Murder in the Museum, A British Library Crime Classic

by John Rowland

  “Lord, no!” answered Samuel, horrified. “The stuff a lawyer keeps is pretty explosive, you know, Inspector. Doesn’t do to take any risks, or let anyone know anything about it. Professional secrets and all that sort of thing, you see.”

  “I see,” said Shelley, looking at the mass of papers with keen interest. “Now, what has he got there, that he leaves in your charge?”

  “Oh,” said the solicitor, with a shrug of his shoulders, “all the usual stuff, you know—deeds of houses, share certificates, copies of agreements made with publishers, and so on.”

  “Is his will there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” Shelley was more than a trifle surprised at this. He had imagined that Arnell would certainly have left his will in charge of his lawyer.

  “No.” Samuel grinned. “Old Arnell was not a very trusting man in some respects. He didn’t trust lawyers farther than he could see them, anyhow. We didn’t make his will. I don’t even know if he made one.”

  “Queer,” said Shelley.

  “Not so queer as you might think. After all—although this is an entirely unprofessional thing to say—making a will is a perfectly easy, straightforward business if you aren’t aiming at any silly, complicated way of leaving your money. A lawyer is really necessary only if you want to tie your cash up in some complex fashion. And I imagine that Arnell would leave it all to his daughter. She’s his only relative, as far as I’m aware. And he could easily make that will himself.”

  “I see,” said Shelley. “Well, just glance through that collection of documents, will you? After all, the will might be there. You never know, do you?”

  “Okay,” said the lawyer, and turned out the contents of the box on to his desk.

  One by one he went through the documents that it contained, examining each with some care, and then placing them in a neat pile by his side. At the end of this performance, when all the documents had been dealt with in turn, he leaned back in his chair with a sigh, and shook his head mournfully.

  “No go, I’m afraid,” he said.

  “Not there, eh?” Shelley was gravely disappointed, for he had counted on finding the will here.

  “No. To tell the truth, I didn’t expect to find it, Inspector. As I told you, Arnell was a queer old bird in many ways, and I thought it very unlikely that he would leave the will in my care.”

  “Where do you think we should be likely to find it?” asked Shelley.

  “Couldn’t say,” replied Samuel non-committally. Then his face lit up, as if a new idea had suddenly occurred to him. “D’you know,” he said, “the old fellow had a safe deposit? Maybe his will would be there.”

  “That’s highly probable, I should think,” Shelley agreed. “Where is this safe deposit?”

  “Not far from here. In the Chancery Lane place, you know. Is there any way of getting it open, I wonder? They’re the very devil about getting anything out without the keys,” explained the solicitor.

  “Oh, I know all about that,” said Shelley with a smile. “I’ve had to deal with them before. I think that I can manage that all right.”

  They walked around to the safe deposit, and, after a long talk with the manager, and a conversation over the ’phone with a personage very high up on the staff at Scotland Yard, Shelley managed to get permission to open the late Professor Arnell’s safe, though only in the presence of the manager of the establishment, and another witness, Samuel agreeing to act in this capacity.

  The keys turned, the neat little safe was opened, and the contents disclosed to view.

  “Didn’t I tell you he was a queer old bird?” murmured Samuel, as these things were taken out.

  There were more share certificates and deeds of property. Apparently Professor Arnell had believed in taking no risks, preferring to have such of his property as might be either destroyed by fire or stolen by thieves spread in several places. That seemed the only explanation of this strange business of having some in his lawyer’s office and some in the safe deposit.

  But there were other things. Some scraps of old-fashioned jewellery—presumably his wife’s—and something that made Shelley stare in open-eyed surprise. This was a photograph of a pleasant-looking young man of a Jewish cast of face. His hair was black, sleek, and shiny.

  “I say,” said Shelley, “would you object to my taking that photograph away with me? I feel that it may have a bearing on this case.”

  The manager of the safe deposit looked rather doubtful at the propriety of this course of action.

  “Of course,” Shelley added hastily, “I shall give you a receipt for it, and it will be returned later. In fact, if we have it long enough to photograph, and thus to make copies, that will do. I could return it to you tonight, if you feel doubtful about leaving it in my possession.”

  “Well, Inspector,” said the manager, “it’s just a little difficult. As you know, we have been breaking all the rules in allowing you to examine the contents of this safe at all. And I feel that I shouldn’t allow anything from it to go out of our possession, you see.” His voice tailed away into doubtful silence, and he looked at Shelley, obviously in some embarrassment at having to disagree with the great man from Scotland Yard.

  “I tell you what I’ll do,” said Shelley. “I’ll ring up the Yard, and get one of our photographers to come around here and photograph that picture. How will that suit you?”

  “That certainly would be better,” the manager admitted. “It is not that this picture is likely to be of any value, you know, but it is rather the principle of the thing. I hope that you understand me.”

  “That’s all right,” said Shelley briskly. “Now, what about this will?”

  During this exchange of courtesies Samuel had been inspecting the documents with some care, and now he shook his head sadly.

  “Afraid you’re out of luck again, Inspector,” he said. “The will’s not here.”

  Shelley sighed. “That means another visit to Pinner, I suppose,” he said. “A damned nuisance that this wasn’t settled before, but it can’t be helped.”

  So, with a word of gratitude to the manager, he left, and was soon bowling out towards Professor Arnell’s house, which he had visited the night before.

  Arrived there, he asked to see Miss Arnell, and was soon seated on the comfortable couch in her drawing-room, explaining his errand.

  “I don’t think,” she said, “that father had any documents of that sort here, except those directly connected with his work.”

  “Still, you can’t be sure,” Shelley persisted. “And the will may help us to settle the problem of his death.”

  “All his papers are in the desk in his study,” she went on, “and you are welcome, of course, to go through them if you care to do it. I’m afraid that you’ll find it a most dreadful muddle,” she went on with a smile. “Father was a terribly untidy man, and the one thing he was absolutely adamant about was that I was not to touch his private papers.”

  “That’s all right,” said Shelley, smiling in his turn. “We’re quite accustomed to sorting out untidy masses of papers, you know, Miss Arnell. That’s just part of our job, you see.”

  “I see. Then shall I take you along there?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  Silently she led the way across the tiled hall into a cosy little study. It was lined with books almost from floor to ceiling, and before the window was a large roll-top desk—clearly the desk to which Miss Arnell had referred.

  She fumbled in her handbag and produced a large bunch of keys. One of these she fitted to the lock of the desk, and, after some more fumbling, succeeded in turning it in the lock and opening the desk.

  “There!” she said. The swing of her arm indicated the chaos which reigned. “A dreadful muddle” it was indeed, and Shelley groaned inwardly as he thought of the amount of work which this
meant.

  “Shall I leave you to it?” she asked.

  “Well,” said Shelley, “there doesn’t really seem much point in your staying while I put all this in order. It looks as if it will be a longish job—take me a good hour to go through all that’s there, I expect. And while I am about it I may as well go through it all. Even if the will isn’t there, something else may give me some sort of pointer on the problem.”

  “Right,” she said, with a graceful smile. “Just ring if there’s anything that you want, won’t you?”

  “I will,” said Shelley, and started on the job.

  It was one of the most tiresome tasks that he had ever undertaken. Nearly all the papers in the desk were concerned in one way or another with the dead professor’s work. There were memoranda of lectures delivered and listened to. There were notes of books read. There were letters received from editors of literary journals, from fellow-workers in the field of literary research, and from students in search of information. There were masses of notes on the various Elizabethan dramatists, and at least four separate beginnings to a book on the subject. Clearly the late Professor Arnell, whatever his merits as a student or a research-worker, was not in any way a tidy, methodical man. Yet every scrap of this documentary evidence had to be carefully sifted, every single piece of writing carefully scanned to see if it held any item of important information. Shelley knew too many cases where a detective had missed an invaluable clue by not being sufficiently thorough. He was thorough enough, yet, at the end of nearly two hours’ solid work, he had to admit himself defeated. The will was not here. Nor was there any trace of any correspondence of a personal nature. Every letter dealt, in some way or another, with the late professor’s work. It began to look as if Miss Arnell had been only too correct when she stated that her father had no friends apart from his literary companions.

  Shelley sat back in his chair and thought deeply. That there would be a will somewhere he felt very certain. But where on earth could it be? He was sure that Professor Arnell was not the sort of man to die intestate. He had a good deal of money, and he was too fond of his daughter to run any risk of her not coming into her inheritance. The whole thing was baffling in the extreme.

  The door opened slowly, and Miss Arnell’s face peeped around it. There was a sparkle in her eye, and an air of suppressed excitement about her that instantly told Shelley that she had some important information to impart.

  “Come in, Miss Arnell,” he said.

  She came in. “No luck, I suppose, Inspector,” she said.

  Shelley shook his head dolefully. “Not an atom of luck, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “I’m sure your father must have made a will. And yet I can’t find it anywhere. And there isn’t a trace of any sort of personal correspondence here, either. It’s all things connected with his work.”

  “That is to be expected,” she said. “Father never did make friends easily. He always said that his work was his circle of friends. And he had no desire to become friendly with anyone who couldn’t argue learnedly about Marlowe and Peele and Greene and all the others.”

  “But what is it that you want to tell me?” asked Shelley suddenly. He could see that she was simply bursting with information, and it might well be that this information was of some value.

  “How did you know…?” she began, and then broke off. “It’s only that I have found father’s will,” she said.

  “You’ve found his will?” Shelley was frankly incredulous. “Where on earth did you find it?”

  “In a letter.”

  “What letter?” Shelley could be laconic enough when the occasion demanded it.

  “A letter that has just come by post. Look.” She held it out to him—a registered letter, posted in London (Holborn Sub-office). He found himself noting this automatically as he drew the document from its envelope.

  “Who sent it?” he asked.

  She shook her head helplessly. “I haven’t the least idea,” she said.

  “Was there any covering letter with it?” he asked.

  She shook her head again. “No. It was quite by itself in the envelope. I can’t think who can have sent it to me, or why.”

  “Do you recognise the writing?” asked Shelley.

  “No.” The envelope was addressed in a crude, uneducated scrawl, which might, as Shelley at once realised, be merely a disguised hand.

  “Have you read it?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t mind if I do so?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “After all, you said it was important, and now that we have found it I want you to read it without delay.”

  Shelley read the document aloud. “This is the last will and testament of me, Julius Arnell, Professor Emeritus in the University of Portavon. I hereby give and bequeath all my property to my daughter, Violet Arnell, for her sole use during her lifetime. At her death it is to go, whether she has issue or not, to my nephew, Moses Moss, to belong to him and his heirs and assigns, absolutely.”

  She smiled a tremulous smile. “Just like him, I think,” she said. “Although he was so untidy and impractical in some things, in all the things that really mattered, he would have everything just correct.”

  “H’m.” Shelley was not altogether satisfied. “You think it’s like the sort of will that you would have expected your father to make?”

  “Yes.” She was quite emphatic on that point.

  “Well, that’s all right,” said Shelley, and glanced at the will again. Then he whistled softly to himself.

  “What’s the matter?” Violet Arnell sensed that he was suddenly surprised and uneasy about something.

  “Look at this again,” commanded Shelley.

  She looked. “I don’t see anything curious,” she said.

  “Then you probably don’t know that Professor Wilkinson died in the British Museum some six months ago, and that Dr. Crocker was stabbed there last night,” said Shelley.

  “How dreadful!” She was horrified, and yet puzzled at the same time.

  “But I don’t see…” she murmured.

  “Take another look at your father’s will,” Shelley commanded.

  “At the will?” There was still a tone of puzzlement in her voice, but she obediently picked up the document and read it through with the utmost care, as if resolved that now whatever peculiar circumstance had struck Shelley should not escape her eager scrutiny.

  “But I still don’t see…” she said again.

  “Look at it once more,” commanded the detective. “If you don’t see it then, I shall have to explain it to you. But somehow I fancy that you will realise what I’m getting at in a moment.”

  She looked. Then she uttered a little scream of terror. “Professor Wilkinson,” she said. “Dr Crocker.”

  “Yes,” said Shelley sternly. “I don’t know what it means. It doesn’t seem to make sense somehow. But Professor Wilkinson, who died at the British Museum six months ago, and Dr. Crocker, who died there last night, are the witnesses of your father’s will!”

  Chapter IX

  Moses Moss, Esquire

  While Shelley was thus chasing a somewhat elusive document, Cunningham was on the trail of an almost equally elusive gentleman. He had felt highly honoured that his chief was giving him so much independent work to do, for this was the first big murder case in which he had pursued investigations of anything like this importance on his own. Yet, before the end of the morning, he began to wonder if an honour which involved so much work was really worth while, after all.

  First of all, since young Baker had given him to understand that Moss lived somewhere in Bloomsbury, he made his way to the Tottenham Court Road Police Station, and was soon in close confabulation with the inspector in charge.

  “Know a young fellow called Moses Moss?” he asked, as soon as he had introduced himself, and had chatted for a few minut
es in order to get on friendly terms.

  “Why, what’s young Moss been doing to attract the attention of the Yard?” asked the inspector in surprised tones.

  “So you do know him?”

  “Yes,” answered the inspector willingly. “Know him professionally, as you might say.”

  “A crook?”

  “Oh, nothing like that. There was some sort of burglary at his flat in Great Russell Street a week or two ago. Clumsy affair, and we caught the chap next day. But young Moss got the wind up properly about it,” explained the inspector. “Said everybody might be murdered in their beds, and all that sort of thing. You know what hysterical people say when they think that the man who robbed ’em isn’t being arrested quickly enough to suit their convenience.”

  Cunningham made sympathetic noises, and awaited further revelations. The revelations did not show much sign of coming, so he asked for the number of the house in which Mr. Moss had his flat, and received it.

  “There’s a fellow there in charge—sort of janitor-caretaker,” the inspector explained. “If you’re checking up on the young fellow’s movements I should think he’ll be able to put you on the right track.”

  “Thanks very much,” said Cunningham. “That’s just the sort of fellow that I want to get hold of.”

  He rose to go, and then another idea came into his head.

  “What sort of chap is this Moss?” he asked. “Decent fellow?”

  “Very decent,” returned the other. “Bit highly strung, I fancy. That’s about all that’s the matter with him. I should imagine that you’d find him easy enough to deal with—that is, if you can get hold of him. He seems to keep the most unearthly hours.”

  “That sounds cheerful,” was Cunningham’s comment. And, before the day was done, he was to learn that his comment was abundantly justified.

  He went around, first of all, to the flat in Great Russell Street, to find, as he had anticipated, that Mr. Moss had already gone out for the day. However, he found the janitor-caretaker in a little office at the entrance to the block of flats. He was a garrulous little Cockney, short and fat, and Cunningham at once realised that, if any information was obtainable, there would be but little difficulty in getting it out of him. The difficulty, indeed, would rather be to stem the flow of reminiscence when once it was properly started on its headlong career.