WHY TULMIN BLACKMAILED CLEVEDON
SIR WILLIAM and Lady Clevedon settled down in Cartordale and very quickly
made themselves popular with their neighbours. Billy himself was of a
buoyant and friendly disposition, and even if he had been far less
genial, Lady Clevedon would have pulled him through. I never met a
sunnier person than she was, and if she had designedly set out to
dissipate any possible suspicion that may have gathered round her
husband, she could not have gone a better way about it.
But if she had any such intent she did not show it. They both acted as
if they took it calmly for granted that any idea of Billy’s participation
in the tragedy was futile nonsense. Nor did they hesitate to discuss it,
and apparently accepted my interposition as a matter of course. No doubt
Thoyne and Kitty had explained to them my part in the story. As they
became more and more immersed in their plans for refurnishing White
Towers and in various social activities, the mystery dropped more and
more into the background. That was all the better for me. The necessity
of consulting other folk and especially of explaining, or of concealing,
because it more frequently amounts to that, is always something of a
nuisance when one is engaged in delicate investigations.
But I had a little passage with Lady Clevedon the elder that was not
entirely without entertainment. I was passing the big gates of Hapforth
House just as she emerged. I fancy she had seen me from the windows of
the lodge and had come out with the intention of intercepting me. She
stood with both hands on her stick surveying me with a dry smile.
“So, Mr. Detective, you haven’t yet discovered who killed Philip
Clevedon,” she said.
“I don’t know that I haven’t,” I returned. “But knowledge isn’t proof
and there are libel laws to be watched.”
“That is an easy way of getting out of it,” she cried mockingly. “A
detective ought—”
“But I am not a detective,” I interrupted.
“No, you are not, that’s true enough,” she agreed grimly, as she turned
abruptly and began walking towards Hapforth House.
When I reached Stone Hollow again, I found waiting for me a little
wizened man with indeterminate features and a general air of
dilapidation, though his eyes under shaggy grey brows were bright and
piercing.
“Hullo, Stillman!” I cried, “you at last, is it? I have been expecting
you for some time, but I suppose it wasn’t an easy job. Have you got
it?”
Stillman sat for a few minutes gazing into the fire. I knew his habit
well and did not attempt to hurry him. He was a very methodical person,
with a way of arranging his thoughts and choosing his words that was
sometimes a little irritating to those wanting to hear what he had to
say. I, knowing him well, merely waited until he was ready.
“You told me to find out—” he began and then paused, glancing at me as if
in inquiry.
“Why Tulmin was blackmailing Sir Philip Clevedon,” I replied promptly.
“Tulmin had some hold over Clevedon—what was it?”
“Precisely.”
I had “discovered” Stillman some years before, and had made much use of
him. What his past was I did not know, though I suspected that it would
not bear a too detailed investigation. He was certainly an expert
burglar, as I had more than once put to the test; he could copy a
signature with the fidelity of the camera; he could empty a man’s pocket
with the dexterity of a professional; he knew every possible trick with
the cards; he seemed, in short, to be an expert in every form of roguery,
and yet, as far as I knew, he had never engaged the attention of the
police. If he had been a rogue, he had covered his tracks with singular
skill.
But he may only have been, like myself, a student of roguery. I was an
expert pickpocket, an accomplished burglar, could open a safe by
listening, and would guarantee to copy any man’s signature so as to
deceive even himself; and more than once during my investigations I had
found my accomplishments extremely useful. I should have made a very
dangerous criminal, but I kept within the law, and I was willing to give
Stillman also the full benefit of the doubt. As a sleuth, I never met
his equal; in the patient, persistent, unwearying, remorseless pursuit of
an individual, in turning a person, man or woman, inside out, in
penetrating the most sullen reserve and uncovering the secrets of the
past he was unapproachable.
I had the first taste of his quality in the Strongeley case. He brought
me some information and I happened to remark that I must have Robert
Strongeley shadowed. “Try me,” he said, and as I was just then too
busily occupied to do it myself, and had nobody else whom I could put on,
I agreed. He followed Strongeley half round the world, and wormed out
secrets that even Strongeley himself had forgotten.
Since then I had many times employed him, and he always promptly answered
my call, possibly because I paid well, but even more, I think, because my
cases were nearly always interesting. How he lived or what he did in the
unemployed intervals I cannot say and never inquired. A lack of
curiosity is often a form of wisdom.
I had placed Tulmin in his hands. “This man,” I said, “has been
blackmailing the late Sir Philip Clevedon and I want to know why.”
And there I left it. Stillman, I knew, would sooner or later bring me
the information I required.
“I went down to Ilbay,” Stillman said, “but I could not get on board the
yacht. But chance helped me there. Mr. Thoyne came off the ship
bringing Tulmin with him. The latter went to London and so did I.
Whether Thoyne had given Tulmin an address, or whether Tulmin went there
on his own, I didn’t know, but I followed him and obtained a room in the
same house. Later I learnt that the house was one in which Tulmin had
lodged when he first came over from America and before he went to
Cartordale.”
“America?” I interposed. “Did Thoyne know him in America?”
“That is the story,” Stillman replied, with a quiet grin.
“Thoyne—Clevedon—Tulmin—all from America. Tulmin had some money of his
own, but Thoyne was making him a fairly generous allowance, is still, for
that matter. But to begin at the beginning. When Sir Philip
Clevedon—er—died, Mr. Thoyne offered Tulmin a job as steward on his
yacht.”
“Did Tulmin say why the offer was made?”
“No—no special reason, anyway. He was out of a job and Thoyne wanted a
steward. But it is a little curious that Mr. Thoyne offered him about
twice the usual pay if he would go then and there at once.”
I smiled appreciatively. It was, indeed, a little curious,
“Though, if he hadn’t done that,” Stillman went on, “Tulmin probably
wouldn’t have gone, because he wasn’t short of money. At all events he
went. But hardly had he got to know his way about the yacht when a
telegram came. ‘I want you to go to London and wait for me there,’ Mr.
Thoyne said to him. And that seems to be the whole story.”
“Did Tulmin see the telegram?”
“No, Mr. Thoyne burnt that when he had read it.”
That, of course, was Kitty Clevedon’s telegram warning Thoyne of my
threatened visit.
“It was lucky Tulmin went to London—what should you have done if he
hadn’t?” I asked, with some little curiosity.
“Oh, I should have found a way,” Stillman replied. “Perhaps an
opportunity of boarding the yacht would have presented itself, or I might
have learnt its destination and met it there. I should have found Tulmin
some way. But that telegram eased matters considerably. I am much
obliged to whoever sent it.”
In all his confidences Thoyne had never told me why he took Tulmin away,
nor had he given me any indication that he knew where he was.
“As to Tulmin,” Stillman went on, “I had rather a lot of trouble with
him. He wasn’t exactly an easy subject. But I got there in time. He is
too fond of his whisky to keep many secrets. And I have spent a lot of
money in whisky. At to-day’s prices, you know, whisky does cost money.
But I had to drag it out of him almost a word at a time and piece it
together as best I could. But I think I have it straight now.”
The story was very simple. As Stillman had said, the three men had all
hailed from America where Clevedon, known then as Calcott had been an
object of much attention from the police. Tulmin himself was a “crook,”
though of rather smaller dimensions than the other, and they had
occasionally worked together. Then Calcott disappeared and it was given
out that he was dead.
It was some time after Calcott’s ending that Tulmin, finding the police
in America inconveniently eager to make his acquaintance, crossed over to
England, which offered at once a refuge and a fresh field for his
operations. It was in London that he met Sir Philip Clevedon as the
latter was going from a taxi towards the dignified entrance to his club.
They faced each other at the foot of the stone steps.
“Calcott!” Tulmin cried, with a welcoming grin.
“I beg your pardon,” Sir Philip replied, with the icy composure that
characterised him.
“I said ‘Calcott,’” Tulmin retorted, in no way perturbed.
“Yes, I heard you, but I don’t know what it means,” Sir Philip made
answer.
“It’s a clever bluff,” Tulmin responded. “And I’ve heard of doubles, of
course. But do you know that Felter is in London”—Felter was head of the
Chicago detective bureau, and a man whom the late Calcott had good reason
to fear—“on some stunt or other and looking as foxy as ever? It gave me
a turn of the shivers when I ran up against him suddenly in Oxford
Street. I wonder if you could persuade him to believe in doubles or
whether he might not want to see that scar on your left knee. He put it
there, you know, didn’t he, and could identify it. Anyway, I am looking
for a job as confidential man—valet, secretary—something soft and clean
and well-paid. I am tired of being a ‘crook.’”
What Tulmin actually would have done, or even could have done had
Clevedon bluffed it out, I don’t know. But apparently the latter funked
the risk and the end of it was that Tulmin was installed at White Towers
as Sir Philip Clevedon’s confidential valet. That, in brief, was the
story Stillman told me, nor was it difficult to supply the missing lines.
Clevedon had never expected to succeed to the title since there were
several lives in front of him, but they disappeared one by one, and
accordingly he shed his Calcott existence like a discarded hat. He was
accepted on this side without question or demur, and indeed, there seems
to have been no doubt regarding his identity. The whole story was
extremely interesting, but I did not see that so far it helped much in
the solution of my own particular mystery. I was a good deal more
concerned with Thoyne’s part in the play.
“The hold Tulmin had over Clevedon seems clear enough,” I observed
reflectively. “But I don’t quite see how he managed to hook Thoyne on
unless Thoyne was also—”
“No, there is nothing against Mr. Thoyne,” Stillman responded promptly
and decisively. “He is paying Tulmin to keep out of the way, but I think
that is simply so that there may be no scandal—no public identification
of Clevedon with Calcott.”
“Then he knew that Clevedon was Calcott?”
“Yes, Tulmin says so.”
“I wonder how he knew.”
“I am not sure about that, but Tulmin was positive that he did know, and
that he was keeping Tulmin out of the way so as to keep the name of
Clevedon out of the mess. Isn’t Thoyne marrying into the Clevedon
family? Anyway,” Stillman added, with a queer chuckle, “Tulmin doesn’t
expect him to go on paying for ever. ‘As long as it lasts,’ in his own
phrase. The hold isn’t a very strong one; and I don’t think myself
Tulmin will turn nasty when the money stops. His own record isn’t so
clean that he need court publicity.”
“I am not quite clear about it yet,” I remarked. “You said there was no
special reason assigned for Thoyne’s action in making Tulmin his steward
at double pay, but now—”
“Oh, yes, I was not quite clear. Mr. Thoyne did not give Tulmin any
reason when he offered him the job. It was afterwards that he explained
what he had in mind—to make sure that nothing got out regarding Calcott.
Indeed, I am not quite sure that he actually explained in so many words.
But he knew about Calcott—Tulmin is sure of that—and perhaps Tulmin
jumped to the conclusion that that was his motive.”
“Yes, I dare say it would puzzle Tulmin to know why Thoyne should appear
so friendly.”
I made up my mind at all events that I would interview Tulmin myself.
Not that I had any specific aim in view. But it would at least be useful
to learn all I could regarding Clevedon’s past. Stillman’s story had
opened new possibilities. If Tulmin could recognise Clevedon as Calcott,
others might have done so. It might easily be that one would have to go
back into those dead years to solve the mystery of the Clevedon tragedy.
And among those possibilities was Thoyne. He may have known Clevedon in
America and have had good reason, quite apart from their rivalry for
Kitty Clevedon’s affections, to desire his death.
At all events I determined that I would have an interview with Ronald
Thoyne before many hours were out. I felt that I had a legitimate
grievance against him. He had known more about Tulmin and Clevedon than
he had ever told me and though he had invited me to investigate the
mystery, he had given me only a half-confidence. I could at least teach
him a lesson on that, I thought rather grimly, besides which, somewhere
at the back of my mind was a queer suspicion that Thoyne had deliberately
thrown me off the scent, telling me, with every appearance of frankness,
much that did not matter, but remaining stubbornly reticent on several
things that did.