”

  “I’d prefer not to answer that question,” Henry said. “Let’s just be thankful that it all happened as planned.”

  “But, Henry,” Emmy protested, “Quince rang you from Ealing only a few minutes before—”

  “A very old trick,” Henry said. “He pretended to ask Rosalie something in the background, to make me think he was at home. Actually, of course, he was already somewhere very close to the Metropole. I don’t know exactly where, and it’s not important. As soon as he called, I knew that we had him.

  “You see, Sally had telephoned him—but much earlier on. She was perfectly calm and didn’t threaten suicide at all. What she did was to make a date to meet him at the Metropole at ten o’clock, to discuss making a deal over the inheritance. I had taken care to make him think that I thought Sally was on the point of committing suicide. I gave him just the chance he needed.”

  “That’s why he insisted on my going up to the hotel roof,” Sally put in. “I had suggested meeting in my room, but he was adamant. He said the roof was the only place where we could be sure of complete privacy and secrecy. Henry and I both knew then that he would try to kill me.” She shivered.

  Henry said, “I had guessed that his original plan—which Emmy fortunately wrecked—was to stage a suicide for Sally. And now it seemed to be playing right into his hands. Sally Benson falls to her death from the hotel roof, an obvious suicide, as predicted by Ambrose Quince, who has been cooperating so closely with Scotland Yard. Ambrose would have been well on his way home long before the hubbub surrounding Sally’s death had subsided. His wife, who in fact has been persuaded to spend the evening at her mother’s home, will say truthfully that Ambrose was at home all evening, if anybody asks her—which is highly unlikely.

  “Once Sally’s body had been discovered, of course, somebody—perhaps even Quince himself, but more likely he would have left it to the Crumbles—would have spotted the truth, that Sally had been born Simon Warwick. The hospital records of the operation would have been traced. Identity as Simon Warwick would have been proved, and Simon Warwick would have been good and dead. His, or her, adopted son wouldn’t have been eligible to inherit. Everything would have again been exactly as Ambrose Quince had arranged it, before Lord Charlton had the bizarre idea of looking for his long-lost nephew.”

  Emmy said, “When I was in your office, I saw some sort of report about Susan Benedict and her mother . .

  Henry laughed. “That was a very delicate touch, to account for Susan’s absence from the office. Her unsuspecting mama was lured up from Hampshire, sent off to shop at Selfridge’s, and picked up by Susan after she had done her delivery job to the Metropole. Poor Ambrose. He really believed he had thought of everything. I’m almost sorry for him. I’m rather glad I’ve had to disqualify myself from the case on the grounds that the accused is—or was—an acquaintance of mine.” Henry yawned. “Good heavens, it’s three o’clock. I’m off to bed. Got a heavy day tomorrow.”

  “I thought you were off the case,” Emmy said.

  “I meant,” said Henry, “that tomorrow I have to set in motion the tedious formalities which will get Sally’s husband out of jail without a blemish on his character.”

  “Not a—?” Sally’s eyes opened wide. “What about fraudulent misrepresentation?”

  “After what you did tonight?” said Henry. “Forget it. I’m going to bed.”

  After he had gone, the two women sat in silence for a minute. Sally stirred her coffee and stared at the embers of the fire. At last, Emmy said, “Well, it’ll be interesting to see what the lawyers make of your claim.”

  Sally said nothing. Emmy went on, “I don’t see how they can throw it out. You are Simon Warwick. You are the rightful heir, no matter what sex you are. And your son—”

  Slowly, Sally said, “I won’t be making a claim.”

  “You won’t?”

  There was a long silence. Then Sally said, “Emmy, you’re a woman.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “You’ve always been one. You don’t know what it was like . . . trying to pretend to be a man.”

  “That’s all over now,” Emmy said.

  “It wouldn’t be, if I made a claim.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t you see?” Sally said. “I’ve been so lucky. I’ve made my new life. I have a husband and a son, and I love them both very much. I have a place in the scheme of things. I’m just so ashamed that I let Harry come over here and do what he did. How could it possibly help Hank or Harry or me to destroy everything we’ve worked so hard to build up—just for money? Do you understand?”

  “I think so,” said Emmy. “I understand as much as anybody could.”

  “You understand,” said Sally Benson, “because you’re a woman. Like me.” Another silence. Then she smiled. “I can’t think what Harry will say when I tell him. You know what men arc like.”

  Epilogue

  From the Times, London.

  Today, in the Chancery Division of the High Court, judgement was given to allow the executor of the will of the late Baron Charlton to presume the individual known as Simon Warwick to be legally dead. This decision, which was not contested by any party, means that the late Lord Charlton’s fortune will go to charity, apart from certain personal bequests. A body known as the Charlton Foundation, to be headed by the executor of the will, Mr. Bertram Hamstone, will administer the Fund and nominate the charities which will benefit. It is understood that a substantial amount of money will be donated for research into the problems, both medical and psychological, of trans-sexualism.