The Case of Naomi Clynes

by Basil Thomson

  “Yes, sir, I have them here. This is a photograph of the print on the spacing-bar; this contains the ten prints of the deceased’s fingers.”

  “Have you compared them?”

  “I have, sir: they are quite distinct. In my opinion the single print is the impression made by a man. I have the typewriter here, sir.”

  “You might show it to the jury, but I must warn you gentlemen not to touch it, otherwise you may be leaving your own fingerprints on the machine.”

  Superintendent Willis picked up the machine, took off the cover, and carried it along the line of jurymen who gaped at it much impressed, though all they could see was a splotch of white powder adhering to the spacing-bar.

  “John Reeves,” called the coroner, and a weather-beaten, broad-shouldered man entered the box.

  “You are a taxi-driver?” asked the coroner, when he had taken the oath.

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “Do you remember taking a packet of letters addressed to Miss Naomi Clynes to the Lost Property Office at Scotland Yard?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Where did you find them?”

  “Found them in my cab, sir.”

  “Were they tied up or loose?”

  “They was scattered over the floor of the cab.”

  “Do you remember picking up your last fare that night? Where was it?”

  “A little way down King’s Road it was. The gentleman had a parcel in his hand. He told me to drive to the corner of the Edgware and the Euston roads.”

  “What time was it?”

  “About half-past ten.”

  “Do you mean to say that you didn’t get a fare after half-past ten?”

  “That’s right. I didn’t try for one. I knocked off early because I had a cold.”

  “Do you remember anything particular about your last fare?”

  “No, sir. It was dark. He seemed a bit excited and nervous, and when I pulled up at the corner he paid me my fare and went off with his parcel. I found the letters when I got back to the garage and, of course, I took them down to the L.P.O. at the Yard next morning.”

  None of the jurymen having any questions to ask, the coroner proceeded to address them.

  Jim Milsom looked at his uncle and noted with satisfaction that he was absorbed while listening to the evidence of the police witnesses and the taxi-driver who followed them. He breathed heavily when the coroner began to speak.

  “That is all the evidence, gentlemen of the jury, that I propose to lay before you. The point you have to consider is whether this woman who, as far as the police inquiries go, had no apparent reason for taking her life, but rather the contrary, did in fact meet her death by her own act, or whether poison was administered to her by another person and she was finally killed by having her head placed in a gas-oven when she was incapable of resisting. If you incline to the view that the death was self-inflicted; that she first drank this potent poison and then put her head into the gas-oven, how are you to account for that letter in the typewriter, typed by an unskilled hand; for that fingerprint on the spacing-bar; for the removal of all her correspondence which was afterwards left in a taxi-cab by a man of whom no good description is available? We have, it is true, no motive suggested for her murder, but neither have we any motive suggested for her suicide. You will not overlook the fact that the murderer, if there was one, took the trouble to remove her correspondence, since that might well prove to be the motive for the murder-- that his object was to remove and destroy some letter which was damaging to him. It is no part of your duty to establish the identity of this man; you may rest assured that the police, whose duty it is, will not neglect it; that their inquiries are being actively pushed every hour, and that in the end the identity will be established. Your duty begins and ends with declaring how this woman died. Gentlemen, consider your verdict.”

  The twelve heads went together; the jury conferred in whispers; then the foreman intimated that they would like to retire, and the coroner’s officer bustled out of the court to show them into their room and lock them in.

  Conversation became general. “What do you think of it, Uncle Jim?” asked Milsom.

  “It’s a good show, I’ll admit, but they don’t put much zip into it over here. That coroner, for instance, he had the chance of his whole career; he could have drawn tears from that jury, especially from those three women, who’d have burst into tears if he’d given them a little sob-stuff about the poor lonely woman poisoned and gassed just when she had the whole world before her. Those reporter guys would have taken it all down and called it the crime of the century. No, they know nothing about news-values over here. But I must confess that I liked the way that inspector of yours spoke his bit. I’d be pleased to meet him.”

  The jury were filing back into their seats: the coroner’s officer called for silence, and went to summon the coroner, who returned to his desk before they were all seated.

  “Gentlemen, are you agreed upon your verdict? How do you find that the deceased, Naomi Clynes, met her death?”

  The foreman rose with a slip of paper in his hand. “We find that the deceased met her death at the hands of some person or persons unknown.”

  The coroner entered the verdict in his notebook and left his desk. The court began to empty itself —the reporters first, hot-foot for the nearest public telephone; then the jury, eager to get home in time for the family dinner, and then the police, returning to their several duties.

  Jim Milsom contrived to intercept Richardson in the passage. “Good morning, Inspector. I want to introduce my uncle, Mr. Hudson, to you. He’s very much interested in the way crime is handled here as compared with the methods in America. He has just come over from France.” In a lower tone he murmured, “He’s a Pittsburgh millionaire.”

  James Hudson waddled up. “Pleased to meet you, sir,” he said, crushing Richardson’s fingers. “Say, I’d like to have you dine with us to-night, just we three. Now don’t say no, or I’ll think that you don’t want to get mixed up with us Americans.”

  Richardson did some rapid thinking. Actually, with the afternoon before him for the inquiries he had to make, he had no valid excuse for declining the invitation, and he was always eager to acquire knowledge of the treatment of crime in other countries.

  “I shall be delighted,” he said.

  “Then where shall it be?” asked Hudson of his nephew. “We must go somewhere quiet.”

  “Why not my flat? They feed you well there if you give them notice, and my man can wait on us.”

  “That will be okay,” said the Pittsburgh millionaire, beaming on his nephew. “Shall we say eight o’clock, and come dressed as you are.”

  Chapter Eleven

  AFTER A hasty snack of luncheon in the Strand, Richardson set off by motor-bus to Harley Street to have an interview with Bryant’s medical man, Dr. Arbuthnot. He counted upon finding him free from patients just after luncheon. He rang the bell and was shown into the patients’ waiting-room.

  “Will you give Dr. Arbuthnot my card, and tell him that I have not come to consult him medically, but only to ask him for information about one of his cases,” he said to the servant, who carried the card away, intending, no doubt, to read the name on his way upstairs with this very unusual message. In a few moments he returned.

  “If you’ll kindly step this way, sir, Dr. Arbuthnot will join you in a moment.”

  Richardson was shown into the consulting-room where he was left to himself for a good five minutes. Then a quick step in the hall and a spare, grey-haired man, with consultant written all over him, entered the room.

  “Sit down, Inspector,” he said. “I hope that you have not come to ask me to violate the rule of professional secrecy.”

  “No, doctor, I think not, though I believe you will agree that there are circumstances in the work of criminal investigation which would override any professional rule.”

  “I hope that none of my patients is suspected of a crime?”
/>   “I understand that a retired British officer, named Wilfred Bryant, has been a patient of yours. I need not trouble you with all the details of the case. It is enough to say that a woman has been murdered, and that Bryant has come under some suspicion.”

  A slight smile flickered about the lips of the doctor—a reminiscent smile. “What do you want to ask me about him?” he said.

  “When I had an interview with him two days ago he appeared to be in a very shaky state—very lame and infirm, and very nervous—but when I saw him afterwards in the street he seemed to have got rid of his lameness to a great extent. The question I want to put to you is whether a man in his condition would have the strength to drag the body of a woman from one room into another?”

  Dr. Arbuthnot’s face had become grave. “Before giving you an answer to that question, I should like to know whether it is intended to call me as a witness in court to give an answer to such a hypothetical question, or do you only want my private opinion, which would have to be given to you in strict confidence?”

  “As far as I can say now, you would not be subpoenaed as a witness, doctor. Your opinion would only be treated as a guide to me in a very difficult case.”

  “Good. Naturally, as a good citizen, I am always ready to help the guardians of law and order. Let me have a look at my case-book to refresh my memory.” He took a bound book from the shelf and turned over the pages. “Wilfred Bryant. Here it is.” He read for a few moments. “He consulted me as lately as last week. He was then certainly in a highly nervous condition. He said that he had been recently in a railway accident in France, and had not fully recovered from the shock, but from other admissions that he made, I formed the opinion that he had had domestic differences at home, and that these were the real cause of his condition. I might tell you that his wife, a Frenchwoman, is also one of my patients. She, too, was in that railway accident, and is still suffering from some degree of nervous shock. They both told me that the husband had been seriously wounded in the war, and had suffered severely from shell-shock. I doubt whether he has ever entirely recovered from it. I do not mean that he is mentally unstable, but I think him unbalanced to the point of not having a will of his own, and inclined to make the most of his wounds of nearly twenty years ago.”

  “A man in that condition might malinger to some extent?”

  “Certainly. That is one of the symptoms of the hysteria from which he is suffering. If he thought that lameness and infirmity would pay him at the moment, he would exaggerate it, but only subconsciously. He would not realize that he was acting.’’

  “And at other times he might have the normal strength of a man of his build?”

  “Well, yes; in moments of cerebral excitement he might show even more physical strength than one would give him credit for, but I should be surprised to hear that he had the courage to commit a murder, and if he did, that he had the tenacity of purpose to drag the body of his victim from one room into another. Seeing what he had done, his only impulse would be to bolt from the scene. But please understand that this is a personal opinion formed rather hastily.”

  “May I ask your opinion of the wife, doctor?”

  “You may. As you know she is a woman from the south of France. Undoubtedly she is suffering from the shock of that accident, but that is not enough to account solely for the relations between the two. Probably you know that she was an heiress and that the only money besides his military pension that the husband has to live upon is her money. Probably she had been jealous and dictatorial for some years before the railway accident. These two people, both suffering from shock, act and react upon one another and this results in very unhappy relations between them.”

  “I quite understand, doctor, and you may rely upon me not to betray your confidence. I presume that you prescribe for them both.”

  Dr. Arbuthnot smiled. “I did. I prescribed the one thing that you do not appear to have given him —entire rest and freedom from worry, besides the usual medicine for such cases.”

  Richardson chuckled at the image of the man for whom perfect rest had been prescribed, as he had seen him last, and rose to take his leave. “I am very much obliged to you, doctor. What you have just told me shall be treated confidentially. Good-bye.”

  As Richardson was passing through the hall to the inspectors’ room, the messenger stopped him. “There’s a lady in the waiting-room asking to see you, Inspector. I told Sergeant Williams and he said that he expected you back any minute; so I told her to sit down and wait for you.”

  “I’ll see her in a few moments. Don’t let her go away.” He hurried on to confer with Williams.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Inspector. Did the messenger tell you who was waiting for you?”

  “He told me that there was a lady. Who is she?”

  “She says that she is the mother of Lieutenant Bryant.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “She’s a lady all right—an old lady getting on for sixty, I should say.”

  “All right. You’d better come along with me and we’ll see her together.”

  The visitor rose as they came in. “Are you Inspector Richardson?” she asked.

  “Yes, madam, that is my name.”

  “I believe that you had an interview with my son, Wilfred Bryant, two or three days ago.”

  “Quite right, madam, I did.”

  “He says you told him that if he left England something disagreeable would happen to him.”

  “Not quite that, madam. I told him that he must not leave before the holding of a certain inquest and that if he did he might live to regret it.”

  “It has upset him very much. As no doubt you saw for yourself, he is in a very nervous state, due partly to his terrible experiences during the war and partly to the feeling that he is under suspicion of having committed a crime. He has told me everything about his relations with that poor woman, Naomi Clynes, and I have come here to-day to assure you that he has no intention of leaving the country.”

  “I’m very glad to hear it, madam. May I ask when he told you about all this?”

  “It was yesterday evening. He made a clean breast of everything. Remember that he is my only son and I know him far better than anyone else could know him. The great mistake he made in his life was to marry that appalling Frenchwoman, but you know quite as well as I do the foolish things that young men did when they were back from the war.”

  “She nursed him in a French hospital, I believe.”

  “She did and she has been trading on it with him ever since. Perhaps you do not know how badly equipped the French hospitals were in those days. They had no trained nurses on their staff and had to rely upon volunteers with scarcely any training at all. Many of them volunteered as nurses, not because they had any vocation for nursing, but because they thought the dress becoming. This young woman, my daughter-in-law, was a girl with large expectations. Her father was a prosperous banker and she was his only child. She was spoilt in every direction when her mother died. Every whim was gratified, and when for any reason she was not given her own way, she sulked and made life difficult for everyone she came into contact with. Her temper has grown worse with the years, and now, as a middle-aged woman, she is quite insufferable. I am explaining all this to you in order that you may understand how impossible it was for my son to explain to her why he wished to see Miss Naomi Clynes again. You know, of course, that he was engaged to her during the war.”

  “Yes, madam, I knew that and I knew also that he did not communicate with Miss Clynes before he married his present wife.”

  “If you have seen the wife you will understand the reason. She was a very masterful woman, and when my son was discharged from hospital only half cured, she carried him off to her father’s chateau where she had him to herself and practically forced him to propose to her.”

  “Her father’s chateau? In what part of France is that?”

  “At Issoire in the Central Massif.”

  “Is her father
still alive, do you know?”

  “No, he died soon after the war, leaving all his property to her.”

  “And yet Mr. and Mrs. Bryant live in Paris.”

  “Not all the year. They spend the spring and the late summer at Issoire.”

  “But they are not there now.”

  “No, because after being in that terrible railway accident I wanted my son to consult an English doctor.”

  “I understand that your daughter-in-law was also much shaken in that accident.”

  “She said she was, but…”

  “You were about to say?”

  “Only that I have not noticed much difference in her. Long before the accident I felt sometimes that she was not quite sane.”

  “On account of her excitability?”

  The lady pursed her lips. “If you will treat what I am about to tell you in confidence…”

  “Of course, madam; interviews in this building are always treated as confidential.”

  “Then I will tell you. She took drugs.”

  “Did your son know that she took them?”

  “He could scarcely help knowing. Immediately after the war, when the American soldiers were in Paris, drug-taking became almost a habit. They could be obtained everywhere. I believe that she first contracted the habit when she was nursing at the hospital; that some of the young women asked the doctors to give them drugs and even poison in case the Germans advanced and took them prisoners, and the surgeon was fool enough to give way to them.”

  This was a new light to Richardson. Probably, he thought, the wife carried drugs about with her. She might even possess aconitina, and her husband might have had access to her medicine cupboard. He saw the pathos of the mother’s confidences: in her obvious desire to throw all blame on to her daughter-in-law she was unconsciously injuring her son’s case.

  “Did you ever meet Miss Clynes?”

  “Never.”

  “Not when she was engaged to your son.”

  “My son never told me that he was engaged. I knew nothing about Miss Clynes until he confided in me after you had frightened him by your inquiries.”