Lady Lunt. Medically speaking, it’s a pretty straight case. Lunt was
shot in the chest and the bullet lodged in the spine, .38 revolver
bullet. So there’s not much doubt about the cause of death, what? But
there are one or two odd things. The right thumb seems to be
sprained. There’s a nasty wound over the left eye--seems to have been
made by a blow.”
“Sounds messy. Where do I come in?”
“Why, I don’t quite see my way through it. If a fellow had a pistol
ready to use, why bash the beggar? It’s a futile sort of wound too,
nasty mess, but not dangerous. But you’d better see the body,
Fortune.”
“Oh, let me thaw. So Lady Lunt’s not satisfied with the police?”
“No, by Jove, she isn’t. I say, Fortune, how did you know that?”
“Genius, just genius. And what’s Lady Lunt like?”
“Well, you know, she isn’t quite a lady. And yet she is in big
things. He married her about ten years ago, somewhere on the
Continent. But she’s English. She was a dancer or singer or
something. Pretty low class, I believe. She was awfully
handsome--big, dark, dashing type. She hasn’t kept her looks, but
she’s still striking. She was pretty rowdy at first--went the pace
like he did. He was an awful old bounder, you know. But for a good
while now she’s been different--quiet and serious--looking after
things down here, good work on the estate--that sort of thing. She
quietened him down too, but he was pretty bad. I think she was
getting him in hand slowly, but she must have been having a rotten
time for years.”
“And what does Lady Lunt want now?”
“I’m hanged if I know,” said Barnes, after some hesitation. “She
thinks there’s more in it than the detectives see, and she’s not
satisfied about this arrest.”
“Now go easy. Two other people have called me in, and I don’t know
who I’ll act for. So don’t spoil anybody’s game. Lomas wired for
me----”
“Lomas! So Scotland Yard isn’t so mighty cocksure.”
“Did Lomas seem so? Rude fellow. And then there’s V. Cranford.”
“Cranford’s got to you already! He’s lost no time.”
“Oh, he’s in very good hands. Now let’s take a walk. You’ll show me
where Lunt was killed, and I’ll have a look at him.” Reggie shed his
fur coat and became brisk.
It was his bailiff who had found Sir Albert Lunt, taken the news to
the house, and telephoned for Gerald Barnes. Sir Albert Lunt had been
walking back from his home farm across the park, which was an
undulating stretch of turf over chalk, broken here and there by some
fine beeches and coverts of gorse and bramble. A gravel path ran
straight from the home farm to the main chestnut avenue. Barnes
halted at a place where the turf was trampled in half-frozen
footprints. Reggie looked round him. “Humph! Well out of sight of any
house. Nobody heard the shot?”
“Nobody noticed it. It’s a good way from the house, you see, and a
mile from the farm. A shot or so--what’s that in the open country?
You often hear a gun somewhere.”
“Quite. Where’s that path go to?” Reggie pointed to a track across
the turf diverging from the gravel.
“That? Oh, over to Victor Lunt’s place. His park--he calls it a park
too, but it’s a small affair--almost joins this, you know.”
“Well, well, let’s see the body,” Reggie yawned, and they marched on
to Prior’s Colney.
It had once been a comely place in a staid eighteenth-century
fashion. “Oh, my only aunt!” Reggie groaned. “Looks like your
grandmother put into the Russian ballet.” It was loaded with
excrescences of contorted ornament still raw and new against the
mellow solemnity of the original homely house.
A motor-car stood at the door. While they were detaching hats and
sticks in the hall, they could hear some one being told that Lady
Lunt was not leaving her room. Then, being shown out, came a bulky
man muffled in a fur coat with a big Astrakhan collar. He had a large
head and a long face of unhealthy complexion. Across the forehead
from right eyebrow to hair was a red furrow. He had prominent, pale
eyes.
“Who is the sportsman with the scratched face?” Reggie said, as the
door shut on him.
“Oh, that’s Victor Lunt. Been inquiring after Lady Lunt, I suppose.”
“Bright and brotherly,” Reggie murmured.
There appeared briskly a man of grave and military aspect, who was
presented to Reggie as Radnor Hall, Sir Albert Lunt’s secretary.
Radnor Hall (in a faintly American accent) was very glad to see Mr.
Fortune; hoped for Mr. Fortune’s company to lunch; after which, Lady
Lunt was most anxious to see Mr. Fortune.
“I want to see the body,” Reggie said gruffly.
So to the body he was taken, and saw that Gerald Barnes was right
enough: there could be no doubt of the cause of death. A pistol
bullet, fired from some little distance, had entered the chest and
lodged in the spinal vertebræ. Sir Albert Lunt might not have died on
the instant. He could not have lived long. But that mortal wound was
tiny. What made the dead man look horrible was the gash in his
forehead and the bruise round it. And over that Reggie frowned and
pondered. “Showy, isn’t it, very showy?” he complained. Such a hurt a
man might get by falling on a stone. But Sir Albert Lunt had fallen
on his back on the turf. If some one had hit him with a stone or some
such jagged thing--but why should any man take a stone who had a
pistol and was not afraid to use it? “If there was any sense in it,
I’d say it was a fake,” Reggie grumbled.
He gave up the wounds at last and moved round the body.
“Oh, you’re looking at the wrong hand,” Barnes said.
“Am I though?”
“Yes, this is the one where the thumb’s sprained--the right hand.”
“Well, you know, he seems to have been busy with his hands. What did
you make of this?”
Barnes came to look. The fingers of the left hand were bent towards
the thumb as if the dead man had been plucking at something.
“Not much in that, is there?”
“What was he wearing?”
“Rough brown overcoat--brown tweeds.”
“Oh, ah!” Delicately Reggie extracted from the stiff fingers some
little curly, black tufts.
“Well, that’s queer,” Barnes said. “Looks like a nigger’s hair.”
“You know you’ve got imagination.” Reggie put the stuff very
carefully in his pocket-book. “Some oppressed nigger from the
compounds at Johannesburg--came all the way to Prior’s Colney for
vengeance--threw a stone at him--shot him--and then butted him.
Thorough fellow, very thorough.”
“What is it, then?” Barnes said sulkily.
“Seek not to proticipate. Hallo!”
The interruption was the Hon. Stanley Lomas, Chief of the Criminal
Investigation Department, dapper and debonair.
“Ah, Fortune, good man. Why didn’t you ask for me? I’m at the inn in
the village.”
“That’s very haughty of you. Why not in the house? Have you put Lady
Lunt’s back up? Or has she put up yours?”
“Oh, best to have a free hand, don’t you know? Well, what do you make
of it?” Reggie shrugged. “Curious features, what? What I want to know
is, was that blow on the head before the shot or after?”
“What you want is not a surgeon, it’s a clairvoyant. Anyway, you
don’t want me. You’ve got your man.”
“Have I?” Lomas put up his eyeglass. “You mean Cranford? Now how did
you know about Cranford?”
“Sorry, Lomas. Nothing doing. I’m the independent expert this time.”
Lomas frowned. “My dear fellow! Oh, my dear fellow! Unless you’re
acting for some one, you’ve no business here, don’t you know.”
“I’m acting for some one all right--for V. Cranford.”
“Hallo! You’ve made up your mind?” Barnes cried.
Lomas dropped his eyeglass. “Ah! Well, well. Things must be as they
may, what? It’s a pity. Afraid you’ve made a bad break this time,
Fortune. It’s a straight case.”
“I wonder,” Reggie said.
“My dear fellow, I’d hate you to be at a disadvantage.” Lomas seemed
suddenly to have become older, paternal, protective. “Well--it’s not
strictly official--but I may tell you we’ve found the pistol. It was
in Cranford’s rooms.”
“A Smith-Southron .38? Fancy! I don’t suppose there’s more than half
a million of them in circulation. It’s a good gun. I’ve got one
myself somewhere.”
“My dear fellow!” Lomas was young and jaunty again. “Why try to bluff
me? Lunt was killed by a particular kind of pistol. And we find the
particular man to whom all suspicion points owns one of these
pistols. It’s quite simple, don’t you know?”
“Yes, oh, yes, ‘Doosid lucid, doosid convincing.’ But I wonder why
you want to convince me?”
That was the first skirmish over the Lunt case, and Reggie, Gerald
Barnes discreetly excusing himself, ate a little _tête-à-tête_ lunch
with Radnor Hall--not in the silver panelled dining-room. When the
servants were gone, “I don’t want to hear anything under false
pretences, Mr. Hall,” Reggie explained. “I shall act in this case for
Cranford.”
“Is that so?” Radnor Hall rubbed his back hair. “I guess I’ll take
you right in to Lady Lunt.”
Lady Lunt stood in front of the fire with a cigarette in her mouth.
She was a big woman, a little flat of figure and gaunt of face, but
still handsome. She thrust a hand on Reggie, gripped his hand, and
shot a “Glad to see you,” at him. Reggie was sorry he could not act
for Lady Lunt, but had to consider that Cranford had the first claim
on him. “I don’t mind,” she cried. It seemed her habit to be
explosive. “If you’re against the police, that’s good enough for us.
Eh, Radnor?”
“Sure,” said Radnor Hall, who was watching Reggie closely.
“I want you to hear what we’ve got to say about the case,” the lady
explained. “We think it matters.”
“Quite a lot,” said Radnor Hall. Lady Lunt nodded at him, and he
began. “You see, Mr. Fortune, Sir Albert left everything to Lady
Lunt.” Reggie murmured that it was very natural. “As Lady Lunt
regards the proposition, it’s up to her to see that justice is done
about the murder.”
“Justice, see?” Lady Lunt broke in vehemently. “And not have some
poor devil hanged because the police think he’s an under dog and
don’t count.”
Radnor Hall frowned at her. “Mr. Fortune will realize when we make
the position clear.”
“Sorry, Radnor. You go on.” Lady Lunt threw her cigarette away and
dropped into a chair.
“Well, sir, to commence.” Radnor Hall smoothed his black hair. “This
firm never was Albert Lunt. It was Lunt Brothers. The late Sir Albert
he was sure master. He put in the git up and git. But quite a lot of
the head work came from Mr. Victor Lunt. And lately, Sir Albert
having largely relapsed into living on his rents, Mr. Victor Lunt has
had considerable control. Now, sir, speaking as man to man, I would
wish to say that the methods of Lunt Brothers have been
complex--highly complex. I conjecture that in early days Albert and
Victor were both out for scalps. But in my time, Sir Albert having
mellowed, largely mellowed--under prosperity and certain
influences----”
“Oh, don’t blether, Radnor,” Lady Lunt exploded.
“Well, Mr. Fortune, Sir Albert has lately showed a tendency to more
conservative methods of finance. Mr. Victor Lunt has gone on putting
in his sharp head work. There has been friction, sir--some friction.
Now in this affair of Cranford’s--without prejudice, I would like to
say that Mr. Cranford has been hardly used by Lunt Brothers.”
“He’s been damnably cheated,” said Lady Lunt.
“There’s a point of view,” said Radnor Hall. “Lady Lunt had put her
point of view to Sir Albert. Well, sir, the Cranford case was largely
handled by Mr. Victor Lunt. I wouldn’t say Sir Albert disavowed the
methods used. But he considered Mr. Victor was taking too much
control. Words passed. And we find Sir Albert shot. That’s the
proposition, Mr. Fortune.”
Reggie smiled. Reggie put the tips of his fingers together and over
them looked very blandly at the military face of Radnor Hall. “Your
view is that Sir Albert was murdered by his brother Victor,” he said.
Lady Lunt started and looked at Radnor Hall.
Radnor Hall gave no sign of surprise. “Pitch up another, doctor,” he
smiled back. “No, sir. Your guess, not mine. I’m giving out facts.”
“Oh, cut it out, Radnor,” said Lady Lunt.
“Well, well.” Reggie surveyed her benignly. “And so Sir Albert’s
death leaves Victor in control of the firm?”
“Sir Albert’s share comes to me,” Lady Lunt said. “Five-eighths. I’m
master now.”
“A responsibility,” Reggie murmured. “If I understand one cause of
quarrel between the brothers was that Victor resented your influence,
madame, which Sir Albert encouraged you to use?”
“Yes, that’s the proposition,” said Radnor Hall.
“You know it’s not,” Lady Lunt cried. “They both hated me to meddle.”
“Is that so?” Reggie said dreamily. “And you were asking me to find
out who murdered Sir Albert?”
“No, I wasn’t,” Lady Lunt flashed at him. “I was asking you to save
this poor boy Cranford.”
“Ah well, let’s hope it’s the same thing.” Reggie stood up. “I can
play about in the park, I suppose? Many thanks.”
And he did play about in the park till dusk, and when he went back to
London, Sam, the factotum, was not with him.
In the evening Donald Gordon rang him up. Donald Gordon thought
Cranford was a bit of a tough, but was going to act for him. It would
be a fruity case. He had arranged a consultation with Cranford at the
prison to-morrow, and hoped Reggie would be there. What did Reggie
think of the case? “Rotten,” said Reggie, and rang off.
The fact is that from first to last the Lunt case annoyed him. He
never saw his way through it, and has always called it one of his
failures. The one thing which he did, he will tell you, was to grasp
that the police were mucking it--to divine that whoever killed Sir
Albert and however he--or she--did it, it was not a simple, common
bit of pistolling. He was right about nothing else. His apology is
that he has no imagination.
At this stage he was prepared to believe anything. When he went
gloomily to bed it was with the conviction that if he were Chief of
the Criminal Investigation Department he could make it--or fake
it--into a hanging matter for “any one of the bally crowd”. The
unknown Cranford, the enigmatic Victor, Lady Lunt, Radnor Hall, you
could put each of them in the dock--or several of them together. Lady
Lunt stood to gain most by the death--or perhaps Radnor Hall--what
were her relations with Radnor Hall? Cranford had the worst quarrel
with the dead man--or perhaps brother Victor. In favour of Cranford
was only the oddity of the business, and nice Nurse Dauntsey . . . a
lamb. . . . Comfortable visions of her sent him to sleep.
Seen in the gaunt room at the prison, the unknown Cranford came up to
expectation. He was a dark fellow, lean and powerful, with a decisive
jaw. The little Jewish solicitor, Donald Gordon, became nervous
before him. “Miss Dauntsey says I’m devilish obliged to you, doctor,”
said Cranford sharply. “So I am. You understand I admit nothing.”
“That’s the best way,” the little Jew lisped.
But Cranford told his story and admitted a good deal. He had offered
his discovery of copper to Lunt Brothers, and been sent out to
Mozambique with a party of their men. On the way up country he had
gone out of camp to shoot for the pot. Out of the bush came a native
spear and broke in his thigh. By the time he struggled back to camp,
there was no camp. The party had gone on with the food and the
baggage, his baggage too, in which was the map of his copper belt. He
was left wounded and alone in the bush. After some desperate days he
struggled into a native village, and lay there a month before he
could travel. When he came back to Mozambique he found that Lunt
Brothers were enrolled as the owners of all the copper belt.
He sailed for England. There was in him, he confessed--no,
proclaimed--the single purpose of getting his own back from Sir
Albert Lunt. And so his first day in England took him to the office
of Lunt Brothers. Victor Lunt received him. Victor Lunt had been
civil, even sympathetic, but had nothing to offer. Victor Lunt
admitted that they had jumped his claim, did not conceal that the
trick had been planned by Sir Albert Lunt, agreed that Cranford had
been damnably swindled; but gave him no hope that Sir Albert Lunt
would do anything.
“You didn’t kill Victor, anyway?” Reggie said.
“Victor? Poor beast, there’s nothing to him. He’s all talk,” said
Cranford. “Albert ran that show. Victor as good as told me so. Said
he was just a clerk in Albert’s office. So I told him a few things
about Albert. Poor devil, he was in a funk. He got cold feet. Said I
had better go right on to Albert. Albert was down at Prior’s Colney.
Would I go to Albert? I would so. And I did.”
“Yes. By train. You got to Colney Road Station 12.20,” Reggie said.
“You came back by the 2.5.”
“That’s so.” Cranford stared at him. “You know something, doctor. I
walked up to Prior’s Colney. Flunkey said Albert was out. I walked
back and caught the 2.5.”
There was silence for a moment. Then the little Jew said, “That’s the
story. You’ll have to tell it in the witness-box, you know.”
“Can do,” said Cranford.
“That’s nice,” the little Jew lisped. “Now you know some fellow will
ask you--don’t you tell me if you don’t want--did you murder Albert
Lunt?”
“I did not, sir.”
The little Jew rubbed his hands. “That’s nice, ain’t it, doctor? That
gives us a free hand.” He got up. “Well, doctor, any questions?”
“I wonder what coat you were wearing, Mr. Cranford?” Reggie said.
“Coat? Brown raincoat. Devilish cold it was too. Only coat I’ve got.
I’ve not had time to fit out for an English spring.”
“Quite. We’ll carry on, then.” Reggie got up too. “It’s shaping all
right, Mr. Cranford. Shouldn’t worry.”
“Not me. Tell Miss Dauntsey,” Cranford said.
Outside in their car, “What’s the verdict, doctor?” Gordon said.
“He’s telling the truth,” Reggie said.
“Fancy!” And they became technical.
On the day of the inquest Reggie went down to Prior’s Colney, but the
inquest he did not attend. The Hon. Stanley Lomas noticed that, and
remarked on it with surprise to Donald Gordon. It was the one thing
in a successful day which gave Mr. Lomas concern. But at the close of
that day Mr. Lomas, going back to the inn for his car and his tea,
found Reggie eating buttered toast. “I envy you. Fortune, don’t you
know.” Lomas sat down beside him.
“Oh, Mr. Lomas, sir,” Reggie mumbled. “Go along with you.”
“I envy your stomach,” Lomas explained, put up his eyeglass and
surveyed the buttered toast more closely. “O Lord! And after a bad
day too! You’ve heard the verdict. What? Wilful murder against
Cranford.”
“And all is gas and gaiters. And hooroar for Scotland Yard. And you
shall pay for my tea.”
“It was the pistol did for him you know.” Lomas smiled as a man who
can afford to smile.
“Childhood’s years are passing o’er us, Lomas,” Reggie murmured.
“Soon our schooldays will be done. Cares and sorrows lie before us,
Lomas. Hidden dangers, snares unknown. I’ve found the real pistol,
old thing. Good-bye.”
Lomas caught him up outside. “I say, Fortune. Without
prejudice--what’s your line?”
“Seek not to proticipate,” Reggie smiled. “This gentleman is paying
for my tea, Mary. You would be so hasty, you know.”
Mr. Lomas drank whisky and soda.
That was the second skirmish in the Lunt case.
The general action was fought at the assizes. The interest in it
began with the cross-examination of Victor Lunt. Victor Lunt, called
for the prosecution, made a good impression. He looked harassed and
in ill-health, affected as a good brother should be by a brother’s
death. But he had command of himself, proved that he had brains as
well as the heart displayed by his dull eye and flabby face, he was
lucid and to the point. He showed no malice against Cranford.
Cranford had called on him on the morning of the murder, complained
bitterly of his treatment by Sir Albert Lunt, used violent language
about Sir Albert, demanded to know where Sir Albert was, and gone
away. Such was Mr. Lunt’s evidence in chief.
Then arose a small and pallid barrister with a priggish nose. He
would ask Mr. Lunt to carry his mind back to some earlier
transactions. So the story of the expedition to Mozambique was
brought out and, such was the simplicity of the priggish little man,
the harassed mouth of Mr. Lunt was made to explain that Lunt Brothers
had annexed Cranford’s discovery, and that the expedition of Lunt
Brothers had left him to die in the bush.
“Are you justifying the murder?” said counsel for the Crown.
“You will understand my friend’s uneasiness, gentlemen,” says the
little barrister, and pinned Mr. Lunt to the statement that it was
Sir Albert who had planned this iniquitous scheme. “And when Cranford
had gone, Mr. Lunt, of course you warned your brother at once this
desperate fellow was on his track. No? Curious. Yet you went down in
your motor to your own house at Colney Towers, not much more than a
mile away. You reached the house between 12 and 12.30? Perhaps? Oh,
don’t begin to forget things now. What did you do then?”
As far as he remembered Mr. Lunt took a stroll.
“On your oath--did you not go and meet your brother?”
Mr. Lunt (who had sat down) started up to deny it. He had not gone
outside his own park.
“Would it surprise you to hear that on the path from your house to
Sir Albert’s there were found next day fresh footprints which your
boots fit?” Mr. Lunt often walked that way. “What clothes were you
wearing?” Mr. Lunt could not remember. He went as he was. “You don’t
deny you were wearing a coat with an Astrakhan collar?” Mr. Lunt
could not say--he had such a coat--he did often wear it. “Very well.
And, as you were saying, you have had quarrels with your brother
about the policy of the firm?”
“Not quarrels, no,” Mr. Lunt protested eagerly, and struggled to
explain them away.
“On the day after the murder you had a large scratch on your forehead
which was not there before the murder?” Mr. Lunt could not remember
the scratch. Anybody might have a scratch. He was let go. And the
jury looked at each other.
After lunch, first witness for the defence, came Lady Lunt to say
that the scheme to trick Cranford had been Victor’s, and that on many
subjects there were bitter quarrels between Victor and Albert. Radnor
Hall corroborated. Reggie followed, and brought the crisis of the
battle.
Mr. Fortune, eminent in his profession, had examined the body.
Clutched in the left hand were some black tufts--fragments of
Astrakhan. When he visited the scene of the crime he had found on the
brambles close by other tufts of Astrakhan. He had traced recent
footprints which corresponded exactly to the size of a pair of Mr.
Albert Lunt’s boots. He produced measurements and casts. In the
depths of one of the neighbouring coverts he had found a
Smith-Southron .38 magazine pistol, from which three shots had been
fired. And a vigorous cross-examination could do nothing with these
facts. Then came other witnesses to prove that Victor Lunt had been
wearing Astrakhan, and Cranford a raincoat.
Last witness for the defence--Cranford himself. Last question for the
defence--“On your oath, did you murder Albert Lunt?”
“On my oath, no.”
The once-confident counsel for the Crown went delicately now. It was
plain enough that he thought his case did not justify him in pressing
the prisoner hard. “When you were told Albert Lunt was out you made
no further attempt to see him. Why?”
“I thought it was a plant. I thought the two of them were putting me
off.”
“So you went straight back to town?”
“Yes. I caught the 2.5. You know that.” Counsel for the Crown gave it
up.
A speech of sledgehammer logic from the priggish little barrister,
exhibiting Cranford as a man much wronged, and Victor Lunt as the
villain of the piece--a speech the more effective from its studied
absence of passion. A summing up from the judge dead against Victor
Lunt. A quick verdict of Not Guilty. Cheers in court. Nurse Dauntsey
crying and laughing and feeling blindly for Reggie Fortune’s hand.
In the corridor outside, “That’s a case, my boy, that’s a case.” The
little Jew solicitor jumped and gurgled. “Some sensation! What, Mr.
Lomas, some sensation in the Yard.”
“Baddish break, Lomas. ‘Zeal, all zeal, Mr. Easy,’” Reggie grinned.
“Why the devil couldn’t you give it me?” Lomas thrust by in a hurry.
“Get on, Bell--get on.” Superintendent Bell, his lieutenant, shook
his head at Reggie.
That night after dinner a card was brought in to Reggie Fortune. “For
God’s sake see me,” was scrawled above “Mr. Victor Lunt.” Reggie went
down to his consulting-room.
Victor Lunt was in distress. The fat face which in the morning had
been pale was now crimson and sweating. He breathed heavily; he
seemed swollen.
“You must expect nothing from me, Mr. Lunt. I have done with your
case,” Reggie said.
“You’ll hear what I’ve got to say. You must hear my side, doctor. It
was you who set them on me. My God, there may be a warrant out for me
any moment. Doctor, for God’s sake--you don’t want to send me to the
gallows. I never did it. I swear I never did.”