“Well, that doesn’t get us much farther,” the Inspector said disappointedly. Then he said it looked as if I was the last one to see him alive.
The last thing I wanted to do was to attend an inquest, and luckily Hamson stepped in.
“He was alive when I picked him up,” he said. “I know that for a certainty, for his eyes moved and I thought he was trying to say something to me. I wouldn’t be certain, mind you, but I think he passed out just as I got him into the office.”
“Had he any relatives?” the Inspector asked generally. No one knew of any. Hamson gave me a look and then suggested that a Mrs. Grays, whose address he gave, was probably his closest friend, and she might know. Then the Inspector said he wouldn’t keep anybody much longer, and if they’d kindly sit down, he’d be back in a few minutes. George and I went with him into the office.
Who should be in the office but Molde. When the Inspector raised his eyebrows at the sight of him, his man explained. Mr. Molde was waiting for one of the ladies, and as he’d thought he wouldn’t be allowed to wait in the main room he’d come to the office to wait instead.
“I’m engaged to Miss Payton, one of the witnesses,” Molde said.
“The lady who mounted the table,” I whispered.
Brontway’s man had something else to say. “I was emptying the safe, sir, and came across this envelope with this gentleman’s name on, and he reckons it’s something he gave the deceased to keep for him.”
“Mind if I have a look?” I said, and there was Molde licking his lips and nervously blinking his eyes as he watched me.
I guessed it was those IOU’s and the feel of the envelope confirmed it.
“It’s all right, Inspector,” I said. “I know about this. It’s Mr. Lewton-Molde’s all right.”
The Inspector had a look at the name on the envelope and then handed it over rather grudgingly.
“This isn’t in order, you know, sir. Still, if it’s all right it’s all right.”
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t wait in the cloak-room,” I told Molde.
“I don’t think I’ll wait after all,” he said. “Unless Miss Payton’s coming almost at once.”
I don’t know what happened, because the Inspector took him over and went through with him to the main room. He was back in a minute, though, and without Molde, and found me looking at the contents of the safe. The books of the club principally, but also a foolscap envelope which interested me, for on it was written:
Will.
P.W.
“Made his will, had he?” the Inspector said, and had a good look at the sealed envelope before putting it in his pocket. Then he rubbed his chin and gave a quick look round at George, who was still stolidly waiting.
“I don’t like to commit myself, sir, but everything seems pretty straightforward. I suppose you’ve got nothing else to suggest?”
I said I hadn’t, except that he could trust George to help all he could. George would now be in charge, subject to the Inspector’s orders.
“What about calling up to see me in the morning?”
I said I could manage that at any time he liked, and we agreed on ten o’clock at the station. As we went through to the main room I gave George a cheerful good-night, but his own good-night was pretty glum. Outside the door the Inspector shook hands and said he didn’t know what he’d have done without me. I’d have liked to give a snappy come-back, like, “You’re telling me!” but all I said was that I’d been glad to help. Then, as I made for the far door, I had a quick look at the waiting witnesses. They looked a rather bedraggled lot. Lulu’s eyes were red and Scylla had probably been crying too. Hamson was in an attitude like Rodin’s Thinker, and Jean, still at the bar, had shot me a look and then turned away.
It was a cool night, and in a couple of minutes my brain was icy cool too. I knew how dangerously thin was the ice over which I had just been skating, and though I had always been willing enough to lie unblushingly in the cause of justice, I couldn’t remember an occasion before when I’d lied to get myself out of difficulties of my own creating, and the thought was not a happy one. Already I was wishing it was morning and that I was seeing the Inspector again, for I’m one of those people who believe in attack as the best defence. Or maybe I should have said, like those people who can’t stay indoors in an air-raid but have to get outside and see the bomb that gets them instead of merely hearing it. I found one consolation for myself. Even if I did have to attend an inquest, this was war-time, and paper was rationed, and the Press would give little publicity to the matter of poor Worrack.
Still, I thought out some questions the Inspector might ask me, and found the right answers. I also thought of Molde and the ghoulish use he’d made of Worrack’s death. I wondered how he would react to that good turn I’d done him, and whether he’d now be asking himself just what I knew about those IOU’s. I thought about Worrack’s will, and wondered what was in it. I also wondered if Georgina Morbent’s name would in some way come into things. Somehow I couldn’t see how that could be avoided. Barbara Grays would probably say that Worrack had been worried over her mysterious absence, and Brontway would have his suicide reason. Or wouldn’t he?
It was a quarter to two when I got to my flat. I poured myself a beer and stretched my long legs out from the easy-chair, and it was then that I realised again that Worrack was dead. Worrack dead, I said gently to myself, and I knew that I had liked him. A white man if ever there was one, and the kind of whom I’d have been pleased to make a friend. It was in that moment that I knew he had never committed suicide. Not for the hackneyed reason that he’d left no farewell message, but just through a lively, and to me very real intuition, and the fact that he could never have asked me so urgently to come to the club that night for the sake of being present at his death.
It was curious how tired my brain suddenly went as I thought of that. Then as I got into bed I realised something else. Othello’s brief occupation had gone! I was a private enquiry agent without a client, and yet I didn’t know if I was sorry or glad. I ought to have been glad and yet I wasn’t, for the whole business had done nothing but land me into difficulties and now most of the difficulties had solved themselves. Instead of my having awkwardly to resign from the case, the case had resigned from me.
CHAPTER VIII
A NEW EMPLOYER
It was just short of nine o’clock when I woke, and long before I’d dressed that case was fretting my mind. Cool day confirmed what the night had insisted, that Worrack’s death was no suicide. If it was murder, I asked myself, then who had committed it? Had Jean, unseen by the trustful George, dropped that dope into the brandy? If so, how had the capsule got near Worrack’s table? Then even that was easy. Jean, I thought, could have palmed it, and then have dropped it when he brought the drink.
If Jean didn’t put in the dope, then who did? It was true that as soon as he had brought the drink Worrack had had a long pull at it, but there was plenty left in the glass —a thin, pint glass it was—to take the poison. And where did the mouse come in? Was it let loose designedly or had it been a lucky chance for the murderer? At any rate, three people could have dropped that poison in, in the excitement of the moment, with everyone’s eyes on Tubby. Hamson, Lulu, and Scylla were the three. What motives, I asked myself, had any of them, and strong enough to be worth, or demand, Worrack’s murder?
No sooner did my breakfast arrive than I began on Hamson. He didn’t fit at all, as far as I could see. If he was out for Barbara’s money—assuming first that he knew Georgina was dead—then I didn’t see why Worrack should be an obstacle to the marriage. Or did Worrack know something about Hamson? Worrack, as I remembered, had been insistent to me that Hamson should be at the club, and he had virtually forced me to tell Hamson that that night he was going to make a disclosure. The line then would be to enquire into Hamson’s past and find out if he was all he made himself out to be, for if he had something vital to conceal, then there was no need to look farther for the mu
rderer.
And Lulu? What about her? Maybe she hadn’t an idea about the disappearance of Georgina Morbent. If she had an idea, it might be that Worrack had parked her somewhere. Had installed her, if you like, in some handy spot. Lulu, I told myself, had certainly been Worrack’s mistress up to the time of Georgina’s arrival. There had been that scene I had overheard, and the mention of blackmail. Lulu meant to get Worrack back, and had threatened him accordingly. Then, when she found she could not get him back, she had told herself that if she couldn’t have him no other woman should.
And what about Scylla? If she had done anything it had been as the confederate of Molde. And yet, dangerous though the IOU’s were from the point of view of Molde, how could he have foreseen that he would have the faintest chance of recovering them? He had not seen Worrack put them in the safe. And also I remembered that Scylla’s actions at the time of the appearance of the mouse had been absolutely in character. She’d outdone Lulu in the matter of screaming, and she’d taken care to show not only her uncommonly graceful legs, but her equally graceful knees.
Scylla, I told myself, was a highly unlikely candidate. But if it had been Molde himself, then things might have been different. There was one who was capable of anything; but he hadn’t had an opportunity. To my certain knowledge he had never been within a table or two of that drink, nor had any of his actions been suspicious. True, he had chattered a great deal, as if he was nervous about something, but that was somehow in character too. And perhaps, as I thought at the time, he’d forgotten to give himself a shot of his own special dope.
Then I realised, with a queer jolt, that all that thinking was a waste of time. What in hell had it to do with me? I was out of things, except as a chance witness, and an unimportant one at that. All I had to do was to respect implicitly all Worrack’s confidences, wriggle out of the rest of the mess, and then keep my mouth shut. But, thank God, I fervently told myself, it had not been George Wharton who had walked into Worrack’s office! Not that a senior Superintendent of Scotland Yard would have been called on to handle anything like a case of suicide. Still, the thought was a relief all the same.
I finished my meal, and I hadn’t too good an appetite. It was then twenty minutes to ten, so I rang Bill Ellice’s office. There was no answer, so I guessed he was not yet back from Richmond. A quick squint at myself in the glass, and I set off for Inspector Brontway’s office.
As I walked towards Knightsbridge that perfectly lovely morning, the sun was shining and the air so good that I couldn’t possibly feel any depression, even when I remembered that, since poor Worrack had gone, I should have to pay Bill Ellice. But that didn’t worry me, and I even got a minor kick out of the realisation that with Bill still in, I hadn’t lost all interest in things. I didn’t even worry about what he would think when I told him that he was being called off.
Brontway was not in, but I was told he was expected at any minute. He had just rung up to say that if he was late I was to be kept till he got back, so they parked me in his office. Though my eyes were everywhere about me I saw nothing relative to the previous night’s tragedy. It was half an hour before he actually appeared, and he was full of apologies.
“Couldn’t see that Mrs. Grays,” he said. “Some people don’t get up till it’s time to go to bed. When I did see her I had to get things out of her with a corkscrew.”
“The visit worth while?” I asked idly.
He seemed to think it was. She’d said there were no relatives, except a distant cousin or two. She’d also told him about what she’d described as Worrack’s infatuation for Georgina, and how it was her view that she’d gone off with some other man. There was motive enough for the suicide, and as it appeared that George, after I’d left, had told about Worrack’s being nervy and none too fit, everything looked well in the bag.
“What about the will?” I asked.
“Everything left to that Georgina woman,” he said. “Five hundred quid to Conroy. He must have made a packet out of that club of his.”
Conroy, I gathered, was George, but I didn’t ask.
“Something in the will about a bomb being likely to drop,” he was going on, “and if he outlived that Georgina, then everything went to Mrs. Grays, except that Conroy got a thousand.”
“Anything to that secretary, Lulu Mawne?”
“Not a thing,” he said.
“Well, that seems to have everything settled,” I remarked. “Everything set for the inquest?”
That was the following morning, he said, and he wouldn’t be wanting me.
“No point really in bringing my name into things at all, then,” I said casually.
He said he didn’t think there was, and then I was just about to ask him if he’d come out for a quick one, when the doctor came in. He nodded to me, but none too genially. Brontway told him he needn’t mind me. Mr. Travers, as he put it, was pretty well known to the Yard.
The doctor said that the poison was duropine, one of the new atropine class, and he gave me a what-did-I-tell-you look, as he added that the Yard analyst had confirmed it.
“Damn smart work on your part, doctor,” I said guilefully.
“Quick working stuff, is it?” Brontway asked.
“Yes, and no,” the doctor said. “It depends on the dose.”
“Then Worrack had enough in him to kill a mule,” I said, “for he went down as if he’d been pole-axed.”
“Where did he get the poison from?” Brontway wanted to know.
The doctor explained, and highly interesting I found it. Duropine was one of the drugs the Nazis used as a stimulant; for doping troops, in other words. Strychnine is a tonic in minute doses, as he reminded us, but deadly dangerous in large ones. Very well, then; what was happening was that the dope-fiends had become aware of the properties of the new drug and were using it to supersede coke.
“Where do they get it from?” asked Brontway.
“Where did they get coke from?” the doctor asked, with a shrug of the shoulders. “Where there’s a demand there’ll always be a supply.”
“But wouldn’t it do a dope-fiend in, in time?” persisted Brontway.
“Not at all,” the other said. “De Quincey got accustomed to drinking enough opium to have killed the three of us twice over. And what about the Tyrol arsenic-eaters?”
“Would that capsule have held enough to knock out Worrack?” I asked, and the doctor said that most decidedly it would.
Well, that was that. I didn’t see any point in hanging about, so I said good-bye to the pair of them, but added for the Inspector’s benefit that I thought of slipping round to that club place to recover a pair of gloves I’d left there the previous night.
“May see you again some time, sir,” he said.
I said I hoped so, and then we’d have a drink. But I was due back from my leave before long. Then, of course, I had to impress him with the fact that I was now in the Army, as I’d intended all along. In fact, when I left the station I was on pretty good terms with myself. Thanks to a little finesse, I complacently told myself, I’d wriggled plumb clear. All that remained now was to close down on Ellice.
But whether I should soon be finished with the case or not, there was one thing that Brontway had told me that intrigued me very much. Why should Barbara Grays have told him that Worrack had been infatuated with Georgina? The word meant “overcome by foolish passion,” so the dictionary said, and I knew that much because I’d wanted that definition for a crossword puzzle. But even if Barbara Grays had not used it in that strict sense, yet the fact remained that the accepted connotation of the word had in it something meretricious and transitory. In other words, Barbara had told a deliberate lie, and, in doing so, she had cast a slur on Worrack, who was supposed to be a very good friend.
Then I thought again. That business of Lulu. If Barbara knew about that—and such things had a way of getting out—then mightn’t she have come to regard Worrack as something untrustworthy where women were concerned? Something of a Don J
uan, in fact? If so, then her tale to Brontway had a certain basis of truth. But what about that other tale, that Georgina—her own sister, and a sister to whom she was indebted—had probably gone off with some other man? I had made the suggestion myself to Worrack, but as an outsider and objectively; coming from Barbara Grays that suggestion to Brontway seemed not only uncalled for, but deliberately malicious.
What, then, was to be made of Barbara Grays? Surely she couldn’t be mixed up in her sister’s disappearance, and when I said disappearance I knew I meant death or even murder. Yet various facts stood out. Her conduct throughout seemed to me to have been extraordinarily callous, and she was the one who stood to profit most by her sister’s death. On the other hand, would she not, if in any way guilty, have pretended to be distracted at Georgina’s possible death? Surely that elementary idea of concealing guilt must have occurred to her. Bernice, as I recalled, had spoken of her as a good sort when you knew her.
Then I recalled something else, that there I was, invoking a whole series of tortuous theories about a case with which I should soon be finished. I also realised that I had just passed the front door of the club.
I rang, and after a wait of two or three minutes George admitted me. The police had only just gone, he said, and he’d had orders to admit no one except the staff. I told him I was privileged, I also said that ostensibly I’d called for a pair of gloves I’d left behind. He winked as he let me in.
“Your name Conroy, isn’t it, George?” I asked.
“That’s right, sir.”
“How’d you first run across Mr. Worrack? Between ourselves.”
“There’s nothing confidential about that, sir,” he told me. “I was his colonel’s batman—full corporal I was then —and when the colonel was killed and Major Worrack took over, I did for him too. With him at Dunkirk, sir, and that’s where I got my little packet.”
The Case of the Running Mouse: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 11
