“About three months ago, Mr. Crispin, you became a reference to a house-agent in London for a Miss Naomi Clynes.”
The poor vicar’s face betrayed anxious concern. “Yes, I remember. I do hope that nothing unpleasant has happened.”
“The poor lady was found dead in her flat yesterday morning. There is to be an inquest, and the coroner is most anxious to be put into communication with her friends.”
“How shocking! My wife will be terribly upset. Miss Clynes was an active member of my congregation—a regular communicant and always ready to help us in the work of the parish. We missed her very much when she left.”
“You have known her for some years?”
“Yes, she was in Paris during the Peace Conference, working for some American Society, and when that broke up she came to Liverpool to be near an aunt who has since died.”
“Do you know whether she had any other relations?”
“No, I’m sure she hadn’t. She told me so herself. It was partly through me that she obtained a post in the office of a well-known solicitor, Mr. John Maze, in this city. Poor thing! She had no money from her aunt, who had only a small annuity which died with her. What do you think was the cause of Miss Clynes’ death?”
“The doctor believes that it was a suicide. She was found with her head in a gas-oven.”
“Oh, I can scarcely believe that. She was a most level-headed and conscientious church woman. If you would like to see my wife I’m sure she will confirm all I have said.”
“I should like to see Mrs. Crispin very much.”
The vicar went out to call his wife, a middle-aged lady, who came in fluttering with emotion.
“I simply can’t believe it, Mr.…”
“Richardson,” prompted her husband.
“I simply can’t believe it. Miss Clynes was one of the most sensible women I know. She had literary ambitions, and she wrote to me only a few days ago to say that her first novel had been accepted. It was a most cheerful letter; I wish I’d kept it to show you. She was used to living alone, so she wouldn’t have got depressed on that account.”
“Where did she live?”
“She was in lodgings at 10 Rosewear Road, quite close to the church.”
After noting the address Richardson asked, “Had she any intimate friends?”
“No, I believe that I was her greatest friend. She was a reserved woman who did not make friends very easily.”
“She never gave you the impression that she had something on her mind?”
The vicar’s wife searched her memory. “You know, of course, that she had one great sorrow in her life. She was engaged to an officer in the Liverpool regiment, and he was killed in 1917.”
“No, I did not know that, but after seventeen years that could scarcely have been a motive for suicide. Why did she leave Mr. Maze’s employment?”
“Only because Mr. Maze was retiring from business. He, poor man, has never been the same since the death of his little nephew. He was taking him to school in France and they were in that dreadful railway accident outside Paris when one train ran over another and half the passengers were killed. He escaped with nothing worse than a shaking, but the boy was killed. Miss Clynes told me that he could not bear to speak of it.”
“He spoke of it to me just once,” said the vicar.
“He said that the business of identifying the body and arranging for the funeral was the most horrible in his experience.”
“Everyone noticed the difference in him,” added his wife. “It was natural that he should want to retire. Miss Clynes told me that he had been very generous to her, but of course he could afford it as he is a very rich man.”
Richardson slowly closed his notebook, having come to the end of his questions. “Thank you very much. You have been very helpful, Mrs. Crispin. I think that I will call at Miss Clynes’ late lodgings and see whether her landlady can throw any light on the cause of her sad death.”
The vicar came to the door with him to point out the direction of the lodgings, and they parted with mutual expressions of goodwill.
No. 10 Rosewear Road proved easy to find. The bell was answered by a buxom, smiling landlady, who wilted a little when she heard who he was, but invited him into her kitchen in order not to disturb her lodgers who were at supper in the parlour.
“I have called to ask you a few questions about the late Miss Clynes, who, I am told, formerly lodged with you.”
“The late Miss Clynes, sir? Do you mean that she’s dead? How dreadful! It must have been very sudden.”
“It was. There is to be an inquest, because she was found dead yesterday morning with her head in the gas-oven.”
“Never! She wasn’t one to commit suicide. She lodged with me for years, and if she’d had any troubles I’m sure she’d have told me. Not that she was one to talk about herself, but she was always one to look on the bright side, and only a week or two ago she wrote me such a nice bright letter to say that all was going well with her writing and she was very happy in London. Dear, dear! One never knows. ‘In the midst of life we are in death,’ as Shakespeare used to say.”
“Had she any friends—people who came to tea with her, for instance—while she was lodging with you?”
“I can’t say that she had any special friend. There was, of course, Mrs. Crispin from the Vicarage, and some of the other ladies who do Church work, and sometimes one or other of them would stay to tea, but when I say no special friend, there was none of them that she called by their Christian name.”
“Have you kept the letter she wrote to you from London?”
“No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t. The few letters I get have to be used for lighting the fire.”
“Apparently she wasn’t a lady who made friends very easily. Did she make enemies?”
“Good gracious! No! She was the quietest, gentlest woman that you’d meet anywhere, and yet she could hold her own when it came to the point. Why, one morning, from my kitchen window, I saw her out in the road without a hat, trouncing a boy who’d set his dog at a poor little kitten. He didn’t get away from her without hearing some home truths, I can tell you.”
“When she decided to go up to London did she seem pleased to be leaving Liverpool?”
“I think she was looking forward to it on the whole, sir. You see, it was a new adventure, but sometimes she’d get thoughtful like, as if she was wondering how she’d get on up there.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Clark. I think that that’s all I need ask you.”
“Good-bye, sir. I shall watch the papers for that inquest.”
The church clock was striking eight as Richardson left Rosewear Road: it was not too late for his visit to John Maze at his private address, which was in the residential part of Liverpool. The butler who opened the door to him exhibited surprise at receiving a visitor at such an hour, and even greater surprise when he read the name on the card which was tendered to him. “Is Mr. Maze expecting you, sir?”
“Probably not. I should not have dreamed of disturbing him at such an hour if the matter were not urgent. Will you tell him that I shall not detain him for more than a few minutes?”
He was shown into the library—a room furnished luxuriously with dark leather armchairs and a carpet into which the feet sank deep. He was not kept waiting. A tall man in a dinner-jacket opened the door. He was past middle age, but he was still erect and active in his movements. He held Richardson’s card in his hand.
“Good evening, Inspector. I’m very glad to see you. Sit down and tell me what I can do for you.” He took the armchair opposite to Richardson. “Perhaps before we discuss business we had better wait until we know that we shan’t be disturbed. They are bringing us a glass of port.”
The door opened and the butler brought in a tray carrying a decanter, glasses and biscuits, which he set down between them. As soon as they were alone Richardson spoke.
“The Assistant Commissioner sent me to see you, sir, on the subject of a reference you signed
for a Miss Naomi Clynes when she engaged her flat in Chelsea.”
“I remember perfectly. Why, has anything gone wrong?”
“She’s dead, sir.”
“Good God! Her death must have been very sudden. What was the cause of it?”
“It is ascribed to suicide. She was found in the morning lying in her kitchen with her head in the gas-oven with all the taps turned on. There is to be an inquest, of course, and the coroner has applied to the police for information about her relatives and friends. She seems to have had no friends in London, and that is why I am making inquiries in Liverpool.”
“The news is a great shock to me. She was my confidential clerk and worked for me for ten years until three months ago, and if I had searched the country through I should never have found a better one. I’m afraid, poor woman, that she can’t have made a success of her new venture.”
“According to her publishers, things were going well. Do you happen to know anything of her life before she came to Liverpool?”
“She told me that she had been working for one of those American philanthropic societies that were formed in Paris at the time of the Peace Conference, and they gave her the highest character. At first she was living with an aunt in Liverpool, but three or four years later the aunt died and she told me that she was the last relation she had in the world. She was a curiously reticent creature; even her fellow-clerks seem to have known very little about her.”
“May I ask why she left her employment with you?”
“Only because I am retiring from business and have no longer any need of a secretary. I wanted to do my best for her, as one always does for a faithful employee who has been with one for years. Quite by chance I had heard from one of the other clerks that in her spare time Miss Clynes had been writing for one of the magazines and had had a story accepted, and that she had literary ambitions. I made a jocular allusion to this, and she told me quite seriously that it was true; that her dream was to establish herself in London and devote herself seriously to writing. This seemed to be an opportunity for helping her. I broke the news to her that I was going to close down the office, but that I would give her twelve months’ salary in lieu of notice and let her go at once if she liked, and that, of course, she could give my name as a reference in case she found another employer. She seemed very grateful and she wrote to me from London, asking me to become her reference for a little flat she was taking. I suppose, poor woman, that she must have found the market for fiction as overcrowded as everything else in these days, and that this depressed her…”
“No, sir, on the contrary, she had just had her first novel accepted on very favourable terms.”
“Indeed? That surprises me very much. I shouldn’t have thought that she was a woman of imagination, though the English she used in my correspondence was very good. A first novel! On good terms, too! It’s surprising, and it makes her suicide all the more astonishing. She wasn’t the kind of woman to have an unfortunate love-affair.”
“Have you seen her at all since she went to London, sir?”
“No, and I fear that I haven’t kept the one letter of thanks she wrote to me.”
Richardson finished his glass of port and rose to take leave. “I am very much obliged to you, sir, for receiving me at such an untimely hour. It will enable me to get away to London by an earlier train than I thought possible.”
“You said that there was to be an inquest, Inspector. I suppose that that will throw some light on the mystery. The doctors are satisfied about the cause of death, no doubt?”
“So I understand, sir. The case is sure to be reported in the London papers. Good night, sir.”
Having the invaluable faculty of being able to sleep in the train, Richardson arrived at headquarters feeling quite fresh and ready for work. It was rather early for finding the Assistant Commissioner in his office: he sought out his Chief’s messenger and asked him to report that he had returned from Liverpool.
“You can do that yourself, Inspector; Mr. Morden came early this morning.”
“Then will you ask him if he can see me?”
“You haven’t been long, Mr. Richardson,” said Charles Morden. “I counted on your being away for the whole of to-day.”
“I was lucky, sir. I found all the people I had to see at home yesterday evening.”
“What did they say?”
“All confirmed what we had heard. The vicar and his wife seemed to have known Miss Clynes better than the others. They both scouted the idea that she could have committed suicide, though it appears that she had a great sorrow during the war, but that was seventeen years ago. Then I went to see her landlady, but I got nothing out of her except that she had had a letter from Miss Clynes written in good spirits. My last interview was with Mr. John Maze who had given her a reference for the house-agents. I had been told by the vicar’s wife that she had left his service because he was retiring from business. He confirmed this when I saw him, and told me that as a recognition of her work he had given her a year’s salary in lieu of notice.”
“What was Maze like?”
“A man past middle age, sir, living in solid comfort in a big house. He was a solicitor, but he has lately retired and is believed to be a rich man. All four of these people seemed ready to tell me everything they knew: all four had received letters from Miss Clynes, but none of them had kept her letters. The only relative that the dead woman had in the world seems to have been an aunt who died two or three years ago.”
“So practically you had your journey to Liverpool for nothing.”
“Not quite that, sir. We have confirmation of the statement that the dead woman had everything to make her content with life, and nothing to induce her to kill herself.”
“Well, I have more news for you than you have for me. Sir Gerald Whitcombe rang me up this morning to say that last night he made an analysis of the contents of that coffee-cup and found traces of aconitina in it.”
“A poison, sir?”
“Yes. Aconitina, he said, is the alkaloid of aconite, and one grain of it is enough to cause death. One of the first things you had better do is to make a thorough search of her flat for any bottle or packet that may have contained the beastly stuff.”
“Very good, sir, I will. I suppose it’s a scheduled poison?”
“Oh, yes. She couldn’t have obtained it easily from any chemist. But you mustn’t run away with the idea that it proves your case: she may very well have taken the drug herself and then gassed herself to make sure of the job. Don’t waste any time in writing up your report; you have plenty to do to-day. Sir Gerald is conducting his post-mortem at this moment.”
“Very good, sir; I’ll go down to the flat at once.”
Richardson looked in at the detective sergeant’s room where he found Williams busy writing up his notes.
“Back already, Inspector?” he said. “We didn’t expect you until to-morrow morning. Things have been warming up here.”
”So Mr. Morden tells me. You’d better lock up those notes of yours and come down with me to the flat. We’ve got a job of work to do.”
They looked in at the milk-shop to inquire whether there had been any development during the past twenty-four hours.
“Yes, sir, there has been. Bob, our roundsman, has something to tell you. He’s out at the back washing his cans: I’ll call him.”
The roundsman made his appearance sheepishly as he rolled down his shirt-sleeves.
“Bob, I want you to tell this gentleman what you told us last night—about what you saw in Seymour Street that night.”
“It wasn’t very much, sir. You see I’d been over to the Grape Vine for my usual glass of beer, and I was passing across the end of Seymour Street on my way back when I saw a fellow just disappearing into the door of 37A.”
“What time was that?”
“I always go the same time. It must have been a few minutes after half-past eight.”
“It’s dark then. Would you be able to recognize the
man if you saw him?”
“I couldn’t swear to him, but I saw him plain in the street light. He went in and shut the door behind him without making a sound.”
“Did you see only his back view?”
“No, I saw him sideways.”
“What did he look like?”
“Well, he was shortish and he had a hooky nose. I took him for one of them Jews that have that office upstairs, but it seemed funny to me to see him coming to the office at that hour, and then he seemed to be sneaking in as if he didn’t want to be seen.”
“Thank you, Robert, I’m glad you told me that.”
When they were in the flat with the door shut, Richardson stood for a moment thinking. “We’ve got our hands full, Williams, and it’s difficult to know what to get on with first. The Chief wants the flat searched for a bottle or a packet of poison; we’ve got to see the coroner about those witnesses from Liverpool, and then there’s the question of that man the roundsman saw sneaking into Seymour Street that night. As we’re here we’d better begin with the searching and take our coats off to it.”
Williams smiled meditatively while slipping off his coat and turning up his shirt-sleeves. “What that young woman, McDougall, told us about the key, coupled with what Bob the roundsman saw—a Jew-boy sneaking in through the door—is beginning to make me form a theory about this case.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Sergeant Williams. Never start forming theories at the beginning of a case or you’ll find that they’ll let you down.”
Chapter Five
RICHARDSON had reduced the searching of rooms to a fine art. His proceedings were punctuated with a running commentary intended to smooth the way for his subordinate.
“We’re looking for bottles first and for paper packets second. Bottles and powders are generally kept in the bathroom. Come along, Williams, and tackle the medicine-cupboard.”
The Case of Naomi Clynes Page 5
