by John Rhode
‘That’s right, professor. There were originally three ways of getting into the house—by the front door, the area door and the door leading into the mews. But, as I told you, Stowell said that the third one was never used in Mr Fransham’s time.’
Dr Priestley nodded thoughtfully. ‘You asked me a few minutes ago what questions you should put to Mr Mayland when you called upon him,’ he said. ‘It would be interesting to know precisely how many keys of No. 4 were handed over to Sir Godfrey Branstock on the conclusion of Mr Fransham’s tenancy. Also whether these keys were delivered to him in person and, if so, by whom? And one thing more: Perhaps you could ascertain whether Sir Godfrey Branstock’s executors would consider letting or selling No. 4, and if so under what conditions?’
CHAPTER V
Early next morning, Friday, August 20th, Hanslet went to No. 3 Cheveley Street and asked for Mr Mayland. He was shown into the study, where Mayland was sitting surrounded by a mass of papers.
‘Come in, superintendent,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You must excuse this litter. I’m trying to sort out my stepfather’s papers, and it’s not a very easy job.’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Hanslet replied. ‘I dropped in to ask you a few questions; but if you’re busy I can easily come back another time.’
‘I’m not so busy that I can’t make time to talk to you. Try one of these cigarettes. I’ve just come across the box in one of the drawers of this desk, and they don’t seem at all bad.’
As Hanslet took one of the proffered cigarettes, he glanced at the box. It bore the inscription: ‘Black’s Finest Virginia, No. 10.’
‘Did Sir Godfrey smoke this brand of cigarettes habitually?’ he asked.
‘He never smoked much at any time, though he had cigars and cigarettes on hand for his guests. For the last few years he always went to Black’s in Knightsbridge for them.’
‘Do you know why he favoured that particular firm?’ Hanslet asked.
‘I suppose because he found that they suited him,’ Mayland replied. ‘As a matter of fact, I believe it was Fransham who originally recommended him to go there. But I don’t suppose you came here to discuss tobacconists with me, did you, superintendent?’
‘Not entirely,’ said Hanslet. ‘My principal object in calling was to ask if you had had any further trouble with Miss Lanchester or her family?’
Mayland’s face wrinkled into an expression of distaste. ‘I had nothing but trouble until Emscott got back on Wednesday evening,’ he replied. ‘That confounded Lanchester woman has done everything she could to establish herself here. She and her relations became such a nuisance that I felt inclined to ring you up and ask for police protection. But my difficulty was that I didn’t know whether I had any right here myself. It would have been devilish awkward if it had turned out in the end that I was the intruder and not she.’
‘Did Miss Lanchester come to see you herself?’
‘Did she not! I expected her to rage like a fury, but she didn’t do anything of the kind. She adopted a superior and even forgiving attitude. She even apologised for her cousin Chris. I mustn’t take anything he had said too seriously. He was an impulsive boy who had been very fond of my stepfather, whose death he had taken deeply to heart. Then she went on to say that there was no reason why she and I could not come to some amicable arrangement.’
‘What exactly did she mean by that?’ Hanslet asked.
‘She meant, I fancy, that I could be bribed to clear out, and give her the free run of the place. She told me that to her certain knowledge my stepfather had made a fresh will since he and she had become engaged. Under the terms of this will, all his property was to revert to her upon my stepfather’s death. Of course, I wasn’t going to accept her statement without proof. I asked her where this will was, and she told me that to the best of her belief it was deposited with my stepfather’s solicitors. I told her that I had had a cable sent to Emscott, who was then on his way back from America. Until his return, I felt it my duty to hold myself responsible to the executors for this house and its contents.’
‘How did Miss Lanchester take that?’
‘She didn’t like it a bit. But she tried persuasion. She said it would be ridiculous for she and I to quarrel. She knew that Godfrey—she always referred to my stepfather as Godfrey, which for some reason irritated me profoundly—had always been very fond of me. When he had drawn up this fresh will she had tried to induce him to make some provision for me. But, according to her, my stepfather had said that I was already provided for, and that if at any future time I wanted help, he could trust her to give it to me. And she had the sauce to say that of course she would always be perfectly willing to do this. Meanwhile, as the house and everything in it really belonged to her, it would be far simpler if I walked out and left the direction of affairs to her. She and her cousins the Portslades would take possession at once, and so save me any further trouble. I must find this interruption to my work a terrible nuisance. And when I frankly refused to budge she lost her temper at last and said she was going to fetch the police and have me turned out. I don’t know whether she did actually approach the police, but anyhow she went away, which was all I cared about.’
‘Since you are still here, the story of the fresh will was untrue, of course?’
Mayland smiled. ‘That’s just the odd part of it,’ he replied. ‘Nancy Lanchester’s statement that my stepfather had made a fresh will was perfectly correct. But, unfortunately for her, he hadn’t signed it. Emscott told me the whole story on Wednesday evening. But I don’t suppose you’re sufficiently interested for me to repeat it?’
‘I’d like to hear about Miss Lanchester’s discomfiture,’ said Hanslet.
‘Then I’ll tell you the story as Emscott told it to me. According to him, when Branstock married my mother in 1919, he hadn’t made a will at all. He went to Emscott and told him to draw one up for him. When Emscott asked him about its provisions, he told him that he wished to leave his estate to my mother, or if she died before him to her children in equal shares.
‘Emscott was perfectly frank when he explained all this to me the other evening. He told me that he had pointed out to Branstock at the time that this would include me equally with any children that he might have of his own. Branstock had told him that he fully understood this, and that it was only fair that his wife’s son should share with his own family.
‘Now, as it happened, my mother died two years after her second marriage, before she had had any more children. Emscott tells me that after a decent interval he pointed out to Branstock that I, no relation of his, was actually his sole heir. Branstock replied that I might just as well be his heir as anybody else. He had no relations of his own for whom he cared a brass farthing, and that although I was no relation, I was after all the son of his dead wife.
‘So matters rested until one day last spring when Branstock went to see Emscott in his office. After much humming and hawing, my stepfather announced that the time had now come when he must reconsider the terms of his will. He had proposed to a very charming lady and had been accepted. They were to be married in August, and it was only fair that his future wife and their prospective children should inherit his estate. Emscott congratulated him, and naturally asked who the bride was to be.
‘When he heard that my stepfather was to marry Nancy Lanchester, he was appalled. It appears that he had met her one evening when he was dining here and had formed a most unfavourable opinion. For one thing, she had tried, unsuccessfully, of course, to pump him as to the extent of my stepfather’s means. Emscott regarded her as a gold-digger pure and simple, out to get as much as she could from my stepfather. But, as he told me, he never had thought that he would be such a fool as to make her the second Lady Branstock.
‘Emscott, by his own account, was as tactful as he dared be. But he very soon discovered that my stepfather had made up his mind, and that no suggestions would move him. If he had refused to draw up a fresh will, Branstock would have got someone el
se to do it. Nancy Lanchester wasn’t lying when she told me that a fresh will had been made in her favour. But Emscott was successful in persuading my stepfather not to sign it until the wedding had taken place.’
‘It’s very fortunate that he did so,’ Hanslet remarked.
‘It’s very fortunate for me, certainly. For now, of course, the original will stands and I become the sole heir. It turns out that my stepfather had appointed as executor a cousin of his who lives in the country, and Emscott himself. I have been asked to wind up the household on their behalf, and that’s what you see me doing now.’
‘You don’t propose to live here yourself, then, Mr Mayland?’ Hanslet asked.
Mayland shook his head. ‘These old-fashioned houses don’t appeal to me,’ he replied. ‘I shall sell this property and build myself a house somewhere according to my own ideas. I’m an architect by profession, you must remember. I shall, of course, continue to practise, and with a little capital behind me I shall be able to carry out one or two schemes which I’ve often thought of.’
‘Is Miss Lanchester aware of the position?’
‘Emscott told me that he would write to her at once and break the news. Later on I shall make it my business to see that she’s provided for. After all, whether she imposed upon my stepfather or not, he had asked her to marry him. If only out of regard for his memory she ought to get something.’
‘It isn’t everybody who would look at it that way, Mr Mayland. Now, I wonder if I may take up your time with a few further questions?’
‘Fire away and I’ll do my best to answer them,’ Mayland replied.
‘That’s very kind of you. To begin with, the keys of No. 4 are in your possession, I understand?’
‘I’ve got them here if you want them,’ Mayland replied, opening a drawer in the desk at which he was sitting. ‘Three keys, all of which fit the Yale lock on the front door.’
‘Where are the keys of the area door and the door leading into the mews?’
‘In the locks on the inside of the doors, I fancy. I am pretty sure that I saw them there when I looked over the house with a view to the proposed alterations.’
‘Do you happen to know if these three keys were handed to Sir Godfrey in person?’
‘Yes, they were. My stepfather told me that Stowell brought them to him when he left the house. It was a couple of days later that he had asked me to go over the place and see about the alterations. And I’ve blamed myself ever since that I didn’t go down into the cellar then. I should have found out that there was something wrong and had it seen to. We know now that the accumulation of gas was due to a defective gully in No. 4 which made its way through an opening into the cellar of this house. I’ve had the gully filled up with cement for good and all. But it’s like locking the stable door after the horse has been stolen.’
‘Would you consider the sale of No. 4 to a suitable purchaser, Mr Mayland?’
‘I mean to get rid of both houses, either separately or together. If you know of anyone likely to buy No. 4, by all means send him along.’
As Hanslet sat in the district train between Sloane Square and Hammersmith, he pondered what Mayland had told him, in regard to his own conversation with Dr Priestley on the previous evening. It was the professor’s remark that Sir Godfrey’s death had followed naturally upon Mr Fransham’s which worried him chiefly. Until at last some inkling of the professor’s meaning dawned upon him.
The argument, as the superintendent saw it, was this: If Mr Fransham had not been murdered, No. 4 would have been occupied on the date of Sir Godfrey’s death. In that case the accumulation of foul air in the cellar would probably have been detected, and steps would have been taken in the matter. In that respect, then, it might be said that Sir Godfrey’s death was an indirect result of the murder of Mr Fransham.
But the professor’s corollary that the circumstances of the second event might throw light upon the first, seemed utterly fantastic. There could be no doubt that Sir Godfrey’s death had been due to sheer accident. Nor would it help matters to suppose that this accident had been criminally contrived, that the gully had been deliberately damaged so as to admit foul air to the cellar. What possible connection could exist between this act and the murder of Mr Fransham?
Hanslet was still meditating upon this question when he reached the Stowells’ house. He found Stowell at home, busily engaged on some business of domestic carpentry.
‘Good-morning, sir,’ he said respectfully. ‘Is there any fresh news about Mr Fransham?’
‘Not yet,’ Hanslet replied. ‘I’ve just dropped in to ask you a few questions. To begin with, do you remember handing over the keys of No. 4?’
‘Perfectly, sir. I took them in myself to Sir Godfrey, and got a receipt for them, which I sent to Dr Thornborough.’
‘How many keys did you hand over?’
‘Three, sir—the three keys of the front door. The one which used to belong to Mr Fransham, the one I took from Coates before he left, and my own.’
‘Were there any other keys of the front door in existence?’
‘No, sir. Those were the only three all the time I lived there.’
‘What became of the keys of the other two doors?’
‘I left them in the locks on the inside, sir, and bolted the doors before I shut the house up. I told Sir Godfrey at the time that I had done so, and he seemed quite satisfied.’
‘When did you last open the cellar door?’
‘The cellar door, sir? I don’t suppose that’s been opened for ten years or more. When I first went to Mr Fransham, I used to keep the wine down there, but I soon gave it up. The steps were very awkward, and Mr Fransham didn’t care to go to the expense of having a light put in the cellar. I was afraid of breaking my neck every time I went down there. So, for the little quantity of wine that Mr Fransham used to keep in the house, I used the cupboard under the basement stairs.’
‘I see. Did you ever notice an unpleasant smell in the cellar? Or feel giddy after you had been down there?’
Stowell shook his head. ‘I can’t say that I did, sir,’ he replied. ‘I was talking about that very thing to my wife after we’d been reading in the paper about what happened to Sir Godfrey. And I was saying to her that it was lucky we gave up using the cellar when we did, even though I had never noticed anything wrong with it.’
‘It may have been lucky or it may not,’ said Hanslet thoughtfully. ‘One thing more,’ he continued. ‘Was there a refrigerator installed at No. 4?’
‘No, sir, there wasn’t. It’s one thing my wife wanted badly, and I spoke to Mr Fransham two or three times about it. But all I could get him to say was that he’d think about it. He never liked spending money upon anything he didn’t think absolutely necessary.’
Hanslet’s next visit was to Mr Sandling, the borough surveyor, from whom he elicited an account of his inspection of the gully in the cellar of No. 4.
‘There’s no doubt that some defect in the connection was responsible for the accumulation of foul air in the cellar,’ said Mr Sandling. ‘There was distinct evidence of the presence of sewer gas there when Mr Mayland and I examined the place. Faulty ventilation must have allowed an accumulation of gas in the drainage system, and this must have found its way back through the gully. Although such an occurrence is fortunately very rare, there is always a possibility of its happening, especially in the case of cellars which are kept closed and have no means of ventilation apart from the door.’
‘I suppose that there is no possibility of the gully having been tampered with deliberately?’ Hanslet asked.
Mr Sandling laughed. ‘My dear sir!’ he exclaimed. ‘I know that it is the business of the police to be suspicious, but in this case you may set your mind at rest. I suppose your idea is that someone with designs on Sir Godfrey Branstock’s life might have interfered with the gully. Well, I don’t suppose that a more unpromising method of murder could be imagined. It might have been years before conditions in the drainage system
became such that an accumulation of gas occurred.
‘Besides, as soon as Mr Mayland and I opened the cellar door of No. 4 I could see at once that nobody had been down there for a very long time. The floor was at least half an inch thick in dust which would have shown the lightest footprints. In fact, the gully itself was so choked with debris that it is a wonder the gas managed to percolate through it at all.’
‘You’ve no doubt, however, that the foul air did actually find its way into the cellars through the gully?’
Mr Sandling shrugged his shoulders. ‘The circumstances don’t leave any room for doubt,’ he replied. ‘Look here, superintendent, you’re sufficiently intelligent to appreciate the facts. Here they are in logical sequence. The medical examination revealed that the cause of Sir Godfrey Branstock’s death was suffocation by carbon dioxide. Next day the Home Office analyst found a large proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the cellar of No. 3. When I inspected the cellar of No. 4, I found evidence not only of carbon dioxide, but of sulphuretted hydrogen as well. The association of these two gases is a certain indication of sewer gas. Sewer gas, as its name implies, originates in drains. In the cellar of No. 4 was a gully connected to the drainage system. On at least one previous occasion when Sir Godfrey had entered the cellar of No. 3 he had experienced peculiar symptoms, though the cause of these was not suspected at the time. The presence of sewer gas can nearly always be detected by the characteristic odour of sulphuretted hydrogen, one of its constituents. Sir Godfrey, the only person who had access to the cellar of No. 3, was deficient in his sense of smell. It seems to me that these facts tell their own story with unusual clarity.’
Hanslet, back once more in his room at Scotland Yard, made yet another attempt to unravel the meaning of Dr Priestley’s cryptic remark. Each fresh inquiry seemed to make it less likely that Sir Godfrey Branstock’s death had followed naturally upon the murder of Mr Fransham. Even if Mr Fransham had still been in residence, the accumulation of gas would not have been discovered, since the cellar of No. 4 was disused. And any possibility that the accumulation had been caused deliberately was ruled out. Upon that point at least the borough surveyor had been emphatic.
