Stephenson Charlecote ended in an unsatisfactory verdict of murder by
some person or persons unknown. It was obvious that public opinion,
and the coroner, as the voice thereof, directed suspicion against
Geoffrey. He made a bad witness. He was agitated, nervous, and under
the coroner’s hostile examination lost his temper.
When he was asked if he knew that his father had on the morning of
the murder made a will leaving everything to him, he displayed a
violent agitation, swore (not merely as a witness but with profane
oaths) that he knew nothing about it, insulted the coroner, and
roared out a declaration that he would not touch the money, which
disgusted everybody as a bit of false melodrama. If distrust and
dislike were grounds for hanging a man, the jury would have made an
end of Geoffrey, but the evidence, as Lomas complained, could not
hang a yellow dog.
And the next day, Reggie Fortune, bland as ever, called on Geoffrey.
It was a very humble house in a Chelsea cul-de-sac. The aged servant
who took in Reggie’s name left him on the doorstep, from which he had
the glimpse of a narrow bare hall and uncarpeted stairs. He was kept
waiting some time, and heard confused noises. When at last he was
shown into the studio he met signs of storm. Geoffrey was flushed and
visibly in the sulkiest of tempers, his wife pale and tired.
“Well, what is it now?” Geoffrey growled.
His wife smiled. “Mr. Fortune? That is so kind. If you would please
sit down. Some tea, yes?”
And Reggie was saying to himself. “Oh, my aunt! She isn’t a woman,
she’s a child.” For Lucia Charlecote was so frail, of such a
simplicity, that she looked rather like an angel in one of the
primitive Italian pictures than a woman.
“Shut up, Lucia,” Geoffrey growled. “What do you want here, Mr.
Fortune? Trying a bit of your detective work?”
“You’re rather difficult, aren’t you?” Reggie said mildly. “You know,
you told me you wanted to have the truth brought out, justice for
your father, all that sort of thing. Well, I’m still on it.”
“Much good you’ve done, haven’t you?”
“I don’t mind confessin’ we’ve missed something.”
“Missed! Yes, you haven’t quite hanged me, thanks. You’ve only made
everybody think I murdered my father. And so that don’t satisfy you!
Thanks very much!”
“Well, are you satisfied?” said Reggie. “You know, you’re not fair.
I’m makin’ every allowance. But you’re not fair. If you want the
thing cleared up, you’ve got to give us something more. And that’s
why I’m here. Now, is there anything new?”
“Oh, go to the devil!”
“Geoffrey!” Lucia, standing behind him, touched his shoulder. “Mr.
Fortune is very kind. He desires to help us,” and she smiled and
nodded at Reggie.
“Oh, hold your tongue, baby. Mr. Fortune’s a damned tricky policeman,
and he can take his tricks to another market.”
“But you are impossible!” Lucia cried. “Mr. Fortune, you see what I
have to live with. This great bear!” She rumpled Geoffrey’s hair, and
he made an exclamation of disgust and dashed her hand away. “But yes,
Mr. Fortune, there is something new. This great animal, he desires
not to take his father’s money. He writes to the lawyer to say he
will not have it. But I forbid him. I say it is mad. Say if I am
right, Mr. Fortune. What is the father’s it is the son’s. And
Geoffrey, he has done nothing. But if he says he will not take
it”--she made a fine theatrical gesture--“people will think it is
because he is guilty. Is it not, Mr. Fortune?”
“Why can’t you hold your tongue?” Geoffrey snarled at her, and turned
to glare at Reggie. “There’s a pretty story for you. And what’s your
beastly detective trade make of that?”
“You know, Mrs. Charlecote, he’s always in such a hurry,” Reggie said
confidentially. “Very disturbin’, isn’t it? You are difficult,
Charlecote, old thing. Is your mind capable of receivin’ a thought?
Yes. Well just suppose that I may have refused to act for you,
because it would be better for the son and heir I shouldn’t be actin’
to his order.”
“What the deuce do you mean?”
“Well, I don’t quite know, you know. Do you? Is there anything you
really want to tell me?”
“I never want to see you again.”
“Geoffrey!” his wife protested.
“Oh, he’s not chatty this afternoon, Mrs. Charlecote. So sorry.”
Reggie extricated himself from her offers of tea, and slid away.
But he was annoyed. Against his will, the opinion of Dr. Newton
forced itself into his mind. “An odd strain in Geoffrey, as it were
something abnormal or thrawn, a certain violence of temperament.” It
was so. Confound the oily old family doctor. Why did Geoffrey want to
give up the money? Mere quixotry? A passionate desire to clear
himself from the ill-fame of profiting by the old man’s death?
Probably, oh, probably. But there was a feeling called remorse found
in human nature. And why did the angel wife tell Geoffrey to keep the
money? She ought to want her husband clear of ill-fame. You would
expect a woman to care more about that than the man himself. And you
would expect a woman to share her husband’s rage with the horrid man
who had not stuck up for him. Instead of which the angel wife was
very anxious to keep on good terms with that horrid man. Because he
represented the police? Or why else? She had a dubious way with her,
the angel wife.
Reggie was worried--a rare state for him--and he took himself to his
least sociable club. He was sitting there, glowering at a scientific
American paper, when the voice of Lomas addressed him.
“Care killed a cat, Reginald. Why so blue?”
Reggie sat up. “Life is real, life is earnest, Lomas. And the grave
is not the goal. That’s because of our filthy profession, which is
always bothering the corpses. Come away. I am worried. I am going to
worry you.”
As they walked in St. James’s Park, Reggie told him of the queer talk
in the studio. “I want comfort, Lomas, old thing,” he concluded.
“Comfort me.”
“My dear Fortune! It’s quite clear, what? Unsatisfactory case,
profoundly unsatisfactory. But it’s quite clear. I always thought
those two were in it. Probably the sweet young wife did it, or put
Geoffrey up to it. Now he funks and she doesn’t. Women carry off
these things better than men, don’t you know?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Lomas, old dear, you are
grateful and comfortin’, you really are. I knew you’d say that. And I
know it’s all wrong.”
“My poor dear fellow! You never will reconcile yourself to an
unsatisfactory case. It’s so common too--a case you can’t act on
while you know it’s sound.”
“Oh, Peter! You can always act on a sound case.”
“You’re so young,” Lomas smiled indulgently.
“We’ve missed something, don’t you see?”
“And what have we missed, Reginald?”
Reggie pulled him up and looked at the ducks. For a long time he
looked at the ducks. Then, “Cousin Herbert,” he said. “The evasive,
elusive Cousin Herbert. Why do we never come up against Cousin
Herbert?”
“Because he had nothing to do with it, what?”
“Because we haven’t looked for him.”
Lomas gave an impatient laugh. “This is absurd, my dear fellow. That
pallid, tame cat of a man!”
“You let some of your fellows sniff round him.”
“My dear Fortune! Of course they have. He’s quite a blameless sort of
fellow. Plays a bit, spends a bit--nothing more.”
“Oh, he wanted money--did he?”
“My dear Fortune, you’re right off the wicket. He had an alibi. He
was with some people at Maidenhead at the time of the murder.”
“Oh, my aunt, anybody can have an alibi,” Reggie grumbled.
Lomas laughed and shook his head. “It won’t do, Reginald. Don’t try
to be subtle.”
“Well, that isn’t your complaint,” Reggie snarled, and for once they
parted in nasty tempers.
Three days afterwards a telephone message called him to Scotland
Yard, and he found Lomas in conference with Superintendent Bell.
“Ah, here’s the prophet,” Lomas smiled. “Do you remember--in the
Charlecote murder--you backed Herbert both ways? Well, the latest
from the course is that Herbert has vanished.”
“Then it’s damned careless of you. I told you to watch him. You’re
not intelligent in the force, but, hang it, you might be active.”
“His valet reports him disappeared. He had a dinner engagement last
night. Didn’t come home to dress for it. Didn’t come home at all. He
went out after lunch yesterday, and hasn’t been seen since.”
Reggie sat down. “One of your larger cigars would do me, good,
Lomas,” he said, and helped himself. “Oh, Mr. Lomas, sir, this is so
sudden. Cousin Herbert was feeling nervous, no doubt. But why this
dramatic exit? What gave Cousin Herbert cold feet yesterday?”
Superintendent Bell coughed. “I was wondering, sir, if Mr. Fortune
had taken any steps on his own with regard to Herbert. To alarm him,
so to speak.”
“Nary step. Why the blazes didn’t you watch him?”
“After all, sir, we’ve not a thing against him.”
“Not now?”
“Well, sir, it’s not criminal to disappear. But I don’t mind saying
it’s odd, quite odd.”
“Oh, I expect Geoffrey and the angel wife murdered him too. Just to
round it off, Lomas, old thing.”
“You’re very merry and bright,” Lomas grumbled. “I wish you’d tell me
how this helps us. Why should he bolt now?”
“There is another unknown quantity somewhere,” Reggie admitted.
The telephone claimed Lomas. He took it up, and his face was eloquent
as he listened. He put it down again very gently. “Afraid you’re
right out of it, Fortune. Herbert Charlecote didn’t bolt. Herbert
Charlecote has been found drowned in the Basingstoke Canal.”
“Good Lord, sir!” the Superintendent exclaimed.
“Pretty conclusive, what?” Lomas shrugged.
“And why the Basingstoke Canal?” said Reggie placidly. “Lots of nice
places to drown in nearer home. I ask you, why the Basingstoke Canal?”
Lomas and his Superintendent looked at each other. “It really is a
crazy case,” Lomas said slowly, “I don’t quite----”
Reggie jumped up. “Oh, come on. Let’s go and look at him. My car’s
outside. Where is he?”
“Woking. Half a minute.” Lomas rang his bell and turned to his papers.
So Reggie went down first. He dismissed his chauffeur with some long
instructions, and himself took the chauffeur’s seat. Superintendent
Bell joined him. “Darker and darker, sir, isn’t it?”
“Changeable weather,” Reggie said. “Come on, Lomas, all aboard! Are
we downhearted? No!” The car shot forward. And when it stopped in
Woking:
“Is my hair white, Fortune?” Lomas said.
The two stood humbly aside while the expert was busy with the corpse.
“As often as I’ve seen this game, sir, I’ll never like it,” Bell
said, and Lomas nodded. But Reggie Fortune whistled as he worked.
When he turned from the body and put a scrap of something in his
pocket-book--“Well, what is it?” Lomas said. “He was drowned, I
suppose?”
“He was drowned all right--about tea-time last night. Say at dusk.
Now for the scene of death. Where is it?”
“Just by a bridge on a by-road somewhere between here and Byfleet
Station.”
“I ask you, why does a gentleman of fashion about to commit suicide
come and look for a bridge on a by-road somewhere between here and
Byfleet Station?”
“Somebody’s took some pains in this Charlecote business,” the
Superintendent said.
Reggie laughed. “The Superintendent touches the spot--as ever. Come
on!”
He stopped his car some distance from the bridge, and they went
forward on foot.
“There’s a big car been over here,” Bell said. “Yet you wouldn’t
think it was much of a motor road.” It was a narrow gravel road and
very loose. Just below the steep pitch of the bridge a car had been
stopped, and in stopping or starting again had torn up the loose
gravel. Thence to the canal was only half a dozen yards. The path was
much trampled and the grass and bushes by the bank beaten down. “All
that may have been done fishing him out,” Bell said. “But that don’t
explain the car. They took him off in a wood cart. I suppose since
motors were invented there never was one came down this road and
stopped just here.”
“Not till last night,” Lomas nodded.
“So somebody,” said Reggie, “somebody put Herbert in a car, brought
him down here, and chucked him in. Who was somebody? Geoffrey and the
angel wife, eh, Lomas, old thing?”
“Somebody put in some fine work, what? He wouldn’t have been found
for weeks or for ever, but a barge came along and stirred him up. And
they don’t have a barge along here once a month.”
“Yes, there’s plenty of brains about somewhere. Well, let’s get busy.
Herbert’s happy home comes next.”
The car again broke the law on the way back.
Herbert Charlecote had lived in a big block of flats several stories
up.
“Did himself pretty expensively, don’t you know,” Lomas said, looking
round the elaborate room.
“He’s paid for all now, sir,” said Superintendent Bell.
“Do you know, I don’t feel sentimental about dear Herbert’s doom,”
Reggie smiled. “You’d better get on to his papers. I want a man on
the ’phone,” and he went out and was gone some time.
When he came back he sat himself down in the window-seat and opened
the big casements. There was a low stone sill which held a box of
flowers. The smell of oak-leaf geranium and verbenas came into the
room. “Rather oily scents, aren’t they?” Reggie said. “I’m afraid he
was rather oily, the late Herbert. How are you getting on?”
“He was certainly pressed for money,” Lomas said. “Here’s his
pass-book and a letter from his bank manager complaining that he’s
overdrawn again. The £20,000 he came in for under his uncle’s
will--he wanted it badly.”
“And yet as soon as he knows of that will he goes and gets drowned.
Suggestive, isn’t it?” Reggie smiled.
“I’m hanged if I know what it suggests.” Lomas stared at him.
“Oh, my dear Lomas! Somebody expected Herbert was going to get more
than £20,000 by his uncle’s death; going to scoop the whole estate.
Only he didn’t. So he’s found dead. Can you make out from that
pass-book when Herbert got into difficulties?”
“About nine months ago. He’s been living with nothing in the bank
ever since.”
“About nine months ago. Then for nine months his uncle did nothing to
help him. The murdered uncle wouldn’t help the impecunious nephew.
Well, Lomas, old thing?”
“I suppose you’re playing some hand of your own,” Lomas frowned.
Superintendent Bell came forward. “Here’s a sort of betting-book,
sir. He put his luck at cards in it too. He was some gambler.”
“Any names?” Lomas said quickly.
“All sorts of names, sir. Nothing instructive, so to speak. You might
say that’s curious.” He pointed to a page on which, in a large, blank
space, appeared the one letter, “N.”
Reggie leapt from the window-seat and rang the bell. “As ever the
Superintendent touches the spot,” he laughed. Herbert Charlecote’s
man-servant, pallid and frightened, answered the bell. “Now, my man,
in one minute Dr. Newton will be at the door; you will let him in; he
will ask for Mr. Herbert Charlecote; you will say nothing to him,
nothing at all, and Superintendent Bell will be out in the hall to
see that you do say nothing; you will show Dr. Newton in here. Go on,
Bell. Look after him.” He bustled them out.
“So ‘N’ stands for Newton, does it?” Lomas said. “How do you know
he’ll come?”
“Because he’s just driven up in his car. Because I ’phoned to say Mr.
Herbert Charlecote was asking for Dr. Newton. Now you get in there.”
He thrust Lomas into an inner room.
Dr. Newton, more florid than ever, hurried in, and pulled up short at
the sight of Reggie. “Mr. Fortune? Oh, delighted to meet you.” He was
out of breath. “But I thought I was to see Mr. Charlecote.”
“Did you though? That was very sanguine of you.”
“I don’t understand you, Mr. Fortune. Are you here professionally?”
“For the Criminal Investigation Department.”
“Really, though, really?” Dr. Newton was still short of breath. “And
it was you wanted to see me? Anything I can do, of course.”
“You can tell me what was your little bet with Herbert Charlecote.”
Dr. Newton lost some of his colour. “You bewilder me, Mr. Fortune. I
am not a betting man. Pray explain yourself. And I must request you
to take a different tone.”
“Where is Herbert Charlecote?”
“Well, where is he?” Dr. Newton echoed. “I confess I don’t understand
the situation. I am told over the telephone that Mr. Charlecote
wishes to see me, and----”
“That gave you a bad quarter of an hour, didn’t it? There’s worse
coming, Newton. Yesterday afternoon”--Reggie strolled round the table
and put himself between Dr. Newton and the door--“yesterday afternoon
you took Herbert Charlecote for a drive in your car. When you came to
the Basingstoke Canal, a nice lonely place by the Basingstoke Canal,
you clapped a chloroformed wad on his mouth, and when he was
senseless you dropped him into the water and left him there to finish
by drowning. It was a neat thing, Newton. But he was fished out,
Newton, and I’ve been all the morning with him, Newton.”
Dr. Newton began to laugh. “Do you really wish me to take this tale
seriously, Mr. Fortune? Then I must refer you to my legal advisers. I
am sure that you will see that I must.” He made for the door.
“Not much,” Reggie said, and stood in his way.
Dr. Newton’s bland expression changed. He tried to push past and,
failing, sprang on Reggie. The two locked together and swayed across
the room. Reggie freed himself a moment and stooped. Dr. Newton went
out of the open window. As Lomas broke into the room they heard the
thud of his fall on the stones.
“Good God, did he throw himself out?” Lomas cried.
“No, I pitched him out,” Reggie said, smoothing his hair.
Lomas rushed out of the room. Reggie, lounging after him, went to the
telephone.
In the forecourt of the flats the body of Dr. Newton lay. Lomas and
Bell and the hall porter were fidgeting with it, a little crowd on
the pavement gaping at them, when Reggie arrived. “You don’t really
want me,” he said, but he bent by the body. “It’s all over. His
neck’s broken. Fractured skull also. But that doesn’t matter.”
Bell stood up and blew a police whistle.
“Don’t do that. Don’t do it,” said Reggie irritably, his first sign
of troubled nerves. “I have telephoned for the ambulance and all
that. Why don’t you think of things beforehand?”
Superintendent Bell was startled out of his wonted composure. “God
bless my soul!” he exclaimed, and stared at Reggie.
And Lomas took Reggie’s arm. “Come upstairs, Fortune, please,” he
said gravely.
Reggie let himself be taken up to Herbert Charlecote’s room, and when
he was there again flung himself down on the couch. “Thirdly and
lastly,” said he. “And that’s the end of the Charlecote case, Lomas,
old dear.”
“Oh, don’t take that tone,” Lomas cried. “We’re in a very difficult
position, Fortune.”
“My dear Lomas! Oh, my dear Lomas! We have emerged with credit from a
most difficult case. We have tracked and caught a very cunning
criminal, who, when taxed with the murders of which he was guilty,
became desperate, and committed suicide by flinging himself from a
fourth-story window.”
“You said you threw him out.”
“Lomas, dear, my little jokes aren’t evidence.”
“You’ll have to give evidence at the inquest, you know.” Reggie
nodded. “You’ll tell this suicide story?”
“Sure,” said Reggie.
Lomas wiped his forehead. “Damn it, man, I can’t leave it like this,”
he cried.
“Oh, don’t be so pedantic. The scoundrel had two murders at least on
his soul. We hadn’t evidence enough to hang him. He was much too
dangerous to live, and he gets his neck broke quietly and without
scandal. What’s worrying you?”
“And what evidence have you got?”
“Ah, now reason resumes her sway. Let’s begin at the beginning.
Herbert Charlecote, rather less than a year ago, was at his wit's end
for money. His uncle wouldn’t give him any. Remember the betting-book
and pass-book. But at that time he was his uncle’s heir. He arranged
with the family doctor, Newton, to have the old man killed. Newton
would want to be paid. Probably the arrangement was a bet. Suppose
Herbert bet Newton ten thousand to one his uncle wouldn’t die within
the year. Remember the ‘N’ in the betting-book. Newton began treating
the old man for gastric catarrh. Sent him gallons of medicine.
Probably that was poison. But nothing happened because the old man
didn’t take it. Remember the valet said he had it all put down the
sink. I suspect old Charlecote didn’t much care for his family
doctor. The time began to run out. And then came the reconciliation
with Geoffrey. There was no time to lose. If the will was altered in
Geoffrey’s favour, no use in killing the old man. So Newton had to
hustle. He was pretty neat. He chose an Italian knife, and did the
killing close to the house where the Italian Mrs. Geoffrey lived. But
he did it. Remember the extraordinary efficiency of the assassin.
Neat piece of surgery, that murder. And then the bottom fell out of
the bucket. The will had been altered. Herbert only got twenty
thousand. Hardly enough to pay his debts. And so he wouldn’t stump up
Newton’s price. Newton would cut up rough, of course. He threatened,
I suppose, and Herbert threatened back. You know, I don’t fancy the
late Newton was a man to take kindly to being bilked. It may have
been revenge. It may have been that he thought Herbert would give him
away. Anyway, he took Herbert out in his car yesterday afternoon. Now
we’re coming to evidence which is evidence, Lomas. Newton was out in
his car yesterday afternoon. I sent my chauffeur to make inquiries.
And Newton drove himself. And his car fits the marks on that road--24
Dunois Orleans, two steel-studded Blake tyres. When they got to that
bridge, I suppose Newton stopped the car, pretended there was
something wrong, got down, and prepared a chloroformed wad of cotton
wool. He clapped that on Herbert, anaesthetized him, and dropped him
in the canal. I found scraps of the wool in Herbert’s mouth and
nostrils. That’s the case, Lomas, old thing. Come and have tea.
There’s rather decent muffins at the Academies’.”
“Good God!” said Lomas. “Muffins!”
CASE V
THE HOTTENTOT VENUS
It was a night in June. The Chief of the Criminal Investigation
Department was pensive. “Did you ever want to marry, Fortune?” he
murmured.
“Often; but never one at a time.” Reggie Fortune looked curiously at
his host. The dinner had been good, the claret very good, the cigars
were of the most benignant. But still--“Why this touch of sentiment,
Lomas?” said he.
“Some students say women have no minds,” Lomas murmured drowsily.
“But that’s partiality. The trouble is, women aren’t human beings.
Consider the parallel case of the dog. He is intelligent. But he sets
different values on things from our values. Inhuman values. Think of
bones, cats, boots. It is so also with women.”
“‘I love a lassie’--but she ate my best pumps. Lomas, my good child,
are you merely drivelling or shall we come to something soon?”
“I am much exposed to women,” said the Chief of the Criminal
Investigation Department pathetically, and roused himself. “But this
is a family skeleton. I have a sister, Fortune. She is intelligent.
She is almost as omniscient as you, my dear fellow, and much more
practical. But she can be quite maddening. She is maddening me now.
Unfortunately she has no husband. She had too much intelligence. She
owns a princely school at Tormouth. I believe it makes her as rich as
Rockefeller. She certainly does herself very well. A month ago she
wrote to me that a strange thing had happened. In the night one of
the mistress’s rooms had been turned upside down.”
“Do they rag much at girls’ schools?” Reggie yawned. “It might be
picturesque.”
“My wonderful sister wanted me to tell her what it meant. I’m not
proud, Fortune. I know my limitations. I did not see myself in a
girls’ school. Especially as an official. Now she has been writing to
me that there are extraordinary developments. The room of another
mistress has been upset.”
“They do rag in girls’ schools! Another advance of women. Oh, they'll
have the vote soon.”
“You show levity, Fortune. My sister would not like it. This is a
crime. A number of photographs were taken--photographs of girls at
the school. And there is no clue to the criminal.”
“The great Tormouth mystery. Leader in the _Daily Scream_--‘Brains
for Scotland Yard.’ But the independent expert found a pink hairpin
in the mouth of the dachshund next door but two and brought the foul
deed home to the junior curate.”
“I envy your spirits, Fortune,” Lomas sighed. “You have no sister--no
maiden sister.”