Checkmate to Murder: A Second World War Mystery

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “What did she mean?”

  Bruce Manaton was still standing inspecting his canvas, and Macdonald turned at the question, guessing that it referred to Rosanne’s parting remark.

  “I expect your sister meant that your picture will acquire a ‘sensation value,’ so to speak,” said Macdonald. “It’s not often that artist and sitter are likely to be called as witnesses in a murder case. If it weren’t for the war, you’d have had a crowd of cameramen here demanding facilities for photographing your canvas, yourself, and your sitter.”

  Manaton frowned more deeply than ever, and turned away from the canvas.

  “That settles it,” he said. “I loathed the sight of the damned thing before, now it nauseates me. Oh, hell, who’s that?”

  “My department,” replied Macdonald. “I need an electrician to fix an adequate light. I’ll explain in a minute.”

  He went to the door and admitted a man and a woman, while Bruce Manaton stood and stared. The woman—a neat, sensible-looking creature in a well-cut suit and natty hat, went straight up the steps to the gallery at a word from Macdonald, and the man betook himself to the kitchen end.

  “He wants to look at your fuse-boxes and so forth,” said Macdonald. “We don’t want to blow all your fuses. It’s like this: in a case of this kind we don’t want to waste time—or to irritate you—by a detailed search of everything. Given a proper light, it’s possible to tell if things have been moved recently—dust deposits tell us a lot. We shan’t bother about the books and boxes and so forth which obviously haven’t been moved or opened for weeks. An expert searcher can tell that at a glance.”

  Manaton nodded. “I see. You’ve got an idea that some body came in here and just shoved something among the junk. Well, I suppose it’s not impossible. It’s extraordinary how little one notices of another person’s actions if one’s not concentrating on them.”

  “It is. Ask any conjurer. He depends for his success on the fact that few people can concentrate on more than one point at one time. While I’m waiting for the electrician to get a flex fixed up, will you tell me anything you happen to know about the previous tenant in this place?”

  “I don’t know anything about them, except that they were dirty tykes. Ask Rosanne. All the sink runaways were stopped up, and there was the filth of ages everywhere.”

  “Did they leave anything interesting—paintings, or anything of that kind?”

  Bruce Manaton snorted. “If they’d left any canvases I might have been grateful to them. Have you any idea how difficult it is to get a thing like this?” He indicated the canvas on his easel. “Why are you interested in the last tenants?” he added.

  “Because it occurs to me that the last tenants might have been interested in their eccentric landlord. There were some paintings on the walls of one of the downstairs rooms in number 25 which interested me. Portraits, I think. They have been obliterated, painted out with rough smudges.”

  Manaton stood and pondered, his face frowning. “I don’t know anything about them,” he said. “I didn’t paint them, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “No, that hadn’t occurred to me. From what’s left of them I should say they’re miles below your standard. I just wondered if the previous tenant had left a self-portrait anywhere about. If one of the frescoes in that house represented Mr. Stort—well, it’s been very carefully obliterated, that’s all. Do you mind if we black-out now, then we can get going.”

  IV

  While Macdonald searched, Bruce Manaton prowled restlessly round the studio, watching.

  The electrician had fixed up his flex, and he carried round a portable lamp whose harsh brilliance threw a vivid white light into every corner. Its merciless beam showed up dust and cobweb, smudge and stain, and Manaton began to understand what Macdonald had said about being able to tell if things had been moved recently. If the light beam was penetrating and thorough, so was the work of the two searchers. Swift, dexterous and amazingly quiet, the Chief Inspector and his helper “inspected” with a thoroughness which left nothing to chance. Bruce Manaton pulled out a drawing-board and began to block in a composition with a carpenter’s pencil.

  “Detectives at play,” he said to Macdonald. “You get some damned queer light effects with that outfit of yours. My God! Imagine that I had hidden something in this place, and had to stand helpless and watch while you searched, watching you get nearer and nearer. I should go raving mad, stark staring mad… That fireplace was blocked years ago, incidentally. It was a damned idiotic place to put a fireplace anyway.”

  The fireplace was very effectively blocked, with a sheet of metal nailed up to the surround. Having inspected it, Macdonald came out into the main part of the studio and glanced at Manaton’s sketches.

  “Lord! I wish I could draw like that—it’s uncanny how you do it, a sort of major miracle.”

  The sketches represented Macdonald and his assistant peering into a corner, their figures in black silhouette while the white glare of the portable lamp was somehow conveyed by contrast with the black cast shadows.

  “Well, I’ve had some varying experiences in the course of my detective career,” said Macdonald, “but I’ve never been made a picture of while on duty.”

  “And I’ve done some queer things during the course of my painting career,” replied Manaton, “but I’ve never been in my own studio and watched the police ransack my belongings. Be careful with that box: there’s a lot of very virulent red powder-paint upset inside it—and it’s tenacious. I don’t believe it ever comes off.”

  Macdonald and his man made “a good job” of the studio. Apart from the confusion of Bruce Manaton’s materials, the place was very sparsely equipped. Two beds to sleep on—and not overmuch bedding—a couple of tables, half a dozen chairs, a minimum of china and glass and kitchen equipment: the place was furnished with bare necessities and no more. The woman detective who had been sent up to the gallery bedroom to search Rosanne’s quarters spent but a short time in her task. She said to Macdonald afterwards:

  “She’s got as many belongings as would fill a good-sized week-end case. No books, or letters, no pictures, or pretties, no cosmetics or creature-comforts.”

  When Macdonald had finished, Bruce Manaton said to him:

  “Well, did you find anything interesting?”

  “From a detective’s point of view, nothing,” said Macdonald.

  The painter grinned, not unmaliciously, Macdonald thought.

  “The answer’s a lemon, then. Can’t say I enjoyed seeing you at it, but I’m glad it’s over and done with. I’m glad my sister kept out of the way while you were on the job. I haven’t much pride left. It’s a luxury which the penniless are better without, but Rosanne still retains a few Bourgeois complexes.” He paused, and then added: “I’d like to tell you something else, just because you’re the sort of chap you are. Yesterday evening, after that poor devil of a Tommy had been haled off in your Black Maria, we talked things over. Rosanne said she had been outside in the black-out. I wanted her to say she’d been in here, with us, all the time. We’d have sworn to it, you know—even Cavenish, with his nice sense of ethics. She wouldn’t have it. She preferred to tell the truth.” He leant forward towards Macdonald with his dark eyes blazing in their deep sockets. “If you think that Rosanne had anything to do with murder, or theft—well, God help you for the bloodiest fool who ever aped intelligence.”

  Macdonald stood perfectly still, his grey eyes meeting the other’s furious regard.

  “I might hazard another question, though I don’t expect you to answer it,” he said. “Why were you so anxious that it should be established that your sister was not out in the black-out just before nine yesterday evening?”

  He did not wait for Manaton to answer, but turned towards the door, adding, “In my job a lot of things have to be done which can be regarded as repugnant in the ordinary way of life
. Only one thing justifies them, the fact that crime—crimes of meanness and envy and malice and violence—are the most repugnant of all. Meantime, I’m grateful to you and to your sister, for making it possible to do a necessary job here without protest on your parts. I realise all that that implies.”

  Manaton drew a deep breath, and flung something across the floor. It was the fragments of a pencil which he had snapped between his fingers.

  “I hope to God you’ve finished,” he said.

  Chapter Eleven

  I

  Robert Cavenish had lived in the same house for years, a small house off St. John’s Wood High Street, which was run for him by a competent married couple—a Mr. and Mrs. Elliott, an elderly pair who regarded the house as their own home, and whose pride it was to make Cavenish comfortable.

  On the evening after the party in the Manatons’ studio, Ian Mackellon came in to see Cavenish about eight-thirty. The younger man produced a pocket chess set, saying,

  “I’ve set out the pieces as we left them last night.”

  Cavenish made a wry face. “You would. Trust a Scot to remember the details of a game. Somehow I don’t fancy continuing that particular game. It was yours anyway.”

  Mackellon laid down the wallet which held the miniature pieces. “You know, I’ve the oddest feeling that yesterday evening’s proceedings formed a sort of pattern—a game of chess with living players.”

  Cavenish moved uncomfortably in his chair. “Maybe, but I can’t regard human beings as pieces on a board. The more I think the thing over the more uncomfortable I feel about it.”

  “Why?” Mackellon shot out his abrupt question, and then studied the other with observant eyes. He continued at length:

  “From seven forty-five until nine o’clock yesterday evening, you and I faced one another over a chess-board: during that same period Manaton and Delaunier faced one another across a model’s platform.” He paused, and then added, “I wish that Rosanne had been in the studio all the time, too, but I think you were right in insisting that the facts had to be stated, and not tampered with.”

  “Yes. I don’t regret insisting on that: what fills me with discomfort was the way in which Manaton wanted to tamper with the facts, as though…”

  He broke off, and Mackellon finished his sentence for him, “as though he believed that Rosanne knew something about it.”

  “That’s it—a loathsome suggestion. I wish to God I could get Rosanne right away, out of that shoddiness which invests her brother and his affairs. I can’t stand that man Delaunier.”

  “Here, steady on! It was through Delaunier you got to know the Manatons. Delaunier is a first-class chess player, though he’s not a first-class actor. It never occurred to you to dislike him until you saw him in contact with Rosanne Manaton. Incidentally, I shall be surprised if Delaunier doesn’t come in here some time this evening. I saw him at lunch; he rolled into my pub and held forth: he’s fancying himself in the role of detective.”

  Cavenish frowned. “He’d fancy himself in any role, confound him. What’s it got to do with him, anyway?”

  “No more than it’s got to do with any of the rest of us, but inevitably one is interested. I don’t pretend that I’m lofty-minded enough to banish the whole thing from my memory and pretend I’m not interested. For one thing, I shall never be able to forget the moment when that blustering ass of a Special butted in on us, dragging that tallow-faced laddie by the arm. It was the sort of thing which stuck in one’s mind. You know, every one of us was convinced that young Folliner hadn’t anything to do with it. Just sentiment, I suppose, because he was hurt, and looked green, and was in khaki.”

  “Mr. Delaunier, sir.” Mrs. Elliott held the door open and Delaunier followed her into the room.

  “’Evening, both of you. Hullo, finishing your game at long last?” Delaunier seemed to take the room in at a glance, and his eyes studied the little chess pieces. “Black to move, and mate in four moves,” he said, “but black hasn’t moved yet. The pieces are as they were when you left the game last night.”

  Cavenish nodded, and closed the wallet. “Yes. I don’t feel like going on. I’ve given Mackellon the game.”

  Delaunier laughed. “Throwing your hand in? That’s a mistake. I could pull that game out of the fire for you and force a stalemate, at least.”

  Mackellon smiled, his hazel eyes glinting. “You’ve got a damned good memory, Delaunier.”

  “Yes, so far as chess is concerned, I’ve a very good memory. Well, I’ve been prowling around the scene of the crime, and a few interesting points have emerged. I’m more than ever disposed to credit that pompous Special Constable with the onus of the affair.”

  Cavenish said nothing, beyond indicating a chair by the fire, and Mackellon, sitting on the edge of the table, began to fill his pipe, asking, “Why?” in that terse abrupt manner of his.

  Delaunier settled himself comfortably in the chair and lighted a cigarette.

  “The name of the ‘Special Gentleman’ is Verraby—Mr. Lewis Verraby. He’s fairly well known in the district, it appears. He has the pleasant habit of buying up building land as cheaply as possible and making a fortune out of it by building flats and letting them as dearly as possible. That block on Vernon Hill is one of his major crimes—a blot on the landscape, and twelve foot by twenty for each tenant at a rental of £120 a year, heating and C.H.W. provided.”

  “Interesting, but I don’t see that it’s relevant,” said Cavenish.

  Delaunier laughed. “Then you’ll never make a detective. Everything concerning any contact in a case is relevant.” He broke off, and then asked, “Did either of you fellows notice if the Special or the Tommy was wearing gloves yesterday evening?”

  Cavenish shook his head, but Mackellon replied immediately, “The Special was wearing gloves—pigskin ditto, with buttons, fleece-lined, probably costing a couple of guineas the pair. Young Folliner had been wearing a pair of mitts, presumably: he’d got the left one on, the right was missing.”

  “Very good, very good,” said Delaunier. “To get back to Cavenish’s ‘irrelevancy.’ Some months ago, Mr. Verraby purchased a couple of houses in Hollyberry Hill, the ones adjacent to Folliner’s. It seemed a senseless sort of purchase—two old houses, hardly fit for reconditioning, until you consider Verraby’s habits. If he has bought two houses in that block, it’s quite probable that he is the owner of the remainder which are unoccupied. He is not, however, the owner of number 25—though it’s pretty certain he wanted to be.”

  Mackellon was studying Delaunier with smiling concentration. “I see your drift, but it’s a far-fetched motive. Incidentally, where did you grub all this up?”

  “The local, my dear chap, the local. Always try the nearest house of refreshment. The Hollyberry Tavern was seething with excitement. Incidentally, they’ve still got some dry Martini—a rarity, these days. Now I ask you, assuming that Mr. Lewis Verraby is the owner of those very unpleasant relics of Victorianism which constitute numbers 23 to 29 Hollyberry Hill inclusive, don’t you think it’s probable, to put it mildly, that he has at some time or other approached the owner of number 25 with a view to purchasing that undesirable property?”

  Mackellon nodded, his eyes very alert. “Yes, if you’re right in your previous surmise about the purchase of adjoining property, I agree.”

  Cavenish spoke here. “Very ingenious, but I doubt if any jury would convict on such a motive.”

  “I wonder,” said Delaunier softly. “Put together all that we know of deceased—”

  “—which amounts to almost nothing in my case,” said Cavenish dryly. “I know that he is the Manatons’ landlord, that is all.”

  Delaunier turned to Mackellon: “Can you add anything to that?”

  “Only what the Manatons have told me—that Folliner was a miserly old skinflint, and that his domestic habits were of an unsavoury nature.” />
  “Yes, that he was a miserly old skinflint,” repeated Delaunier. “Do you think that such a man would accept a reasonable offer for his property? He probably knew that his land was an island site situated in the centre of a block already sold. He would have held out for his own price. A very irritating matter for a speculator in land-values… A miser… Isn’t that the point?”

  “Perhaps, but I doubt very much if your theory would stand,” said Cavenish. “Also, it’s as well to remember that there is a law of slander.”

  “Oh, that!” Delaunier snorted contemptuously, and then went on: “I’m interested in the ‘contacts,’ so to speak. Take all those persons, apart from the police, who were in the Manatons’ quarters at one time or another yesterday evening. Name them!” he demanded of Mackellon and the latter complied.

  “The three of us present here, plus Manaton and his sister, Mrs. Tubbs, Neil Folliner, and Mr. Verraby—unless you include the latter with the police.”

  “Oh, no, not for the purposes of this argument. Now how many of those persons has had first-hand contact with deceased? The Manatons, in the relation of tenants to landlord; Mrs. Tubbs, who worked for old Folliner—for charity rather than profit, I gather; Neil Folliner, relative of deceased; Mr. Lewis Verraby, probably a business associate.”

  “Go on,” said Mackellon, and Delaunier looked up quickly.

  “Haven’t I covered the ground, or have you any association with the dead man?”

  “No, I haven’t, nor Cavenish, I believe—but haven’t you happened across him? Didn’t you say that you’d been to the studio when some previous tenants had it, and that you’d seen old Folliner then?”

  Delaunier grinned. “You’ve a damned good memory, Mackellon, as you said to me a while ago. Yes. I did know the previous tenants a little—in actual fact, I told Bruce about the studio, when he was worrying around hunting for a place to paint in. This one had the merit that all the glass was intact—rather a rarity these days. I probably warned him that the owner was a nasty old customer, too, and that no decorations would be done. That’s as far as I can go. To the best of my knowledge I haven’t set eyes on old Folliner. Rather a pity: the number of contacts all add to the complexity of the design.”