Case with No Conclusion (6 page)

I dressed quickly and scarcely stopped for breakfast, for however indifferent Beef might be, I began to see this case as genuinely unusual. But when I reached his house I was disappointed to hear from Mrs. Beef at the door that the Sergeant was still having his breakfast.

I found him at work on his kippers. Whatever cliches could be used for Beef, no one could say that he “toyed with his food.” If he could have dissected motives and situations as thoroughly as he did those smoked fish, he would have been a great detective. In spite of my impatience, I was fascinated by the process, and sat watching until the third one was a bleached skeleton on his plate, and he had swallowed his last cup of tea.

“Ah,” he said, filling his pipe, “there's nothing like a kipper.”

“But, Beef,” I began, “you can't hang about like this. That man's suicide may mean anything in the case.”

“And it may mean nothing,” said Beef. “We shall soon find out when we get there. Now come along. Have you brought your car?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then drive around to Suffolk Street, Strand.”

“Suffolk Street, Strand?” I said, for quite apart from my r6le as the perpetually astonished observer, I was genuinely at a loss to know what he was up to this time.

“That's what I said,” he returned as he climbed
into my Ford Eight. And rather than give him the satisfaction of seeing that I was mystified, I drove where he told me in silence.

When we stopped at the number he mentioned, I found he had brought me to the offices of the
Passing Moment,
the paper which belonged to Peter Ferrers and Wakefield.

Beef clumped into the outer office and asked the girl whether Brian Wakefield was in.

“What name?” she said.

“Beef,” said the Sergeant, as though he was mildly astonished that she shouldn't already know.

“From Mr. Peter Ferrers,” I added.

We were kept waiting some five minutes, and then shown into a room on the door of which were the words,
Editor, Private,
conspicuously painted.

Wakefield was sitting at a big desk facing us as we entered. He did not look up but showed us the top of a large head while his pen continued to move over the paper in front of him.

“Sit down,” he murmured, still writing, and rather sheepishly we did so. Beef, however, soon became impatient and began a series of throat-clearings which would have been sufficient to disturb Wakefield had he been genuinely at work.

Suddenly he laid down his pen and looked up, and before either of us could even greet him, began to speak.

“You've come to hear what I know about the Ferrers business. If you will just sit perfectly quiet I'll tell you in as few moments as possible—no,
don't interrupt. I have learned to make myself coherent, and I can give you the facts in a far more concise form that you could possibly extract them by questions.”

He was standing up now, with his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets. He must have stood six feet four or five, and his slight stoop and his very large head gave him an overshadowing aspect. His voice had the rich complacency which goes with culture in Oxford and good living in London. He wore a blue serge suit, and his black Eden hat hung behind him. I knew his type well. Intellectually talkative, self-confident, and rather useless. I had met men of his category patronizing the assistants of West End bookshops, contemptuously “putting at ease” visitors to Broadcasting House, leaning over bars in places which were, for some reason, called exclusive. His face was flat-tish, with cheeks which went straight up to his eyes so that there was no pocket under them, or lashes on the under-lids.

“First of all, about this family,” he said, “though there's nothing very remarkable about the history. Peter and I were at school together, and I've been in and out of that mausoleum of a house since I was twelve. The mother was a nice, ordinary little woman, and the father a pleasant old sentimentalist. I've never liked Stewart, and should think he probably did the murder.”

The last sentence was spoken casually, as though Wakefield wished to imply that it didn't seem a
very important matter to him who had committed the murder, or how many murders had been committed, and that we were a couple of mildly contemptible fools to bother about the thing at all. Beef, however, tried to interrupt at this point.

Wakefield raised his hand. “I don't say he did,” he went on, “because I always find evidence, and that sort of thing, rather boring. But he was perfectly capable of doing it if he felt it incumbent upon him. He was one of those people who've never really established their relationship with the world. He lived on an island of little ideas. A dangerous man in a sense. He was desperately fond of money, though, and worked to increase the considerable fortune he inherited from his father. Peter and I had been trying for months to get him to put this paper on its feet, but nothing would shift him. I told Peter right from the start that it was useless, but he wouldn't entirely give up hope until the other night.”

“But how…?” began Beef.

Wakefield turned on him like a schoolmaster interrupted during an English literature lesson by a boy who wished to leave the room. “That night was our final attempt,” said Wakefield, “and we had agreed that if he refused to help us then, we would give up hope of his assistance. It so happened that there had arrived that day in the office a book for review which we knew would please him, and Peter had decided to take it down. Stewart was not, you will observe, the kind of man with
whom any particular subtlety was needed. The book was one of those ghastly great illustrated editions of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, which, one had hoped, had passed out of popularity long ago. It was quarto in size, bound in white buckram with a grotesque display of ornamental gilt lettering on the sides and back. It was printed on handmade paper, and its coloured plates were by some woman who had a passion for purples and pinks. Stewart liked to read aloud quotations from this overrated poem, and it was part of Peter's ingenuous plan that we should ask him to do so that evening.

“We reached the house at a quarter to eight, and Benson arrived about five minutes later. He was a florid, race-going sort of fellow, essentially provincial, and rather a bore. I could see no particular reason why anyone should wish to murder him, any more than one would have thought they wished to murder all members of his type. He mentioned that his car was out of order and that his wife wasn't well—the sort of conversation that one would expect from him. After dinner in the library we actually allowed Stewart to read several passages. Then we came to the point. Would he, or would he not, buy enough shares in the
Passing Moment
to keep it alive? He would not. Peter wasted a certain amount of valuable time in trying to make him change his mind, then we got up to go. Duncan arrived, apparently from nowhere, with our coats, Peter started up that old bus of his, and
we came back to London. He dropped me at my flat and drove away. There you have the whole thing, and unless there are any questions you feel you must ask, I won't take any more of your time.”

Beef stood up straight away. “No,” he said, “there's no questions about the dinner-party. You've told me all I want to know. But,” he added, stepping almost threateningly towards Wakefield, “there's one thing I want to hear from you. What did you do after Peter Ferrers left you at your rooms?”

“I thought that was coming,” smiled Wakefield. “As it happens, I went straight to bed.”

“And I,” said Beef, “thought
that
was coming. Good morning, Mr. Wakefield.” And with an air of conscious triumph, he stalked out of the office, leaving Wakefield and me to exchange glances; his of comprehension, mine of apology.

O
N
the drive down to Sydenham I asked Beef about the whisky he had persuaded me to appropriate from the Cypresses. “You told me you'd explain it, Beef,” I said, glancing mischievously at the figure beside me, for I was convinced that he had taken it for quite unprofessional reasons.

“So I will, in due time,” he said. “That's got to be analysed.”

“Analysed?” I repeated, smiling at this gross piece of subterfuge. “Why should you want the whisky analysed when the man's been stabbed?”

“Because,” returned Beef quite seriously, “I believe it contained arsenic.” And that was all he would say.

The girl Rose opened the door at the Cypresses, and showed us again into the library, where we found Peter alone. He looked unhappy and tired, I thought, though he said good morning, and offered us cigarettes. “The police have been here again this morning,” he said. “There seems to be no doubt at all that poor old Duncan committed suicide.”

“I'm very sorry about it, sir,” said Beef, and there seemed to be genuine sympathy in his voice. “Must be very upsetting for you, having known him all your life.”

Peter nodded. “Yes,” he said, “we all feel it. He was as loyal a man as you could want to meet. And although in this last year or two he seemed to have become nervy, and highly strung, he always did his job rather better than one could expect. I was fond of him in an odd way. I can remember him taking me to kindergarten, and coming to meet me afterwards.”

“But have you any idea what made him do it?” blundered Beef.

“I rather think it was the strain of all this business. I know he felt very worried at the thought that he might be called up to give evidence, and that his evidence might tell against my brother. However, his wife will be able to tell you more than I can. Would you like me to call her?”

“Perhaps it would be as well,” said Beef.

Mrs. Duncan was as short and stalwart as her husband had been narrow and pale. Her arms seemed to be bursting out of her dress, and her face was large and white like a plain suet pudding. She showed no signs of grief at her recent loss, but her expression was resentful. And one felt at once that she had mastered the nervous Duncan as easily as she ruled the rest of the kitchen. There was something a little unhealthy about her, the faint odour of perspiration perhaps, or the heavy fleshiness of her figure.

“Very sorry to hear of your loss,” said Beef ponderously.

“Mm,” returned Mrs. Duncan, as though she were dubiously accepting a tribute.

“You have no doubt in your mind that he committed suicide?” asked Beef.

“Oh no,” said the cook. “He'd threatened to do it a dozen times. He was so upset with all this.” She glanced accusingly at Peter Ferrers. “And it's hardly a wonder.”

“Still,” said Beef complacently, “one would have thought it would take more than a to-do of this kind to make a normal man do himself in. If he'd handled as many murders as I have, he'd have known better.”

“It wasn't the murder,” said Mrs. Duncan, “it was his attachment to the family. I always told him he thought too much about his work. He couldn't sleep at night if everything wasn't just right. ‘Do your job and have done with it,' I used to say. But no, he'd be wondering if Mr. Stewart had liked this, and fidgeting over Mr. Peter saying that, until he was little better than a ninny. And then when this happened he was nearly off his head. I told him straight that I didn't see that Benson was much loss. But all he'd say was, ‘If you knew all that I know,' or, ‘I hope I never have to tell all I can tell,' or something of that sort.”

“There you are,” said Beef triumphantly to Peter and me, “I told you yesterday he knew more than he'd say.”

“Well, if he did,” argued his widow, “he's took it with him to his grave, for he never told me nothing.
He'd worry and fidget and jump as though someone had come up behind him, and mumble in his sleep, but he never give nothing away.”

“When did you notice his manner changing?” asked Beef.

“Well, he's never really been the same since the old gentleman died. Though you'd think that the bit of money he came into would have cheered him up.”

“How much was it?” asked Beef, and I felt that his question was prompted by the merest curiosity.

“Oh, not a great lot,” said Mrs. Duncan guardedly. “Three hundred pounds, or thereabouts. With what he had saved up it would have been enough to buy a nice little pub somewhere. Only, of course, he wouldn't listen to that. He had to be hanging round here looking after Mr. Stewart for the rest of his days; and this is what's come of it!”

“Still,” said Beef consolingly, “perhaps you'll be able to have a house yourself now.”

“I've every intention,” said Mrs. Duncan, “as soon as this blows over.”

“Would you mind telling me what your husband said that makes you so certain that he did commit suicide?”

“Well, he
said
he was going to do himself in,” said Mrs. Duncan. “He told me so last night. It was after you'd been questioning him again. It was bad enough having to answer all the police asked him, without you coming along. He said, ‘I can't face the court.' It nearly drove him off his head having to
attend the coroner's. And then knowing that there would be Mr. Stewart's trial as well, it was too much for him. Besides, he left a note.”

“He left a note, did he?”

“Yes, on the kitchen table. The police have took it now, though it was meant for me. Said he couldn't stand no more of it; questioning and that; and was going to hang himself. And that's what he did do. In my scullery too, and only wearing his nightshirt.”

“What time would that have been?”

“I couldn't say, I'm sure. He came up to bed the same time as I did last night—round about ten. 'Course, we ought never to have stayed in this house after the murder. But we were told we should be wanted to give evidence, so what could we do? I think it turned poor Duncan's head, being in and out of the library where they found the corpse. Anyway, there he was in the morning.”