A Murder is Arranged

by Basil Thomson

  “The police are a cursed nuisance.”

  “Sometimes they are, I agree, but my experience is that it is always worth while to keep on the right side of them if one can.”

  During this conversation Huskisson was showing signs of growing irritation, but Forge took no notice of them. He was wound up and, like an alarm clock, he could not be silenced until the winding had run down. “Couldn’t you slip round to the police station and tell the superintendent what that quarrel that you had with poor Margaret was about?”

  “No, I couldn’t. It is no business of the superintendent or, for the matter of that, anyone else.”

  “If I seem to you to be interfering in matters that don’t concern me you must understand that the whole business is very unpleasant for me and I think that I have a right to be taken into confidence to a certain extent. Besides, I have some influence with the local magnates and I might be able to help.” It was Forge’s weakness to imagine that some of the minor constellations of his part of the firmament revolved round him.

  “I quite sympathise with your position,” said Huskisson, losing his aggressive manner, “but if I told the police the subject of our quarrel it wouldn’t help them. I’ll tell you this much in confidence, that if I did tell the whole story it would be much to the discredit of Margaret.”

  Forge pricked up his ears. He belonged to that trying class of people who fasten like vultures on the reputations of their acquaintances. “You know something discreditable against Margaret Gask? I assure you that the secret will be quite safe with me.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you any more.” He turned to the door and left the room abruptly.

  Before Forge had had time to recover from his discomfiture there was a tap on the door, followed by the entry of Spofforth, the pseudo under butler.

  “I’m glad to find you alone, sir. I thought that the other gentleman would never go.”

  “Why, what’s the matter?”

  “I’ve had a message from the police station ordering me to report myself at once to the head of the C.I.D. at Scotland Yard.”

  “Good Lord! What does that mean—that something important has happened?”

  “I cannot tell you that, sir. I shall have to go and my going off suddenly may seem to confirm the butler’s suspicion about me. It would ease the situation very much if you could invent some excuse for my absence today.”

  “What do you mean about the butler’s suspicions?”

  “Well, sir, he keeps dropping hints.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, sir, he says that it’s a funny thing that another man has been engaged when everyone knows that the house is already over-staffed.”

  “But I told him that I was expecting quite a number of other visitors.”

  “I know, but he says that you had already a staff big enough to deal with a large party for Christmas. He’s no fool, that butler—very wide awake he is.”

  “Well, I’ll tell him that I’m sending you to London with one of the guns: something’s gone wrong with its ejector and you’re taking it direct to the shop where I bought it. Will that do?”

  “Yes sir; I think that will do.”

  “Don’t go and leave my gun in the train when you get to Waterloo or, worse still, in a bus.”

  Spofforth laughed. “That kind of mistake has never happened to me yet, sir.”

  Mr Forge prided himself on the diplomacy with which he had handled a difficult situation; he would have been startled if he had seen the note, addressed to Mr Oborn, which his butler brought in ceremoniously on a silver salver just after lunch.

  Look out for the under butler; I’m pretty sure that he’s a tec in disguise.

  An hour or two later Oborn sought out his host and found him in the billiard room disconsolately practising cannons.

  “Ah! You’ve come for a game?”

  “Well, no; I’ve come in the hope of finding you alone.”

  “Why, what’s the matter? You look as if you’ve something terrible to report.”

  “In a sense I have. For some little time I’ve been uncomfortable about the attention that is being paid to the things in my room and, in order to make sure of my facts, I set an innocent little trap in the shape of a cotton thread which I gummed over the front of a drawer. This afternoon, on visiting it again, I found the cotton broken.”

  “Oh, there’s not much in that. Probably the fellow that valets you was putting things away.”

  “But this was a drawer in which I kept my private papers and no servant would have any reason for going to it. After that affair of your emerald being stolen I thought that I ought to come and tell you.”

  Forge looked extremely uncomfortable. His complexion had deepened in hue. “Do you suspect one of my servants?”

  “Well, to be quite frank I don’t much like the looks of that under butler fellow who has only been here a day or two. I’ve caught him hanging about the place in a very suspicious manner.”

  “Oh! I can assure you that he’s quite above suspicion. I have the very highest character for him.”

  Oborn touched his host on the shoulder. “He may be all you say, of course, but I think that you ought to know that I caught him sneaking out of Huskisson’s room with a letter in his hand.”

  “Surely not?”

  “Anyway, it leaves an uncomfortable feeling: that a manservant is rooting about among one’s papers.”

  Forge’s colour deepened and his eyes goggled. He took the plunge. “Well, my dear fellow, it will ease your mind to know that he has been specially taken on by me to solve the mystery of that theft. He is really one of the best detectives in the country.”

  “For one of the best detectives in the country, his manner of going to work strikes one as clumsy. Do you suppose that he expected to find stolen jewels in my drawer?”

  Mr Forge looked shocked. “You must remember that these super-sleuths very often adopt a clumsy method as a cover for their subtle activities. It is far better to let them go their own way to work and this chap is engaged, not to watch my guests, of course, but to size up the servants. I shouldn’t have mentioned why he is here if you hadn’t come to me with this complaint. I hope you won’t mention what I’ve told you to anyone else in the house, or you’ll quite spoil his stroke.”

  Oborn laughed a little artificially. “Oh, you needn’t worry. I shan’t mention it to anyone. As far as I’m concerned he can go on with his little game.”

  Forge brooded over this conversation for the rest of the afternoon. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he had become a minnow among a lot of hungry pike and that he was no longer master in his own house. His brooding took the form of irritation against Spofforth and he decided to have matters out with him as soon as he returned from London. He left a message with the butler that the man should be sent to him as soon as he came in.

  He was in his bedroom dressing for dinner when there was a knock on the door and Spofforth made his appearance.

  “You wanted to see me, sir.”

  “Come in and shut the door. What did the gun people say?”

  “That there’s nothing wrong with the ejector except that it wanted a spot of oil; they lubricated it and showed me that it works quite well.” He lowered his voice. “As for the visit that I really went to pay…”

  Forge interrupted him impatiently. “Before you go any further let me tell you something. I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve made my guests suspicious of you and in order to soothe him I had to tell one of them who you really are.”

  “I hope not; that would be fatal to any chance of success.”

  Forge wilted at the concern in the man’s tone. He blustered in his own defence. “Well, what can you expect when you go blundering into their rooms and interfering with their papers?”

  “Who says I interfered with their papers?”

  “Mr Oborn.” He repeated the story of the thread that Oborn had set as a trap. Spofforth was about to reply, but he checke
d himself in time and Forge continued, “Well, what about this visit of yours to the C.I.D. at the Yard?”

  “They want a piece of information from you, sir, but they impressed upon me that you must give your word not to mention my journey or its object to anyone, however much they may badger you to tell them.”

  Forge became irritable. “What do you take me for—one of these street corner advertisers? Of course I shan’t blab. What’s the information they want?”

  “They want to know if you can remember who introduced to you the French marquis who sold you that emerald.”

  “Of course I can remember: it was Mr Huskisson.”

  “Thank you, sir; that’s all they wanted to know.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE MESSENGER laid a bundle of papers on Richardson’s table; with his usual quiet efficiency he contrived to bring all those bearing a green “pressing” label to the top.

  “Anything special?” asked Richardson.

  “Yes sir; a report from Inspector Dallas in Paris. I’ve placed it on the top of these papers.”

  Richardson laid aside his other work to make room for the report for which he had been waiting and read as follows:

  “Paris. December 31,

  “SIR,

  “The first thing that I have to report is that I have had an interview with the concierge at 7, Avenue Victor Emmanuel, where Margaret Gask had lived at the expense of M. Henri for a month in the early autumn. The woman was very voluble; she told me that M. Henri had authorised her to let the premises if she could find a tenant but that, owing to the depression, she had not succeeded in doing so. Would I like to look over the flat with a view to occupying it? I said that I would and she took me up to the first floor, which was rather crudely furnished in red velvet. It consisted of a large room looking out upon the courtyard, a bathroom and a bedroom at the back. There was access to this bedroom from the service stairs behind it. As M. Henri had had the flat searched very thoroughly I did not waste time by making another search. I told the concierge woman of Miss Gask’s death and said that I was anxious to trace her friends so as to break the news to them. When she had recovered from the shock she ran into her own quarters and brought out five visiting cards which, she said, had been left by gentlemen who had called to see Miss Gask. She gave them to me to take away: they are attached to this report.”

  Richardson unfastened the cards and went through them, nodding his recognition of four of them but pondering over the fifth—that of James Oborn. This was a printed and not an engraved card and it had the address, Hotel de l’Univers, written in the corner. The other four cards were those of Huskisson, Graves, the Marquis de Crémont and M. Henri. He returned to the report.

  “I asked the woman whether she could remember what these persons looked like. She shook her head. ‘What will you, monsieur; all Englishmen are much alike—tall and elegant.’ I asked her which of them made the most frequent visits and was told that with the exception of M. Henri they had made but one visit each.

  “I went on to the Hotel de l’Univers and had an interview with my obliging acquaintance, the proprietor. I asked him whether a Mr Oborn had stayed in his hotel last September. He ran down the names in his guest book and showed me the name of James Oborn, who stayed for one night only. I asked him to see whether Arthur Graves had stayed there at the same time and found that he had. I then went on to see M. Verneuil at the police station attached to the Grand Palais and asked him whether an identity card had ever been taken out by James Oborn. To my surprise I found that he was in a position to give me the information immediately and even to produce the card with its photograph attached. He told me that the address furnished was that of an apartment house in the 9th Arrondissement. The photograph is not that of the Oborn who is staying at Scudamore Hall: it is that of an older and stouter man. I went to the address given and learned from the concierge that Oborn had stayed there for some time but had left at the end of November without leaving any address for forwarding letters. I asked for any letter that might have come for him. At first she demurred, but when I told her that I was working in conjunction with the police of the 8th Arrondissement she handed me one letter which, she said, had been received on the day following his departure. I gave her my name and the address of M. Verneuil and I took the letter back with me to his office. He gave me permission to open it and we steamed it open. I gave him a running translation of its contents and he allowed me to take a copy of the original. It ran as follows:

  DEAR JIM,

  I’ve had a rather serious tiff with Henri, who is not the lamb that he used to be. He has had a bad attack of indigestion over my story about the ‘lost’ jewel and it was all I could do to dissuade him from ringing up the flat-footed brigade and giving me in charge. The air of Paris is not agreeing with me at this moment and I am off to England. There is an old fool, an Englishman, staying in this hotel. He and I have got pally and he has invited me to go and stay with him at a place called Scudamore Hall. I am taking over some quite decent stuff for our friend Fredman, but I’ll have to be careful about how I make contact with him. I don’t want the flat foots to get across my track, in case they shoot off a line to their fellow nuisances in London. Those Yard people are the very devil!

  Huskisson has also got an invitation to the old fool’s hospitable roof, so I’m going to be strictly respectable until I feel safer. The address is:

  Scudamore Hall,

  Marplesdon,

  Surrey,

  England.

  For heaven’s sake don’t indulge your usual habit of using old letters as pipe lighters. If necessary I can get an invitation for you to the same haven of refuge.

  Yours,

  MARGARET

  “It is obviously essential that, if possible, the man who uses the name of Jim Oborn should be traced and that his relationship, if any, with Douglas Oborn should be established, but since he appears no longer to be in Paris and his whereabouts are unknown because he did not comply with the requirement to register his new destination with the police, he can probably be traced more easily by letters from the department to its opposite numbers abroad than by my endeavouring to trace him from Paris. In that case I will report myself to you as soon as I receive a letter of recall.

  “ALBERT DALLAS, Detective Inspector.”

  Richardson rang the bell and sent for Superintendent Lawrence, the controller of the rank and file of the C.I.D.

  “Have you sent off the report which Inspector Dallas was to have in Paris?”

  “Not yet, sir, but it is all ready to go. As a matter of fact it ought to be on your table at this moment.”

  Richardson pushed over the pile of papers as yet unread and asked him to find it.

  “Here we are, sir.”

  “I think that I may want you to add something. Hold on while I read it.”

  He read the report aloud.

  Acting on your suggestion that we should endeavour to find out from Mr Forge who introduced the Marquis de Crémont to him, we sent for the private detective Spofforth and asked him to ascertain in discreet conversation this fact. His report has just reached us. Mr Forge told him that it was Mr Huskisson who made the introduction. The report also states that one of the guests, Mr Douglas Oborn, had penetrated his disguise and had accused Mr Forge of employing a detective to spy upon his guests. Mr Oborn told Mr Forge that he had employed a ruse to confirm his suspicion that his room was being searched and had fastened a slender thread to a drawer containing private papers in such a way that it could be opened only by breaking it and that he had found the thread broken. Spofforth declares that he did not go to the drawer and therefore could not have broken the thread if it was really fixed as alleged. Either someone else had been investigating and had broken the thread, or Oborn had invented the story in the hope of getting some admission from Mr Forge.’”

  “Look here, Mr Lawrence,” said Richardson; “you had better add a line or two before the letter goes off. I’ll scribble out the par
agraph that I want you to add.” He wrote rapidly and then read it aloud. “‘Before returning to England you should again get into touch with Monsieur Verneuil and see whether he can obtain for you an interview with the Marquis de Crémont, who, I understand, is now in prison. You ought to be able to get from him information about Huskisson or the mysterious James Oborn. When applying for this interview you should impress upon the French authorities that the interview should take place in an ordinary office with a fire and not in the visiting room usually provided, in which one has to face the prisoner behind two sets of wire netting with a warder between; moreover, even if one can make oneself heard above the din of other visitors the room is so cold that both the interviewer and the prisoner long to get the visit over.’ There, Mr Lawrence, that ought to do for Dallas.”

  “Yes sir; I think that will do, but while I’m here I would like to consult you about this man Spofforth. If it is now general knowledge below stairs in Mr Forge’s household that he is a detective in disguise it seems scarcely worth while to keep him there.”

  “But it was a guest who made the discovery.”

  “You haven’t forgotten, sir, that the butler is an ex-convict and would have been the first to penetrate Spofforth’s disguise?”

  Richardson smiled. “No, I haven’t forgotten that and I think that it may turn out to our advantage…We mustn’t forget that he’s employed by Mr Forge and not by us.”

  At that moment the messenger entered, carrying a visiting card.