Mystery Villa (28 page)

‘Can't run a small grocer's shop in London all your life without learning a lot,' declared Mitchell, ‘especially about human nature. Being a small shopkeeper in a London suburb means a wide experience of life; it isn't like being one of those swell, high-up business birds who are just like children, and innocent as babes outside their own offices and their own jobs.'

The door opened, and Humphreys appeared in the charge of Inspector Ferris, to whom he had been first taken on his arrival. He looked bronzed and well after his sea voyage, but was evidently in a mood of sullen apprehension. To Mitchell's pleasant greeting he replied by an attempt at bluster – rather like a Pekingese snapping a challenge at a stately bloodhound, Bobby thought, as he watched the little grocer trying to browbeat Mitchell.

‘What right have you got to bring me here?' he demanded truculently. ‘That's what I want to know. Where's your warrant? Ever hear of Hocus Corpus?'

‘I have indeed,' agreed Mitchell solemnly. ‘We often tell each other here that Hocus is the safeguard of every British citizen.'

‘Very well, then,' said Humphreys, ‘that's all right, and if I choose to walk out of that door, who's going to stop me?'

‘Provided you don't try, the question won't arise,' Mitchell pointed out cheerfully. ‘And now, as you've asked us if we've ever heard of Hocus, as we have, let me ask if you've ever heard of what is meant by being an accessory after or before the event?'

‘I don't know what you mean,' grumbled Humphreys, with a sort of sulky uneasiness. ‘I'm respectable, I am, and always have been, and there isn't anything I've done that isn't.'

‘You've given us a good deal of trouble to find you,' Mitchell reminded him. ‘It was almost as if you had gone into hiding.'

‘Not me,' declared Humphreys stoutly. ‘I sold my business. Anything wrong about that? Me and the missus went off for a holiday before looking round for another. Then you come interfering, as shouldn't ought to be allowed with respectable people, and so the missus said: “Go for a cruise, like what the
Announcer
prints the pictures of.” So I did, and why shouldn't I? And then I'm fetched along here, and what I want to know is, for why?'

‘Because we want to ask you a few questions. We think you might be able to give us certain information,' Mitchell explained.

‘If you mean about Tudor Lodge and the old girl there, well, I can't,' retorted Humphreys. ‘I never saw her hardly. I don't know nothing,' he declared, with a really magnificent gesture.

‘There are just one or two points you can help us on, I think,' Mitchell persisted. ‘For example, why did you tell people you were making a big profit on your new garden line, when you weren't?'

Humphreys looked at the Superintendent with something like contempt.

‘What do you expect a business man to say when he's trying to make a sale?' demanded the little grocer with withering scorn. ‘How bad he's doing and how rotten everything is? If you had a likely buyer in view, with lots of cash, wouldn't you blow about how well you was doing? Cry stinking fish, I suppose, you would – I don't think.'

‘You did make a sale finally?'

‘Of course I did. If the business was still mine, wouldn't I be looking after it instead of having a holiday cruising?'

‘The person you sold to doesn't seem in a hurry to take possession,' observed Mitchell. ‘The shutters are still up. Can you tell us his name?'

‘Don't know it.'

‘A little unusual that, surely?' suggested Mitchell.

‘I didn't want to know his name,' retorted Humphreys. ‘All I cared about was if he was willing to pay my price, and if he had the cash. It's a party what won a big prize in the last Irish sweepstakes,' he went on. ‘Thousands. Lummy, the luck some have! If I buy a ticket, I never get nothing – not a thing. But this party did, and so he was looking out for a good sound paying business he could put his money in and keep it safe from friends and relatives what was doing their best to suck him dry.'

‘How did you get in touch with him?' Mitchell asked.

Humphreys put on his most obstinate expression.

‘That's my business,' he said. ‘Nothing to do with anyone else. The deal's not completed yet, and I don't want it messed up with any of your interfering.'

‘Oh, we shan't interfere,' Mitchell assured him.

‘What else are you doing now?' Humphreys retorted.

Mitchell hesitated, then decided to try another line.

‘You had an assistant, a man named Jones,' he said. ‘We are anxious to interview Mr Jones. Can you tell us anything about him?'

‘What for? Why should I?'

‘Because we think it possible he may have had something to do with the murder of Miss Barton.'

Humphreys first stared and then burst into laughter the others found a little disconcerting, because it sounded so genuine.

‘I did think sometimes that's what you had got in your heads,' he said, ‘only it seemed so silly. Well, if that's all, I don't mind telling you Jones wasn't his real name, and what his real name is I don't know and don't want to know; nothing to do with me nor you neither. Just about three or four months ago he started coming into my shop and looking around, and buying one thing or another – a tin of sardines or a quarter of cheese or such-like. Then one day he got talking, and he says: “Want to sell?” and I said: “Want to buy?” I said, smart like. “Want to buy?” I said. “Wouldn't be paid to be found dead in a hole like this,” he said; and I said: “Clear out, then,” quick like, I said, quick and hasty like, never being one to put up with cheek and impudence, not from no one,' repeated Mr Humphreys with emphasis, looking slowly round the while, as if daring any of his listeners to take up the challenge. ‘Because,' he explained firmly, ‘cheek and impudence I never could stand, so I said: “Well, then, clear out,” I said, just like that. So he said: “Might find you a purchaser at a good figure if you'll do the right thing along of me afterwards,” he said. I said: “What's a good figure?” I said, and he said: ‘How about two thou?'”

‘Big offer,' commented Mitchell. ‘What did you say?'

‘Said prompt and quick like,' answered Humphreys, ‘that if he got that figure he could have half, not taking him very serious like and speaking, so to speak, at random. Though, mind you, the business is a good business, and worth more than many what's sold for two thou or even more, only with times being bad, and all this unemployment and such-like, you can't always get what a thing's really worth. So I said, generous like and not caring to bargain: “Get me two thou and take half,” I said, and he said: “Done,” he said, just like that. “Done,” he said. “Put it in writing,” he said. Well, no harm in that as I could see, so I done it and he took a stamp out of his pocket – a sixpenny stamp he must have brought along all ready – and stuck it on and said: “This is my act and deed,” so I knew it was all regular and binding. Then he helped me put the shutters up, which was a thing he didn't have no notion how to do, but I showed him, and we got a jug from the King's Head and talked it over friendly like, and he explained how he had cousins what had won big in the Irish sweepstakes so their life was a burden to them ever since along of all their friends and relatives trying to touch 'em, and they was thinking of buying a good, sound, high-class business they could put their money in and be sure of a comfortable, easy living ever after, while being able to tell friends and others their money was all invested and none left to give away.'

‘And you thought your shop–' began Mitchell, and paused. ‘Well, go on,' he said.

‘Why not?' demanded Humphreys defiantly. ‘Wasn't mine as good as anyone's?'

‘Go on,' repeated Mitchell.

‘Well, what he said was, how about me taking him on as an assistant so he could tell his cousins from his own experience just what a little gold-mine the business was – same as it could be,' added Mr Humphreys, still more defiantly, ‘if only worked up according with capital, such as the same I've never had. Only he told me I must start a garden line, because this cousin of his was a bit dotty about gardens, and it always cost him such a lot trying to grow sweet peas where he lived down Islington way he felt certain sure seedsmen and such-like fair wallowed in profits, and he would jump at the idea of working up a big line hisself in garden stuff.'

‘Do you really mean,' Mitchell asked now, ‘that you seriously believed a yarn like that?'

‘I believed it all right when the cash came along,' retorted Humphreys, ‘same as you would have done – cash being cash, ain't it?'

He waited a moment to see if anyone wished to challenge this proposition, but, finding it seemed to meet with general and grave acceptance, he went on:

‘I'm not denying I had my doubts at first, for the lies the most respectable will tell when wanting credit soon takes away all faith in human nature. I defy,' declared Mr Humphreys earnestly, ‘the most trusting to work a year behind a counter in Brush Hill and then believe a word on oath, even if it's a churchwarden says it. But two hundred quid, money down, that's different – all done up in bundles of twenty-five each – that I do believe. Wouldn't you?'

Anyhow, I always believe that money is money,' agreed Mitchell.

‘Just what I say,' declared Humphreys, quite pleased; ‘almost my very own words, and though the money come later on, I didn't see then why I shouldn't give him a trial. I reckoned I could watch him if he was up to any game – lummy, when you've had to do with errand-boys all your natural there isn't much of what games they can be up to that you don't know backwards by heart. But this chap Jones turned out a good worker and very willing, though knowing nothing, but done his best, that I will say, and got on pleasant like with all the customers, though he never seemed to get the knack of weighing right, so there was nothing left of twenty pounds of butter when he had weighed out eighty quarters. Always ready to deliver, too, which, along of my feet from standing on 'em so much, I never care about. Got on well together, we did, and he wrote to his cousin, and said what a fine business it was and to come along and see for himself, which he did according.'

‘Did you see him?' Mitchell asked quickly.

‘No. Jones said: “Hadn't you better keep out of the way?” So I said :“Perhaps may be so,” I said, and I done it. No sense in going out of your way to have questions asked, and there was Jones to answer all as well as me and better. So afterwards he told me his cousin was nibbling but he didn't know if he would spring the two thou. “How about seventeen fifty?” he said and, I said “Hum,” just like that I said “Hum,” not wishing to jump like at it, and he said “How about his having anything he could get over one thou?” and so I said “O.K.” to that, I said.'

‘No wonder,' observed Mitchell. ‘Very much “O.K.”, Mr Humphreys. You must have known perfectly well your business wasn't worth anything like even a thousand pounds.'

‘A thing's worth just what it will sell for,' retorted Humphreys.

‘There is such a thing as misrepresentation and concealment of facts,' Mitchell pointed out sternly.

‘Nothing doing,' retorted Humphreys, his perky self-assurance undiminished. ‘No misrepresentation or concealment either. For why? Because there wasn't nothing represented by me one way or another. There was the business, there was the books, all open as the day. All I said was: “That's my price,” I said. Of course, I laid it on a bit about what I was making out of the new garden line, but that was only straight-forward, legitimate business talk – advertising, as you might say, same as a big firm, if it finds it's doing bad, gets in new capital by claiming it's never done so well before. Advertising ain't truth, is it?' demanded Mr Humphreys defiantly. ‘And that's all I was doing – just advertising.'

‘But you thought it prudent to get out of the way all the same,' observed Mitchell.

‘Didn't want trouble. Why should I? I wanted a holiday, not a lot more trouble, don't I tell you?' Humphreys demanded.

‘Any trouble being a possible action for fraud,' commented Mitchell.

‘There wasn't none,' insisted Humphreys. ‘Immediate possession required, so we bunged off and not at all for nothing else.'

‘Do you say you don't know the name of whoever you sold to?'

‘No, and never wanted to – not me,' answered Humphreys. ‘All I wanted was to know was their money good. It was.'

‘Has the rest of it been paid?'

‘No. Due Friday next, before noon.'

‘You expect to receive it then?'

‘Of course I do. Why not?'

‘Who from?'

Humphreys shrugged his shoulders.

‘I shan't ask so long as I get it,' he answered.

‘Suppose the payment's not made?'

‘Then it's all off. I've got all the papers yet. What I've sold is an option, if you see what I mean. If the deal don't go through, we go back to the shop with two hundred clear profit and start fresh.'

‘I see,' said Mitchell slowly. ‘You are safe either way. What is Jones's real name?'

‘Told you already, I don't know.'

Nor could further questioning shake him. He persisted that all he had done was to name a price for his business and all he had worried about was safeguarding himself on the money issue. He had his £200. If the deal was completed, all well and good – from his point of view. He admitted it would have been a satisfactory sale, but pointed out quite truly that he was fully entitled to ask any figure he chose – £10,000 or £20,000 for that matter. If the deal finally fell through, he had at any rate his £200. Even Mitchell's acid comment that the whole transaction looked uncommonly like a conspiracy to defraud left him quite unmoved. There was no conspiracy or misrepresentation that he knew anything about or felt in any way responsible for. All he could be induced to admit was that he realised there might be some subsequent dissatisfaction on the part of the purchaser.