Eight Murders In the Suburbs (17 page)

“We took this from her finger. Do you recognise it?”

“Yes. It's mine, all right. But—what's happened to it?”

“Our expert's report says that cut was made by a diamond. We found the chip on the floor. The ring could have been crushed against one of the pieces of jewellery, while he was attacking her.”

“Horrible!” ejaculated Surbrook, and wisely left it at that.

“Was the deceased wearing her jewellery while you were with her?”

“Yes. Rather a lot of it for the afternoon, but this was an occasion. The jewellery had belonged to her mother—it had been locked in her father's safe during his lifetime. She was glad of a chance to wear it.”

“Describe it, please, Mr. Surbrook.”

“I haven't much eye for that sort of thing. but I'll try. A bracelet—rubies and small diamonds. A thing on a chain at her throat—a pendant. And a brooch—about
here
—joining the folds of the blouse. It was in diamonds and it was large—but don't infer Miss Felbert was an ostentatious woman—”

Karslake pressed for a detailed description of the brooch.

“Sorry, Inspector! To me it was just a brooch.”

Surbrook was treading carefully. To admit that it was a monogram of their initials would clash with his statement that the jewellery had been her mother's.

“Can you give me the names of a few friends who might be able to describe it?”

Surbrook obliged, knowing that no friend had ever been allowed to see it. He had cleared an awkward little obstacle and his nerve was the steadier when Karslake asked what time he had left the deceased.

“I didn't happen to notice the time. I can remember that nine struck when I went into the dining-room at the club. So I suppose I must have left the bungalow about a couple of hours before that.”

“Can you produce any witnesses?”

“Not a soul!” sighed Surbrook. “Unless some men I nodded to at the club could help.”

Surbrook had made a thoroughly good impression. The landlord of The Barley Mow had already talked to the local police, quoting the time as five past seven.

At the inquest, Surbrook gave evidence as to his physical movements and as to the deceased having worn jewellery. The medical witness was unable to state that death must have taken place before seven in the evening. In short, the jury adopted Surbrook's theory of a prowling crook knocking at the door intending a preliminary investigation and seizing his chance to take the jewellery from the person of an unprotected woman.

In six months the case, with its items of real evidence, was passed to the Department of Dead Ends.

“You'll need more luck than usual for this, Rason,” said Karslake. “There's nothing sticking out but the jewellery—and that'll be broken up by now.” He added: “If Surbrook scuppered her himself, he'll have dumped it. Not much to work on, there. Everything Surbrook said stands up.”

Everything Surbrook had said stood up. Fear receded to vanishing point, taking with it the sharp consciousness of his crime. By Hedda's will he benefited by a further thirty thousand pounds. He moved into a larger flat in Bayswater. He did not cut himself off from the society of women. After one or two transient intimacies, he was considering a marriage of convenience to a wealthy widow, when he received a call from Detective Inspector Rason.

The streak of boyishness in Detective Inspector Rason—the ability to take a silly thing seriously—had never in itself brought him success, but it sometimes gave him a new approach to an old problem. It was a piece of boyish foolery with some jewellery—in no way connected with the Cosy Nook murder—which turned his attention to Surbrook.

He had spent an unprofitable morning in Hatton Garden, trying to identify some stolen jewellery, which included a star pendant in diamonds. Instead of going straight back to the Yard, he dropped into his sister-in-law's flat in Bloomsbury, and asked himself to luch. He showed the jewellery to his niece, who admired it. She was having a fortnight's holiday at home and was going to an afternoon party.

“Pity I can't lend you this little lot—that star would look a treat in your hair. Try it, and see!”

“It isn't for the hair, Uncle, it's for the throat. And anyway, no woman would wear a diamond pendant in the afternoon.”

“You don't know everything, miss! As a matter of fact, that rich girl, Miss Felbert, was wearing one very like this on the afternoon she was murdered.”

“I don't believe it,” said his niece, whom he encouraged to be cheeky. “You've got the evidence wrong again, Uncle.”

He remembered her impudence some fortnight later, after a prolonged bout of desk work, which always depressed him. It was when he was in such moods that he would chase his wildest geese.

“Suppose the kid was right!” Rason urged himself. “Suppose the Felbert wasn't wearing a pendant, why did Surbrook say she was? Because he's a liar. Or because he mistook it for the brooch? No, he mentioned the brooch separately.”

He opened the locker containing the real evidence of the Cosy Nook murder. He took out the green blouse. And two small pieces of gold chain, with cards attached:

‘Found next skin, small of back: believed fragment of chain securing pendant.'

“Small of the back!” repeated Rason. “Then she must have been wearing the pendant at the back of her neck. Hm! You've got the evidence wrong again, Uncle. Where's that blouse?”

He arranged the blouse on his desk, trying to visualise the position of the pendant. “Must have been about here—no, that'd be under her chin. Much lower down. That makes it right on top o' the brooch.”

He consulted the open dossier.

Brooch secured ‘v' junction of blouse.

“Where's the ‘v' junction of the blouse? No buttons. Can't tell. Find the pinholes made by the brooch … Must be in front somewhere.”

But they were not in front—nor behind, for that matter. In a couple of minutes, though aided by a magnifying glass, he had failed to find the pinholes. With commendable caution and remembering the lapse of time, he sent the blouse for microscopic examination. He received a report stating that there had never been any pinholes in the blouse.

“She may have been wearing a pendant, but she was
not
wearing a brooch!”

His discovery set him lurching and tottering along a trail which better detectives had already seen and rejected as futile.

“He said she was wearing a brooch, when she wasn't. Ten to one she wasn't wearing any jewellery at all.” An odds-on chance, however, was rarely accepted by the legal department as evidence. He returned his attention to the dossier. “That signet ring was crushed against a diamond, so there was jewellery there, even if she wasn't wearing it. What was she doing with it? Just showing it to him? Then why couldn't he describe it properly—especially the brooch she was
not
wearing?”

There was something funny about that jewellery. None of the girl's friends had ever seen it, nor the servants employed by her father, though it was supposed to come from her mother.

“Women who own jewellery and don't wear it keep it at a safe deposit. She never wore hers. But she kept it at that bungalow, which was often empty and unguarded. Wonder where she
did
get it? Come to that, she might have bought it herself. Girls do, sometimes, when a man doesn't give her any.”

The dossier told him where Hedda had kept her private account. Rason astonished the bank manager by asking permission to inspect Miss Felbert's account for the last seven years.

“But the account closed with Miss Felbert's death. We have not the record,” he told Rason. Eventually, the manager was persuaded to send for an elderly clerk who had been in charge of the account.

“I would probably have noticed a payment to a jeweller, as such.” The clerk held out no hope. “Poor Miss Felbert would draw the same amounts month by month, almost to a pound—year in year out. The only largish cheque I can think of—why, it must be six or seven years ago, now!—was for three hundred and fifty pounds. It was to a Mr. Maenmawr—a Welsh name—I remember, because I happen to be Welsh myself. But I don't know that he was a jeweller.”

He was a jeweller. He turned up the record.

“This is what you want, Mr. Rason. It was a special order. A pendant star and a bracelet from stock and a monogram in diamonds in brooch form—
HW
, intertwined. You can see from this illustration the sort of thing it was.”

Hedda
—
William!
Rason came within an ace of slapping the back of the very dignified jeweller.

“Can you make us one like it? We'll pay for the work, of course, but we'll only rent the diamonds.”

On the way to Surbrook's flat, Chief Inspector Karslake felt all his usual mistrust of Rason's slapdash.

“It's your case, Rason. I only hope, for your own sake, that you've worked out a proper line?”

“Shan't want one, sir,” chirped Rason. “I reckon he'll give one shriek, then throw in his hand. You might watch him, if you don't mind, for cyanide.”

On the Stock Exchange a man learns a great deal more than stockbroking—among other things, to keep his head in an emergency.

In the dining-room of the flat which the real estate agent had classified as ‘extremely commodious,' the two detectives sat, with Surbrook at the head of the table. Karslake had coldly declined the offer of drinks.

“Ever seen this before, Mr. Surbrook?” On the table Rason put a large diamond brooch—in monogram form—
HW
intertwined.

Surbrook caught his breath. But Surbrook knew that a catch of the breath cannot be produced as evidence.

“Damn!” exclaimed Surbrook with elaborate embarrassment. “I've been dreading this moment. I'm extremely sorry, Mr. Karslake. I funked telling you about the monogram because it would have revealed that Miss Felbert had it made—unknown to me—while I was married to another woman. It was undignified behaviour on her part—which I could not have explained away. And as it could not affect your investigation—”

“You can't know that!” snapped Karslake. “Misleading the police is a public mischief for which you can be heavily fined or imprisoned, or both.” But his ill temper was directed at Rason who was looking as if it were he who intended to throw in his hand.

“My superior officer,” said Rason, rallying, “is a bit sore about your telling him that the poor lady was wearing her jewellery. In particular, you mentioned the brooch—you said it was pinned on at the
v
junction of the blouse. Look at the size of the pin on that brooch!” From his bag, he produced the green blouse. “There you are! You find the pinholes—unless you like to take my word for it that our microscope boys swear there never has been a pinhole of any size—anywhere—in that blouse. As to the pendant—d'you want me to go on, Mr. Surbrook?”

Surbrook wondered how much they were keeping up their sleeve. Bad as things were, there must be a fighting chance left, or they would have arrested him without talk.

“One lie was the father of the other, Mr. Rason. After I'd proposed to her, she fetched that chocolate box, showed me the jewellery, telling me she had bought it, to wear—to wear on our wedding day. She had always had a superstitious belief that my first marriage would come to an early end—it would break the charm, or something, if she were to wear it before then. So she put it back in that chocolate box in which she kept it—also for sentimental reasons—I gave her the chocolates years ago.” Surbrook added: “It's the sort of thing one shrinks from telling a public official.”

To Karslake's indignation, Rason was positively oozing sympathy.

“Well, I suppose we're all human, Mr. Surbrook. We accept your explanation—on the understanding that you will hold nothing back in future.” Rason's graciousness was profound. As Surbrook relaxed, Rason went on: “It's agreed that the jewellery was not on her person when she was murdered. As we have your full co-operation now, Mr. Surbrook—perhaps you can give us a slant on this?”

He produced the signet ring.

“This scratch and cut, here! Made by pressing up against a diamond. Our microscope boys again! As there weren't any diamonds on her person, the ring could not have been on her person when it was pressed up against the diamond. It must have fallen off her finger, while she was being murdered. See what I mean?”

There was a long pause before Rason added:

“Who put the ring back on the dead woman's finger, Surbrook?”

Rhode Grenwood knew as well as any lawyer that motive is at best no more than a clue for the police and a clarification for the jury. Yet he took great trouble to conceal his motive for the murder of Gerald Raffen and no trouble at all to conceal the murder.

Grenwood was a well-to-do distributor in the newspaper trade, supplying about a thousand shopkeepers with newspapers, books and stationery. He was thirty-five in 1930 when he murdered Raffen, who was two years younger. Grenwood was efficient and progressive but unadventurous—a large man but well contained, of athletic habits, socially a good mixer in spite of a streak of melancholy.

As boys they had been contemporaries at Charchester School and were there in the year of the fire, which caused such a scandal. Raffen was injured in the fire, and for this—as all their mutual friends knew—Grenwood had insisted on blaming himself. He had been prefect of the dormitory, responsible for the discipline and safety of twenty younger boys. The very public inquiry, courted by the school, gave Grenwood a wholly clean sheet. When he persisted in his assertion that he was morally responsible, the retired judge, who was presiding, told him sharply that it was a form of conceit to assert that he could have done anything, which he had not done, to protect Raffen.