WHOSE PORTRAIT IS THIS?
Malter himself opened the door of his small private hotel; a quiet,
reserved man who looked like a retired butler. He was the sort of man
who is slow of speech, and he had not replied to Matherfield's guarded
inquiry about Mr. Robert Hannaford when a door in the little hall
opened, and a girl appeared, who, hearing the inspector's question,
immediately came forward as if in answer.
Hetherwick recognised this girl. He had seen her only the previous
afternoon in Fountain Court, in company with a man whom he knew
slightly--Kenthwaite, a fellow-barrister. Kenthwaite, evidently, was
doing the honours--showing her round the Temple; Hetherwick, in fact,
in passing them, had overheard Kenthwaite telling his companion
something of the history of the old houses and courts around them. And
the girl had attracted him then. She was a pretty girl, tall, slim,
graceful, and in addition to her undoubted charm of face and figure,
she looked to have more than an average share of character and
intelligence, and was listening to her guide with obvious interest and
appreciation. Hetherwick had set her down as being, perhaps, a country
cousin of Kenthwaite's, visiting London, maybe, for the first time.
Anyhow, in merely passing her and Kenthwaite he had noticed her so
closely that he now recognised her at once; he saw, too, that she
recognised him. But there was another matter more pressing than
that--and she had gone straight to it.
"Are these gentlemen asking for my grandfather?" she inquired, coming
still nearer and glancing from the hotel proprietor to the two callers.
"He's not come in----"
Hetherwick was glad to hear that the dead man was the girl's
grandfather. Certainly it was a close relationship, but, after all,
not so close as it might have been. And he was conscious that the
inspector was relieved, too.
"We're asking about Mr. Robert Hannaford," he said. "Is he your
grandfather--ex-Superintendent Hannaford, of Sellithwaite? Just
so--well, I'm very sorry to bring bad news about him----"
He broke off, watching the girl keenly, as if he wanted to make sure
that she would take the news quietly. And evidently reassured on that
point, he suddenly went on definitely:
"You'll understand?" he said. "It's--well, the worst news. The fact
is----"
"Is my grandfather dead?" interrupted the girl. "If that's it, please
say so--I shan't faint, or anything of that sort. But--I want to know!"
"I'm sorry to say he is dead," replied Matherfield. "He died suddenly
in the train at Charing Cross. A seizure, no doubt. Was he well when
you saw him last?"
The girl turned to the hotel proprietor, who was standing by, evidently
amazed.
"Never saw a gentleman look better or seem better in my life than he
did when he went out of that door at half-past six o'clock!" he
exclaimed. "Best of health and spirits!"
"My grandfather was quite well," said the girl quietly. "I never
remember him being anything else but well--he was a very strong,
vigorous man. Will you please tell me all about it?"
Matherfield told all about it, turning now and then to Hetherwick for
corroboration. In the end he put a question.
"This man that Mr. Hetherwick saw in your grandfather's company?" he
suggested. "Do you recognise anyone from that description?"
"No!--no one," answered the girl. "But my grandfather knew people in
London whom I don't know. He has been going about a good deal since we
came here, three days ago--looking out for a house."
"Well, we shall have to find that man," remarked Matherfield. "Of
course, if you'd recognised the description as that of somebody known
to you----"
"No," she said again. "I know nobody like that. But now--do you wish
me to go with you--to him?"
"It's not necessary--I wouldn't to-night, if I were you," replied
Matherfield. "I'll call again in the morning. Meanwhile, leave
matters to us and the doctors. You've friends in London, I suppose?"
"Yes, we have friends--relations, in fact," said the girl. "I must let
them know at once."
Matherfield nodded and turned to the door. But Hetherwick lingered.
He and the girl were looking at each other. He suddenly spoke.
"I saw you this afternoon," he said, "in Fountain Court, with a man
whom I know slightly, Mr. Kenthwaite. Is he, by any chance, one of the
relations you mentioned just now? Because, if so, he lives close by
me. I can tell him, if you wish."
"No," she answered, "not a relative. We know him. You might tell him,
if you please, and if it's no trouble."
"No trouble at all," said Hetherwick. "And--if I may--I hope you'll
let me call in the morning to hear if there's anything I can do for
you?"
The girl gave him a quick, responsive glance.
"That's very kind of you," she said. "Yes."
Hetherwick and the police inspector left the little hotel and walked up
the street. Matherfield seemed to be in a brown study. Somewhere up
in the Strand and farther away down Fleet Street the clocks began
striking.
"Seems to me," exclaimed Matherfield suddenly, "seems to me, Mr.
Hetherwick, this is--murder!"
"You mean poison?" said Hetherwick.
"Likely! Why, yes, of course, it would be poison. We must have that
man! You can't add to your description of him?"
"You've already got everything that I can tell. Pretty full and
accurate, too. I should say you oughtn't to have much difficulty in
laying hands on him--from my description."
Matherfield made a sound that was half a laugh and half a groan.
"Lord bless you!" he said. "It's like seeking a needle in a bundle of
hay, searching for a given man in London! I mean, of course,
sometimes. More often than not, in fact. Here's this chap rushes up
the stairs at Charing Cross, vanishes--where? One man amongst seven
millions of men and women! However----"
Then they parted, and Hetherwick, full of thought, went home to his
chambers and to bed, and lay equally thoughtful for a long time before
he went to sleep. He made a poor night of it, but soon after eight
o'clock he was in Kenthwaite's chambers. Kenthwaite was dressing and
breakfasting at the same time--a ready-packed brief bag and an open
time-table suggested that he was in a hurry to catch a train. But he
suspended his operations to stare, open-mouthed, wide-eyed at
Hetherwick's news.
"Hannaford!--dead!" he exclaimed. "Great Scott!--why, he was as fit as
a fiddle at noon yesterday, Hetherwick! He and his granddaughter
called on me, and I took 'em to lunch--I come from Sellithwaite, you
know, so of course I knew them. Hannaford had to go as soon as we'd
lunched--some appointment--so I showed the girl round a bit. Nice
girl, that--clever. Name of Rhona. Worth cultivating. And the old
man's dead! Bless me!"
"I don't think there's much doubt about foul play," observed Hetherwick.
"Looks uncommonly like it," said Kenthwaite. He went on with his
double task. "Well," he added, "sorry, but I can't be of any use to
Miss Hannaford to-day--got to go down to a beastly Quarter Sessions
case, my boy, and precious little time to catch my train. But
to-morrow--perhaps you can give 'm a hand this morning?"
"Yes," answered Hetherwick. "I'm doing nothing. I'll go round there
after a while. I'm interested naturally. It's a queer case."
"Queer! Seems so, rather," assented Kenthwaite. "Well--give Miss
Hannaford my sympathy and all that, and tell her that if there's
anything I can do when I get back--you know what to say."
"She said she'd relations here in London," remarked Hetherwick.
"Cousins--aunts--something or other--over Tooting way, I think," agreed
Kenthwaite. "Twenty past eight!--Hetherwick, I'll have to rush for it!"
He swallowed the last of his coffee, seized the bag and darted away;
Hetherwick went back to his own chambers and breakfasted leisurely.
And all the time he sat there he was pondering over the event of the
previous midnight, and especially upon the sudden disappearance of the
man with the stained fingers. To Hetherwick that disappearance seemed
to argue guilt. He figured it in this way--the man who ran away at
Charing Cross had poisoned this other man in some clever and subtle
fashion, by means of something which took a certain time to take
effect, and, when that time arrived, did its work with amazing
swiftness. Hetherwick, in his war service, had seen men die more times
than he cared to remember. He had seen some men shot through the
brain; he had seen others shot through the heart. But he had never
seen any of these men--some of them shot at his very side--die with the
extraordinary quickness with which Hannaford had died. And he came to
a conclusion: if the man with the stained fingers had poisoned
Hannaford, then he was somebody who had a rare and a profound knowledge
of poisons.
He went round to Surrey Street at ten o'clock. Miss Hannaford, said
the hotel proprietor, had gone with her aunt, a Mrs. Keeley, who had
come early that morning, to see her grandfather's dead body--some
police official had fetched them. But she had left a message for
anyone who called--that she would not be long away. And Hetherwick
waited in the little dingy coffee-room; there were certain questions
that he wanted to put to Rhona Hannaford, also he wanted to give her
certain information.
"Very sad case this, sir," observed the hotel proprietor, hovering
about his breakfast-tables. "Cruel end for a fine healthy gentleman
like Mr. Hannaford!"
"Very sad," agreed Hetherwick. "You said last night--or, rather, this
morning--that Mr. Hannaford was in good health and spirits when he went
out early in the evening?"
"The best, sir! He was a cheery, affable gentleman--fond of his joke.
Joked and laughed with me as I opened the door for him--never thinking,
sir, as I should never see him again alive!"
"You don't know where he was going?"
"I don't, sir. And his granddaughter--clever young lady, that,
sir--she don't know, neither. She went to a theatre, along of her
aunt, the lady that came early this morning. We wired the bad news to
her first thing, and she came along at once. But him--no, I don't know
where he went to spend his evening. Been in and out, and mostly out,
ever since they were here, three days ago. House-hunting, so I
understood."
Rhona Hannaford presently returned, in company with a motherly-looking
woman whom she introduced as her aunt, Mrs. Keeley. Then Hetherwick
remembered that he had not introduced himself; rectifying that
omission, he found that Kenthwaite had told Rhona who he was when he
passed them the previous afternoon. He delivered Kenthwaite's message
and in his absence offered his own services.
"It's very good of you," said Rhona. "I don't know that there's
anything to do. The police seem to be doing everything--the inspector
who was here last night was very kind just now, but, as he said,
there's nothing to be done until after the inquest."
"Yes," said Hetherwick. "And that is--did he say when?"
"To-morrow morning. He said I should have to go," replied Rhona.
"So shall I," observed Hetherwick. "They'll only want formal evidence
from you. I shall have to say more. I wish I could say more than I
shall have to say."
The two women glanced at him inquiringly.
"I mean," he continued, "that I wish I had stopped the other man from
leaving the train. I suppose you have not heard anything from the
police about him--that man?"
"Nothing. They had not found him or heard of him up to just now. But
you can tell me something that I very much want to know. You saw this
man with my grandfather for some little time, didn't you?"
"From St. James's Park to Charing Cross."
"Did you overhear their conversation, or any of it?"
"A good deal--at first. Afterwards, your grandfather began to whisper,
and I heard nothing of that. But one reason I had for calling upon you
this morning was that I might tell you what I did overhear, and another
that I might ask you some questions arising out of what I heard. Mr.
Hannaford was talking to this man, now missing, about some portrait or
photograph. Evidently it was of a lady whom he, your grandfather, had
known ten years ago; whom the other man had also known. Your
grandfather said that when they got to his hotel he would show the
portrait to the other man who, he asserted, would be sure to recognise
it. Now, had Mr. Hannaford said anything to you? Do you know anything
about his bringing any friend of his to this hotel last night? And do
you know anything about any portrait or photograph such as that to
which he referred?"
"About bringing anyone here--no! He never said anything to me about
it. But about a photograph, or rather about a print of one--yes. I do
know something about that."
"What?" asked Hetherwick eagerly.
"Well, this," she answered. "My grandfather, who, as I dare say you
know by this time, was for a good many years Superintendent of Police
at Sellithwaite, had a habit of cutting things out of
newspapers--paragraphs, accounts of criminal trials, and so on. He had
several boxes full of such cuttings. When we were coming to town the
other day I saw him cut a photograph out of some illustrated paper he
was reading in the train, and put it away in his pocket-book--in a
pocket-book, I ought to say, for he had two or three pocket-books.
This morning I was looking through various things which he had left
lying about on his dressing-table upstairs, and in one of his
pocket-books I found the photograph which he cut out in the train.
That must be the one you mention--it's of a very handsome,
distinguished-looking woman."
"If I may see it----" suggested Hetherwick.
Within a couple of minutes he had the cutting in his hand--a scrap of
paper, neatly snipped out of its surrounding letterpress, which was a
print of a photograph of a woman of apparently thirty-five to forty
years of age, evidently of high position, and certainly, as Rhona
Hannaford had remarked, of handsome and distinguished features. But it
was not at the photograph that Hetherwick gazed with eyes into which
surmise and speculation were beginning to steal; after a mere glance at
it, his attention fixed itself on some pencilled words on the margin at
its sides:
"_Through my hands ten years ago!_"
"Is that your grandfather's writing?" he inquired suddenly.
"Yes, that's his," replied Rhona. "He had a habit of pencilling notes
and comments on his cuttings--all sorts of remarks."
"He didn't mention this particular cutting to you when he cut it out?"
"No--he said nothing about it. I saw him cut it out, and heard him
chuckle as he put it away, but he said--nothing."
"You don't know who this lady is?"
"Oh, no! You see, there's no name beneath it. I suppose there was in
the paper, but he cut out nothing but the picture and the bit of
margin. But from what he's written there, I conclude that this is a
portrait of some woman who had been in trouble with the police at some
time or other."
"Obvious!" muttered Hetherwick. He sat silently inspecting the picture
for a minute or two.
"Look here," he said suddenly, "I want you to let me help in trying to
get at the bottom of this--naturally you want to have it cleared up.
And to begin with, let me have this cutting, and for the present don't
tell anyone--I mean the police or any inquirers--that I have it. I'd
like to have a talk about it to Kenthwaite. You understand? As I was
present at your grandfather's death, I'd like to solve the mystery of
it. If you'll leave this to me----"
"Oh, yes!" replied Rhona. "But--you think there has been foul
play?--that he didn't die a natural death?--that it wasn't just heart
failure or----"
The door of the little coffee-room was opened and Matherfield looked
in. Seeing Hetherwick there, he beckoned him into the hall, closing
the door again as the young barrister joined him. Hetherwick saw that
he was full of news, and instantly thought of the man with the stained
fingers.
"Well?" he said eagerly, "laid your hands on that fellow?"
"Oh, him?--no!" answered Matherfield. "Not a word or sign of him--so
far! But the doctors have finished their post-mortem. And there's no
doubt about their verdict. Poisoned!"
Matherfield sank his voice to a whisper as he spoke the last word. And
Hetherwick, ready though he was for the news, started when he got
it--the definiteness of the announcement seemed like opening a window
upon a vista of obscured and misty distances. He glanced at the door
behind him.
"Of course, they'll have to be told, in there," said Matherfield,
interpreting his thoughts. "But the thing's certain. Our surgeon
suspected it from the first, and he got a Home Office specialist to
help at the autopsy--they say the man was poisoned by some drug or
other--I don't understand these things--that had been administered to
him two or three hours before he died, and that when it did work,
worked with absolutely lightning-like effect."
"Yes," muttered Hetherwick thoughtfully. "Lightning-like effect--good
phrase. I can testify that it did that!"
Matherfield laid a hand on the door.
"Well," he said, "I'd better tell these ladies. Then--there are things
I want to know from the granddaughter. I've seen her--and her
aunt--before this morning. I found out that Hannaford brought up and
educated this girl, and that she lived with him in Sellithwaite since
she left school, so she'll know more about him than anybody. And I
want to learn all I can. Come in with me."