by Cyril Hare
“Mrs. Ballantine, then?”
“No, no. This isn’t a woman’s crime. Besides, she had long got past the stage of hating Ballantine enough to murder him, if I’m any judge of character. I think she was the kind of woman to go on making the poor sinner’s life a burden to him with her rectitude and patience, and to take a pride in putting up with all the unhappiness he caused her. The suspect we’ve got to put on the list is a more dangerous character than that.”
“Who do you mean?”
“X,” answered the inspector. “The unknown quantity, who may upset all our calculations. It’s fatal to forget him. Whenever you make a list of possible criminals, you are apt to put yourself in blinkers and forget that anyone exists outside your list. Always put in X, and keep a sharp lookout for him.”
“And how do we set about finding X?” asked Frant, with heavy irony.
“I propose to do a little quiet thinking,” said Mallett. “Unless we’re unexpectedly lucky, I don’t think anything more is going to turn up to help us. The facts are here,” he pointed to the desk, “and I’ve got to spell them out.”
“But you said just now,” Frant objected, “that there’s nothing there to justify a conviction.”
“Perhaps not. But when I know where to look, it won’t be too hard to find the material I want. At least, I hope not. There is such a thing, of course, as knowing who the murderer is and not being able to bring it home to him.”
Frant rose to go.
“While you are doing that,” he said, “do you mind if I do a little work on my own?”
“Of course not. What had you in mind?”
“I still think Eales is the likeliest man on our little list. Certainly he’s the one we know least about. I should like to apply for a warrant for his arrest.”
“A warrant?”
“Yes—for bigamy.”
Mallett stared at him. “But you can’t,” he said. “Not on Mrs. Eales’s story to me alone.”
“I don’t mean to. If Ballantine found out about his first marriage, there ought to be some record of it in his papers. Renshaw has them all. I shall ask him to let me go through them.”
Mallett was never slow to show appreciation of a subordinate’s ideas. “That’s a really good suggestion,” he said. “Do that. Find out if we can prove Mrs. Eales’s story to be true, and let me know.”
“And then, may I apply for a warrant?”
The inspector smiled, somewhat in the manner of a parent humouring a child anxious for a treat.
“We’ll see,” he said. “Perhaps when I’ve thought this out, we shall be wanting a warrant for something more serious than bigamy.”
“Then you think I may have been right about Eales after all?”
“No, I don’t!” roared the inspector, exasperated. “I don’t think anything yet. I’m only asking you to go away and let me think!” And Frant found himself fairly hustled out of the room.
“Thinking seems to be a whole-time occupation for some people,” was the sergeant’s unspoken comment as he left. “And I’m prepared to bet that the first thing he does is to go out and make a pig of himself over lunch.”
* * *
Frant did not return for some hours. When at length he again walked along the corridor that led to Mallett’s room, it was with the long, impatient strides of a bearer of good news. He knocked at the door, and, receiving no answer, entered at once. The words he was already framing died away in an exclamation of surprise and disgust. His superior officer was lying back in his chair, his eyes closed, his feet miraculously poised on an overturned waste-paper basket which seemed to be on the verge of crumpling beneath their weight, his great body stirring gently and rhythmically with the deep-taken breaths of sleep.
Exactly when Mallett woke up, Frant could not say. He was only gradually aware, as he looked down on him, that he was being scrutinized from under half-closed eyelids, that the corners of the mouth had twisted slightly into a friendly, almost mischievous grin. This stage lasted for a few seconds only, and then, quite suddenly, the whole man started to life at once. With a convulsive jerk the inspector sat up abruptly in his chair, his feet under him, his eyes wide open. The waste-paper basket was sent spinning across the room by the sudden movement until it was brought up short by the opposite wall. There it remained, the sole witness to an unfortunate lapse in the career of an exemplary officer.
It was an embarrassing moment for the sergeant, whose genuine respect for Mallett reinforced the dictates of discipline in constraining him to do his best to look as though nothing unusual had happened. But Mallett remained genially unashamed.
“Do you know,” he said with the air of one imparting a deep confidence, “I was almost asleep when you came in? I was tired,” he added, somewhat unnecessarily.
The agreeable smile had not left his lips, and this emboldened Frant to ask, with a touch of malice: “Did you have a good lunch?”
“I haven’t had any,” was the surprising reply. “Is it late?”
“Nearly three o’clock.”
“Good lord! Well, it can’t be helped. Now tell me what you’ve been doing.”
Frant was so astonished by the inspector’s uncharacteristic indifference to his meal-times, which he felt must portend some occurrence of great importance, that the news he had come hot-foot to tell seemed in comparison a minor matter. But as he told his story something of his earlier enthusiasm returned, and the obvious interest with which Mallett listened gave him additional encouragement.
“I went straight to Renshaw after leaving you,” he began, “and he gave me a free hand with all Ballantine’s papers. There was nothing at all to be found among the private documents that helped me in the least. There were very few private documents of any kind, for the matter of that.”
“I’m not surprised,” commented Mallett. “For one reason or another, Ballantine took care to leave very little in the way of personal papers behind him.”
“Then it occurred to me,” Frant went on, “to look at his passbooks. I thought that if he had been investigating Eales’s past, he would probably have employed someone to do the donkey-work for him.”
“An enquiry agency, you mean?”
“Just so. There aren’t so many of them in London, and I carry most of their names in my head. I began with the passbooks of three years ago and it wasn’t very long before I came across a series of payments to Elderson.”
“Elderson?”
“Yes, the name struck me at once. You remember the clever little man who was in U Division and had to resign from the force over the Barkinshaw affair? He set up in business as a private enquiry agent in Shaftesbury Avenue.”
“I remember him perfectly well,” said Mallett. “I think we’ve had some trouble with him since. Wasn’t there rather a serious complaint from one of his clients a year or two ago?”
Frant nodded. “The complaint was withdrawn later,” he said, “but it gave friend Elderson a bad fright at the time. I thought that fact might come in handy if I had to put pressure on him, and so it turned out.”
“You went to see him, then?”
“Straight away. He was very smooth-spoken and ingratiating—just as he always used to be—until I told him what I’d come about. Then he turned difficult at once. He said he was very sorry, but his business being a highly confidential one, he made a point of keeping no record of his clients’ business. He showed me his advertisements, in which he guaranteed absolutely that all records were destroyed as soon as a case was concluded. They looked most impressive, I must say.” Frant chuckled at the recollection.
“Well?”
“Well, I reminded him of the affair we’ve just been speaking of, and suggested to him that if he wanted to put himself in a better light with Scotland Yard, perhaps it would be as well if he thought the matter over again.”
“Most immoral,” grunted the inspector.
“Wasn’t it? Well, the long and the short of it was that in the end he admitted, most reluct
antly, that in the very peculiar circumstances of this case, he had perhaps allowed a few records of his dealings with Ballantine to survive. I asked to see them, and he went to his safe and brought out the fattest file you ever saw in your life. I should think Ballantine must have been an exceptionally valuable client of his. He seems to have made it his business to pry into the private affairs of every man, woman and child he ever had to deal with.”
“Including Eales?”
“Including Eales. Including also Mrs. Eales—the first and second.”
“Aha!”
“I’ve brought the relevant papers away with me,” went on Frant with a triumphant air, “and here they are. Here is a copy of Elderson’s letter to Ballantine enclosing a certified copy of the certificate of marriage between Charles Roderick Eales, bachelor, and Sarah Evans, spinster, on the 14th July, 1920, at the parish church of Oakenthorpe, Yorkshire; here is his report of his visit to the North Riding County Asylum and a transcript of the register of inmates there; here is the name and address of the doctor who certified her; here is——”
“Stop, stop!” Mallett begged. “I’ll take it as read. I’m a tired and hungry man, remember. Eales is a bigamist. We knew that already, but now we know just how, when and where he bigamized. We know when he was lawfully married and who to, and which asylum his wife is in. We have only got to send up to Yorkshire to get the evidence and he can be arrested whenever we like. Is that what you were going to say?”
“Well, yes,” the sergeant admitted. “It was—more or less.”
“Then there’s nothing more to be said—except to congratulate you on a smart piece of work. It was a really brilliant idea to get at the information through Ballantine’s passbook. And what do you propose to do next?”
“Exactly what you suggested just now, sir—get the evidence and put Eales under lock and key as soon as possible. When we do, I think we shall find out something further about Master Eales.”
“I think we shall,” said Mallett meditatively, and was silent for a moment, a barely perceptible smile flickering over his features. “In any case,” he added, “I think we can say we have done a useful bit of work today.”
It was Frant’s turn to smile. After the hard work that he had just completed, Mallett’s “we” struck him as decidedly entertaining, to say the least of it. His amusement did not pass unobserved.
“I said ‘we’,” repeated Mallett. “May I point out that you haven’t asked me yet what I have been doing while you were away?”
“But you told me yourself,” objected the sergeant. “You have been thinking, haven’t you?”
“Exactly—but I thought you might be interested enough to enquire the result of my efforts. Or doesn’t thought interest you?”
“Very much indeed,” Frant hastened to reassure him.
“I am delighted to hear it. Well, then, after some hard and decidedly tiring thinking”—Mallett stifled an enormous yawn—“I have come to some definite conclusions. One definite conclusion, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, from which the rest follows as a matter of course.”
“And that conclusion is——?”
“The identity of Colin James.”
Frant took a sharp breath of excitement. The inspector went on calmly: “That identity once established, it becomes perfectly simple to ascertain who killed Ballantine, and why, and how and all the rest of the story.”
“Of course, we’ve always assumed that. But who is James?”
“Unfortunately,” Mallett proceeded, “having done that, we are only halfway to our objective. The business of detection”, he continued pedantically, “is in two parts. First, we have to discover the criminal. That can be done, as I have done it in this case, by pure deduction from sometimes very slender evidence. Second, we have to prove his guilt to the satisfaction of a jury. That, as you know very well, is often the hardest part of our task. I think that in this instance it won’t turn out too impossibly difficult, now that I know exactly what I am looking for. And for a start——”
Frant could bear it no longer. “But James! James” he almost shouted. “Who is Colin James?”
“As I was saying—for a start, I think I shall go and have another chat with Gaveston.”
Frant stopped in the act of repeating his question, open-mouthed, while he groped for the significance of the name. “Gaveston?” he said at last. “The silly old man who signed the letter? I don’t understand. What earthly good can he be?”
“No, not that one, but his brother, Lord Bernard. A much more interesting person to talk to, altogether. I shall enjoy seeing him again. Last time we met, he dropped something in the course of conversation that makes me think he has some knowledge which will be useful.”
The sergeant shrugged his shoulders. “This is all very mysterious,” he grumbled. “I’m supposed to be helping you in this case, and you won’t tell me the most important thing in it. If you won’t, you won’t, I suppose, but I don’t see why I should be kept in the dark.”
Mallett’s eyes were dancing mischievously. “Think, Frant, think,” he taunted him. “It’s not so difficult when you get down to it. We had a list, didn’t we? Let’s see, now, who were they?”
“Eales, Du Pine, Fanshawe, Harper, Crabtree,” said Frant rapidly, “and——”
“Yes?”
“And, of course—X.”
“I think we can leave him out now.”
His pencil played busily across a writing-pad. Then he tore off the sheet and passed it across the desk.
Frant read as follows:
“Identity of Colin James.
“The following are the names of the chief suspects in the case of Lionel Ballantine:
Eales
Du Pine
Fanshawe
Harper
Crabtree.”
“Do you mean”, he asked, “that James is one of the people on this list?”
“Certainly.”
Frant shook his head slowly, as he read once more the list of names he knew so well. Then Mallett’s hand reached over towards him and the pencil made a cross against one of them. He stared at it, then looked up again, his face still clouded with perplexity.
“But I don’t understand,” he muttered. “How——”
“It is a bit difficult at first sight,” Mallett admitted, “like most very simple things. Let me see if I can make it a little clearer.”
He took the paper back again, and wrote a few further words at the foot.
“Now do you see?” he asked, handing the sheet across once more.
There was a strained silence while the sergeant slowly spelled out the significance of what Mallett had just written. Then his face suddenly cleared, and he burst into a peal of laughter.
“Good lord!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t we think of that before? It explains everything!”
“Everything?” said Mallett reflectively. “I’m not so sure. The murder—yes. That is after all the essential question. But I am still troubled in my mind about these fellows”—his pencil stabbed the page once and again. “How do they fit into the story? I shan’t be satisfied until I know. And now would you mind sending out for some sandwiches for me—beef ones, with plenty of mustard? There’s a lot to discuss still, and I should hate to die of starvation in the very moment of success.”
Frant went to the door, and then turned and picked up the slip of paper.
“In case you don’t survive until I get back,” he remarked as he pocketed it, “I should like to keep this as a memento.”
Mallett leaned back in his chair with a smile. “The last will and testament of John Mallett,” he murmured.
He was already asleep by the time the sound of Frant’s feet had ceased to echo down the corridor.
20
LORD BERNARD REMEMBERS
* * *
* * *
Tuesday, November 24th
“I’m not sure whether his lordship can see you now, sir,” said the butler, doubtfully. �
��Is it anything very important?”
“Yes,” said Mallett. “It is—very important. Just tell him that Inspector Mallett wants to see him, will you? I shan’t keep him for more than a few moments.”
It was a quarter to eleven in the morning. Outside the door of Lord Bernard Gaveston’s elegant little house in Hertford Street the Visconti-Sforza, awaiting her master’s pleasure, was undeniable evidence that he had not yet gone out. But the man still seemed to hesitate.
“If you will wait a minute, I will enquire,” he said severely.
He grudgingly admitted Mallett into the hall and vanished within. After a very short absence he returned and with an air compounded of resignation and disapproval said: “Come this way, please.”
Mallett followed him upstairs and was ushered into a small, square room on the first floor.
“This is the gentleman, your lordship,” said the butler.
Lord Bernard was at breakfast. He smiled cheerfully at his visitor and called to the butler:
“Bring another cup for Mr. Mallett, and some more coffee.”
Mallett protested, with all the self-conscious rectitude of an early riser, that he had breakfasted several hours ago. Lord Bernard retorted with unanswerable logic, that for that reason he was all the more entitled to take further refreshment in the middle of the morning; and went on, to the profound embarrassment of the butler, to point out that at that moment every member of his grossly overpaid and underworked household was indulging in the orgy known as “elevenses”, and if they were entitled to it, how much more a busy detective? The argument, and the delicious scent of coffee wafted to his nose from the breakfast table, were together too much for the inspector, and he capitulated.
“It is an odd thing,” said his lordship, when the coffee had been brought, “but though I am not generally considered a particularly hospitable man, whenever I meet you I always seem to be pressing you to eat and drink against your will. Last time it was dinner, I remember.”
