Crow's Inn Tragedy (11 page)

“I—I daren't,” she confessed. “And I have been an awful ass. He—this man—had letters. They were silly enough, goodness knows, and they might have been read to mean more than they did, and my husband is jealous—terribly, wickedly jealous of my past. At last he—the man—said that if I would pay him a large, an enormous sum, he would go abroad and I should never hear of him again. If I did not he swore he would send the letters to my husband in such a fashion that the worst construction would be placed upon them. What was I to do? I hadn't any money. I dared not tell my husband. I made several attempts to pull off a grand
coup
, and only got worse in the mire. I made up my mind to sell my diamonds and substitute paste. A friend of mine had done so and apparently had never been suspected. But I couldn't take them to the shop myself—we were too well known in London. And, when I was at my wit's end to know what to do with them, I happened to hear a woman saying how she had disposed of hers quite legitimately and openly through a solicitor, Mr. Luke Bechcombe. I thought perhaps he might do something for me, and I rang him up.”

“Well?” the detective said interrogatively; his face was as expressionless as ever, but there was a veiled eagerness in his deep-set eyes as they watched Mrs. Carnthwacke's every movement.

“I told him what I wanted. And he said it would be necessary to have them valued. We talked it over and made an appointment for two days later, the very day he was murdered. I was to take them to him myself. And he told me to go down the passage to his private door so that none of his clients should see me, because I explained that it must be kept a real dead secret.”

“What time was your appointment for?” the inspector asked.

“A quarter past twelve,” Mrs. Carnthwacke answered. “But I was late—it must have been quite half-past when I got there. He looked at the diamonds and said that they were very fine and he would have them valued at once and get them disposed of for me if I approved of the price. He was to ring me up at twelve o'clock the next day. But of course he didn't, and I couldn't think what had happened, until I saw this dreadful thing in the papers. Oh, you will keep my name out of it, won't you?”

She broke off and looked appealingly at the inspector. He did not answer. For once in his long experience he was thoroughly taken aback. The woman had told her story calmly and convincingly enough, but—and as the inspector looked at her he wondered if she had no idea of the horrible danger in which she stood.

“I will do my best for you in every way,” he said at last. “But you must first answer all my questions straightforwardly. You have at least done the right thing in coming to us now, though it might have been better if you had come earlier. Now first will you tell me exactly what time you reached Mr. Bechcombe's office?”

“Well, as I say, I ought to have been there at a quarter past twelve, but I dare say it was half-past, or it might have been a quarter to one.”

The inspector kept his keen eyes upon her face; not one change in her expression could escape him.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke, do you know that the doctors have stated that Mr. Bechcombe died about twelve o'clock—sooner rather than later?”

“Twelve o'clock!” Her face turned almost livid in spite of its make-up, but her blue eyes met the inspector's steadily. “It's no use, inspector. I suppose doctors make mistakes like other folks sometimes. Luke Bechcombe was alive, very much alive, when I went in about half-past twelve.”

The inspector did not argue the question, but his eyes did not relax their watchful gaze for one second as he went on.

“How did Mr. Bechcombe seem when you saw him? Did you notice anything peculiar about his manner?”

“Well, I had never seen him before, so I couldn't notice any difference. He just seemed an ordinary, pleasant sort of man. He admired my diamonds very much and said we ought to get a high price for them. He was to have had them valued the next day. Now—now I am in pressing need of money and I want to have them valued myself if you will give them back to me.”

For once Inspector Furnival was shaken out of his usual passivity.

“You—do you mean that you left the diamonds there?”

“Well, of course! Haven't I been telling you so all this time?” Mrs. Carnthwacke said impatiently. “Mr. Bechcombe gave me a receipt for them, and locked them up in his safe—like that one!”

She pointed to the wall where a large cupboard was built into it.

“The—the executors will give them to me, won't they?”

The inspector went over and stood near the door.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke, when the door of the safe was opened in the presence of Mr. Bechcombe's executors and of the police, there were no diamonds there.”

“What! You do not—you cannot mean that my diamonds are lost!” Mrs. Carnthwacke started to her feet. “Mr. Bechcombe put them in the safe himself, I tell you.”

“That was not a safe. It is just an ordinary cupboard in which papers and documents of no particular importance were kept. And when the safe was opened there was no sign of diamonds there,” the inspector said positively. “It may be possible that Mr. Bechcombe moved them before, otherwise—”

“Otherwise what?” she demanded. “Heavens, man, speak out! My diamonds are worth thousands of pounds. Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise they may have provided a motive for the crime,” the inspector said slowly. But no—that is impossible, if you saw him lock them up.”

“Of course I did, you may bet I watched that.” Mrs. Carnthwacke calmed down a little. “Besides, I have got the receipt. That makes him, or his executors, liable for the diamonds, doesn't it?”

“Have you the receipt here?” the inspector asked quickly.

“Of course. I thought it might be wanted to get back my diamonds. The fact that your firm might deny having them never entered my head.”

She opened the vanity bag which hung at her side and took out a piece of paper crushed with much folding.

“There! You can't get away from that!”

The inspector read it.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke has entrusted her diamonds to me for valuation and I have deposited them in my safe. Signed—Luke Francis Bechcombe,” he read.

The paper on which it was written was Luke Bechcombe's. There was no doubt of that. The inspector had seen its counterpart in Mr. Bechcombe's private room. But his face altered curiously as he looked at it.

“Certainly, if this receipt was given you by Mr. Bechcombe, the estate is liable for the value of the diamonds,” he finished up.

“Well, Mr. Bechcombe gave it me, safe enough,” Mrs. Carnthwacke declared. “I put it in this same little bag and went off, little thinking what was going to happen. It struck one as I came out.”

“One o'clock!” The inspector was looking puzzled. If Mrs. Carnthwacke's story were true it was in direct contradiction to the doctors'. “Did you meet anyone on the stairs?”

Mrs. Carnthwacke looked undecided.

“I don't remember. Yes, I think I did—some young man or another. I didn't notice him much.”

“And you didn't notice anything peculiar in Mr. Bechcombe's manner?”

“Nothing much,” Mrs. Carnthwacke said, holding out her hand for the receipt. “I'll have that back, please. You bet I don't part with it till I have got my diamonds back. The only thing I thought was that Mr. Bechcombe seemed in rather a hurry—sort of wanted me to quit.”

The inspector felt inclined to smile. Half an hour in the busiest time of the day seemed a fairly liberal allowance even for a millionaire's wife.

“Now, can you tell me how many people knew that you were bringing the diamonds to Mr. Bechcombe?”

“Not one. What do you take me for? A first-class idiot?” Mrs. Carnthwacke demanded indignantly. “Nobody knew that I had the diamonds at all—not even my maid. I kept them in a little safe in my bedroom—one my husband had specially made for me. Great Scott, I was a bit too anxious to keep the whole business quiet to go talking about it.”

“Not even to the friend that told you that Mr. Bechcombe had helped her out of a similar difficulty?”

“No, not a word! I didn't think of asking Mr. Bechcombe while she was with me, and the next day she went off to Cannes and I haven't seen her since. The receipt, please?”

The inspector did not relax his hold.

“You will understand that this is a most valuable piece of evidence, madam. You will have to entrust it to me. I will of course give you a written acknowledgment that I have it.”

The colour flashed into Mrs. Carnthwacke's face.

“Do you mean that you will not let me have it back?”

“I am afraid I cannot, madam.”

She sprang forward with outstretched hands—just missed it by half an inch. The inspector quietly put it in his notebook and snapping the elastic round it returned it to his pocket.

“You may rely upon me to do my best for you, madam. I shall make every possible search for the diamonds and will communicate with the executors, who will of course recognize their responsibility if the jewels are not found. And now will you let me give you one piece of advice?”

“I don't know. I guess I am not a good person to give advice to.”

Evidently Mrs. Carnthwacke was not to be placated. Her eyes flashed, and one foot beat an impatient tattoo on the floor.

The inspector was unruffled.

“Nevertheless, I think I will venture upon it. Tell your husband yourself what has happened. He will help you more efficiently than anyone else in the whole world can. And Mr. Carnthwacke's advice is worth having.”

“Good morning, Miss Hoyle.” Inspector Furnival rose and placed a chair for the girl, scrutinizing her pale face keenly as he did so.

Cecily sat down.

“You sent for me,” she said nervously.

The inspector took the chair at the top of the table that had been Luke Bechcombe's favourite seat.

His interview with Cecily Hoyle was taking place by special arrangement in the library of the murdered man's private house, where, by special desire of Mrs. Bechcombe, Cecily was now installed as secretary to her late employer's widow.

The canny inspector had taken care to place the girl's chair so that the light from the near window fell full upon her face. As he drew his papers towards him and opened a capacious notebook he was thinking how white and worn the girl was looking, and there was a frightened glance in her brown eyes as she sat down that did not escape him.

The door opened to admit John Steadman. After a slight bow to Cecily he sat down at the inspector's right.

“Yes,” the inspector said, glancing across a Cecily, “I want to ask you a few questions, Miss Hoyle. It may make matters easier for you at the adjourned inquest if you answer them now.”

“I will do my best,” Cecily said, looking at him with big, alarmed eyes. “But, really, I have told you everything I know.”

John Steadman watched her from beneath his lowered eyes. She would be a good witness with the jury, he thought, this slim, pale girl, with her great appealing eyes and her pathetic, trembling lips.

“A few curious sidelights have arisen in connection with Mr. Bechcombe's death,” the inspector pursued. “And I think you may be able to help me more than you realize. First, you recognize this, of course?” He took from its envelope of tissue paper the picture post card he had found in Amos Thompson's room in Brooklyn Terrace and handed it to her.

Cecily gazed at it in growing amazement.

“It—it looks like me! It
is
me, I believe,” she said ungrammatically. “But how in the world did you get it?”

“I found it,” the inspector said slowly, watching every change in her mobile face as he spoke, “in Amos Thompson's room in Brooklyn Terrace.”

Cecily stared at him.

“Impossible! You couldn't have! Why should Mr. Thompson have my photograph? And where was this taken, anyway?”

“That is what I am hoping you may tell us.”

“But I can't! I don't know!” Cecily said, still gazing in a species of stupefaction at her presentment. “It—it is a snapshot, of course, but I never saw it before, I never knew when it was taken.”

“You did not give it to Amos Thompson, then?” the inspector questioned.

“Good heavens, no! I knew nothing about Mr. Thompson. I have just seen him at a distance in the office. But I have never spoken to him in my life. I should not have known him had I met him in the street.”

“You can give no explanation of his treasuring your photograph then?”

Cecily shook her head. “I can't indeed. I should have thought it a most unlikely thing to happen. I cannot bring myself to believe that it did. This thing”—flicking the card with her forefinger—“must have got into his room by accident.”

The inspector permitted himself a slight smile.

“I really do not think so.”

Cecily shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I give it up. Unless—unless—an accent of fear creeping into her voice—he wanted to implicate me, to make you think that I had been helping him to rob Mr. Bechcombe.”

“In that case he would surely have thought of some rather more sure plan than leaving your photograph about in his room,” said the inspector. “You do not think it likely that seeing you so much in the office, he has taken a fancy to you—fallen in love with you, in fact, as people say.”

“I do not, indeed!” Cecily said impatiently. “As I tell you, I know nothing of Mr. Thompson, and he did not see much of me in the office. I never went in to Mr. Bechcombe's room through the clerks' office. I never had occasion to go there at all. My business concerned Mr. Bechcombe, and Mr. Bechcombe only, and by his wish I always went to him by the private door.”

“I see.” The inspector studied the photograph in silence. “You know where this was taken?” he said at last.