“In Jesse Banks I see no reason to doubt that we have identified the man who controlled and financed both the frauds upon the London & Northern Bank, and the somewhat different activities of the gang which you have, for the moment, scattered and frightened by the arrest and conviction of Tony Welch.
“The occupation selected by Banks for the world to see was of a kind which might be expected from the abilities which such a man must possess. It enabled him to keep in friendly touch with your own department, to obtain much knowledge which he could use if suspicion approached his friends, and to have a legitimate excuse if he should be overseen among criminal associates.
“It enabled him, in particular, to obtain the appointment from the London & Northern Bank of investigation of the very frauds which he financed and directed, and, in particular, it must have enabled him, while following Sir Reginald’s instructions to place Miss Weston where she could cultivate the acquaintance of William Rabone, to warn him of her intentions, so that it would be unlikely that he would give her any dangerous confidences.
“It is reasonable to suppose that he became doubtful of William Rabone’s loyalty—the bank inspector may have become alarmed at the vigour of the investigations which Sir Reginald’s energy had instituted—and that he visited him in that secret manner with the object of reassurance, or of finally disposing of a man whose confession would have been ruinous to himself.
“Rabone may—but this is no more than a guess—have mentioned that an escaped convict was in the house, and have so made his fate more certain, as it showed that there was another man on whom suspicion might naturally fall.
“I suppose that it was with that object that Banks robbed the man he had murdered, which he could otherwise have had no occasion to do, and so caused the moment’s delay which enabled Miss Weston to arrive on the scene before he had disappeared.
“Had Mr. Hammerton acted in a less natural—or less innocent—way, he might now be awaiting trial for a crime in which he had no part whatever.”
Inspector Combridge listened to this theory of the crime with the close and critical attention of one who was expert in the details of such deductions, and who desired nothing so much as that the truth should be found, by whatever means.
He had no professional jealousy of Mr. Jellipot, with whom he had been previously associated in investigation of the criminal practices of Professor Blinkwell, in which they had learned a mutual respect and friendship, but he had the caution of one who has blundered twice already in a business in which such blunders cannot be lightly condoned.
“It sounds plausible,” he said, “when you put it like that; but what about the crime having been the work of a left-handed man?”
“I suggest that Banks deliberately used his left hand, so that suspicion might fall upon Mr. Entwistle, rather than himself.”
“And you think he would risk Entwistle giving him away when he found himself threatened with the capital charge for a murder with which he had had nothing to do?”
“Yes. I think he did. And I think the course of events showed that he could have done it with safety, so long as Mr. Entwistle had no cause to think that he was instigating or assisting the prosecution; or probably anything more than a vague guess—if that—as to who the actual criminal was.”
“But I don’t think he anticipated that Mr. Entwistle would be prosecuted, or perhaps even suspected. He would have preferred that it should remain an unsolved mystery, or been attributed to Hammerton’s desperate need for funds—robbery leading to murder, as it so frequently does. It was only as an additional insurance against detection that he struck with the razor in his left hand.
“To use an apposite metaphor, he did not wish the lightning to come in his direction, but he provided a lightning-conductor, in the person of Mr. Entwistle, as a precaution against it if it should.
“He must have gone quietly up the stairs of No. 13, a house where many feet would pass with little notice during the night, and knowing that he could make a good excuse if he were observed to enter.
“Had he not been noticed by one of the women on the lower floor as he left, and had not Miss Weston followed him to the window by which he retreated, he would not have thought that it would be conducive to his own security to encourage the idea of Mr. Entwistle’s guilt.... And, of course, even then he would not have done so, had he known of the alibi by which the accusation could be rebuffed.
“Had Mr. Entwistle been in his room that night, I doubt whether he would have improved his position by accusing Banks, even had he been prepared to defend himself on those lines. He would have had to denounce Banks in his capacity as the alleged head of a criminal gang, and to explain his knowledge of, and association with him, so that the motive of the murder might be established, and in the end he would most probably have been wrongly convicted himself as a party to, if not as the actual perpetrator, of the crime. He might have succeeded in involving Banks, had his accusations been credited, but he would have done no good for himself.
“I think any solicitors—and certainly those he had instructed—would have advised him that he had a better chance of acquittal if he should deny everything, and throw the onus of legal proof entirely upon the prosecution.
“He was saved by the fact that he was not in his room that night; and Banks has only come to his present jeopardy because I have been able to convey to Mr. Entwistle the fact that he has been what is, I believe, colloquially known as double-crossed by one whom he should have been able to trust.”
The Inspector considered this, and saw two flaws in a reconstruction with which he was otherwise inclined to agree.
“There’s Bigland’s evidence,” he said. “You must get over that.”
“I don’t think that’s a point about which we should worry much. I never did take it very seriously, beyond that it showed that Miss Weston really had gone down the stairs in the night, which there had never been any reason to doubt.
“Did you ever know an authentic case of a man lying awake all night? No doubt there are such, but the number of people who think they have done so must be a hundred times as numerous. He may have told the truth as far as he knew. Actually, if he were restless, and inclined to wake easily, he would be more likely to notice a woman’s step, which was unusual upon those stairs, than that of a man, which was an accustomed sound.”
“Yes, I should say that’s likely enough,” the Inspector answered, “but what do you make of Banks risking the murder with Miss Weston in the next room? He knew she was in the house. He almost certainly knew where she slept. He had received her report that she had followed someone—probably himself—over the slates before.”
“I agree about that,” Mr. Jellipot conceded readily, “but there are one or two points which may be taken into consideration, and which diminish its force.
“In the first place, I suppose that his position was desperate. If Rabone told him, as he probably did, that it was too late to argue; perhaps even that he had already written to his general manager, and so giving him no more than a few hours to clear out, he must have known that it was then or never, and anger against the man who had resolved to betray him may have strengthened the impulse of self-preservation which urged the crime.
“But it is probable that he may not have regarded Miss Weston as so great a danger to his security as she proved to be.
“He may have planned to kill his victim by a blow so sudden that no cry would have left his lips. The ferocity of the two cuts supports this conclusion, and it is probable that his purpose was only defeated by his own subtlety. The first stroke almost reached to where the larynx would have been severed beyond the possibility of an articulate cry, and had it been struck with the full force of his right—that is, with his accustomed—hand it is probable that William Rabone would have fallen without a sound which could have been heard by a woman presumably asleep in the next room.
“And if, as was normally probable, she had been asleep, and almost certainly undressed at that
hour, he might have thought that there would be little danger that she could have followed him promptly enough even to detect the window to which he fled. And against that remote risk he provided, as far as circumstances allowed, when he struck a left-handed blow.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Inspector Combridge looked half-convinced. He said: “It looks as though there won’t be much bed for me. I think I’ll go back to the Yard, and see whether it’s not too late to have a consultation on this before morning. I’m not going to make another arrest off my own bat.... Tomorrow, it’s likely I may give Mr. Banks a call.”
Mr. Jellipot looked his dissatisfaction. “There’s such a thing as being cautious at the wrong time.”
“So there is. And there are risks that are worse than that. What real evidence have we got? I daresay I shall interview Gracie Fortescue during the night. Fortunately, she’s a lady who keeps late hours.”
Inspector Combridge got up to go.
But Mr. Jellipot held to his point, with his usual mild-mannered tenacity. “And if you lose your principal witness by the delay? You can’t suppose Mr. Entwistle’s life will be very safe if they learn that he’s been two hours talking with us?”
“There’ll be no risk about that. Peter’s coming with me.”
Mr. Entwistle, who had a lively sense of the peril in which he stood, proved to be a willing party to this arrangement. He offered to spend the night in the compilation of a written statement of a more voluntary character than those curious documents usually are.
He only required the previous use of Mr. Jellipot’s telephone, to inform his wife that they would not be leaving for Scotland as promptly as they had planned, but that there would be no need for alarm if he were not home during the night.
While he was at the instrument, Mr. Jellipot did not fail to remember that his own client was Francis Hammerton, and that his interests had not yet received the attention which he considered that they required.
He asked: “What are you going to do about Hammerton and the German woman?”
“I don’t know what more I can do tonight. You may be sure the search won’t be relaxed. I hope, when we’ve got Entwistle’s statement, there’ll be some pointers in that.”
“I should have thought that you would have asked him that first.”
Inspector Combridge, whose mind was sufficiently occupied at the moment with other aspects of the problem which confronted him, took Mr. Jellipot’s unusual acerbity with a good-humoured smile.”
“So I will,” he said. “If he can tell me where Driver would be most likely to go to earth, it might be useful in more ways than one.”
As he spoke, Peter Entwistle came back from the adjoining room, in which the telephone was situated. He said: “They cut me off rather short. There’s a call for you, Inspector.”
Inspector Combridge went to the instrument, and after a short but lively conversation, in which his voice could be heard giving instructions with an animation suggestive of active and favourable developments, he came back to say: “We haven’t got to run after Driver. Beddoes caught him in a Greek Street restaurant where he had been sitting for two hours, apparently waiting, for someone who didn’t come. Beddoes wouldn’t take him till he got up to go, hoping that some more fish might walk into the net. It’s some comfort to think that we’ve got one good man in the force. I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to recommend him to take my place when I resign in about two days’ time, as I’m most likely to do.... We’ve got no charge against Driver, except that he was in possession of firearms without a licence, but they can hold him for questioning for a few hours, and I daresay Peter’ll give us the right dope before we have to bring him up in the morning.... And that brings me to what I promised to ask. Can you give me a pointer to where, if he’s still alive, they’d be most likely to have Hammerton hidden away?”
“No, I can’t say that I know. But if Colonel Driver’s under arrest, you’ll do well to have Cuckford watched. But I suppose you know all about that.”
Inspector Combridge was obliged to say that the name conveyed no useful idea to his mind. Peter Entwistle, who was accustomed to credit the police with more omniscience than they possess, as most criminals are inclined to do, was more surprised than he would have considered it good manners to show.
“It’s the Flying School at Cuckford, I mean,” he explained. “I don’t know who’s supposed to own it, but it’s under Driver’s control. If you get Banks, or any of the others, badly alarmed, and don’t run them in, you’ll find that they won’t risk Croydon. They’ll put off from Cuckford without the formality of having their passports examined.”
“That’s a good tip,” the Inspector answered, and, perhaps not illogically, the statement gave him more confidence than he had felt previously that he was not on the wrong track for a third time. “Thanks, Jellipot,” he added generously, recognizing that it was the lawyer’s urgency which had brought that information so promptly before him.
He went at that, with Peter Entwistle in his company. On arriving at the Yard he made him comfortable there, with refreshments appropriate to the occasion, and the writing materials that were equally indicated.
He had a hurried consultation with such of his colleagues as were available at that hour, with results somewhat discouraging to himself, and then gave certain instructions which resulted in the local police-sergeant at Cuckford remaining on duty long after his usual hours, and two cars of plainclothes men, to whom firearms had been served out, leaving half an hour later, on the Cuckford road.
After that, he went out to interview Miss Gracie Fortescue, whom he was fortunate enough to find without much difficulty, and when she understood that he came in peace, and was not proposing to subject her to one of those periodic arrests by which she was required to share her earnings with the authorities of the State, she made little difficulty, finding how much he already knew, of a frank disclosure of the circumstances under which she had received a substantial bribe from Mr. Jesse Banks.
She said that he had been more expeditious than the Inspector (having a more direct and evident reason) in interviewing her after the murder. He had told her that he had been engaged in a secret investigation of great importance on behalf of the London & Northern Bank, and that it was essential that, if she were questioned by anyone, she should not disclose that he had been there during the night.
He had accompanied this statement with the enormous-seeming bribe of a hundred pounds, which he had implied was from funds placed in his hands by the bank (from which source Inspector Combridge saw that it might actually have been drawn), and that the importance of the matter at issue made this a relatively trifling amount.
At that time, she had not supposed that his presence at No. 13 could have any connection with a murder four doors away, and had accepted the money without anticipation that she might be drawing trouble upon herself, especially as she understood that Mr. Banks was of the nature of a police officer himself, and in the confidence or the force.
When the inspector had questioned her subsequently, she had not mentioned an incident which she had already pledged herself to conceal, and which she honestly thought to have no connection with the matter to which his own enquiries were directed.
Such was her tale, and when she found that she was neither to be involved in trouble for what she had failed to disclose on the earlier occasion, nor required to disgorge the money, she readily undertook to make a written statement in confirmation of the account she had given.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The Cuckford Aviation and Instructional Company Limited owned a track of moorland country several hundred acres in extent, which lay, level and high, about three miles from the ancient village from which its name was derived.
It took flying pupils, for whom it provided a service of cars to bring and return them from their Cuckford lodgings, as there was no nearer accommodation. The company’s buildings consisted of a canteen, some hangars of considerable extent, and a range of b
arrack-like edifices which provided lodging for the permanent staff.
In separate rooms in these buildings, too closely watched for opportunity of escape, Augusta Garten and Francis had been confined, without opportunity for communications to pass between them.
They had been brought there at a late hour of the previous night, each in a closed car, and with an armed guard sitting on either hand, after they had been subjected to some preliminary questioning at the Berkshire residence of a man whom Francis heard addressed as Captain Morgan, and who was known to Miss Garten by some other names in addition, without certainty as to which, if any, had been his original property.
After arrival at Cuckford, Miss Garten had been further questioned by this gentleman and some other of her previous associates. The examination had not been unfriendly, and appeared to be genuinely concerned to arrive at the truth of her relations with Francis, and of her continued loyalty to the gang, and she had sustained it with sufficient success to feel some expectation that she would recover their shaken confidence, until, as the evening advanced, Captain Morgan entered her room with an expression such as she had not seen on his face before, and asked curtly: “What was the meaning of ‘Don’t come’ in the letter you sent to Hammerton two days ago?”
The question was so abrupt, and its substance so unexpected, that even her practised duplicity could not conceal the first moment of consternation, but she recovered herself instantly to reply: “I don’t know what you mean. I never sent any letter at all.”
“And that is the only explanation you have?”
“It seems to me to be a complete answer.”
Captain Morgan turned, with no further word, and went out of the room. He left her wondering how that letter could have come to his knowledge, unless Francis himself had revealed it, in a last desperate effort to save himself from the danger in which he lay, and even that explanation failed when she recalled that he had only heard of it from her, and could have no exact knowledge of the wording which Captain Morgan had quoted so accurately. But if they knew for a fact that she had sent such a communication, she saw that the last hope of mercy was surely gone.
The Attic Murder Page 20
