The Snark was a Boojum

by Gerald Verner

  I tried to think of reasons why Ursula wouldn’t want to provide Peter with a secure future. Maybe because she was orphaned at three years old she felt that by signing the forms she was making Peter an orphan as well? Maybe she had discussed the whole thing with her husband and they were looking to adopt . . . or maybe she still had feelings for the father . . . I’d gone quiet while I was trying out in my mind these possibilities, and Zoe was obviously embarrassed she had involved me in something that was really none of my business.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve spoilt the afternoon by bringing all this up . . .” she began apologetically with a little frown, after staring meditatively out of the window for a while.

  “Nonsense!” I replied quickly. “I’d like to help.”

  There was another short silence while she looked at me appealingly. “You’re a kind man, Jeff—may I call you that?”

  I could feel myself flush, delighted beyond words that this confidential conversation had deepened the relationship between us. “Of course, Zoe . . . I’d like you to . . .”

  “I thought she’d learned a lesson,” she cut in with a bitter smile. “But now Ursula is starting all over again with this man, Weston . . . What can we do?”

  This put me in some difficulty. I noted she used the word we, and was pleased to be included, but there wasn’t anything much anybody could do. The only person who could put this situation right was Ursula herself . . .

  Zoe looked up suddenly, her frown vanished as her face crinkled into one of her impish and attractive smiles. “It’s really not your problem . . .”

  “Have you said anything to Ursula about Weston?” I asked.

  “What’s the use? Until today I hadn’t absolute confirmation . . .”

  “Do you mind if I tell my father about the child. He already knows about Weston . . .”

  “What did he say?” she asked quickly.

  I repeated, as near as I could remember the conversation I’d had with my father last night: “He won’t do anything that’s likely to precipitate any trouble, but just in case things do blow up, it would be a good thing to put him completely in the picture.”

  Rather reluctantly, I thought, Zoe agreed. I spent a few minutes persuading her that my father and I would keep everything she had told us confidential, and that she could rest assured my father would not infringe that confidentiality by mentioning any of it to Joshua Bellman, or anyone else.

  Just as we were getting up to leave, a police car, its blue light flashing, went by, and I just managed to catch a glimpse of Hilary King, or rather Mrs. Hilary Lawson as we now know her, sitting in the back.

  *

  When we got back to Hunter’s Meadow the house seemed as dead and deserted as when we had left it. The big drawing room was empty. If Ursula had come home after we had seen her leave Lance Weston’s cottage she’d either gone out again or sought the seclusion of her own room. My father, I guessed, was in the study with old Bellman adding the final touches to the acquisition. What had happened to Simon Gale I had no idea. Most likely he was still out. Zoe and I both decided a clean-up was in order after our long walk and we retired to our respective rooms.

  I couldn’t get that fleeting image of Hilary in the back of the police car out of my mind. Obviously Halliday had got his warrant and arrested her. It was the first positive step in this whole affair and I couldn’t help speculating what would become of it. Would she admit to telephoning her husband at St. Dunstan and explain why? I couldn’t wait for the outcome.

  There was plenty to discuss at pre-dinner drinks in the drawing room.

  Old Bellman looked very pale and was talking earnestly to my father, who gave me a sharp look of irritation as I came into the room. There was no sign of Simon Gale. Ursula looked beautiful and immaculate as usual, but preoccupied—that didn’t surprise me—but Zoe did: The fresh air, a figure hugging pale green dress, and her hair up, contributed to silence everyone in the room as she entered. She looked radiantly beautiful . . .

  “Good evening everyone,” she greeted with a sweet smile, turning her green eyes in my direction. “Things have been happening I hear.”

  Did I notice a flicker of jealousy in Ursula’s eyes at Zoe’s eye-catching entrance? “Mrs. Hilary King has been arrested and is at Marling police station,” she answered, giving Zoe a charming smile. “I expect Mr. Gale is there too, as he finds it impossible to keep his nose out of other people’s business.”

  I was suddenly glad I was here, and not with Gale wherever he was, or my welcome at Hunter’s Meadow might have been cut short in my absence. My work on the acquisition was over.

  Zoe saw the worried look in my face and quickly came to my defence: “Ursula, Mr. Gale is working tirelessly to help the police find this killer, which is surely in everyone’s interest is it not? And surely we should also thank Mr. Trueman for giving up his free time to assist where necessary?”

  Ursula’s beautifully pencilled brows rose slightly. “Of course we should, Zoe. I am sure it is very kind of Mr. Trueman for caring so much about our small community.”

  She managed to say this without looking at me, as if I wasn’t in the room. At that moment we all paused to listen to the extraordinary, but by now familiar, sounds that were approaching from outside; splutters and bangs, as if a war had broken out. Simon Gale had arrived back on his diabolical machine just in time for dinner.

  Gale came into the room like a force of nature, so that I for one took a step back. I noticed that Zoe did to, looking mildly alarmed, bracing herself for bad news, as it was evident from the manic expression on Gale’s face that he had something important to tell us.

  “Miss Hilary King, under threat of arrest and a night in jail, has broken down and revealed all,” he said dramatically.

  I noticed Bellman look up and frown.

  “I have just come from Marling police station,” Gale went on, revelling in the knowledge that he held the floor. “Hilary was not arrested, you will note, only taken in for questioning, and she has now been returned home. I doubt if Halliday will charge her.”

  “Have you been at the police station all afternoon?” I asked accusingly, feeling I had been left out.

  Gale waved his arms about in the air and answered in a gruff booming voice: “No. I spent an illuminating afternoon looking through archives at the Marling Chronicle, and called in to see Halliday on my way back.”

  The dinner gong rang.

  Jack Merridew, Bellman’s lantern-jawed secretary, entered and nervously adjusting the position of his shell rimmed spectacles on his nose, went over to Bellman, handing him a piece of paper, which he took and read without any reaction, except to gently rub his chin.

  Despite her previous accusations, Ursula was as interested as the rest of us to hear any latest development in the hunting of the Snark. She turned her pale gold head towards Gale, stared at him with her deep blue eyes, and asked in a soft and clear voice: “Are you getting anywhere close to discovering who it is?”

  “More like who it isn’t, hey?” He boomed. “I’m whittling it down, d’you see? I’m gathering trifles, painting pictures in my head, and eliminating suspects.” Thrusting forward a bristling and belligerent beard, he added in a menacing growl: “Then I’ll just be left with a Snark!”

  Trenton entered to announce that dinner was served. We all filed into the dining-room, each, in our own way, preoccupied with what Gale had just said.

  Over a dinner of excellent duck, bit by bit, Gale told Hilary’s story, beginning with her marriage to Robert Lawson. The idea of Mr. Robert Lawson and Mrs. Hilary Lawson was something they would only get used to in time. He explained how Hilary had met a Mr. Ross King, a buyer at Selfridges, who had died suddenly following an operation in a London hospital for throat trouble. She had come to live at Lower Bramsham, calling herself Mrs. King, as if refusing to acknowledge her lover’s death. Opening an account at the local bank she had met Franklin Gifford.

  “Then we come to the telephone call to St. Dun
stan Investigations,” bellowed Gale, shifting his large bulk so that his chair creaked and groaned, and waving his arms about to the immediate danger of Merridew who sat next to him. “Hilary admitted it was she who telephoned her husband and got him to come down to Lower Bramsham as William Baker and take lodgings with Mrs. Tickford.”

  “Did she explain the reason,” I asked.

  “I was the reason!” announced the dry voice of Joshua Bellman, his small, brown eyes contracting slightly. “I asked Hilary to telephone her husband.”

  The table fell into silence.

  “You, darling?” asked Ursula in a shocked voice. Her face had gone white as a sheet. I could see as she desperately took a gulp of wine, her hand holding the stem of the glass was shaking.

  I looked at Zoe, who was already giving me a warning stare, and I knew we were both bracing ourselves for the same reason. Gale had lit a fuse and we were waiting for the bomb to go off . . .

  “I should have thought it was obvious,” grunted Bellman, his thin lips twisting into a faint smile. “I wanted him to carry out an investigation for me.”

  You could have heard one of Hilary’s hatpin’s drop . . . Nobody dared to ask what that investigation was, but they were all speculating like crazy. The tension in the room was almost tangible.

  Bellman didn’t look at all ruffled by these revelations. It seemed to me he thought the whole matter a gross impertinence, and was almost enjoying himself seeing everyone’s discomfort.

  I remembered Bellman describing that fortuitous arrival of Baker coming to his aid in the woods when he ostensibly twisted his ankle. It appeared less fortuitous and more of a deliberate meeting.

  “Do you mean to say this investigation you commissioned led to these two murders?” asked Ursula fearfully.

  “I didn’t mean to say anything, my dear,” retorted Bellman with no trace of apology his small black monkey eyes. “If I had meant to say anything I would have invited Robert Lawson here, and announced my intentions to the world, wouldn’t I?”

  Gale roared with laughter, and banged the table, much to everyone’s alarm and astonishment. “By Jove you would, Joshua! By Jove you would!” he thundered.

  “It was a few days’ work,” explained Bellman looking at his wife. “A business matter . . .”

  I could see the blood flow back into Ursula’s face. The tension lifted a little, but not totally. I assumed this was because none of us knew what revelation was going to come next.

  “Could that business matter have anything to do with his murder?” asked Ursula.

  “It may do,” her husband answered cryptically. “That police chap Halliday is coming here in the morning and I will discuss it with him.”

  I remembered the slip of paper handed to Bellman by Jack Merridew in the drawing room just before dinner was announced. I assumed that had been about Chief Detective Inspector Halliday calling.

  “When did Baker complete his work for you?” asked Gale in a booming voice, which immediately placed him at the centre of attention again.

  “He’d completed most of it,” answered Bellman, then added as an afterthought: “He was very efficient.”

  I looked over at Merridew to see his reaction to this news of an investigation—anything that indicated as Bellman’s secretary he might have known about it, but his face was impassive.

  “Apparently Baker hoped to persuade his wife Hilary to come back and make a go of it . . . Not realising of course that she was seeing Franklin Gifford . . .” Gale’s face contorted into a fierce scowl. “It’s terrible when one side is infatuated, but the other doesn’t care a jot!”

  I wondered if that had ever happened to him.

  “Did he know about Gifford?” I asked.

  “You mean did Baker know Franklin Gifford and his wife were having an affair?” answered Gale harshly. “He might have picked up gossip . . . stumbled on something . . . maybe he got himself murdered for it.”

  “It’s all very sad, isn’t it?” said Zoe. “Poor Mr. Baker wasn’t very lucky was he?”

  “I wonder what Hilary will do now?” asked Ursula smiling sweetly at everyone. “She’s lost her husband and her lover.”

  “How very careless of her,” remarked Gale.

  *

  After dinner Bellman invited Gale to accompany him to his office. I presumed it was to discuss the meeting with Halliday in the morning. They did not return for the remainder of the evening. I felt further left out as I followed the others into the drawing room for coffee. We listened to a concert on the radio and, following a short discussion after that, we all drifted off to bed.

  No sooner had I entered my bedroom when my father tapped on the door.

  “I am planning to return to London tomorrow,” he told me straightaway, “and I strongly suggest you do the same.”

  I nodded, not wishing to start an argument, and turned on the fire.

  “The acquisition documents are completed at last. Mr. Merridew will type them up over the next couple of days in preparation for a meeting of the board next week at Bellman’s London offices. Of course once the plans are ratified, Bellman, who is cash rich at the moment, will become poorer . . .”

  “A lot of his money will be converted into assets,” I broke in. “Substantial assets . . .”

  “Yes indeed,” agreed my father with legal gravitas. “A substantial amount of money . . .”

  I had questions I wanted to ask him. To begin, I told him I had seen for myself Ursula leave Weston’s cottage, and relayed what I had learned from Zoe about Ursula’s visit to Monte Carlo, and the disastrous aftermath of that visit, the birth of her child Peter.

  “Do you know of any reason why Bellman would hire a private detective?”

  My father sat down and made himself comfortable. “Bellman’s father rented a corner shop,” he began. “It provided enough money for them to live on but that’s about all. When Joshua was old enough he began working in his father’s shop—learning the ropes, ordering goods, keeping accounts. Joshua never went to college or anything like that. He had a very basic education preferring to educate himself . . . He was born shrewd. He was frugal . . . saved his money until he was able to rent his own shop. His father worked one, he worked the other. By the time he was married he had bought his shop and already owned three others, and had bought shares in a pie company—he was their best client. He then opened a wholesale grocery company and began deliveries to schools, restaurants and hotels . . . He expanded rapidly from there . . .”

  “A self-made man,” I commented.

  My father nodded. “Very much so,” he agreed. “The marriage provided him with two sons . . . Unfortunately his wife died giving birth to the second.”

  I couldn’t help but think of the lines from The Hunting of the Snark: The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies, such a carriage, such ease and such grace! Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise, the moment one looked in his face!

  Was Joshua Bellman the key figure in these events?

  “What happened to his sons?” I asked.

  “Both killed in the war—in the trenches . . .”

  “That’s bad luck,” I said feeling sorry for Bellman. “That’s very bad luck. Who inherits the empire?”

  “The main beneficiary is Ursula.”

  I had assumed this, but to actually hear it spoken aloud caused me to pause and remind myself of the age difference between Ursula and Bellman, and the amount of trust he must have in her—it made her liaison with Lance Weston all the more dangerous . . . the two of them perhaps wanting a life together that was just out of reach unless Joshua Bellman was removed out of their way, and anyone else who posed a threat? A motive for two cruel murders with the possibility of a third, Bellman himself . . .?

  Cash rich but soon to become cash poor . . . It would be difficult for Ursula to get her hands on the bulk of her husband’s cash once the acquisition documents were signed and much of his cash had been used to fund it. It would look very odd if, after
Bellman buying the additional stores, she suddenly put them up for sale.

  But was this scenario fact or fiction?

  If it were true, then was Ursula feeding information through to Weston about our activities? Were they plotting to remove Bellman out of their way permanently?

  “You think Ursula and Weston are behind these murders?” asked my father reading my mind.

  “I know Gale isn’t keen on the idea,” I admitted, “but it seems to me a sound explanation—the only explanation we have right now.”

  “Then you think Bellman might be next?” asked my father looking worried. “It’s logical. Once the acquisition is ratified . . .”

  “Most of his cash will be gone. Of course, it will only be temporary—as the new outlets build profits—his cash pile will go up again, higher and more rapidly than before.”

  “The fly in the ointment is the murder of Franklin Gifford,” I said struggling with the problem. “We have no explanation for that.”

  My father looked at me and hesitated. “Did you know Franklin Gifford introduced Ursula to Bellman?”

  I couldn’t hide the shock in my face. “No, I didn’t know.”

  Suddenly, the murders were linked; Gifford introduced Ursula to Bellman who hired Baker . . .

  “I can see I’ve surprised you,” he said. “Wheels within wheels . . . Bellman and Gifford go back a long way, before our company became involved with his affairs . . . Before Gifford was a bank manager in Marling . . . He worked in the city at a merchant bank. He procured money to fund Bellman’s ventures, either as loans from the bank, or personal investors—he had access to lists. Those that invested in Bellman all got their money repaid, and with interest, but the risks involved at the time were high and where many banks would have turned Bellman down, Gifford signed off on the loans. He had Bellman where he wanted him, and whereas fees were dutifully paid to the banks involved, additional private fees where paid to Gifford personally . . .”

  I couldn’t help but recall the lines from The Hunting of the Snark: But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense, had the whole of their cash in his care.