‘Such as checking the undercarriage of an aeroplane landing in Paris?’ asked Jack softly.
Mr Lloyd blenched. ‘You did not hear me suggest any such thing, Major Haldean.’ He pulled nervously on his cigarette. ‘However . . .’ He left the sentence hanging in the air. ‘Mr Culverton in many ways played things close to his chest. I will be in a better position to advise Mrs Culverton once I have checked the documents I have not hitherto been able to see. My feeling is that the business is essentially sound. We might find that in these changed circumstances we are well advised not to pioneer a new route but to stick to the routes we have already established. However, that decision is not mine to make.’
Rackham drew himself forward in his chair. ‘I’d like to ask you about the last time you saw Mr Culverton, sir. That was Wednesday, 31st October.’
‘That’s correct. I left the building at five thirty. Mr Culverton was still here.’
‘How was his manner that day, sir? Was Mr Culverton his usual self?’
Lloyd frowned. ‘I thought you’d ask me that, Inspector, and I’ve been trying to think how best to answer. At first sight his manner was perfectly ordinary but a couple of times during the day he seemed abstracted.’
‘Was he annoyed or irritable?’
‘No, not especially.’ Lloyd’s frown deepened. ‘He seemed pleased about something. It’s difficult to describe exactly. It was as if he had a scheme in mind, something he was looking forward to.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘I can’t tell you any more. Mr Culverton was not given to confidences and it was just an impression.’
‘It’s worth bearing in mind though, sir,’ said Rackham. ‘Was it customary for Mr Culverton to work late?’
‘Fairly customary. He lived in Richmond, as you know, Inspector, but he had rooms at his club, the Mulciber in St James’s, and usually stayed there during the week.’
Rackham nodded. ‘Mrs Culverton said as much when I spoke to her earlier on.’
‘He often changed here, as a matter of fact.’ Lloyd walked across the room and opened a door in the far wall. ‘This is all fitted out as a dressing room. There’s a bath, a wash-basin, a dressing table, wardrobes and everything he needed.’
‘Did he change here on Wednesday night?’ asked Rackham.
Lloyd thought for a moment. ‘Yes, he would have done. He told me to see the charwoman on my way out and tell her to do this room last. That meant he was going to be using it.’
‘Did you know he was supposed to be flying to Paris on Thursday?’
‘No, Inspector. The first I knew of it was a note I received the next morning. I still have the note, in case you want to see it, but the gist is that he was leaving for Paris on Thursday morning. He asked me to cancel his appointments for the next couple of days and inform Mrs Culverton he had been called away. He said he would advise me later as to his return. He didn’t actually say that he was going to Paris as a result of the accident but that must have been the reason. If you recall, the accident happened at four o’clock and I imagine the Paris office contacted Mr Culverton in the course of the evening.’
‘That’s something we can probably check,’ said Rackham. ‘Have you any idea what he did when he left the office?’
‘I thought of that, too,’ said Lloyd. He walked to the desk and took a book from the drawer. ‘This is his appointments diary.’ Lloyd opened the book and turned it round so Jack and Rackham could see.
‘Wednesday 31st October,’ read Rackham. ‘There’s a couple of meetings and so on during the day but the entry for the evening reads, Dinner – Mulciber – N.L. and R.M. – 7.30. Paris.’
‘Who are N.L. and R.M?’ asked Jack.
‘I imagine that’s Mr Nigel Lassiter and Dr Roger Maguire.’
Rackham looked pleased. ‘Well, if they did have dinner with him that’s another part of the evening accounted for.’ He closed his notebook. ‘I think that’s about all we can find out here.’ He glanced at Jack. ‘Is there anything you’d like to know?’
‘I wouldn’t mind looking round for a few more minutes, if that’s all right with you, Mr Lloyd.’
‘Be my guest. If you can dispense with my services for the time being, I’ll be in my office. I have quite a lot of work to catch up with, as you can imagine.’
‘Just before you go,’ said Jack, ‘can you tell us the names of any of Mr Culverton’s friends?’
Lloyd looked blank. ‘I really can’t say, Major. As far as I know, Mr Culverton had no close personal friends. He was devoted to the business and any social engagements were usually connected with the firm in some way.’
‘So no interests or hobbies at all?’
Lloyd very nearly smiled. ‘No, Major. If you had known Mr Culverton you would realize how improbable a suggestion that is.’ He walked to the door. ‘I shall be in the next room if you require anything further.’
Lloyd left the two men together. ‘Mr Culverton sounds a barrel of laughs,’ said Rackham. ‘What did you want to look for in here, Jack? Anything in particular?’
Jack hitched himself on to the massive desk. ‘Some sort of clue as to who he was, I suppose. He doesn’t sound a very well-loved sort, does he?’ He nodded towards the painting behind him. ‘I might be reading too much into it but I don’t think our Mr Culverton was a very pleasant bloke.’
‘Someone obviously agreed with you,’ said Rackham drily. ‘I’ll say this for him though, he clearly had personality. I know his wife left him but she married him in the first place and she was the one with the money, don’t forget. He must have had something going for him,’
‘Yes,’ agreed Jack. The image of the Holbein portrait was very strong in his mind. ‘I think he was a bully.’
Rackham laughed. ‘He might have been. I don’t see how you can possibly be so sure though.’
‘It’s the pictures of him. That and Mr Lloyd’s reactions.’ Jack got off the desk and wandered round it, opening the drawers at random. ‘What can this desk tell us? There’s clean blotting paper in the blotter, so no clue there.’ He opened a drawer. ‘Pens, paper-clips, a hole-punch and so on,’ he said, rummaging through the contents. ‘Headed notepaper, a box of cigars and two lighters. There’s something else right at the back. It’s a box of some sort.’ He pulled it out. It was about the same size as a cashbox but made of highly ornamented polished rosewood.
‘That’s a striking thing,’ said Rackham. ‘I wonder why he buried it at the back of his desk?’ He picked it up. ‘How does it open? It seems to be a solid block of wood. There’s no keyhole.’
‘Try pressing the sides in,’ said Jack. ‘That might do it.’
They both tried but the box stayed obstinately shut. ‘I think I’ll leave a receipt with Mr Lloyd and take this with me,’ said Rackham. ‘You never know, it looks as if it might be important. Someone at Scotland Yard ought to be able to open it.’ He looked round the room. ‘What next?’
‘His dressing room?’ suggested Jack.
He led the way to the dressing room Gilchrist Lloyd had shown them and into the bathroom. It was fitted out as luxuriously as the office, but with pink rather than green marble, gold taps, a full-length gold-framed mirror and soft white towels. A huge white bath stood against the wall. Jack opened a door off the bathroom. ‘The lavatory. Good God!’
‘What is it?’ asked Rackham eagerly.
‘He’s got pink curtains to match the wall. Now that really is a bit much.’
‘Honestly, Jack,’ complained Rackham. ‘I thought you’d found something.’
‘Well, it is a bit much. Don’t you think?’
‘I think he certainly liked his home comforts,’ said Rackham. He looked at the shelf by the wash-basin which held gold-and-tortoiseshell-backed brushes and combs with the initials A.C. inscribed on them, a collection of little bottles, a soap-dish, shaving brush and razor. ‘I’ll take a couple of those bottles with me. They should have his fingerprints on them.’
Jack looked at the shelf. ‘I bet even my cous
in Isabelle hasn’t got as much stuff as this.’ He opened a bottle and sniffed it. ‘Cologne. Rather a nice one if you like that sort of thing. Soap in a very fetching little dish and various unguents, all from Floris. Well, he certainly went for the best.’ Jack picked up the shaving brush and held it idly. ‘A hugely expensive shaving brush and a razor. He went in for the safety variety, I see. It’s easier to shave yourself with one of those.’
‘I’m surprised he didn’t get his valet to shave him,’ commented Rackham.
Jack put the brush back on the shelf. ‘It’s a bit far to pop down to Richmond for a wash and brush-up.’
Rackham shook his head. ‘His valet stayed at the Mulciber Club during the week. Mrs Culverton told me. He’s on my list of people to interview.’
Jack turned to look at his friend. ‘His valet stayed at the Mulciber Club? But . . .’ He frowned at Rackham. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘What d’you mean?’
Jack indicated the bathroom shelf. ‘Look at all this stuff, Bill. The bloke must have been as vain as a peacock. At the very least he was unduly careful of his personal appearance, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Undoubtedly so.’
‘Then why does a man who goes to such lengths about his looks change here when there’s a valet waiting for him at the club where he’s going to spend the evening? If you have a valet, the evening is when you need him most. He could have been going to see someone else first, I suppose, and had to change for that, but if he was meeting Nigel Lassiter and this Dr Maguire at half past seven it doesn’t give him much leeway.’
Rackham started to speak, then stopped. ‘That is odd,’ he said eventually. ‘That really is odd. I wonder if he was meeting anyone else first? I have to talk to both Nigel Lassiter and Roger Maguire anyway, so I’ll ask them. They might know. Is there anything else you want to have a look at?’
‘We’ve not searched the dressing room yet,’ said Jack, leading the way out of the bathroom.
The dressing room contained a chest-of-drawers, a large wardrobe and another full-length mirror. Jack opened the top shallow drawers of the chest. They contained winged collars, ties and cuffs, all for evening wear. Jack idly noted that Culverton had taken a size seventeen in collars and moved on to the next drawer. Here there was a collection of small boxes from Asprey’s. He opened them in turn. ‘Diamond studs, pearl studs, ruby studs.’ He moved on. ‘Three sets of cuff-links, also sporting, variously, diamonds, pearls and rubies. A small Wedgwood tray containing a signet ring with A.C. in entwined initials. Empty box which did contain studs. Ditto cuff-links. Presumably those were what he was wearing when he bought it.’ He put down the empty stud-box. ‘Let’s have a look at his clothes.’
Jack swung open the wardrobe door. Two evening coats, three suits of dress clothes and various shirts hung inside with a suit of morning dress, consisting of a black coat, waistcoat and pin-striped trousers. A shoe rack containing three pairs of patent leather shoes and a pair of black brogues stood underneath. A square wicker basket sat neatly at one end of the wardrobe. ‘What’s in here?’ asked Jack, lifting the lid. ‘Dirty linen. Not for washing in public, I presume. Silk underwear, silk socks, and a shirt. I like that shirt.’ He picked it up and looked at the label. ‘Rothbury and Co., Jermyn Street. These are the things he changed out of, of course.’ He closed the lid of the basket and picked up the shoes, looking at them in turn. ‘Size ten and a half at a guess.’ He turned one of the dress shoes over in his hands. ‘Bill, these shoes have been cleaned by a valet. There’s polish caught on the instep between the sole and the heel. That’s where a valet or a bootblack from a decent hotel always leaves his mark.’
‘You’re right,’ said Rackham, looking at the shoe. ‘And, Sherlock, your inference is?’
Jack grinned. ‘I haven’t got one yet. Let’s have a shufti at his clothes.’ He took a dress suit out of the wardrobe and looked at it intently. ‘I’d say this has been valeted too, wouldn’t you? It looks very fresh.’
‘I don’t suppose it’s new, is it?’ asked Rackham. ‘Look at the label, Jack. That usually gives the date it was made.’ Jack turned back the breast of the coat. ‘Where is it?’ asked Rackham. He pointed to where the label had been stitched into the seam. ‘That’s odd. It looks as if it’s been sliced off with a razor blade.’
‘The suit’s made by Lockyer and Co.,’ said Jack, examining the trouser buttons. ‘I wonder why he took the tab off? Hold on.’ He put the suit back in the wardrobe and looked at the rest of the suits in turn, before rifling through the dress shirts. ‘There’s no tailor’s tab on any of the evening clothes but there is on the morning suit.’ They looked at the tab together.
Lockyer and Co.
A. Culverton Esq.
June 1921
17 Savile Row, London
Rackham looked frankly puzzled. ‘I don’t understand this, Jack. Why should he take the labels off his clothes? It doesn’t seem to make any sense.’
‘Off his evening clothes,’ corrected Jack, absently.
‘Well, off his evening clothes then. It still doesn’t make any sense.’
‘No . . .’ Jack drifted away to the dressing table once more. There was a silver cigar case and a book of matches lying next to an ashtray. Jack opened the cigar case, looking at the elaborately engraved Alexander Culverton inside. The matchbook, with three matches gone, was a shiny black cardboard packet with C embossed on the cover. Jack raised his eyebrows slightly. Did he have his own matchbooks printed? Three cigars about the size of young torpedoes were left in the case. He picked out one and sniffed it, raising his eyebrows in unconscious approval. He wouldn’t have left a cigar like that behind. He stopped as the significance of his unspoken phrase struck him. Left behind! Culverton had left all this stuff behind.
He whirled round. ‘Bill! I think I’ve got it!’
Rackham looked startled. ‘Got what?’
Jack indicated the room with an impatient hand. ‘Look at these things. Just look at them. There’s the cigar case with his name inside, a signet ring with his initials and his name’s been removed from every single piece of evening wear. If the clothes he was wearing had been treated like the clothes in his wardrobe then they’d have their tabs removed too. Now why this modest self-effacement, Bill? He doesn’t seem to have been a shrinking flower in any other walk of life. He was concealing his identity.’
Rackham stared at him. ‘Good grief, Jack, I wonder if you’re right. What about his valet?’ he asked. ‘Where does he fit in?’
‘He doesn’t,’ Jack said positively. ‘Look, this is Culverton’s private room. This is where he keeps his private clothes, his unidentifiable private clothes.’
‘What about the morning suit?’
‘That doesn’t count. That’s for the daytime.’
‘But the valet’s seen these clothes, even the ones with no labels.’
Jack gave a sudden grin. ‘I think you’re going to find the valet’s a bit dumb. I think you’re going to find he’s the sort of man who doesn’t ask questions. He’s probably a perfect treasure. Naturally Culverton wouldn’t mind his valet – especially if he is dumb – seeing his stuff because the valet knows exactly who Culverton is. But there’s someone else, someone who doesn’t know who Culverton is, and our Alexander isn’t giving them any clues.’
Rackham stood for a moment, thinking. ‘Who?’ he said eventually. ‘It can’t be Nigel Lassiter or this Dr Maguire. They know who he is, too.’
‘So?’ prompted Jack softly.
‘So it must be someone he’s going to see afterwards.’
‘Exactly,’ said Jack. ‘What’s more, if you include the clothes he was wearing, he had no fewer than four sets of evening dress, all doctored, so it must be a fairly frequent occurrence.’
‘But you don’t normally examine the label on a man’s coat to see who he is,’ objected Rackham.
Jack grinned once more. ‘You might, if the man had taken his clothes off.’
Rackh
am whistled. ‘That’d do it. By crikey, Jack, I wonder if you’re on to something. If he wasn’t behaving himself he’d be frightened of blackmail.’ He jabbed his finger at the photograph again. ‘You can’t hang around with government ministers and suchlike and be involved in that sort of scandal. I’ll tell you something else, too. If he was involved in a scandal then he could kiss goodbye to his hopes of being a director in this new government airline Lloyd was talking about. It’d really scupper his chances.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Could he have been leading a double life?’
‘A mistress, you mean? That’s possible,’ said Jack. ‘That’s certainly possible. Judging by the tabs on his clothes, though, he only ever saw her at night. That means no weekends away and no little nest in the country or St John’s Wood or wherever.’
‘And I can’t see a mistress dumping him in the Thames with a mutilated face. Someone attacked him, viciously attacked him. He was in the river, damn it, Jack. How did he come to be there?’
Jack walked away and leaned against the desk. ‘What was he doing, the great god Pan, down in the reeds by the river?’ he quoted softly to himself. ‘Look, Bill, whatever he was doing, he was doing it fairly frequently, as I said. As to where he was doing it, it was upstream of Southwark Bridge steps.’
‘Which leaves a lot of London.’
‘Which leaves a lot of London,’ agreed Jack. ‘Could he have been going to a club? A dodgy club, I mean? It can’t be too vile if he was wearing evening dress and jewelled studs. He’d have to be wearing decent clothes because he met Nigel Lassiter and Dr Maguire for dinner.’
‘He could have been doing a few things,’ said Rackham. ‘But none of it tells us how he came to be murdered.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘I’ve got some leads to follow up, though.’ He gestured to the secretary’s door. ‘I think I’ll ask Mr Lloyd a few more questions before I go. I think he’s perfectly above board but he might know something or have guessed something about Culverton’s private life. I need to see the valet and I also need to talk to Nigel Lassiter and Dr Maguire.’
As if by Magic Page 8
