Trent's Own Case

by E. C. Bentley

  Trent looked his amazement. ‘Fairman tried to drown himself! And then you say—’

  ‘Wait a bit,’ the inspector said. ‘You must let me tell it my own way. Shortly after Fairman had been brought home and charged, a letter was received at the Yard which he had posted at Newhaven just before the boat left for Dieppe. It contained nothing but a confession of his having shot Randolph—short, but definite enough. I’ve got a copy of it here.’

  Mr Bligh got to his feet, and opened a dispatch-case that lay on a side-table. He took from it a typewritten document.

  ‘Before you look at this I may tell you the result of our inquiries at Claypoole, which had already been received in London. Fairman bore an excellent character, though he was rather reserved; didn’t get on with people very easily I gather. He was said to be entirely devoted to his work at the mental hospital. He was carrying on some sort of research there in addition to his ordinary duties, and had been showing signs of overwork. Then a month ago he got influenza pretty badly; and he seems to have returned to his job when he was still rather the worse for wear.

  ‘The next thing was that he was suddenly sacked from the hospital staff, with six months’ salary in lieu of notice. He got a letter to that effect yesterday morning, which he showed to one of his colleagues. The letter gave no reason; and the writer of it, the medical superintendent, Dr Dallow, tells our people plainly that he is not obliged to explain his action, and will not do so, the hospital being a purely privately managed institution. That, of course, was this morning, when he had no idea of why the police were showing this sudden interest in Fairman—when we knew nothing ourselves, for the matter of that, except that Fairman’s label had been found on the scene of the crime.

  ‘We are informed that Fairman, after getting his notice, had an interview with Dallow, which didn’t last long, and that he came away from it looking haggard and desperate. He left the hospital about three o’clock, carrying his kit-bag, not having said a word to anyone. He was seen by a porter at the station, who knew him, to take the 3:10 up-train, which is due to arrive at St Pancras at 7:30. I may say here that among the things found upon him, after his arrest, was a crumpled sheet of paper with Randolph’s London address on it. Now then, how does all that look to you?’

  ‘Bad,’ Trent said, looking at the floor. ‘I don’t see how it could look very much worse.’

  ‘Not any worse at all,’ Mr Bligh rejoined, ‘when you know that Randolph had absolute control of the entire management of the hospital.’

  ‘Well, I did happen to know that, and that’s why I agree about the badness. Dallow, of course, may talk about refusing to give his reasons; but he would have to sing a different tune if he was subpœnaed as a witness.’

  Mr Bligh rubbed his hands. ‘You’re right there. There’s another thing, too, that he would be asked to explain—what was the subject of the interview he had with Randolph at Brinton at 5 p.m. three days before the murder? I got that by looking back through the engagement-block. Well, we’re agreed, I take it, that Randolph was responsible for the sacking. As a matter of fact, he had a bit of a down on Fairman for some reason or other—Raught, the valet, gave me that point. Well, now, to get on—all this I’ve been telling you is the result of inquiries made at the Claypoole end this morning. It was dictated to the Yard over the phone, and most of it was in my hands by lunch-time. As for what followed his arrival in London, we’ve only his own account—a bit sketchy, but definite enough as far as it goes. Here you are.’

  Trent took the typescript that the inspector now held out to him. ‘Pretty smart work,’ he observed glumly. ‘Activity on all fronts, London, Claypoole and Dieppe—with a naval engagement, so to speak, thrown in. You start on the job after an early breakfast, and it’s all done up in a parcel just when it’s getting to be time for a nice hot cup of tea.’

  Mr Bligh emitted a depreciative grunt. ‘I don’t say the machine didn’t run smoothly. It did—and a bit too slick for my taste, though you may think it a funny thing for me to say, perhaps. I don’t care about it so much when things all come my way on the run, as if I was a bally magnet or something. Dammit! It’s like having the case handed to me on a plate with parsley round it; and the more I’ve thought of it the less I like it.’

  Trent nodded. ‘I think I know what you mean. You feel that Destiny may have got a section of lead pipe concealed behind its back, ready to land you one unexpectedly on the cervical region.’

  ‘Something like that,’ the inspector grumbled. ‘It’s the sort of thing that’s happened before. And yet—but you run your eye over that paper, and let’s hear what you think of it.’

  Trent turned his attention to the neatly-typed sheet in his hand, and read what follows:

  In the train. London—Newhaven.

  9:20 p.m.

  This evening I shot and killed James Randolph. I went to his house in Newbury Place at about 7:45, as near as I can guess. There was no one else in the house. We had a violent quarrel, and it ended in my shooting him. I filled a glass with water from the carafe on the chest of drawers and drank the water. I then left the house and took a cab to Victoria, where I caught the 8:20 express to Newhaven, as I had intended. I am going to cross to Dieppe.

  I prefer not to give my reasons for anything that I have done.

  BRYAN FAIRMAN

  After reading and re-reading this brief document Trent looked up with raised brows and met his host’s expectant eye.

  ‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ the inspector asked drily. ‘Prefers not to give his reasons for murdering a man, but doesn’t mind mentioning that he had a drink of water after doing him in. Tells us he had arranged to escape from the country after shooting his victim; then changes his mind, doubles back on his tracks, and tries to drown himself on the way home. What infernal sense can you make of it?’

  Trent, thrusting his fingers through his hair, stared a few moments into vacancy. ‘I suppose it’s a silly suggestion,’ he said at length, ‘but have you considered the idea that he is trying to shield someone else?’

  ‘Yes, of course. The confession, and the leaf missing from the block, and the care he takes to fix the thing on himself, suggested that to me at once. But it really doesn’t hold water. To begin with, accusing yourself of a murder you didn’t do is a pretty large order, however anxious you may be to do anybody a good turn. On the other hand, genuine confessions of murder are common enough. Then again, he had a motive of his own—resentment at the way he had been treated. Many a man has been bumped off for less than what had been done to Fairman. And besides all that, how are you going to fit the shielding idea in with this unaccountable flying visit to Dieppe, and his returning home again immediately afterwards, and his attempting suicide? No: I say again, what sense can you make of it?’

  Trent glanced again through the paper in his hand. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘it leaves a good deal to the imagination. But—’ he paused a moment—‘I haven’t had time to consider it, of course, but I don’t see how this confession, open to criticism as it may be, makes such a devil of a lot of difference.’

  The cloud of chagrin on Mr Bligh’s features grew heavier. ‘In a way it makes very little difference. There’s a strong enough case against him already. We know he had a motive. And we know he was there about the time when Randolph was shot. His fingerprints have been taken, and they correspond with those on the glass that he is so careful to mention.’

  ‘And, of course, with those on the razor-blade too.’

  ‘No, they don’t,’ the inspector said shortly. ‘That’s just one of those points that I was afraid, at the time, were going to give a lot of trouble. The fingerprint artist found a lot of Randolph’s and the valet’s marks, naturally, and he found some—not only on the water-bottle and glass—which have now been identified as Fairman’s. But he found marks on that razor-blade that don’t belong to any of the three; and he didn’t find those marks on any other article in the whole place. Raught says it was a new blade, only taken out of i
ts envelope that morning. If so, somebody else had been handling that blade; had taken it out of the razor, as the appearances suggest, to cut open those packages.’

  ‘What does Fairman say about it?’

  ‘Nothing. He refused to answer any questions, or say a word of any sort, from the moment he was arrested. Soon after he was charged, he had a complete nervous collapse—I don’t think I told you that—and at present he is in the prison infirmary, quite unfit for interrogation or anything else. That’s the doctor’s report; and so the whole case is hung up until he is well enough for us to get on with it. We shall ask for an adjournment at the inquest, of course—we should have done in any case.’

  Trent rose to his feet and began to pace the room. ‘You can understand,’ he said, ‘that all this is very painful to me. To hear of his being in that state, after all the rest that has happened—well, I won’t talk about it. Now look here. The case you’ve got against Fairman is a stiff one, even without his confession—I know that. But I could see from the start that you were not quite satisfied, and I suppose those unidentified fingerprints on the razor-blade are among the points that don’t seem to you to fit in. They don’t to me.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the inspector said. ‘They certainly don’t seem to fit in—not at the first glance, that is. Like those missing papers. All the same, I have got an idea about those prints, and the papers too. Tell me, how much have you seen of Raught, old Randolph’s servant?’

  ‘I have stayed as a guest at Brinton three times, when Randolph was sitting to me for his portrait. Raught used to look after me, as he did after his master.’

  ‘And how did he strike you?’

  ‘You mean in the role of a gentleman’s gentleman?’

  Mr Bligh grinned assent.

  ‘Well, of course, it was comic,’ Trent said. ‘Raught is an intelligent, clear-headed sort of fellow, I suppose you’d agree—’ the inspector nodded assent—‘but he’s got the words “wrong ’un” written all over him in large capitals. There’s a sort of greasiness about the man—I don’t mean on the surface, but showing through from his soul.’

  Mr Bligh grunted. ‘Well, whatever that may mean, I happened to spot him as a man who had done time; remembered his face the minute I set eyes on him. But without that, he’s obviously a good many notches below the class of a gentleman’s servant. I put him down as one of the old man’s reclamation cases. Anyway, my notion is that when Raught came home last night he had a pal with him. Perhaps they were going to have a spot or two of the old man’s brandy, if he’d gone to bed. Then Raught found him lying dead; and they may have decided to have a go at the safe before the police were sent for. Or perhaps it was his friend who insisted on doing it. I didn’t like the way Raught answered when I questioned him about that safe—pretending he wasn’t sure if there really was a safe. If that was what happened, or something like it, the strings on those packages may have been cut by the man who was with Raught, and the prints on that blade were his. Then he cleared off with all the papers, and anything else there may have been that looked useful, before Raught rang up the station.’

  Trent leaned back and contemplated his friend with an admiring eye. ‘It’s no wonder that you’ve got on in your profession,’ he said. ‘All that might have happened, no doubt—or it mightn’t.’

  The inspector knocked his pipe out into a large ashtray presided over by a spotted china dog of melancholy appearance. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it fits the facts, and it’s suggested by experience, that’s all; and it doesn’t really matter. As far as the murder goes, we had got Fairman nailed to a board. And then, when everything was going nicely, he pitches in this blasted confession.’

  Trent rose, and made ready to take his leave. ‘But I still don’t see,’ he said slowly, ‘why Fairman’s confession should have cast such a shadow over the smiling prospect.’

  ‘You still don’t see!’ Mr Bligh’s tone expressed weary resignation. ‘Look at it again—look at the damfool thing again. And consider how the man has acted all through.’

  Trent re-read the typescript in his hand, and then again met his friend’s exasperated eye. ‘You mean—?’

  ‘I mean unsound mind,’ the inspector rasped. ‘Not just nervous breakdown, but lunacy—and a silly end to what I thought looked like being a respectable bit of work.’

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE WHITE FLOWER OF A BLAMELESS LIFE

  TRENT, as he walked homewards that night after taking leave of Inspector Bligh, thought over all the pitifulness of the policial tragedy now being faced by that officer. All that keen directive energy, that rapid working of a high-powered routine, to end in the arrest of a lunatic! But much more was he distressed by this dreadful news of one between whom and himself an old and deep attachment existed. He was completely convinced that the Fairman whom he knew was incapable of such a crime. The shooting of the old man in the back was an added detail of incredibility. But all this could but make more inevitable the conclusion that Fairman, if guilty, must be mentally deranged. His conduct, as the inspector insisted so strongly, had not been that of a man in his right mind.

  As for the facts that might account for such a collapse, they were not in much doubt. Randolph’s capricious dislike of the young doctor must be, as Mr Bligh had suggested, at the bottom of it. Trent remembered well an evening, some months before, when both he and Fairman had been Randolph’s guests at Brinton. It had been evident then that the two did not take any pleasure in each other’s company. The old man had seemed to be merely amusing himself, in a strange way, by pretending to be unable to believe in, or even understand, the lines of research in mental disease to which Fairman had devoted himself at the Claypoole Hospital. It appeared to Trent quite understandable that Fairman, with body and brain still depressed by the poison of influenza, had completely lost his balance under the shock of sudden separation from the work he lived for. One thing more Trent remembered with a shade of discomfort. Fairman had known of the old man’s unpleasant advances to Eunice Faviell; for Trent himself had mentioned this in a quite recent letter to Fairman, adding that he knew how to put a stop to it, and intended doing so.

  It was while Trent was reviewing this situation over an early breakfast the next morning that he was called to the telephone, and a sepulchral voice, the voice of Inspector Bligh, came to his ear.

  ‘Is that Monteagle 3474?’

  ‘Nothing less,’ Trent answered. ‘And I know who it is speaking. Why is it, Inspector, that you always talk on the telephone as if life was dead and so was light?’

  ‘I wish to God,’ Mr Bligh retorted in accents yet more hollow, ‘you could be serious for a few minutes.’

  ‘I am not feeling particularly playful, as a matter of fact. Pure from the night and splendid for the day, of course, but not exactly frivolous. However, if I sound so, don’t take it too much to heart,’ Trent urged. ‘Remember that if I appear untouched by solemn thought my nature is not therefore less divine. Besides, I can always be serious to oblige a friend. Let us see—it’s just a quarter past eight. I can be perfectly serious most of the morning. At twelve o’clock Admiral Sir Densmore ffinch—you know, the man with two little effs and one leg—comes to sit for his portrait. He is one of the most amusing talkers I ever met. Until then, I can be as serious as an outbreak of cholera. What was it you were going to tell me?’

  ‘You said last night,’ Mr Bligh answered, ‘you would like to have a look at the scene of the crime in Newbury Place. Well—there’s nothing against your doing that if I’m responsible for you. But you will find that the only remaining bird has flown. I’m there now.’

  Trent hesitated a moment. ‘Do you mean Raught, the manservant?’

  ‘Yes; he’s gone.’

  ‘Really? Like a summer-dried fountain, when our need was the sorest? Well, well! So Raught has hopped it.’

  ‘If you prefer to use that low expression,’ the inspector answered, ‘he has. Another vulgar way of putting it is that he has beaten it while th
e beating was good; for I came here to arrest him this morning.’

  ‘What for? Do you mean you’ve got evidence of that theory of yours about Raught and Charles, his friend, going through the safe?’

  A cavernous chuckle came over the wire. ‘Come along if you want to, and you can hear all the revolting details.’

  When Trent arrived at the little abode in Newbury Place, a salute from the attendant constable showed him that he was expected. No signs of life appeared on the ground floor. He mounted the stairs to find Inspector Bligh, accompanied by a long-faced sergeant, engaged in measuring distances on the thick-carpeted floor of the bedroom.

  ‘That’ll do for the present, Mills,’ the inspector said; and his subordinate, taking the hint, shut up his notebook and withdrew.

  ‘Raught,’ Mr Bligh began without preliminary, ‘cleared out during the night. There was a constable posted at the door, of course; but it seems that our friend simply got out of the window of his bedroom, which is on the ground floor, crossed the small yard there, climbed over the wall into Torrington Alley, then walked down either to Wigram Street at the one end or Bullingdon Street at the other, and was off on his way through London to Lord knows where. He was lucky not to be seen coming out from the alley; but probably he listened in the yard for the passing of the constable who goes through the alley at intervals, and gave him time to get well away on his beat.’

  ‘And why did Raught give you the slip?’

  Mr Bligh drew from his breast pocket a long envelope. ‘He had his reasons all right. This letter, addressed to the commissioner, was delivered at the Yard by the last post last night. It was forwarded by Randolph’s solicitors, who ought to have known enough to send it by special messenger as soon as they heard of the murder. As it was, they took their time about posting it—probably a firm who know nothing about criminal business. This was what they sent.’