The Floating Admiral (Detection Club)

by Christie, Agatha; Detection Club, by Members of the

  The cuttings, as he had rather expected, seemed mostly to have to do with China, though a section of them seemed to be concerned with naval affairs. They dated from two years before the War and were neatly numbered and docketed to correspond with an alphabetical index in the Admiral’s handwriting. Rudge noted a small bunch of cuttings collected under the heading, “Denny, W.” These he turned over eagerly. They told him that Sir Wilfrid Denny had been for many years in the Hong Kong customs, retiring in 1921 with a title and pension. Apparently Denny had only come to Whynmouth in 1925, having previously lived in Hertfordshire. He was a widower of sixty-four, his wife having died fifteen years previously, in China. He had no surviving children, his only son had been killed in the War.

  This was interesting. Sir Wilfrid, then, had also been connected with China. No doubt his friendship with the Admiral had dated from the latter’s period of service on the Chinese station. Rudge returned the cuttings to their folder and was about to replace them in their file, when he noticed an endorsement on the folder “See H 5 and X 57.”

  What this cryptic reference might mean he could not think. He tried number five in the H file and found that it referred to a single cutting about an Able Seaman named Hendry who had been killed in a brawl in Hong Kong some years previously. This looked hopeful, but in turning to file X, he found no entries under that awkward letter. And indeed fifty-seven entries under X would, he thought, be unusual. “X” must refer to something different. To what?

  He turned to the alphabetical list, and under the letter F his eye was arrested by another entry. “Fitzgerald, W. E.” The missing brother of Elma! Surely this would be of interest. Eagerly he turned up the file.

  The folder marked “Fitzgerald, W. E.” contained nothing but a slip of paper on which was scribbled in pencil, “See X.”

  “Damn X!” thought Rudge, “where the devil has ‘X’ gone to? Perhaps it was particularly private. The old boy may have hidden it in some safer place.”

  Filled with excitement he began a thorough and careful search of the cabinet and the desk. The cabinet yielded nothing, nor, on a superficial examination, did the desk. At length, however, after lifting a mass of receipts and old cheque-books out of the well of the desk, Rudge came to a sliding bottom. He pushed this back and disclosed a key-hole. A little search of the Admiral’s key-ring revealed a key of suitable size. He fitted it in. It turned easily. The door slid back and disclosed a folder similar to those in the cabinet and marked “X.”

  Before he had lifted it out, Rudge knew that he was to be disappointed. The folder lay flat as a visiting-card, and was, in fact, perfectly empty.

  He was still gazing at it in chagrin, when the door opened to admit Jennie with a tea-tray.

  “So you’re back, Jennie,” said Rudge, pleasantly. “It’s very kind of you to bring me tea. Is your mother better?”

  “Well, she’s none so good, Mr. Rudge, thank you. Doctor, he says it’s her back. He’s been down to her twice to-day and she’s a bit easier now, but she’s still very low.”

  Rudge expressed his sympathy and noted that the sick mother seemed to be genuine enough. When he had eaten his tea, he continued his search for the missing contents of the folder, but without success. Three telephone calls came to break the monotony: one from the coroner, asking Rudge to come and see him first thing next morning; the next from Mr. Dakers to say that he was still trying to get in touch with the Hollands and would be down on the eight-fifty; the third, much later, from the Vicar.

  “I am speaking from the Charing Cross Hotel,” said the crisp Oxford voice. “I find I shall be obliged to spend the night in town. I will ring you up again in the morning.”

  Rudge thanked him, and rang off. Then after a minute or two he took an obvious precaution. He rang up the Charing Cross Hotel.

  “Have you a Mr. Mount—Rev. Philip Mount—staying in the hotel?”

  A slight pause; then: “Yes, sir.”

  “Is Mr. Mount in the hotel?”

  “I will enquire; will you hold the line, sir?”

  A subdued babel; then the metallic clack of advancing footsteps and the rattle of the receiver.

  “Hullo, yes: who is it, please?”

  “That’s him all right,” thought Rudge. Aloud he said, “I just remembered something I wanted to ask you, sir,” and repeated his question about the length of the painter.

  The Vicar confirmed Peter’s statement and Rudge thanked him and rang off.

  “All O.K. so far. I didn’t like him going off like that, but he seems straight enough. Hope he is, because of these kids. But that rope’s a teaser and no mistake.”

  The eight-fifty arrived at Whynmouth in due course, and presently a taxi drew up at Rundel Croft. Rudge heard it turn up the drive and stop. His hopes rose, then sank again as he heard the door-bell.

  “Mrs. Holland would have walked in,” he muttered, disappointed. “But no!” He cheered up again. “The door’s locked, of course, because of possible intruders.”

  Emery’s steps shuffled through the hall. The study door opened and a tall, thin, grey-headed man was shown in—alone.

  “Mr. Dakers?” said Rudge, rising and executing something between a salute and a bow.

  “Yes,” said the lawyer, “and you, I take it, are Inspector Rudge. Quite so. Well now, Inspector, I am sorry to say I have failed to see either Mr. or Mrs. Holland. They are certainly staying at the Carlton, and were expected back to dinner. I have left a note for Mrs. Holland expressed in such terms that I think she can scarcely fail to pay attention to it. I need not say again how shocked and grieved I am at the whole occurrence.”

  “I quite see your point of view, sir,” said Rudge, “and I may add that the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Holland is making my own task none the easier. By the way, sir, I am in a somewhat peculiar position in this house, with Admiral Penistone dead and nobody else in charge, so to speak, but I dare say I shan’t be out of order in asking you if you have dined, before we go on to business.”

  “Thank you, Inspector, thank you—but I require nothing. I am obliged to you. I should like to hear at once all the details of this sad affair.”

  Rudge rapidly outlined the circumstances of the Admiral’s death and the departure of his niece, while Mr. Dakers contributed a running commentary of “Tuts” and “Dear, dears.”

  “There seems to be no doubt then, that Admiral Penistone was murdered.”

  “None at all, I am afraid, sir.”

  “He could not, I suppose, have—er—made away with himself and thrown the weapon into the river.”

  This solution had not presented itself to Rudge, but he replied that judging by the position of the body and the general circumstances, he thought it almost outside the bounds of probability.

  Mr. Dakers nodded mournfully.

  “I take it,” he said, with the air of a man taking a ferocious bull by the horns, “that there is—er—no suspicion attaching to my ward or her husband?”

  “Well,” said Rudge, cautiously, “I couldn’t say that suspicion attaches to any particular person so far. And other things being equal, the crime is certainly not the kind that we would suspect a young lady of. We know very little as yet about Mr. Holland. Possibly you can help us there, sir?”

  Mr. Dakers shook his head.

  “I know very little about him, beyond his name, and the fact that he was, in a manner, engaged to my ward.”

  “Did the engagement have Admiral Penistone’s consent, sir?”

  The lawyer looked very shrewdly at him.

  “I see what is in your mind, Inspector. Well, I suppose that is only to be expected, and it is quite useless for me to attempt to disguise the facts. So far as I know, Admiral Penistone, while reluctant as yet to give his consent to the marriage, had not definitely forbidden it. That is as much as I can tell you.”

  “I see, sir. Now about this will of John Martin Fitzgerald; I presume that Mr. Fitzgerald is dead, since you and the late Admiral were acting as trustees for M
rs. Holland. Is this the copy of the actual will that was proved at the time of death?”

  “It is. My friend John Fitzgerald was a solicitor; he died in 1916, and this was his latest will. I cannot say that it was a will I should have cared to draw up for him myself, nor was it, I think, a will he would willingly have drawn for one of his clients, but you know, Inspector, solicitors are notorious for making bad disposals of their own property.”

  “What was the will proved at?”

  “At about £50,000. That,” said Mr. Dakers, “did not represent the rewards of the law; the greater part of the money was inherited. But I had better begin from the beginning. John Fitzgerald married in 1888 Mary Penistone, the sister of the late Admiral. She died in 1911, and left two surviving children: Walter Everett, born in 1889, and Elma Mary, born nine years later, in 1898. When Walter was twenty, he got into some kind of trouble at home. I think it had to do with a young woman who was attached to the family in a dependent position—in fact, the governess. His father was extremely angry and there was a terrible quarrel. Young Walter ran away from home and disappeared, and for some time his name was not allowed to be mentioned. You know the kind of thing. Elma, of course, was too young to be told what the trouble was about, but Mrs. Fitzgerald always considered that her husband was too hard upon the boy.

  “She died, as I say, in 1911, and I really think the worry about Walter helped to break up her health—in fact, as we used to say, it broke her heart. I know John Fitzgerald thought so, and it had a very softening effect upon him. He made efforts to find Walter, though without success, and he executed a will, dividing his property between Walter and Elma.

  “Nothing was heard of Walter till the early part of 1915, when he sent his father a letter written from ‘Somewhere in France.’ He expressed himself as sorry for his previous bad behaviour and six years of neglect, hoped he was forgiven, and said that he was now endeavouring to turn over a new leaf and do his duty to his country. No word about where he had been in the interval. At the same time he enclosed ‘in case of accident’ a will drawn in favour of his sister Elma. His father and sister wrote back at once telling him to come home as soon as he got leave, and that all would be forgiven and forgotten. He never did come home, though he wrote from time to time, and after the disastrous battle of Loos his name appeared in the lists of ‘missing, believed killed.’ His father was at that time a very sick man. He was suffering from Bright’s disease, and had not very much longer to live. He absolutely refused to believe that Walter was dead. He had turned up before, he said, and would turn up again. Having in the meantime come into a large property, he re-drafted his will of 1911, leaving the disposition of his estate the same as before, but with certain additional clauses.

  “I must now say a word about his brother-in-law, Admiral Penistone. He—you may know something about his history?”

  “I have heard that there was some sort of interruption to his career in 1911.”

  “Oh, you know about that? Yes, a disgraceful business. I need not go into details, but the affair was one which made it extremely unsuitable that he should be appointed as guardian of the young girl. Understand me, I express no opinion as to whether Captain Penistone (as he was then) was actually to blame in the matter. But the mere fact that his name had been connected with such an unsavoury business should have been sufficient. However, John Fitzgerald, who never would believe ill of anybody—”

  “An unusual trait in a lawyer,” Rudge could not help remarking.

  “My good man, a lawyer in his private capacity and in his professional capacity may be two very different people,” retorted Mr. Dakers, with some asperity. “John Fitzgerald could not think ill of his wife’s brother. He maintained that Penistone had been unfairly treated, and by way of showing the world what he thought about it, he made him Elma’s trustee, and inserted that preposterous clause about her marriage.”

  “You yourself,” suggested Rudge, “accepted co-trusteeship with Admiral Penistone.”

  “And if I had not,” said Mr. Dakers, “he might have appointed some other black sheep who needed whitewashing. No. I made the best of a bad job, out of consideration for my poor friend’s daughter. And I must say, in justice to Admiral Penistone, that I have had no cause to complain of his management of his ward’s affairs. Although his manner was abrupt and at times disagreeable, I believe him to have been a perfectly honest man as regards money, nor was there anything unbecoming about the household he set up for his niece. Had there been, I should, of course, have interfered.”

  “By whose wish was it that Miss Fitzgerald went to live with her uncle?”

  “By her father’s. I thought it unsuitable, but I could produce no valid grounds of opposition. Elma’s share of the money was invested, by my advice, in sound securities, and the payments made to her quarterly by the trustees.”

  “A very nice little income,” remarked Rudge.

  “About £1,500 a year.”

  “It surprises me a little,” said Rudge, “that the Admiral did not keep up a more elaborate establishment for his niece. This house is pleasant enough, but it is very remote, and they did not see much company, or so I understand.”

  “That is true,” admitted Mr. Dakers, “but it was not altogether Admiral Penistone’s fault. He himself naturally shrank from going much into society, and from 1914 to 1918 he was, of course, on active service, but he put no restrictions upon his niece. She was given a good education and had the advantage of two London seasons under the chaperonage of a very suitable lady, but I fancy that society life was distasteful to her.”

  “Odd that she should not have got married earlier,” said Rudge. “A young lady with £25,000 or so should have had plenty of offers.”

  The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.

  “I fancy that Elma was—a little difficult,” he said. “She is perhaps not—attractive, in what I may call the marrying sense. There were some—needy persons, of course, but they were not encouraged. Admiral Penistone would not have dreamed of consenting to a marriage except with a man of independent means. And then, unfortunately, there was the scandal about Walter.”

  “What was that?”

  “Why, that happened in 1920. Obviously the first thing that seemed advisable was to obtain from the Courts leave to presume Walter’s death. We could not do anything till 1919, after the release of the British prisoners of war in Germany. His name was in none of the lists, and we expected to encounter no difficulty. Curiously enough, however, a man turned up who had been in Walter’s unit in 1915, and this man stated that he had seen Walter alive in Buda-Pesth after the cessation of hostilities. He said he had not spoken to him, but that he had no doubt whatever of his identity. Walter was, I believe, a strikingly handsome man—he certainly was handsome as a boy. He was very like his mother, who was a most beautiful woman, much better-looking than her brother the Admiral, though there was a strong family resemblance.

  “Well, of course, that meant further delay and more enquiries. We could get no news of Walter at all, but in view of the evidence of the soldier, the Court refused to presume death—naturally. Meanwhile, the affair had a very unfortunate sequel. As soon as it became known that Walter had probably not been killed during the War, we got the news that there was a warrant out for his arrest in Shanghai for forgery, if you please.”

  “In Shanghai?”

  “Yes. The warrant dated from 1914. Apparently Walter, when he left the country in 1909, had entered the employment of the Anglo-Asiatic Tobacco Company. He was in Hong Kong at first and in 1913 was transferred to Shanghai. He got into some sort of financial difficulties, I suppose. Anyway, he forged a signature of a client of the Company to a large cheque and ran away. The War broke out just about that time, and I suppose that in the general confusion the matter was held up or overlooked, till the news that Walter was supposed to have been killed in 1915 put an end to it. However, when it appeared likely that Walter had survived after all, up it all came again. The Admiral was very greatl
y distressed. This further scandal, cropping up just when his own old trouble seemed to have been forgotten, soured his temper completely.”

  “I take it Admiral Penistone had rejoined the Navy during the War.”

  “Yes. He was a fine officer, and they were glad to get him. He did good service and finally retired for the second time at the end of the War with the rank of Rear-Admiral. But if other people had forgotten his previous troubles, he hadn’t. They preyed on his mind, and this business about Walter finished him altogether. One man who had been semi-engaged to Elma withdrew rather pointedly when he heard about the brother, and Admiral Penistone said that he would not have his niece subjected to insult. He packed up bag and baggage and took her away with him to live in Cornwall. And there they stayed until a month ago. All this happened in 1920. Nothing has been heard of Walter since. So you see that the situation is rather a peculiar one.”

  “Yes,” said Rudge thoughtfully. “Walter seems to be awkwardly placed. If he comes forward and shows himself, he probably goes to penal servitude. If he doesn’t come forward, he can’t get his money.”

  “That is the situation precisely. On the other hand, if he is dead, his share of the money goes to Elma under his will of 1914. Provided, of course, that is, that the witness was correct in stating that he was actually still alive after his father’s death. If not, it still goes to her as residuary legatee under her father’s will.”

  “In that case Walter’s death would be to his sister’s financial advantage. I see. But now, Mr. Dakers, how do things stand with reference to Mrs. Holland’s own share of her father’s money? I presume that, the Admiral being now dead, the clause about the consent to the marriage becomes void.”

  “That is exactly the difficulty,” replied Mr. Dakers uneasily. “The point of view taken by the Court in such cases is that the testator cannot have required the beneficiary to perform impossibilities. Thus it has been held, over and over again, that in the case of the condition becoming impossible of fulfilment, through Act of God, the gift remains.”