Reconstruction
When Poole reached Scotland Yard on the morning after his perusal of
Sir Garth’s papers, he went straight to the room of Chief Inspector
Barrod. That officer had just arrived but was quite ready to hear
Poole’s report before going through his own papers. He listened
without interruption while the detective detailed his various
interviews of the previous day and nodded his approval of the _résumé_
of the evidence which Poole had compiled and now laid before him.
“What’s your conclusion?” he asked.
“I haven’t formed one yet, sir, though I have got an idea. My great
difficulty is to see how the blow was struck—in the face of that
evidence. Two good witnesses practically swear that no blow was struck
in the scuffle on the steps, and yet it’s impossible to believe that
that was an accident. I’m convinced that that fellow gave a false
account of himself and was probably disguised. I wondered, sir,
whether you would help me stage a reconstruction of that, to see
whether it really would have been possible to strike that blow without
anyone noticing it. I thought on the broad staircase leading up to the
big hall; we ought to have the doctor to see that we hit hard enough.”
Barrod agreed readily enough, but asked for an hour’s grace to enable
him to clear his “in” basket. To fill the time, Poole walked across to
Queen Anne’s Gate and asked to see Mr. Mangane. He had brought with
him the “Company Board” jackets and explained to the secretary the
conclusions he had so far arrived at. Mangane confirmed his belief
that nothing significant was to be found in any but the Victory
Finance Company file. Poole opened the latter.
“Now, sir,” he said. “I’ve decided to ask your help. I know a little
bit about finance generally, but the details of a finance company like
this are rather beyond me. You probably know something about this
already; perhaps Sir Garth consulted you. I’ve got no one whom I know
better than you to consult. If I started nosing about in the City
myself—cross-questioning these people—they’d probably shut up like
oysters, and if there’s anything wrong the criminals would be warned.
Anything you did in that way would come much more naturally. Now, will
you help me? Will you look into this Victory Finance Company business
and see if you can give me a line?—I can give you an idea or two of my
own to work on perhaps. I expect you want to clear up this business of
Sir Garth’s death as much as most of us; will you help?”
A curious expression had come into Mangane’s face as the detective
propounded his request; it ended in a smile.
“I’ll be very glad to help you, Inspector,” he said. “I do know a
little about this business. Sir Garth asked me to make some enquiries
himself and I made an appointment or two for him that I fancy had
something to do with it. I won’t bother you with details now; I shall
be able to give you something more worth having in a day or two.”
Thanking Mangane, Poole left the house, without—as he had secretly
hoped—catching a glimpse of Miss Fratten. Returning to the Yard, he
collected Dr. Vyle (by telephone) and three intelligent plain-clothes
men and having coached the latter in their parts, sent one of them to
fetch Mr. Barrod. Asking the Chief Inspector to represent Mr.
Wagglebow; Dr. Vyle, Mr. Lossett; and one of the constables, Miss
Peake; Poole set the remaining constables, Rawton and Smith, to walk
side by side down the broad stone staircase, while he himself waited
behind a corner at the top. The lights were turned out so that only
the feeble daylight lit the stairs. When the two constables were about
half-way down, with Barrod a few steps immediately behind and Dr. Vyle
to their right rear, Poole came running down after them and,
stumbling, bumped into the left shoulder of Detective Constable
Rawton; as he did so, he swung his closed right fist with a vicious
half-hook into the centre of Rawton’s back. With an involuntary, but
realistic, “Ow!” Rawton staggered against Smith, who held him up and
asked anxiously what was the matter.
“Nothing, mate; only a 5.9 in the small o’ me back” said Rawton
ruefully.
Poole apologized profusely and then made swiftly off down the stairs
and disappeared round a corner to the left, whilst the third
constable, entering with gusto into his part, came and clucked round
the other two in the manner he considered appropriate to a highly
strung and imaginative female.
“Well, sir,” asked Poole, returning, “any possibility of mistakes?”
“Of course not; not the way you do it—much too obvious. You
should . . .”
“You have a shot at it, sir,” said Poole, slightly nettled at this
reception of his best effort. “I’ll take your place. We’ll do it
again.”
“Could Kelly change with me, sir?” inquired Rawton anxiously. “He’s a
single man; I’ve a wife and kids dependent on me.”
Poole laughed.
“General Post,” he said. “Doctor, will you take the lady; Kelly you be
Sir Garth, and Rawton, you Lossett.”
The reconstruction performance was repeated, with an altered cast.
Chief Inspector Barrod stumbled at a point rather farther behind his
victim than Poole had done, and fell with nearly his full weight
against the back of Kelly’s shoulder.
“Christ, I’m killed!” yelled that unfortunate. “What have ye in y’r
fist, Chief?”
Barrod chuckled delightedly and extracted an ebony ruler from up his
sleeve.
“That’ll leave a bruise all right—I’ll back mine against yours,
Poole—and I’ll bet you didn’t notice anything more than the fall.”
“No, sir, your body was between me and his back. But I don’t think
that answered Wagglebow’s description of the accident.”
“And I saw the blow, sir, anyhow,” said Rawton. “I’m sure Lossett, if
I’m placed right, couldn’t have said that he was sure no blow was
struck.”
“I think I should have known he’d been violently struck, sir,” said
Smith, who had taken the part of Mr. Hessel.
The Chief Inspector looked nettled at the reception of his rendering.
“All right, have it your own way,” he said. “How much further does it
take us?”
“If I might bring the doctor along to your room, sir, and have a
talk?” answered Poole. “That’ll do, you three—many thanks for your
help. Kelly if you’re really hurt you’d better show yourself in the
surgery.”
“It’s no surgery I’m needing, sir; ’tis a mortuary I’m for.”
The man’s half-doleful, half-laughing face restored even Barrod to
good humour.
“I’ll come and take your last wishes when you’re ready, Kelly,” he
said.
A minute later the three men were seated at the Chief Inspector’s
table.
“I fancy it amounts to this, sir,” said Poole. “The blow wasn’t struck
on those steps at all.”
“And the Peake woman’s evidence?” queried Barrod.
“Oh, she’s a looney. No, sir; I don’t understand what that affair on
the steps means—I’m convinced it has a meaning; but I believe Sir
Garth was struck where he fell.”
Barrod stared at him in silence for several seconds.
“Humph!” he said at last.
“Now look here, doctor,” said Poole, turning to the surgeon, “how soon
after he was struck would you expect a man in that condition to
fall—struck as Sir Garth was, that is, on the danger spot?”
“At once.”
“But he _might_ have walked a certain distance after being hit?”
“A few steps perhaps—half a dozen.”
“But surely you don’t exclude the possibility of his having walked
further—from the Duke of York’s Steps to the place where he fell?”
“I don’t know where he fell. I always assumed that it was a few paces
beyond the Steps—you never told me anything to make me assume anything
else. How far away did he fall?”
“Thirty or forty yards.”
“Good Lord, impossible! At least—wait a minute. If the injury to the
aneurism was only slight—a very slight tear or puncture, so that the
blood only oozed out, then he might have walked the distance you say
before collapsing. If it burst on impact, he must have fallen within
half a dozen paces.”
“You can’t say which kind of injury it was?”
“Not definitely now. It might have begun with a small tear and then
become larger—it would look like a burst.”
Poole stared at him.
“And what are you driving at, Poole?” asked the Chief Inspector. “That
Hessel himself struck Fratten?”
Poole looked at his Chief coolly.
“That’s jumping a bit far, sir, but we’ve no proof at the moment that
he didn’t—only his own story.”
“What about that chap at the House of Commons; didn’t he see Fratten
fall?”
“Smythe? He saw them walking in front of him, then a car came between
them and when it cleared, Fratten was going down. He saw no blow—at
least he said nothing about one.”
“On which side of Fratten was Hessel walking?”
“I don’t know, sir. Coming down the Steps, of course, he was on
Fratten’s right.”
“And probably was here. Find out about that, Poole, and also
whether Hessel is right- or left-handed. Anyhow I don’t believe
it. Hessel said, if I remember aright, that he had his arm through
Fratten’s—Smythe can probably confirm that; he could hardly have taken
it out and struck him a violent blow without someone seeing. We’ll
assume the linked arms and the left-handedness for a moment; come on,
we’ll try it.”
The imagined scene was reconstructed. It required a noticeable
effort on Poole’s part to strike the Chief Inspector in the back;
it was hardly credible that such a thing could have been done,
unnoticed—still, there was no absolute impossibility.
“Check those points, Poole, and call for witnesses of the actual fall
and death. Everybody’s concentrated on the accident on the Steps so
far.”
After giving the necessary orders for advertising for the required
witnesses, Poole made his way to the House of Commons. Mr. Coningsby
Smythe kept him waiting this time, just to indicate his own
importance, but when he did come, was quite definite. He remembered
quite well that the shorter man was on the right. Furthermore, he was
sure that only one car had passed between them; he did not believe
that the shorter man could have disengaged his arm and struck a blow
during the fraction of time that the obscuring had lasted. The
detective thanked him for his help, cautioned him not to reveal what
he had been asked, and made his way back to the Yard.
As he walked, he puzzled his brain as to the best way to find out
about Mr. Hessel’s right- or left-handedness. It sounded so simple and
yet, in fact, with the restrictions that the circumstances imposed, it
was by no means simple. He could not ask either Hessel himself or his
immediate circle of friends and acquaintances—the question so
obviously implied a terrible suspicion. If Hessel had been a man who
played games, either now or in the past, it would have been easier,
but it was fairly certain that he was not. It would be quite easy to
find out, by observation, whether he wrote with his right or left
hand, but that would be no proof (in the event of his writing with his
right) that he was not ambidextrous—many people use one hand for
writing and the other for throwing a cricket ball. The brilliant
detectives of fiction—Holmes, Poirot, Hanaud (not French, he was too
true to life)—would have devised some ingenious but simple trick by
which the unsuspecting Hessel would have been tested in both hands
simultaneously. As it was Poole could think of nothing better than to
put a plain-clothes man on to shadow the banker and watch his
unconscious hand action. It was unimaginative, but it might produce a
result.
Back at the Yard, Poole telephoned through to the appropriate
Divisional police-station and inquired as to the name and whereabouts
of the police constable on duty in St. James’s Park at the point
nearest to the scene of Sir Garth’s death on that night; he learnt
that the man—P. C. Lolling—was at that moment off duty but would be
back at the station a little before two in preparation for his next
tour. Poole was just wondering what to do in the meantime when he was
summoned to Chief Inspector Barrod’s room.
“What’s this young Fratten up to?” the latter asked as Poole entered.
Poole’s expression was sufficient answer to the question.
“That chap that you put on to watch him, Fallows, rang up when you
were out to say that Fratten had slipped him—a deliberate slip, he
thought it was—the old back-door trick. What’s his game?”
“Has he taken anything with him, sir—luggage?”
“Fallows didn’t know—I asked him that; he’d rung up directly he
realized that Fratten was gone. He’s gone back to Fratten’s lodgings
now to find out about his kit. You must get on to this, Poole; I don’t
mind telling you that I think you’ve given that young man too much
rope—you haven’t pressed him hard enough. This business of Hessel’s
now; what’s your idea there? What’s the motive?”
“Not much at the moment, sir. He’s down for £5,000 in the will, of
course—not much, unless a man’s desperately in need of money; I’ve no
proof that Hessel is—but then I haven’t been looking for it. I’m going
to now, though. I haven’t been through Sir Garth’s Fratten’s Bank
papers yet; there may be a suggestion there, though it’s hardly
possible that Sir Garth suspected anything wrong—he seems to have
trusted Hessel completely.”
“Well, I don’t think much of that line,” said Barrod. “Hessel could
have found a better place than that to hit Fratten in—St. James’s
Park’s a bit public.”
“Exactly, sir; that’s got to be explained, whoever did it. But we must
remember this—barring his son and daughter, nobody’s so likely to have
known about the aneurism as his best friend, Hessel.”
The Chief Inspector shrugged his shoulders.
“Did you ever ask him if he knew?”
“No, but I’m going to.”
“Well, I don’t mind your following that up so long as you don’t drop
young Fratten. If he slips you, Poole, you’re for it.”
There was a knock at the door and a constable came in.
“Young lady to see Inspector Poole, sir,” he said. “Name of Fratten.”
The two seniors exchanged glances.
“Show her in here,” said Barrod.
In half a minute, Inez Fratten appeared. Her cheeks were flushed and
her eye sparkled.
“I’ve foun . . .” she began, but Barrod interrupted her.
“Where’s your brother, Miss Fratten?” he asked abruptly.
Inez stared at him.
“My brother?”
“I beg your pardon, miss; I mean Mr. Ryland Fratten.”
“But what do you mean— ‘where is he?’”
“Was he at your house this morning?”
“No; no, as a matter of fact, he wasn’t.”
“Or last night?”
“No, he didn’t come to dinner last night either; as a matter of fact,
I particularly wanted to see him. But he doesn’t live with me, you
know; he’s got lodgings in Abingdon Street.”
“He’s done a bolt, Miss Fratten; you’re not asking me to believe that
you don’t know about it.”
“A bolt! I’m quite certain he hasn’t! What makes you say he has?”
Barrod explained.
“Pooh!” said Inez; “that doesn’t mean he’s bolted, that simply means
he’s fed up with being watched—so would anyone be. He’ll be at his
lodgings tonight—probably at our house before then. D’you want to see
him?”
“I want to know where he is. You’d better tell him not to play that
game again, Miss Fratten—if it is a game; it’ll be landing him in
trouble.”
“It won’t,” said Inez defiantly. “It won’t, for the simple reason that
I’ve found the girl he was with that evening!”
“What’s that?” exclaimed both men simultaneously.
“Well, I’m pretty sure I have; that’s why I wanted Ryland—so that he
could identify her. But it’s more than a coincidence that the one clue
we’d got has led straight to the very place I’ve been suspecting.”
She turned to Poole.
“Who do you think ‘Daphne’ is, Mr. Poole?—the girl who threw herself
at Ryland’s head and then left him kicking his heels at the very time
and place that would make things look bad for him—she’s Miss Saverel,
secretary of the Victory Finance Company!”