by Cyril Hare
They came up with him in the entrance. He had stopped there abruptly, his great shoulders heaving as he recovered his breath. When the sergeant approached, he caught his arm and held it tightly.
“I’m a fool, Frant,” he muttered. “My nerve must be going. We said to-morrow, didn’t we? There’s no real hurry, now, just because of this piece of imbecility. It’s only—only damnably upsetting.”
“Quite, quite,” said Frant soothingly.
“When you’ve got a rat in a trap, it’s a bit of a jar to find that some fool has opened the trap while your back’s turned,” he went on, “even though the rat doesn’t know it is in a trap. I’m not going to risk it, Frant. We’re going to Daylesford Court Mansions now.”
Within a few moments a police car swung out into Whitehall, carrying the three officers. They were silent as they drove. It had begun to rain, and the pavements were bright with the reflections of the street-lamps. On such a night, Mallett reflected, Ballantine had walked with another to his death in the little house in the quiet Kensington square. They passed the entrance to Daylesford Gardens, and, craning his neck, he could just distinguish the house itself, now dark and tenantless. It was only a matter of a few hundred yards, and they were at the Mansions. Strange, that the tale should end so near to where it had begun.
Daylesford Court Mansions have little in common with the “luxury flats” of modern London. They boast neither lifts nor uniformed porters, and there were no curious eyes to watch the detectives as they entered. Mallett clattered up the stone stairs at their head. The inhospitable entrance, the hygienically glazed walls put him in mind of a prison. Did Fanshawe, he wondered as he went, ever note the resemblance? Prison! Well, he would resume his acquaintance with that before long—for a little time, and then—he felt a little nauseated. Not for the first time, on such an occasion, he was conscious of a sense of disgust with himself for the duty he was about to perform. To deliver a man over to the hangman in order to expiate a wholly worthless life—it seemed an ignoble task, when all was said. In a perfectly organized community, a man like Ballantine would have been removed long ago, while Fanshawe——
His fingers closed over the door-knocker of Miss Fanshawe’s flat. The touch of the cold metal served to dispel at once all introspection. While there was something to be done, he could leave it to others to decide the purpose or utility of the deed. “Now for it,” he said to himself, and knocked long and loud.
The summons was answered after a short delay by a tall, grim, middle-aged woman, pale of countenance, her lips set in a firm line. She wore an apron which seemed incongruous alike to her well-made dress and her authoritative manner.
She greeted the detectives with raised eyebrows and a slightly contemptuous “Yes?”
“I am a police officer——” Mallett began.
“Very well. You wish to see my brother, I suppose.”
“Is he here?”
“Certainly.” Her lip curled as though at the suggestion that he should have run away. “He has been in his room for the last hour. I will show you the way. The maid is out at the present,” she added. The last piece of information was evidently intended to explain why she should be doing them this service in person.
The three men entered the flat and Miss Fanshawe strode stiffly in front of them down the narrow passage. Presently she stopped at a door, knocked smartly at it, opened it wide, called out: “Some policemen to see you, John!” and walked on without herself crossing the threshold.
Mallett was the first to enter the room, with Frant close at his heels. It was a plainly furnished bedroom, with an open desk in one corner. On the desk lay a large white envelope. On the bed lay John Fanshawe. An empty glass was beside him. He was fully dressed, except for his shoes, which he had considerately taken off and left on the floor. He had died painlessly, and if his unfurrowed brow was any guide, with an easy conscience.
Frant broke the news to Miss Fanshawe. He found her in the kitchen, preparing supper. She heard him without the slightest trace of emotion.
“He always said he would do this, rather than go to prison again,” was her only comment. “He didn’t tell me you were coming for him, but I’m not surprised.”
“Is there anything I—we can do for you?” stammered the sergeant, taken aback.
“Nothing, thank you.” Then with a muttered “One must eat”, she turned to her cooking again.
The inspector, having made arrangements for the removal of the body, turned his attention to the papers in the desk. He observed that the letter was addressed to himself, and characteristically left it to the last. Quickly he sorted out the neatly filed documents, appraised their significance, and divided them into two little heaps—those of value from the police point of view and those that could be disregarded. Among the former were two bank passbooks which he scrutinized with some care and not a little surprise. Finally, when he was satisfied that nothing of interest had been overlooked, he opened the letter.
“Well, Inspector,” it began abruptly, “so you have solved the problem! My congratulations! In an hour or so, perhaps less, I suppose you will be clumping up here in your heavy policeman’s boots, all agog to make your arrest and provide a bit more carrion for the gallows. But when you come, I shall not be here. It would have been easy enough for me to absent myself in body as well as—if a policeman can understand the word—in soul, but I shall not attempt to. At my time of life I am not going to embark on a wretched game of hide-and-seek abroad, skulking in third-rate hotels under an assumed name, with the long drawn out mummery of extradition at the end of it all. I loathe an anti-climax, and two little tablets which I bought in Paris will save me from that. Candidly, I should like to have gone on living, merely for the intellectual pleasure of having got the better of you. Since that is denied, there is no great point in further existence. And to the last I retain the far greater pleasure of leaving the world a better place for the extermination of a rogue.
“How did you find it out, I wonder? I am honestly surprised that you did, for it seems to me to have been as nearly perfect a crime as is possible in an imperfect world. I take no credit for it, for the planning, after all, was all his. I merely took advantage of a heaven-sent chance. It must be uncommon for a man to provide an alibi for his own executioner. The whole affair was quite simple, really. As I told you, I saw Ballantine for a moment at his office on Friday morning, the 13th November. As I did not tell you, I saw him again that evening. I was going home, and at the corner of Upper Daylesford Street I almost ran into him. He knew me, of course, and the start he gave was enough for me to know him. I think I should have recognized him in any case. When you have been seeing the same face in your dreams for four years, it takes more than a sham beard and a big paunch to deceive you. I challenged him—told him I should give him away unless he gave me what I wanted, and to my surprise he took me with him to the house in Daylesford Gardens. As soon as we got inside, he asked me how much I wanted. I named a modest figure and he sat down at his desk to write a cheque. The poor fool! As if money could have satisfied me! He soon found out his mistake. He sat with his back to me to write and it was a simple matter to pull the cord off the blind and slip it round his neck. It was the best moment of my life.
“It was only when I began to go through his things that I realized my amazing good fortune. He had planned to leave the country that very night, and had made all his arrangements accordingly. In his bag I found a couple of hundred pounds in notes and enough in bearer bonds for all my purposes. There was Colin James’s passport, there were James’s tickets, James’s reserved places on the train and boat, a note of James’s hotel in Paris, and—on the body—James’s clothes and beard. It was all too easy. All I had to do was to turn James back into Ballantine. That was simple enough, except that the dressy beast had worn a stock which was too much for me, and I had to give him James’s tie and made a mess of that. His neck was—but you saw it, no doubt. Then I became James, and my clothes went into his suitcase.
I put the letter to the house agents which I found into a parcel with the keys and I walked out. I went to Paris as I had intended, but in unexpected comfort. That it was at his expense made the journey doubly pleasant. Once in Paris, James disappeared—they will find him at the bottom of the Seine—and Fanshawe came home, third class this time, shedding the passport overboard as the boat reached Dover.
“As to why he came home—but it would be a pity to leave you without something unsolved, wouldn’t it? Besides, time is short. Good-bye.”
The letter ended as abruptly as it had begun. Mallett thrust it into his pocket, called Frant to watch by the dead man and went outside to await the arrival of the ambulance. He felt utterly tired and desperately in need of fresh air. As he reached the street door, a voice called him quietly by name. He looked round and saw Harper standing on the pavement, pale and dishevelled.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Is he—dead, Inspector?” the young man asked in his turn.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I—I guessed it. It was what I thought he would do,” Harper muttered.
Mallett looked at him again. It had stopped raining by now, but his hat and clothes were wet, as though he had been standing in the open for some time.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Quite a long time,” was the answer. “I was waiting for you. I saw the police car outside and I didn’t care to go in.”
He spoke in an oddly subdued manner, humbly even, without a trace of his usual conceit.
“How did you know I would be here? What have you to do with this affair?” the inspector persisted.
Harper drew a deep breath before replying.
“I told him you were coming,” he said at last.
“What!”
“As soon as you had explained who Colin James was, I saw that Fanshawe’s alibi was destroyed. You said almost as much yourself, in so many words. So as soon as I could, I telephoned to him. I hoped he would get away, but——”
“You hoped to defeat justice, eh?”
“Yes.” Harper’s voice became more and more apologetic. “I’m sorry, Inspector, I quite see that it was very wrong of me, but I had to.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see, he was my father’s best friend.”
“And helped to ruin him, I’m told.”
“Exactly. Although my father always insisted that he was not really to blame. I saw him the day he was released from prison. He promised to help me if he could. Then the morning after the inquest on Ballantine I got this.”
He drew from his pocket a crumpled letter which he handed to the inspector. It was in Fanshawe’s writing, addressed from Daylesford Court Mansions, and ran as follows:
My dear boy,
Circumstances over which I had no control have prevented me from making any repayment of the debt which I owed to your father. Will you please accept the enclosed by way of some recompense? You will oblige me by not acknowledging this letter, or mentioning to anyone the fact that you have received it. God bless you.
J.F.
“With the letter were banknotes to the value of two thousand pounds,” Harper explained. “I didn’t know—I swear I didn’t know—where the money came from. I mean, I never connected him with Ballantine’s death in any way, not until this afternoon in the taxi.”
“No?” Mallett’s brows shot up.
“No. I didn’t know—how could I? Why, Inspector, you must believe me. You’ve only just tumbled to it yourself,” he protested, with a spark of his old arrogance. “And the money—it meant simply everything in the world to me. I didn’t think—I didn’t let myself think—that that could have anything to do with the murder.” The young man’s urgent voice broke, and then he added, almost under his breath: “At first.”
“At first. And then?”
“And then—God, it was awful! The not knowing, I mean! And not a soul to share one’s doubts with!” He shuddered, and went on in quieter tones: “Well, it’s over now. I needn’t go on deceiving myself, anyway. And Ballantine’s bloody creditors can have the money. I haven’t spent a bob of it.”
“Just a minute,” said Mallett. “You’ve been through a bad time, and I’m not at all sure you don’t deserve all you’ve got, but there’s no reason why you should make things worse than they are.”
“Worse?” Harper laughed mirthlessly. “I like that!”
“I’ve been looking through Fanshawe’s papers,” went on the inspector impassively. “He kept them in apple-pie order, as one might expect. I find that he drew a cheque to self for two thousand pounds on the 18th of this month on an account he kept at the Bank of England in the name of Shaw. It rather looks as though that was his present to you. No doubt we shall be able to prove it by the numbers of the notes.”
“Of course you will,” said Harper impatiently. “But what is the point of that?”
“Only that this passbook shows that the account had not been operated for five years. The money he stole from Ballantine went into a separate account altogether.”
“You mean——”
“I mean, young fellow, that the only matter between us now is the telephone call you made an hour or so ago. I needn’t tell you that you have committed a criminal offence.”
“No,” said Harper soberly, “you needn’t. But it’s an offence I shall be proud of having committed to my dying day.”
The lights of an ambulance appeared round the corner. While they approached, Mallett remained quite still, staring in front of him.
“What are you going to do with me?” asked the voice at his side.
The inspector turned his head abruptly towards him.
“I think I can make my report without mentioning your name,” he jerked out. “Good night, young fellow, and—good luck!”
He moved away to give instructions to the stretcher bearers.
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.
Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.
