The Studio Crime: A Golden Age Mystery

by Ianthe Jerrold

  “Can you tell me when he will be back?”

  “I’m afraid not.” There was a faint catch in the small ghostly voice at the other end of the wire. “It all depends. I’m leaving myself to-morrow, when Dr. Smythe has arrived. Can I give Dr. Smythe a message from you?”

  “Oh, no. No thanks. It doesn’t matter. Goodbye.”

  Serafine hung up the receiver. Her heart was beating fast, and putting her hands to her flushed cheeks she found them hot as fire. So the hopeless contest had begun! The doctor had not wasted much time since she had seen him little more than an hour ago. His plans, she supposed, had been laid for flight ever since the night of the tragedy, and had been held up by the disappearance of the woman he loved—his female accomplice, as the newspapers would call her. Serafine shuddered, and went slowly up the stairs to Imogen’s bedroom.

  Imogen, sitting up in bed and dabbing eau-de-Cologne on her neck, murmured reproachfully:

  “Serafine! Where have you been? I’ve been lying here just thinking of all the dreadful things that might have happened to you.”

  “You haven’t. You’ve been talking to your psychoanalytical adviser and enjoying yourself no end.”

  “I don’t know what was the matter with Dr. Mordby this morning,” murmured Imogen discontentedly. “I had to tell him the dream I had last night three times over, and then he didn’t take it seriously. I think I shall give it up, I don’t believe there’s anything in it. After all, one can buy a twopenny dream book and get interpretations of one’s dreams that are much more agreeable than Dr. Mordby’s, and just as likely to be true... Serafine!” she exclaimed suddenly, as if inspired: “I wonder whether you oughtn’t to have your tonsils out.”

  “What for?”

  “Probably they’re septic. You’re not looking well. Not as well as you generally do.”

  “I’m not as young as I generally am,” replied Serafine with a sigh, and turned away from the window and the sight of a newsboy running up the street. How would she bear to open a paper to-morrow and the days after?

  “I do think,” said Imogen plaintively, “you might remember that I’m twenty years older than you are and not keep talking about your age.”

  Chapter XV

  Analytical Interlude

  Hembrow’s first thought, when he had recovered from his chagrin at the sight of Frew’s posthumous message, was that the envelope had been tampered with, either by Mrs. Rudgwick or by Gilbert Cold. But the most minute examination failed to reveal any signs of forgery. He was forced rather reluctantly to the conclusion that this absurd inscription was genuine and must be accepted in place of the incriminating will he had confidently hoped to find.

  “Like most familiar quotations,” said Christmas thoughtfully, “it’s true.”

  “True?” growled Hembrow, for once a little out of humour. “I dare say it is. But that doesn’t explain why anybody should commit a burglary to get hold of it.”

  “Oh, but it does,” said John. “It explains the burglary as much as the burglary proves its truth.”

  “You’ll be telling me next,” said Hembrow rather sourly, “that it’s exactly what you expected to find in that envelope all along.”

  “No, it isn’t what I expected to find. I expected to find what the burglar expected to find. And now I seem to hear the shade of our late lamented friend Gordon Frew laughing at me just as he would have laughed at the burglar. He was fond of practical jokes, like most uncivilized people. But he didn’t reckon on this practical joke going quite so far. He never thought the victim of his practical joke would be practical enough to stick a knife in him.”

  “You think—” began Hembrow, staring with a moody frown at the paper under discussion.

  “I think that the burglar expected to find in this envelope his own discreditable past. He didn’t expect to find it quite so pithily expressed. Nor did I.”

  “But why the mystery?” asked Hembrow in exasperation. “Why the registered post, and the secrecy and all the rest of it?”

  “Did you never, Hembrow, when you were a small and wicked child, celebrate April Fool’s day by sending to one of your long-suffering relations a large, elaborate and interesting-looking parcel consisting entirely of brown paper and string? And did you not, on such occasions, use much ink, sealing-wax and care to make the parcel look like a real parcel and arouse the expectations of the victim? In the same way, though not for such innocent reasons, Frew tried to make his blackmail look like real blackmail. The Shakespearean quotation he wrote out with such care is just a rather apt way of saying ‘Sold!’ to any victim who might be driven by fear into risking his safety to get hold of the envelope. You may be sure that he let his victim know of the existence of the envelope. It would be an added anxiety to the poor wretch to know that not only was his enemy in possession of the more shady facts of his career, but that those facts were also stowed away in the keeping of a third person.”

  “But they weren’t.”

  “How was the poor wretch to know that? Frew made him believe that they were. Perhaps they weren’t even in Frew’s possession. Perhaps the whole thing was a bluff from beginning to end. Frew was clever enough for anything.”

  “Your idea being, Mr. Christmas,” said the Inspector slowly, “that Frew himself was a blackmailer?”

  “Of a kind. A refined form of blackmailer. Not a blackmailer for money, but for love—or rather hate. He managed to make some unfortunate person believe that he could blackmail him if he chose. Probably he kept the victim on tenterhooks by a perpetual threat to publish his past misdeeds. He was writing his reminiscences at the time of his death.”

  “Pointless sort of blackmail if there was no money in it,” muttered Hembrow.

  “Not at all. There are other satisfactions besides the possession of large quantities of money. There are satisfactions that no amount will bring. Frew didn’t want money, he’d got plenty. He wanted the satisfaction of feeling that he had an enemy in his power, and he wanted his enemy to feel it too. I don’t suppose he really had the slightest intention of publishing anything libellous. The continual threat was enough. Enough to keep the poor wretch in a state of perpetual suspense. Enough to keep the amiable Frew in a state of perpetual amusement. Enough, in the long run, to slip a knife between Frew’s shoulder-blades. Frew knew a good deal about the shadier side of human nature, no doubt. But he didn’t allow for what Mordby calls the breaking-point.”

  “You think that, having silenced Frew, the murderer then attempted burglary at Camperdown Terrace in order to get possession of documents incriminating himself and prevent Mrs. Rudgwick from stepping into Frew’s shoes as blackmailer?”

  “No. Not the murderer. Another of Frew’s victims.”

  “Come, Mr. Christmas! I don’t see that there’s any need to suppose that there were more than one of them!”

  “Don’t you? I do rather,” said John quietly.

  Hembrow looked at him shrewdly.

  “I can guess why, Mr. Christmas. The evidence being so strong, you can’t help believing that Merewether had a hand in the burglary at Camperdown Terrace. But you can’t bring yourself to believe that he had a hand in the murder as well. So you invent a second person to be the murderer. Am I right?”

  “More or less,” admitted John amiably, rising to his feet.

  Hembrow shook his head.

  “You’d far better stand out of this affair.”

  “Not I. I’m just beginning to get really interested. Good-bye, Hembrow. I can see I haven’t much time to lose if I’m to find the murderer for you before you make an ass of yourself by arresting Dr. Merewether.”

  Hembrow laughed.

  “I shan’t make an arrest until I’m quite certain I’m right.”

  “I trust you won’t reach that dizzy pinnacle of complacency until I’ve had time to prove you’re wrong,” replied John with a smile, and departed.

  Outside the Yard he called a taxi and directed the man to drive him to Temple Court. Arrived the
re he strolled through the peaceful precincts where the rustle of brown leaves under his feet and the twittering of sparrows seduced the ear from the roaring and hooting of the traffic that was so close and yet shut out, as if in another world. Passing under a dim stone archway into a sort of cloistered darkness he rung at a door which carried a small brass plate: Mr. Sydenham Rampson. The door was opened by an elderly man-servant who recognized John and smiled.

  “Mr. Rampson is in his work-room, sir.”

  “Right. I know the way.”

  He went up the dimly-lighted stairs and entered a small light room fitted up as a laboratory. His friend Rampson, a short, stockily-built man of about thirty-five with thick fair hair for ever standing on end and a fresh-coloured, humorous face, was standing at a bench with his eye to the microscope, manipulating a tiny slide. He said without taking his eye from the instrument:

  “Hullo, John. Take a chair if you can find one. I shan’t be a second.”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “Solomon wouldn’t have let anybody else come bounding in here like that. He’d have left them down below while he made inquiries, as he jolly well ought.”

  “Am I to understand that I’m a favourite of yours?”

  “Of Solomon’s. Not of mine, particularly,” replied his friend, turning with his wide grin from his instrument and perching himself on a high wooden stool. “However, it’s quite pleasant to see your amiable and idiotic face occasionally. What’ve you been doing all these months? Frittering away the precious hours of your youth, as usual, I suppose.”

  “Yes,” assented John meekly. “And I suppose you’ve had your eye glued to that microscope ever since I saw you last. However, it seems to suit you. You look horribly healthy. How you manage it in the complete absence of fresh air and exercise beats me.”

  “I still keep up my football. But it’s getting rather a bore. I shall drop it next winter. Too much to do.”

  John smiled. He liked and admired Rampson and was endlessly amused by the contrast between his appearance and manner and his anchorite’s mode of life. With the physique of an athlete and the cheerful friendliness of a young man about town, Rampson combined a passion for analytical chemistry which made all other interests negligible or tiresome. He was a remote cousin of John’s, and John had first known him as a solemn and good-natured Sixth-Form boy, making extraordinary messes and smells and endangering life and limb with chemical experiments in an attic in his father’s house which he had fitted up as a laboratory. Having inherited a comfortable income he had devoted himself soon after leaving the university to research work, and for the last eight years had lived in these rooms in the Temple with his old servant Solomon, pursuing studies which brought him much prestige but little money, free of all necessity or desire to follow other interests, a kind of cenobite of science and a completely happy man.

  “And how’s le monde ou l’on s’amuse, John?”

  “Not very amusing at the moment.”

  “It never is. I can’t think why a chap with your brains doesn’t use them. You’ll die of premature senile decay if you go on trying to amuse yourself without working much longer.”

  “I hate the very sound of the word work,” replied John gently. He always adopted his most dilettante pose in the company of this earnest and single-minded friend. It amused them both.

  “You can’t live for ever without an interest in life.”

  “My dear Friar Bacon, I have an interest in life. People.”

  Rampson looked at him with vague surprise.

  “Ethnology? Now that’s rather an interesting subject if you’ve got time for it. I was talking to Professor Nilssen the other day, and—”

  “No, no. Just people. Any people who happen to be lying around, as one might say. Even you interest me no end. You’ve no idea, Sydenham, how mysterious, romantic and incalculable you are.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. Don’t you feel the same about me?”

  “Not in the least,” replied Rampson brutally. “To me you’re just a chap who blows in at terribly frequent intervals and interrupts me at my work. But then I’m not what you call interested in people. They’re always wanting one to do something one doesn’t want to do.”

  “Jolly good guess,” said Christmas. “I want you to do something for me. You needn’t put on that cautious expression. It’s something quite in your own line, and you can do it without setting your foot outside your hermit’s cave.”

  “Well?”

  John took from his breast-pocket a small tissue-paper package and unwrapping it laid on the table a little piece of thin gold.

  “I want you to tell me all there is to know about this object. What made of, where been, what touched lately, if anything, and, in short, as much of family history as the microscope will disclose.”

  “You want a good deal,” said Rampson. “You amateur detectives seem to think a microscope is a kind of telepathic medium and psychic investigator rolled into one. I can only find what’s there, and if there’s nothing there I can’t find anything.”

  “Quite. Well, you just see if there’s anything there, there’s a good chap. That’s all I want.”

  “Right you are, John. Why do you want to know?”

  “Somebody has committed a murder.”

  Rampson looked both disgusted and bored.

  “People are always doing silly things,” he observed. “But of all the silly things people do, killing other people is the silliest. And that’s what you call an interest in life!”

  “I know, of course,” said John humbly, “that people are not anything like so sensible as molecules. Do you want me to tell you about this murder?”

  “I do not. When do you want the report on this scrap of metal?”

  “Soon. To-day, if possible.”

  “Now, if you like. Stay to lunch. I’ve had mine, but I dare say Solomon will do you up something wholesome and nourishing.”

  “No thanks. I’ve got too much to do.”

  Rampson grinned.

  “All right. I’ll send old Solomon along with the report this evening. He likes a blow on a bus occasionally. If anything else turns up that you want analysed, John, command me.”

  “Thank you, Sydenham, I will. Any suspicious objects I may collect shall be forwarded straight to you in plain vans. No deposit. Money back if not satisfied. Good-bye. I must be off e’er the scent cools, as they say in sleuthing circles.”

  “Well, don’t go running your fat head into danger. It’s not worth it. I can’t understand this morbid interest in murders. If a person’s murdered, he’s dead, and the only reasonable thing to do is bury him.”

  “I haven’t got time to argue, Sydenham, so I’ll simply say that your anti-social tendencies sadden me, your lack of imagination rouses my pity, and your inhumanity fills me with misgivings as to the welfare of your soul. With this veiled rebuke I will take my leave. Don’t bother to come down. I’ll let myself out with the help of the gentle Solomon.”

  Chapter XVI

  In Which A Lady Loses Her Temper

  John Christmas dismissed his taxi at Oxford Circus and walked west along the crowded pavement past the crowded shops. He could think better when he was walking than when he was sitting restlessly in a taxi that crawled along behind other taxis and buses and stopped every few hundred yards in obedience to the large white hand of a traffic controller. And he wanted to think. He wanted to think about Mr. Lascarides, and chiefly about the extreme flimsiness of the alibi offered by that gentleman. A mysterious telephone-call, an assignation in a thick fog, a stolen emerald—it savoured too much of fiction. It savoured so much of fiction that John felt sure that it was true. For he knew that when a clever man invents a story, he is very careful to make it savour of truth.

  He turned up into the comparative peacefulness of Duke Street, and crossed Manchester Square. He paused outside the Wallace Collection, reading the notices on the board in the inattentive, negligent way in which a man w
ho is thinking deeply will occupy his eyes with print. He was just passing on, without having assimilated one word, when a light hand touched him on the shoulder, and turning he found Sir Marion Steen looking at him quizzically.

  “Not going in, John? I am. And when I saw you studying the notice-board so attentively, I thought perhaps you would accompany me.”

  “Afraid I can’t, Sir Marion, I’ve got something much less pleasant and peaceful to do.”

  The financier raised his eyebrows with a half-humorous, half-deprecating look.

  “Criminal investigation still? Every man to his taste.” In a serious, confidential tone he went on: “Our friend Merewether? Has anything turned up to clear him of suspicion?”

  “Not in the eyes of the police. But I hope it won’t be long before they’re convinced of the truth.”

  “The truth being?”

  “That whoever did this thing, it was not Dr. Merewether.”

  Sir Marion looked grave.

  “It is not very easy to convince people of a negative truth. If only we could make our assertion a positive one, and convince them, not of who did not do it, but of who did it!”

  “That is what I hope to do. Do you happen, Sir Marion, to know anything of a man called Lascarides?”

  “A Greek name,” murmured Sir Marion, poking thoughtfully at a crevice in the pavement with his malacca cane. “No, I have certainly heard the name before. It is not an uncommon one, I imagine. But I don’t think I have ever met anybody of the name. Why, if I may ask?”

  “He’s an acquaintance of the late Mr. Frew’s who’s cropped up in connection with the case, that’s all. And I want to know as much about him as possible—more than I’ll ever get him to tell me, I’m afraid. He keeps a carpet shop not far from here, and seems to be rather a swell in the carpet dealing line, so I thought you might have come across him.”

  “No,” said Sir Marion, looking thoughtful. “Sorry I can’t help you, John.” He looked pensively at his young friend in silence for a moment, as if he were wondering whether it would be tactful to ask for more information. “Is this Lascarides by any chance the man in the fez who accosted Dr. Merewether and myself in Greentree Road? I only ask out of curiosity, so if you would rather keep your counsel, John, you have only to say so.”