“It is the aftermath of the War,” said Aubrey Todmarsh, shaking his
head. “You take a man away from his usual occupation and for four
years you let him do nothing but kill other men and try to kill other
men, and then you are surprised when he comes home and still goes on
killing.”
“Don't you think, Aubrey, that you had better say straight out that
you believe I killed Uncle Luke?” Tony Collyer inquired very quietly,
yet with a look in his eyes that his men had known well in the Great
War, and had labelled dangerous.
Instinctively Aubrey drew back. “My dear Tony,” he said, with what was
meant to be an indulgent smile and only succeeded in looking
distinctly scared, “why will you turn everything into personalities? I
was speaking generally.”
“Well, as I happen to be the only man who went to the War and who
profits by my uncle's will, and who was at the office the day he was
murdered, I will thank you not to speak generally in that fashion,”
retorted Anthony.
His father lifted up his hand.
“Boys, boys! This terrible crime is no time for unseemly bickering,”
he said, in much the same tone as he would have used to them twenty
years ago at Wexbridge Rectory.
The three were in the dining-room of Mr. Bechcombe's house in
Carlsford Square. They had been brought there by an urgent summons
from the widow of the dead man. Mrs. Bechcombe, prostrated at first by
the news of her husband's death, had been roused by learning how that
death had been brought about, and, in her determination that it should
be immediately avenged, she had insisted on her husband's
brother-in-law and his two nephews coming together to consult with her
as to the best steps to be taken to discover the assassin.
In appearance the last twenty-four hours had aged the rector by as
many years. His shoulders were bent as he leaned forward in his
chair—the very chair in which Luke Bechcombe had sat at the bottom of
his table only the night before last. There were new lines that sorrow
and horror had scored upon James Collyer's face, even his hair looked
whiter. Glancing round the familiar room it seemed to him impossible
that he could never see again the brother-in-law upon whose advice he
had unconsciously leaned all his married life. He was just about to
speak when the door opened and Mrs. Bechcombe entered. She was a tall,
almost a regal-looking woman, with flashing dark eyes and regular,
aquiline features. To-day her beautiful formed lips were closely
compressed and there was a very sombre light in the dark eyes, and
there were great blue marks under them.
Mr. Collyer got up, raising himself slowly. “My dear Madeline, I wish
I could help you,” he said, taking her hands in his, “but only Our
Heavenly Father can do that, and since it is His Will——”
“It was not His Will!” Mrs. Bechcombe contradicted passionately. She
tore her hands from his. “My husband was murdered. He did not die by
the Will of God, but by the wickedness of man.”
“My dear aunt, nothing happens but by the Will of God——” Aubrey
Todmarsh was beginning, when the door opened to admit a spare, short,
altogether undistinguished-looking man of middle age.
Mrs. Bechcombe turned to him eagerly.
“This is my cousin, John Steadman. You have heard me speak of him, I
know, James. He is a barrister, and, though he does not practise now,
he is a great criminologist. And I know if anyone can help us it will
be he.”
“I hope so, I am sure,” Mr. Steadman said as he shook hands. “This is
a most terrible and mysterious crime, but there are several valuable
clues. I do not think it should remain undiscovered long.”
“I hope not!” the rector sighed. “And yet we cannot bring poor Luke
back, we can only punish his murderer.”
“And that I mean to do!” Mrs. Bechcombe said passionately. “I have
sworn to devote every penny of my money and every moment of my life to
avenging my husband.”
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” murmured Aubrey Todmarsh.
“Yes, I never professed to be of your way of thinking,” Mrs. Bechcombe
returned with unveiled contempt. “I prefer to undertake the vengeance
myself, thank you.”
Mr. Steadman looked at Anthony. “I understand that you called at the
office yesterday morning.”
“Yes, I did,” returned Anthony defiantly. “And, when old Thompson told
me I couldn't see Mr. Bechcombe, I was fool enough to say I would go
round to the private door and get in to him that way.”
“And did you?” questioned Mr. Steadman quietly.
“Yes, I did, but I did not go in and murder my uncle,” returned
Anthony in the same loud, passionate tone.
“Did you see him?” Mr. Steadman inquired.
“Yes. He came to the door and told me to go away. He was expecting an
important client.”
“Tony, you did not ask him for money?” his father said piteously.
Anthony's face softened as he looked at him. “I was going to, but I
didn't get the chance. He wouldn't listen to me. I went on to ask a
friend of mine in the next room to come out to lunch with me. As we
were passing my uncle's room he came to the door. ‘I want you, Tony,’
he said sharply. My friend went on, telling me to follow to the Field
of Rest. Uncle Luke kept me a few minutes talking. He told me that if
I had a really good opening he would go into it, if it were really
promising the lack of money should not stand in the way. He said I was
to come and see him that night and talk things over. I meant to go, of
course. But then I heard this——” and Anthony gulped down something in
his throat.
“Did you keep your friend waiting?” inquired Mr. Steadman.
“Yes, I did!” Tony answered, staring at him. “Uncle Luke kept me a
minute or two. But then I missed my way to the Field of Rest, and was
wandering about the best part of half an hour. I suppose you don't
call that a very satisfactory alibi,” he added truculently.
“Oh, don't be silly, Tony!” Mrs. Bechcombe interposed fretfully. “Of
course we are all sure that you would not have hurt your uncle. We
want to know if you saw anyone—if you met this wicked woman——”
Tony stared at her.
“What wicked woman? What do you mean, Aunt Madeline?”
“The woman who left her glove in his room, the woman who killed my
husband,” Mrs. Bechcombe returned, her breath coming quickly and
nervously, her hands clenching and unclenching themselves.
“My dear Madeline,” Mr. Steadman interrupted her, “I do not think it
possible that the crime could have been committed by a woman.”
“And I am sure that it was,” she contradicted stormily. “Women are as
powerful as men nowadays and Luke was not strong. He had a weak
heart.” And with the last words she burst into a very tempest of
tears.
Her cousin looked at her pityingly.
“Well, well, my dear girl! At any rate the police are searching
everywhere for this woman. The finding her can only be a matter of a
few days now. I am going to send your maid to you.” He signed to the
other men and they followed him out of the room. “Do her all the good
in the world to cry it out,” he remarked confidentially when he had
closed the door. “I haven't seen her shed a tear yet. Now I am going
to see Inspector Furnival before the inquest opens. That, of course,
will be absolutely formal, at first. Can I give any of you a lift?”
“I think not, thank you,” Mr. Collyer responded. “There must be
some—er—arrangements to be made here and it is quite possible we may
be of some real service.”
Both young men looked inclined to dissent, but the barrister proffered
no further invitation and a minute or two later they saw him drive
off.
He was shown in at once to Inspector Furnival, who was writing at his
office table, briskly making notes in a large parchment-bound book. He
got up as the door opened.
Mr. Steadman shook hands. “You haven't forgotten me, I hope,
inspector?”
The inspector permitted himself a slight smile. “I haven't forgotten
how you helped me to catch John Bassil.”
“Um! Well, my cousin—Mrs. Bechcombe is my cousin, you know—has
insisted on my coming to you this morning,” Mr. Steadman went on,
taking the chair the inspector placed by the table. “This is a
terrible business, inspector. It looks fairly plain sailing at first
sight, but I don't know.”
The inspector glanced at him. “You think it looks like plain sailing,
sir? Well, it may be, but I confess I don't see it quite in that way
myself.”
Mr. Steadman met the detective's eyes with a curious look in his own.
“What of Thompson's disappearance?”
The inspector blotted the page in his ledger at which he had been
writing and left the blotting-paper on.
“Ay, as usual you have put your finger on the spot, Mr. Steadman. What
has become of Thompson? He walked out of the office and apparently
disappeared into space. For from that moment we have not been able to
find anyone who has seen him.”
“The inference being——?” Mr. Steadman raised his eyebrows.
The inspector laid his hand on a parcel of papers lying on the table
at his elbow.
“There wasn't much about the case in the papers this morning,” he
said, replying indirectly to the barrister's question, “but the one
that comes out at ten o'clock—Racing Special they call it: selections
on the back page, don't you know—in almost every case gives a large
space on its front page to ‘The Murder of a Solicitor in his Office,’
and every one of them mentions the disappearance of his managing
clerk. The inference, though the paragraphs are naturally guarded in
the extreme, is unmistakable.”
Mr. Steadman reached over for one of the papers.
“Don't take any notice of these things myself; they have to write up
the sensation. Um! Yes! No doubt what they're hinting at, but they're
generally wrong. What should Thompson want to kill his employer for,
unless——”
“Ay, exactly; unless——” the inspector said dryly. “That was one of my
first thoughts, sir. John Walls is going through the books with an
auditor this morning. And Mr. Turner, who was in the firm until last
year, is going over the contents of the safe. When we get their
reports we shall know more.”
The barrister nodded. “Thompson had been with the firm for many
years.”
“Eighteen, I believe,” assented the inspector. “He seems to have been
a great favourite with Mr. Bechcombe, but it is astonishing how little
his fellow-clerks know of him. Only two of them have ever seen him out
of the office, and none of them appear to have the least idea where he
lives.”
Mr. Steadman did not speak for a moment, then he said slowly:
“The fact that so little is known seems in itself curious. Is there no
way of ascertaining his address?”
“One would imagine that there must be a note of it somewhere at the
office,” the inspector remarked, “but so far we have not been able to
find it.”
“How about the woman visitor?” the barrister inquired, changing the
subject suddenly.
“We haven't been able to identify her at present.” The inspector
opened the top drawer at his right hand, and took the white glove that
had been found by the murdered man's desk from its wrapping of tissue
paper. The most cursory glance showed that it was an expensive glove,
even if the maker's name had not been known as one of the most famous
in London and Paris. About it there still clung the vague elusive
scent that always seems to linger about the belongings of a woman who
is attracted by and attractive to the other sex.
Mr. Steadman handled it carefully and inspected it thoroughly through
his eyeglasses. “Yes. We ought to be able to find the mysterious woman
with the aid of this.”
“Ah, yes. We shall find the wearer,” the inspector said confidently.
“But will that be very much help in solving the mystery of Luke
Bechcombe's death?”
The barrister looked at him.
“I don't know that it will. Still, why doesn't she come forward and
say, ‘I saw Mr. Bechcombe the morning he was murdered. My business
with him was urgent and I saw him by special appointment.’ She is much
more likely to be suspected of the crime if she refuses to come
forward. Mrs. Bechcombe seems certain of her guilt, and women do have
intuitions.”
“I'm not much of a believer in them myself,” remarked Inspector
Furnival, shrugging his shoulders. “I would rather have a penn'orth of
direct evidence than a pound's worth of intuition. And I don't believe
that Mr. Bechcombe was murdered by a woman. A woman doesn't spring at
a man and strangle him. She may stab him or shoot him, the weapons
being to hand, but strangle him with her hands—no. Besides, this was a
premeditated crime. There was an unmistakable smell of chloroform
about the body, faint, I grant you, but unmistakable. No, no! It
wasn't a woman. As to why she doesn't speak—well, there may be a dozen
reasons. In the first place she may not have heard of the murder at
all. It doesn't occupy a very conspicuous place in the morning's
papers. It will be a different matter to-night. Then, she might not
want her business known. And, above all, many a woman—and man
too—hates to be mixed up in a murder case, and won't speak out till
she is driven to it.”
“Quite so!”
The barrister sat silent for a minute or two, his eyes staring
straight in front of him at nothing in particular. Inspector Furnival
took another glance at his notes.
“Spencer, the only person we have been able to trace so far who has
seen this mysterious woman, fancies that her face is familiar to him,
but does not know in what connexion. I have suggested to him that she
is possibly an actress, and he is inclined to think that it may be so.
I have sent him up a quantity of photographs to see if he can identify
any of them. But don't you see, Mr. Steadman, Mr. Spencer's evidence
tends rather to exonerate Thompson. Spencer went out after Thompson
and met this woman on the stairs. It therefore appears probable that
Thompson was off the premises before the woman came on.”
Mr. Steadman shook his head.
“It isn't safe to assume anything in a case of this kind. We do not
know that Thompson went off the premises. We do not know where he went
or where he is.”
“Very true! I wish we did,” asserted the inspector. “At the same
time——”
The telephone bell was ringing sharply over his desk. He took up the
receiver.
“That you, Jones? Yes, what is it? Inspector Furnival speaking.”
“Thompson's address has been found in one of Mr. Bechcombe's books.
There are several other of the clerks' addresses there all entered in
Mr. Bechcombe's writing, and all the others we have verified.”
“What is it?”
“Number 10 Brooklyn Terrace, North Kensington.”
“Um! I will see to it at once.” And the inspector rang off sharply.