by Leo Bruce
“Very amusing,” said Carolus politely. “How did he pay for his supplies?”
“By cheque. Always by cheque to Bearer. On his bank at Folkestone. The Westlay’s and Metropolitan.”
“Do you remember how the cheques were signed?”
“Yes. By both of them. Her name was on top, ‘Anne Rathbone’, then his ‘Brigham Rathbone’. I remember because Mr Smith the cashier remarked on it. ‘Brigham,’ he said, ‘that’s an unusual name. Same as the founder of the Mormons.’ ‘Perhaps he is a Mormon,’ I said, and you ought to have heard us. I thought I should die laughing.”
“You should meet Mrs Gorringer,” murmured Carolus.
“Eh?”
“I was going to ask you whether you ever saw anyone else out at Glose Cottage?”
“Never, in all the times I’ve been out there.”
“What about their dustbin? How did they manage for that?”
“Oh, the lorry only comes round once a month out here. I don’t know what we pay rates for, really. But old George Body, who collected from them, said they didn’t have much. Used to bury it, he said. He never had a lot to do with them. Well, he’d tell you the same as what I have.”
“Where is the local refuse dumped?”
“Down a disused mine shaft out at Grayfield. Very handy for this district. Oh, yes, I’ve often smiled over the Rathbones. Queer old pair. I said to my son: ‘It’s a good thing they’re not all like Rathbones, otherwise I shouldn’t be able to do my rounds for laughing.’”
“Quite. You must have a merry life, Mr Toffins.”
“Well, there’s no sense in going about like a funeral, is there? I like a good laugh.”
“I dare say you had one when you heard the Rathbones had left.”
“It is rather funny, isn’t it? Popping off like that. After all the time they’ve been here. There you are, you never know, do you?”
“You don’t,” agreed Carolus, and left Mr Toffins to his merriment.
His next and his most important call took him to London, to the offices of Messrs Mumble, Gray & Mumford in Booty Street, Bloomsbury. Carolus realized that he would be on difficult ground here, for solicitors are rightly chary about giving information of any kind, and in a case like this would be doubly so. However, he could only try, and it might be that Mr Mumford would be more communicative than most of his profession.
He found Booty Street a wide but somewhat grey and forbidding thoroughfare near the Gray’s Inn Road, and the firm’s offices on the first floor of a grim old house. An ancient clerk looked up myopically and Carolus asked for Mr Mumford.
“Have you got an appointment?” said the old man in a voice unexpectedly quick and snappy as he blinked at Carolus.
“No. You might say that I come from Mrs Chalk.”
“Mr Mumford’s engaged at the moment. I’ll find out if he can see you.”
It was half an hour before Carolus was shown in to meet a solidly-built, grey-haired man with thin lips and a mechanical smile which was switched on and off apparently at fixed intervals.
Carolus explained his business.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t go into that,” said Mr Mumford. His smile came on and off like an electric sign.
“I want no breach of confidence, of course,” Carolus explained, “but there are one or two things which I think you could tell me quite properly. For instance, is it a fact that Mrs Rathbone was in this office some weeks ago?”
Mr Mumford considered, then said briefly, “It is a fact.”
“I think I ought to explain that there is the gravest doubt as to whether the woman who has been living with Rathbone at Bluefield was his wife at all.”
Mr Mumford smiled, but it may have been only the periodic lip-stretch.
“Mrs Chalk said something of the kind. It seemed preposterous to me.”
“The woman at Bluefield was tall.”
“Mr Deene, if you had listened to evidence in court as often as I have, you would not take much notice of witnesses’ evidence of height. Mrs Rathbone was short. I understand from Mrs Chalk that she was rarely seen in Bluefield except in her car. That accounts for the discrepancy.”
“Not altogether. Did you know Mrs Rathbone?”
“I met her some weeks ago.”
“You did not know her at the time she married Rathbone?”
“No, but my father met her at least once when he was dealing with Mr Bright’s will. And Potter knew her.”
“You’ll pardon me, but if that is the gentleman I met in the outer office, do you think his eyesight is to be relied on?”
Smile on. “Yes.” Smile off. “I most certainly do. Very shrewd, old Potter. He recognized even her voice. No doubt about it at all. Besides she has been signing her receipts until . . . recently.”
“Had she an almost fixed smile?”
“Certainly not. There was nothing eccentric about Mrs Rathbone.”
“Except her disposal of an adequate income for life for a lump sum.”
“If there was anything of the sort,” said Mr Mumford, “I should not be prepared to discuss it.”
“I quite understand. But you could, I think, give me the address in Hastings at which Mr. and Mrs Rathbone lived for some years.”
“I hardly think . . .”
“Look, Mr Mumford, this woman, or at any rate a woman has disappeared. Possibly two women. I have been asked by Mrs Chalk, a member of the family . . .”
“By marriage, Mr Deene. Only by marriage. We must remember that.”
“An interested party at all events. I have been asked by Mrs Chalk to trace her cousin. Surely a three-year-old address, if it is going to aid me, is a small piece of information to ask?”
The inevitable answer came: “It’s the principle of the thing. However, on consideration, I see no reason to deny it you. It was 47, Balaclava Grove.”
“Thank you. And the address in Bolderton—though I can get that from Mrs Chalk.”
“It was Coleshill Lodge, Bolderton. Now is there anything else, because I have a client waiting for me?”
“Yes. Do you know anything of the antecedents of Rathbone? After all, he isn’t a client of yours.”
“I can give you the name of the firm he worked for before he married our client’s daughter. I see no harm in that.”
“That is fifteen years ago?”
“Approximately. Yes.”
Mumford rang and asked his clerk for the necessary information.
“And now,” he said, “let me ask you a question. Do you see any prospect of tracing the Rathbones whom you insist on describing as ‘missing’?”
“I have spoken to Rathbone.”
“You have?” Smile on. “What is his explanation?” Smile off.
“I scarcely think . . . I am acting in a professional capacity . . .”
“Quite, quite,” said Mr Mumford, hoist with his own petard. “You don’t think there could be anything er . . . questionable about Mrs Rathbone’s . . .er . . . whereabouts?”
“You mean, has she been murdered?”
“Oh, come now, Mr. Deene. Don’t let us be melodramatic. People are not murdered.”
“No? Perhaps you’re right.”
“I have never heard anything about the daughter of our client Herbert Bright or about her husband to suggest any impropriety.”
“You should go down to the village where they lived. You would hear enough there.”
“Gossip? Scandal?”
“No one in the place doubts that Rathbone killed his wife and buried her in the garden or somewhere.”
“And you?”
“I don’t think she is buried in the garden.”
“This is all very disturbing. This firm has never been connected with anything of the sort.”
Potter entered and handed Mumford a slip of paper.
“This is the firm for which Rathbone worked before his marriage,” he said, and passed the paper to Carolus, who read Tonkins Sons & Company, Wholesale Chemists, 17, Skye Street, Hammersmith
.
“They are still there,” said Potter quietly.
“Thank you. That is most helpful.”
“I trust you will keep us informed,” said Mumford. Smile on. “We have a natural interest in the matter.” Smile off.
“Another question,” said Carolus unhurriedly, but before Potter could leave the room. “Did the Rathbones come to this office during the time they lived at Hastings?”
“My father was alive then and I had no concern with this. Did they, Potter?”
“Several times, Mr Mumford.”
“And what was Mrs Rathbone’s height then?” asked Carolus.
Potter looked pained.
“Just as it always was, of course. She was a short lady. She was ill when they moved to Hastings, I believe, but soon recovered there. She came up a couple of years after their move. She looked very well, I thought.”
“The sea air,” reflected Carolus.
“Yes,” went on Potter. “We remarked on it at the time. She seemed to have quite blossomed out. I remember the late Mr Mumble saying that he ought to move to Hastings. It’s a pity he didn’t. He might have been alive to this day.”
“Come, Potter. Mr Mumble was eighty-one when I joined the firm.”
“He might have lived much longer than he did,” corrected Potter. “Mrs Rathbone was a delicate lady till she went to Hastings.”
“She had a sister, I believe,” Carolus threw out, not daring to ask a flat question.
“Dead,” said Mr Mumford. Smile on. “Tragic case.” Smile off. “We were involved. I have often thought it hastened my father’s end.”
“What were the details?”
“Most unsavory. She was a woman of . . .er . . . easy morals . . .”
“A woman of the town,” put in Potter more explicitly.
“I fear, yes. A . . . er . . . fille de joie . . .”
“You mean she was a whore?” said Carolus impatiently.
“In biblical terms, yes. That would be no exaggeration. She was found dead in a miserable room not half a mile from where we are sitting. In an . . . apartment house kept by a Maltese or Cypriot. I never knew which. The only evidence of her identity was a letter from us, advising her some years previously that her father had left her—generously, in view of the circumstances—one thousand pounds.”
“So one of you went down?”
“No. No. Quite out of our sphere. We gave the police the address of her sister at Hastings and Mrs Rathbone identified the body.”
“When, exactly, was this?”
Mumford glanced at Potter.
“Five years ago, almost to a day,” said Potter. “Mrs Rathbone called here afterwards and it was the last time we saw her until she came in the other day in the matter of . . .”
“That will do, thank you, Potter. I have already explained to Mr Deene that if Mrs Rathbone did make any new financial arrangements we could not in any case discuss them.”
“So the sister died five years ago. Could you give me the address of this apartment house in which she was found?”
“I see no reason against it. Potter?”
“I’ll turn it up, Mr Mumford. We found that the name under which she had been work . . . living was Lucille French. She was apparently known among her associates as ‘Frenchy’. Women of that calling rarely use their own names.”
“You are very well informed.”
Potter left the room and came back with the address.
“Here you are. 16b, Montgolfier Street, Flat 27. The proprietor was known as ‘Daddy’. He lived in Grosvenor Square. That is the address. His name is Makroides.”
“You’re most kind.”
“I cannot quite see what the circumstances of her unfortunate sister’s death have to do with the . . . er . . . absence of Mrs Rathbone,” observed Mumford.
“Nor, quite frankly, can I,” said Carolus cheerfully; “but it’s all grist to the mill. Did Rathbone come up from Hastings with his wife when she had to identify her sister?”
“Certainly. He was reputed to be a most affectionate husband.”
“One final question. I take it there was nothing in the circumstances of Charlotte’s death to give rise to question?”
Mr Mumford shrugged. “A doctor gave a death certificate,” he said; “but with women of that kind I dare say no very searching examination is made or needed. Mrs Rathbone paid for the cremation. You seem to be landing yourself in deep waters, if I may say so, Mr Deene.”
“Deeper and deeper,” said Carolus.
“What surprises me, if you sincerely intended to find the Rathbones, is that you do not appear to look for them. Instead of going forward you go back into the past.”
“Sorry if I sound enigmatic or something,” said Carolus; “but in this case the only way to go forward is to go back.”
Then, after a final expression of thanks, he left the gloomy purlieus of Booty Street.
7
BACK at Bluefield Carolus decided to stop at the Stag for a drink before going out to Glose Cottage. Mr Lofting greeted him like a brother, then leaned across the bar to give him some confidential information.
“The police have been out at your place today,” he said. “Digging, I understand. I suppose they’re looking for the remains of Mrs Rathbone. I know the chap in charge. A detective sergeant called Cromarty. Damned good scout. An Old Hucknall-Torkardian.”
The earlier part of this information was confirmed by Mrs Luggett when she stumped in and dropped gasping in a chair.
“I wouldn’t let them into the house, though, till you came. They said they’d got an order and I said so had I—orders not to let anyone in. I never liked policemen and I wasn’t going to have them tramping all over the place just when I’ve begun to get it a bit presentable. So they’ve been messing about in the garden all day, digging holes and that.”
“Did they find anything?”
“Not so far as I know, and I was keeping a pretty sharp look-out on them. They say they’ll be there again tomorrow.”
“I’m afraid we can’t prevent them searching the interior,” said Carolus.
“That’s up to you. I wasn’t going to let them, anyway.”
Carolus was awakened next morning by the sound of digging, and looked out to see two burly men turning the soil over while a third in a raincoat looked on. This was presumably Detective Sergeant Cromarty, described by Mr Lofting as a damned good scout. While he was having his breakfast before a blazing fire in the dining-room, this officer was shown in. Carolus saw, only too plainly, what Mr Lofting had meant.
“Sorry about this,” said Cromarty in a man-to-man way. “I’m afraid we’re making a bit of a shambles of the garden.”
“Not at all,” said Carolus. “I enjoy nothing more than to see the police at work. Have some coffee?”
“Thanks. Ectually we’ve nearly finished outside.”
“Find anything?”
“I suppose I oughtn’t to discuss it, but no. Not up to date.”
“Tried the rubbish-heap?”
“Been through it with a fine comb.”
“And under it?”
Carolus saw that this had gone home. “We shall come to that,” said Cromarty casually. “Then I’m afraid we’ve got to start on the house. Naturally we’ve got a search-warrant.”
“All right with me.”
“I was going to suggest that you might like to move out for a few days.”
“No thanks.”
“I’m afraid we shall produce chaos, rather.”
“Can’t be helped.”
“Floorboards up, perhaps. Wouldn’t you be better at the Stag for a bit?”
“Very good of you. But no.”
“You see, I can’t ectually insist . . .”
“Insist on what?”
“On your moving out. On the other hand we’ve got our job to do.”
“Quite. It will be a unique opportunity to study the methods you learnt on those courses.”
“I don’t k
now what to say,” said Cromarty uncomfortably. “What is your business, Mr . . . ?”
“Deene. I’m a private investigator.”
“You mean you’re ectually concerned in this matter of the Rathbones?”
“I can’t think of anything else that would induce me to occupy this house.”
“This is . . . I scarcely know . . .”
“Why not ask your inspector?”
“We can’t have someone hanging round while we conduct a search. Particularly someone interested.”
“Awkward, isn’t it? On the other hand I’m in occupation of this house. Rented it.”
“I see that; but it practically amounts to obstructing the police.”
“You exaggerate. I’ve told you that I welcome your search. There’s a most unpleasant smell in the house. I wouldn’t think of obstructing you.”
Detective Sergeant Cromarty returned to his diggers. From the bedroom window Carolus saw him direct them to remove the pile of rubbish from its corner. One of them seemed to protest mildly, perhaps pointing out that they had done so once. But they fell to and, when the rubbish was gone, showing finely manured earth undisturbed beneath it, Cromarty told them to dig this. Not for a moment did Carolus leave his place of concealment while this was going on, and he was rewarded by seeing one of the men stoop to recover something and hand it to Cromarty. Clearly Carolus could see that it was a gold or gilt ear-ring.
Standing with it in his palm, Cromarty seemed suddenly to remember Carolus, and looked across to see if he was being watched. The temptation was too much for Carolus. He opened the window. “You’ll probably find the other one there,” he said affably.
Cromarty was not amused. “I don’t need you to tell me that,” he said, and indicated to the two men that they should dig on. Presently one of them stooped again. The pair of ear-rings was complete.
When it was time for the three policemen to come into the house, Mrs Luggett stood squarely in the back doorway, almost filling it. “You wipe your feet on that scraper,” she said. “I’m not having all that mud on my clean lino. You may be able to search, but you can’t do what you like in other people’s houses.” She admitted them after an inspection of their boots and, making straight for the drawing-room, they locked the door behind them.