by Roy Lewis
‘Sergeant Turner will keep looking, after the interview we’re to mount shortly. Anyway, what we do know is that Lendon was absent from this office on three occasions in two weeks during the afternoons, and there’s no record of where he might have been. I think he could possibly have been meeting a woman. It could have been the woman who met him at the mill.’
‘If it was a woman who met him there,’ Wilson said.
Crow smiled pallidly and nodded agreement. One could not really reach such conclusions without proof.
‘On the afternoon he died,’ Crow continued, ‘Lendon was out of the office until four-thirty, as he was a week earlier before his quarrel with Carson. The day he died, he worked here for about an hour or so, then left for home at about six. It would seem that he stopped somewhere on the way, for he was late getting back to the house. He had dinner at eight—’
Wilson leaned forward to interrupt.
‘When you say he stopped somewhere, sir, I can tell you where he stopped. It was on a lay-by a mile out of town: it’s in Constable Parker’s book. He was patrolling in the Panda and passed Lendon’s car twice. Took a look at it the second time, wondering what he was doing. Lendon was alone. Just sitting. Appeared not to notice the Panda.’
Crow’s eyes were wide with interest. ‘Is that so?’ He lifted a hand and with long, bony fingers teased and twisted at his lower lip. ‘Now why would he just sit there . . . waiting for someone, again? Why would anyone go to a lay-by like that instead of going home, and just sit, alone?’
‘Anyway, that’s where he was.’ Crow nodded with satisfaction.
‘That’s something, at least. Mrs Bell has said that he appeared worried and edgy. Maybe he just pulled into that lay-by to think things out. What things? Well, we’ll see. We’ll see what emerges. At least we know he was home later, had dinner at eight, then walked out at eight-thirty.’
‘And ended up with a skewer in his heart.’
The room fell silent. Crow’s face was expressionless, and Turner glanced across to Wilson, but the sergeant sat passively, staring at Crow, waiting. He was obviously used to Crow’s attitudes and postures and way of working. Turner was not, but decided that he would simply follow Wilson’s lead in this. He remained silent.
‘Good,’ Crow said suddenly. ‘We’ll get on, then. Turner, you will go through the rest of the files apart from the Charlton one, which you’ll leave to Wilson. I’ve looked at it,’ he explained to Wilson, ‘but there’s not a great deal there. I’ll want you to check Charlton’s own files, and look into the circumstances of the man’s death. He was an enquiry agent, employed just once by Lendon. I’ll also want you to keep things tied up with the lab people, Wilson, and at HQ. I’ll be reading some of these files tonight, before I go out to the Lendon home again. There are two men up there going through his belongings and papers at the house. I want to take a quick look myself.’
Crow was aware of the sharp glance that Turner shot in Wilson’s direction. Wilson ignored it, but Crow guessed its import. There were two local men up at that house, searching, and Turner was thinking that Crow wasn’t prepared to delegate to them the sort of responsibility they needed. He was going to check them, poke his nose in. It didn’t matter that Turner did not understand. Crow had no intention of disturbing the two officers or calling their competence into question. It was simply that he wanted to check on progress, and more important, he wanted to go into Lendon’s house. Into his house, and his life and his personality and his desires and his hates. Only that way would the man emerge, and only in that way, possibly, would his killer appear as a real and not a shadowy figure. Crow placed his bony hands on the table and looked at Wilson.
‘But first of all, we three have a call to make.’
It was no more than a ten-minute drive across town and though Wilson and Turner engaged in desultory conversation Crow remained quiet. He was suffering from a certain feeling of guilt; he was aware that he’d hardly thought of Martha during these last few days, although in his usual uxorious fashion he’d phoned her last night. It wasn’t simply that he’d not thought of her, though: it was the fact that Mrs Alex Bell was never far from his mind. She was an impressive woman, he decided, with a sigh.
Brian Philips’s office was small, cramped and slack as far as business was concerned. The solicitor himself received the three policemen in his room at the top of the stairs and told his single assistant, a shorthand-typist, to turn away any callers for a while. Then he sat down and waved them to chairs. He was wearing a dark brown suit and dark tan shoes, his shirt was cream, his tie green. His mousy hair was smoothed carefully down on his scalp, which glistened through creamily at the temples.
‘I have a confession to make, Mr Philips.’ Crow’s tone lacked affability. ‘I asked you to come to Lendon’s office yesterday. It was on a pretext. I apologize for that. But it served its purpose.’
‘Purpose?’ Philips coughed to eradicate a nervous tension that was apparent in his voice. ‘I admit to being somewhat surprised to being asked to go there to answer questions about Charles Lendon and the firm but . . . purpose?’
‘That’s right. I wanted Miss Tennant to hear you speaking in the room-you didn’t know, of course, that she was in the anteroom when you quarrelled with Lendon.’
Brian Philips was silent but his eyes were round with disbelief. Crow leaned forward and placed a folder on the desk in front of Philips. He tapped it with a long bony finger.
‘There’s also the matter of the files.’
‘Files?’
‘Files. The ones you abstracted from Charles Lendon’s office before you hit Constable Pitt over the head.’
‘You must be mad! What on earth are you trying to—’
‘I see no reason why I shouldn’t let you know that protestation is pointless. You knew how to get into that office . . . you’d worked there long enough. You broke into Lendon’s room, took the files, assaulted the constable and made your escape. What you didn’t realize was that Lendon kept duplicates of the files in the anteroom. This one here contains copies of the papers you took away with you. In one of the red files.’
Philips licked his lips and stared at the folder, trying to read its inscription. Crow made no attempt to make it easy for him by turning the folder around.
‘I suppose recovery of this file became necessary after you murdered Lendon,’ he said casually.
A grunt escaped explosively from Philips’s chest and he sat up with a start. He opened his mouth but no words came: there was only a ludicrous eddying noise from his stomach. Crow nodded.
‘It fits, I suppose. You argued with Lendon in his office — he heard a great deal but the closed door fogged your voice and she didn’t recognize it again until I asked you in to talk with me. Was it the file you were arguing over? Was his refusal to give it to you the spur that made you kill him?’
‘Ridiculous!’
Philips was leaning forward, holding his churning stomach. Crow eyed him narrowly. ‘Your statement, taken at the station, is that you were at home, in front of the television set, and fast asleep during the early evening. There is no one to substantiate that. You’re a bachelor. No friends were with you. You could have been up at the Old Mill!’
‘Ridiculous!’ Philips gasped again.
‘Tell him, Turner, tell him what’s in the file here. Tell him, and give him a possible motive for the murder of Charles Lendon.’
Turner hitched his chair forward. Crow’s even attack, delivered almost in a monotone, had fascinated him. For a moment he stumbled over his words, then became more fluent.
‘The file . . . the red folder . . . well . . . the folder contains papers relevant to three cases dealt with by this firm. The first was before the court in 1968. It concerned a Mrs Delaney who became entitled to a transfer of shares in a private company. Her name should have been entered on the register of members in October, 1965; until this was done, even though she’d paid for the shares, she was not in law a shareholder in the company.
In December 1966 she presented a petition for the winding up of the company. The petition was dismissed because the shares had not been properly registered under the Companies Act 1948. She could have sued her legal adviser. She never did.’
‘You were her legal adviser,’ Crow said decisively to Philips.
‘The second case,’ continued Turner, ‘concerned a Mrs Holmes, whose husband died in a car accident. It would seem that because of your negligence her claim for damages failed for want of prosecution. Yet she never sued the firm.’
‘Charles Lendon must have possessed considerable influence,’ Crow said, ‘or perhaps he knew the lady in question?’
‘The third case,’ Turner went on with heavy emphasis, ‘was in 1967. According to this file a limited company was floated in 1963 by three entrepreneurs who issued a prospectus which invited the public to take up shares. There were at least two statements in that prospectus which were patently untrue, but to date no prosecution has been instigated for this offence. There are further details concerning the running of the company which make strange reading. In particular, there is the payment of some £1,000 to a man called Formann. It would seem that he had been guilty of embezzlement — which means, of course, that he could have been dismissed without notice, and a prosecution brought against him. Instead, his service contract was terminated and he was given the sum mentioned by way of compensation for the termination.’
‘Perhaps you’d care to comment?’ Crow asked pleasantly. When Philips made no reply he waved to Turner to continue.
‘This file suggests that the reason why Formann’s contract was so terminated was that while he had to be got rid of, he also had to have his silence bought. The fact was, he knew that the company had been indulging in fraudulent trading, and threatened that if he were prosecuted for embezzlement he’d see to it that the whole company came down with him.’
‘The company is still in business, it seems,’ Crow added. ‘No prosecutions brought, no civil proceedings taken against the directors. And again according to this file, one Mr Brian Philips accepts a retainer to act as legal adviser to the company, and the file documents that he had full knowledge of the trading frauds and the false prospectus!’
‘I didn’t . . . you can’t make out that I killed Lendon because of all this!’
Philips was leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling. He was staring at the floor. ‘I didn’t kill Lendon, I wanted to, hell, I wanted to!’
‘Didn’t this constitute motive?’
Philips stared at the file and then swore in a sudden violence of spirit.
‘You don’t know the sort of man he was! He was always so damned right, always so righteous. . .even in spite of the way he ran around after women.’
‘But he was efficient in his business dealings.’
‘All right, I admit I was careless — Mrs Delaney wanted to sue, but Lendon saw her first and persuaded her to settle. Then he made me pay her.’
‘What was wrong with that?’
Philips ignored Crow’s cold tones. He was launched and hardly heard the inspector.
‘Later, in the Holmes fiasco, he settled that again. I think he knew her well but he made me pay her £15,000 and that was far more than was necessary, in my view. It meant I had to sell most of my share in the firm to him to raise the money, and all the time the money my father left me was dwindling. . .’
‘Through your negligent handling of business affairs.’
‘All right! But Lendon could have helped me, instead of being so damned righteous and making me pay up. He could have covered up and—’
‘He could hardly cover up the last matter.’
Philips glared at Crow; he seemed to have lost all capacity to think rationally in the matter.
‘It wasn’t a question of covering up there — he used it to kick me out of the firm. He threw me out, paid me no compensation—’
‘I would hardly have thought you were entitled to any. Surely you’d endangered the firm itself?’
‘Ah, you don’t understand. Lendon hated me! He never let me forget he was the senior partner, never let me forget he brought in the lion’s share of the work.’
‘Why did you quarrel with him just before he died?’
Philips hesitated, as though wondering whether to admit to it, then he shrugged despondently.
‘My firm hasn’t been doing too well: since Lendon kicked me out I’ve had no luck. My managing clerk recently left me during an important case and I . . . well, I needed money. I came to Lendon, asked him, told him that since my father had helped build Lendon, Philips and Barrett I shouldn’t have been kicked out without a penny.’
‘But you’d agreed to those conditions.’
‘Under duress. He could have got me struck off the roll.’
‘Instead, he allowed you to continue in practice. I would hardly regard his conduct as reprehensible.’
‘Don’t bloody moralize to me, Inspector! I . . .’ Philips stopped speaking and stared at Crow. After a moment he shook himself like a dog emerging from water. ‘You’ve had me going; I’ve said things I shouldn’t have. You know of my inadequacy as a lawyer, but you can’t link me with Lendon’s death.’
‘Because you’ve covered your tracks well?’
‘Because I didn’t kill him.’
Crow leaned back in his chair and stroked his long chin. He nodded slowly.
‘Yes, I know you’re a poor lawyer. But ‘I know also you quarrelled with Lendon and that you’re likely now to be charged with offences regarding the third case in this file. It’s not for me to say; it’s not my affair. But I am concerned with Lendon’s death, and I think in a matter of hours I’ll be able to prove it was you who entered his office last night.’
‘There were two other files taken! Why does it have to be me?’
‘They were both relatively innocuous. You took them to confuse the trail, but you should have checked them first. Besides, you were the one who’d know the easy route into the office . . . and can you account for your movements last night?’
Brian Philips hesitated, then managed a thin smile.
‘I’ve already disobeyed the precept a lawyer advises his client to observe — say nothing until legal representation is available. It’s said that a lawyer makes a bad client. I’ve nothing more to say, Inspector.’
Crow rose and picked up the file from the desk. He stared at it, resting one bony hand on the desk. At last, wordlessly, he handed the folder to Turner.
‘Don’t move too far from office or home, Mr Philips.’
As the three policemen drove back to headquarters, Turner ventured a question. ‘Will we be charging him, sir?’
‘If we can prove he was at the office last night, then it’ll be breaking and entering, burglary, theft, but murder . . . I don’t know . . .’
‘His activity may be just tangential,’ Wilson said.
‘Tangential? That has a ring, Wilson, I like it, I’ll adopt it. Tangential activity. It’s what you think, isn’t it, Wilson? You’re convinced there’s another direction we should be moving in; an aspect of Lendon’s character we haven’t looked into. His liking for women. In other words . . .’
‘Cherchez la femme.’
Crow smiled grimly and nodded in reluctant agreement. ‘Admirably put, Wilson, admirably put. And you could quite possibly be right.’
Chapter 11
Cathy found it even more difficult to concentrate on the work in hand, in spite of the fact that the deeper currents of excitement in the office were now subsiding. Words and images continually thronged in her mind, jostling for attention: Charles Lendon, his hand on her shoulder, the muffled tones of Brian Philips through the door of the anteroom, Lendon’s hostile expression when he’d seen her with Mike, Carson’s angry, puzzled and despairing face.
And the folder in the filing cabinet and the crumpled letter she had taken.
She had half expected Mike to call at her flat last night but he
hadn’t done so and she’d been thankful for that: now, this evening, she’d have to face another long, lonely time, wondering anxiously about the letter . . .
She finished work at five-thirty and returned to her flat. She drew the curtains across but left the room in darkness. She sat on the settee and put her head back, curling her feet up under her. She closed her eyes but the fears still remained twisting in her mind — the same fears she’d experienced these last few days.
At seven she switched on the light and made herself a sandwich and coffee. Her head was aching. She was carrying the coffee back into the sitting-room when she heard the doorbell ringing. She hesitated and then put down the cup and the plate, walked to the door and opened it. It was Mike. His face was grim, but there was a strained lift to his mouth as he tried to smile.
‘Dried already?’
‘What?’
‘Your hair. You said you were washing it. Every night. Or perhaps you haven’t washed it yet. Or perhaps you weren’t going to wash it at all. Can I come in or do I stay here in the doorway?’
‘No!’
His grin was not a natural one, but he was doing his best to keep his distress under control. She was aware of it, and it weakened her, but frightened her too.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘what precisely does that mean grammatically? That I can’t come in or that I can’t stay in the doorway? I hope, pray and trust that it’s the latter.’
‘No. You can’t come in,’ Cathy said in a rush.
Mike frowned, and the smile faded. His slate-grey eyes grew cold. ‘What’s the matter? You have someone with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re a liar. I saw you come out of the office. I followed you home. I waited outside. I didn’t make a move until your light came on, but I know you’ve been all alone up here. What the hell’s going on, Cathy? What’s the matter? You won’t see me, you won’t speak to me on the phone, you won’t come out with me, and now you’re behaving in the craziest fashion!’
