A preliminary report from Special Detective Hare of the homicide squad showed that all of Prentice Crossley’s affairs at the time of his death were in the hands of his lawyer, John Fairleigh. Fairleigh, at the time of the murder, was in Los Angeles attending a legal convention. He had been summoned immediately, and was on his way back to New York to confer with the police. He had in his possession Crossley’s will, and the combination to the Crossley safe. No other persons had been found who knew the contents of the will or the combination of the safe.
Detective Hare also reported that through the American Philatelic Society and the American Stamp Dealers Association he had succeeded in locating the stamp dealers with whom Crossley had transacted most of his business. They were Kurt Koenig, an independent dealer, and Jason Fream of the Acme Stamp Company. He had also located Homer Watson, a private collector of rarities, known in philatelic circles as a keen rival of Crossley. The rivalry had apparently been friendly, however, for Watson admitted that he was a frequent visitor to the Crossley home and that he and Crossley occasionally traded stamps.
None of the three when interviewed could throw any light on the murder. All agreed to hold themselves in readiness to assist the police, should their knowledge of the Crossley stamp collection be of any use. The collection was kept, they said, in the small safe in the library.
The report of the medical examiner showed that Crossley had died from a deep stab wound in the back. The examiner was unable to place exactly the time of death. “Some time before midnight, June 4, Sunday,” was the best he could do in view of the fact that many hours had elapsed before the discovery of the body. “An examination of the wound shows that the instrument which caused death was a dagger of some sort about ten or twelve inches long, of a peculiar triangular shape with tiny notches at intervals along the three cutting edges.”
The report had been made, of course, that first morning immediately after the removal of the body, before a thorough search of the house had confirmed the astuteness of the medical examiner.
But it was not until Friday morning that Spike found out about that. It was eleven: thirty when he appeared at the inspector’s office, heavy-lidded and morose, like one who has drunk too deeply the night before. He tossed the reports on the desk and sank wearily into a chair.
“Sorry,” he said, “but I didn’t have a chance to look at ’em.” He yawned prodigiously. “God, I feel lousy!”
The inspector surveyed him with a look of pained irritation as if he were torn between a desire to humor him and to bust him one on the jaw. Instead he rose and paced the floor, his hands thrust into his pockets, his lips nervously chewing an unlighted cigar. Presently the telephone rang. He picked it up… scowled… listened…
“Tell ’em to go to—No, no, never mind, we can’t do that. Hand ’em out the regular line. We’re working on the case and expect to make an arrest before night. You know, the old baloney.”
He slammed the receiver down. “Newspapers!” he snapped. “They’re yapping again.”
Spike dropped an apparently heavy, aching head onto his outstretched arms. “What about?” he asked, his voice muffled.
“This Crossley case. If this fellow Fairleigh who’s coming today tells me what I think, I’ll have plenty for ’em by tonight.”
“Who’s Fairleigh?” Spike asked sleepily.
“Crossley’s lawyer. Had a wire from him this morning. He’s arriving at noon by plane and we’re going to meet him at the Crossley house. He’s bringing the old boy’s will with him, and he’s going to open the safe. I’m having three of these stamp birds up, too, to check up on this collection of Crossley’s that’s supposed to be so valuable.”
Herschman continued his pacing, talking more to himself than to the unresponsive figure sprawled over the desk. “If the girl’s the beneficiary… plenty, plenty… and with that bayonet…”
“You sound kind of maudlin yourself,” Spike cut in, “sorta the way I feel. The war’s over. We’ve beaten up our bayonets into Ford fenders and—Oh, my head!”
The inspector ignored what he felt was an obvious bid for unmerited sympathy, and went to a large steel cabinet on the opposite side of his office, unlocked it, and brought out an object carefully wrapped in gauze. He laid it on the table and gingerly lifted the top layer of gauze.
It was a bayonet of peculiar design—a bayonet that was still shining and polished, a foot long, its three triangular blades serrated at intervals.
Spike raised his head, looked at it. “What’s that?” he asked with sleepy indifference.
“That, my boy, is what killed Prentice Crossley. We found it wiped clean as a whistle, upstairs under some clothes in a chest—in Linda Crossley’s room.”
Spike’s head dropped into his arms once more and he hunched his shoulders into a more restful position.
“And if the will shows that Linda Crossley is sole beneficiary of her grandfather…” Herschman left the sentence unfinished, but there was a certain excited anticipation in his tone.
Spike snored softly, but presently when the inspector began making sounds of departure, he raised his head once more.
“I guess,” he said between yawns, “I’ll go up there with you—to the Crossley place. Maybe if I got up and moved around it would clear my head.”
CHAPTER VII - The $32,500 Nut
For three weeks the packet from Southampton had been overdue and the postmaster was worried. It was not, he explained, that he was expecting anything for himself. But the stamps!
They were running low. Less than a hundred left. And with ships putting in at Georgetown harbor so frequently now, what with the rum and cocoanut trade so booming, and local merchants writing as many as ten and fifteen letters a week, the stamps would be gone in no time. If the packet bearing the new supply from England didn’t arrive pretty quickly…
Came the day when the last stamp in the post office was sold. There wasn’t another stamp in the entire colony. The postmaster, a resourceful soul, went to the office of the Official Gazette, the only newspaper published in the colony and put his problem before the gentleman who combined the functions of editor, reporter, typesetter and proof-reader. British Guiana must have some stamps—immediately. The Gazette gentleman, as we have already pointed out, was versatile. Within a few minutes he had added to the list of his accomplishments that of designer of stamps.
It was a rough looking specimen, to be sure, just a few rules arranged in box formation, enclosing a Latin motto and the tiny cut of a three-masted sailing ship that the Gazette always carried at the head of the “Shipping” column. The four sides of the square were buttressed by the words “postage,” “British,” “one cent,” “Guiana.” The stamps were printed in black on deep magenta paper, in time for the opening of the post office the next morning.
There is no definite record of the number of these stamps that came off the press of the Official Gazette and were sold through the wicket of the Georgetown post office, but we do know that today there is in existence only one of this issue, the British Guiana, 1 cent, 1856. This tiny bit of paper that originally sold for 1 penny is today valued at—
Patrolman Finney dropped the book into his lap and stared wide-eyed at his vis-a-vis, Patrolman Smith.
“Holy Mother o’ Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” he gasped. “Would you believe it now, what it says here?” He picked the book up again and scanned the last line carefully to make sure there was no mistake. “ ‘… is today valued at thirty-two thousand and five hundred dollars!’ ”
Smith, who up to this time had taken no part and little interest in Finney’s reading aloud, suddenly straightened in his chair.
“Thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars!” Finney repeated as if to assure himself as well as his companion. Then he continued reading slowly:
This famous stamp was for many years in the collection of Count Philip la Notière von Farrary. Count Farrary was the son of an Italian duchessa and an Austrian nobleman. He lived most of his life in
Paris, but legally he was an Austrian, and therefore an enemy-alien in the years 1914-18.
He managed to escape Paris to the neutral territory of Switzerland, but he was forced to leave his stamp collection in France. He died in Lausanne in 1917. His property in France, like that of all enemy-aliens, was confiscated and his stamp collection put up for sale. It brought almost $2,000,000 into the coffers of the French government.
The British Guiana, one cent, 1856, was sold to an American collector and taken to the United States where in the course of a year it passed through several hands. It has for the past eight years been in the possession of that well known collector of stamp rarities—
Finney paused dramatically. Smith, lately removed from the traffic squad, gestured irritably by force of habit. “Get goin’, get goin’.”
“ ‘…has for the past eight years,’ ” Finney continued, “ ‘been in the possession of that well-known collector of stamp rarities, Prentice Crossley.’ ” He slammed shut the slim redbound volume he had taken from the bookcase and looked incredulously at Smith.
“Well, whaddaya think of that? Thirty-two thousand, five hundred dollars for a measly bit of a stamp, and him ownin’ it.” At the word ‘him’ he jerked his head toward the large glass-topped desk that stood in the center of the library. Before it stood a straight-backed Jacobean chair, empty.
“Nuts I” Smith commented succinctly.
“Nuts!” Finney repeated in emphatic agreement. “Any bird that’d pay $32,500 for one stamp is nuts.”
“Off his nut,” Smith elaborated.
“Completely off. Just nutty.”
Having exhausted the synonyms in their vocabulary for mental unbalance, the two patrolmen sank into a contemplative silence. The easy chairs of the library were very easy and they had been sitting in them for four hours. Presently the two heads began to nod… nod… lower…
Smith came to with a jerk and gave his companion a hasty shake. “Beat it! Someone’s comin’.”
Finney jumped to his feet, straightened his uniform and quickly resumed his post in the front hall just outside the library door.
It was John Fairleigh.
“Yes, sir, we’re expectin’ you, sir,” Finney assured him as the visitor was shown into the library. “The inspector just called a few minutes ago and said he was startin’ on his way and he’ll be here any minute.”
For a moment after he crossed the threshold of the room, Fairleigh stood very still, his eyes traveling slowly from chair, to table, to window, to bookcase. It was as if he were making sure it was the same room he had known in his years of dealing with Prentice Crossley.
A tall man, firmly built, with a crisp, gray mustache and gray-blue eyes that were hard and at the same time filled with compassion. His entrance into the room seemed in some strange manner to lay upon it once more the stigmata of murder and tragedy, so recently dispelled by the commonplace presence of the two patrolmen.
Fairleigh took off his hat, unstrapped the brief case he had brought with him, and looked through the papers it contained. There were deep, troubled wrinkles between his eyes.
The inspector and the district attorney arrived ten minutes later. In their wake trailed a sleepy young man who seemed chiefly concerned with gaining the soft haven of an easy chair in a far corner of the room.
“I came as quickly as I could,” Fairleigh assured Herschman and the district attorney. “I would have been here sooner, but plane service was broken between Oklahoma City and Indianapolis on account of storms and I had to go by train.”
“You have with you the documents we requested?” the district attorney inquired.
Fairleigh nodded. “Yes, I went directly from the landing field to my office in Nassau Street and picked up the papers and then came up here.”
The three men seated themselves, and Fairleigh reached for his brief case lying on the window seat, but the district attorney held up a restraining hand.
“Before we go into that, Fairleigh, perhaps you can tell us something about Crossley himself. We’ve been able to get surprisingly little information about him except in a—well, a professional way. I mean we have plenty of newspaper files telling of his activities in the local stamp clubs and his collection of stamps, but there’s very little we know or have been able to find out about the man himself, his personal life and his friends and associates. You should be able to help us there.”
A slow, crooked smile twisted Fairleigh’s face and he shook his head doubtfully. “I’m not so sure about that. You see, he didn’t have any. For fifteen years, ever since he retired from business, he has had just one passion—his stamps. In the last five years his health has been very poor and he hasn’t been able to get out much. Outside of a few fellow collectors and one or two stamp dealers and myself, I don’t suppose ten people have come to the house in these five years.”
“But you have been here frequently?”
“Once or twice a month. Sometimes oftener.”
“May I ask you to tell us just what was your business relationship to Mr. Crossley. I know you were his lawyer, but that term can cover a variety of services.”
“As I said before, Mr. Crossley retired from business fifteen years ago. He had made plenty of money in the chemical business, so he pulled out while he still had it. He invested it in various ways and then turned these investments over to me to manage. I’m a sort of legal and financial steward.”
“Well then, as such you must know a great deal about the more personal side of Crossley’s affairs?”
“As much as there is to know, which is very little. Outside of his stamp collection, I don’t believe he had an interest.”
“How about his granddaughter?”
Fairleigh did not answer immediately. His eyes sought the window giving out onto a tiny enclosed garden at the back of the house. Presently he spoke, choosing his words carefully.
“Mr. Crossley’s attitude toward his granddaughter was—strange. There was, on the surface, little of the ordinary signs of tenderness and affection in their relationship, but at bottom he was—I think he loved her—desperately.” He placed a curious emphasis on the last word.
“I suppose you know,” the district attorney said, “that she has disappeared.”
Fairleigh nodded, his eyes still gazing out onto the little back garden, his voice low and slightly strained. “And I suppose you infer from that disappearance that she—”
“We’re inferring nothing just at present. We would like to know if you have any idea where she may have gone.”
“Not the slightest.”
“But you knew her as well as Crossley, did you not?”
“My meetings with him were purely of a business nature and I seldom saw her. She was of a very gentle, retiring disposition.”
“But do you know of any friends to whom she might have gone, who might be hiding her?” Fairleigh shook his head firmly. “I know none of her friends. As a matter of fact I doubt whether she had many. Her grandfather absorbed her completely.”
“She was very devoted to him?”
“Very.”
“To the exclusion of everyone else?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
The district attorney switched to another tack. “The main purpose of our meeting, Mr. Fairleigh, as you know, is to see the will of Prentice Crossley. You have it with you?”
For answer Fairleigh reached for his brief case and drew out a document bound in still blue paper.
“It’s not a complicated will,” he said flipping through the three sheets of legal foolscap which composed it. “Mr. Crossley had a sufficient investment in his former chemical company and in first mortgage real estate bonds to yield a yearly income of between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars. I may say that originally his income was much larger, but he chose to use part of his capital in the purchase of stamp rarities which I can assure you are very expensive. He has paid between thirty and forty thousand dollars for a single stamp.”
The
inspector and the district attorney looked properly astounded and Fairleigh smiled. “Collectors, you know, are that way. To you and to me a stamp is only an old, faded bit of paper, but to collectors it holds all the romance and adventure of life. It’s difficult to understand their psychology, but there it is. However, this stamp collection business does have its more practical side. Altogether just at a guess, I would say that Mr. Crossley invested between two hundred and three hundred thousand dollars in stamps. In the course of twenty years, though, the value of this investment has increased. Last year when he had his collection officially appraised, the valuation put on it was $400,000.”
“But what we want to know,” Herschman interrupted impatiently, “is who gets it all. Let’s read the will.”
“But that’s just what I’m doing. I’m enumerating the various assets of the estate that are enumerated here,” and he thumped the paper. “There are his investments in chemicals and real estate; there is his stamp collection; there is this house.” He paused.
“Yes, but who gets ’em all?” Herschman persisted.
“There is a small bequest to myself. Outside of that everything is left to his granddaughter, Linda Crossley. There are no other beneficiaries. The will is very simple.”
Inspector Herschman, who had been holding himself rather stiffly in his chair, slowly relaxed with satisfaction. He turned toward the easy chair in a far corner outside the circle made by himself, the district attorney and the lawyer, and flung a “what-did-I-tell-you” glance at the young man therein. But the young man was apparently asleep.
The district attorney looked slightly incredulous. Being a lawyer he enjoyed fine technical complications. Simplicity baffled him. He reached for the document which Fairleigh had been holding, but the lawyer had already started to fold it up.
A Most Immoral Murder Page 4
