by L. A. Nisula
“It was Mr. Beauregard doing it.”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the table. “Was it a large bet?”
“Two-hundred pounds.”
That was a large bet. “And could it have been something Mr. Reginald had agreed to pay for Mr. Beauregard?”
“No, it was definitely submitted as something Mr. Reginald had spent.” Jimmy looked at my expression “That means Mr. Beauregard killed his brother, right?”
I sighed. “Why would he, though? He had a perfect system. He hides his losses in his brother’s mismanaged company and gets to go on being seen as the virtuous, sensible one. Why spoil that? Unless the audit. That would all have come out in the audit, wouldn’t it?”
Jimmy nodded. “Unless Mr. Reginald had gambling debts of his own and didn’t notice Mr. Beauregard’s. But Mr. Lennox would have listed them all out for him to see.”
“Did you notice where the bet was placed?”
“At Glenn and Shaw, same as before.”
Where he was Regular Reggie. I’d wondered again if he’d started that name there, at least the Reggie part, to suggest it was his brother doing the gambling. He probably didn’t realize the employees there would remember his full name. I paused. What if that wasn’t the first time he’d done that? That would explain why none of the pieces had seemed to fit together. I was trying to fit them to the wrong brother.
As the waitress brought our food, I considered all the things that hadn’t fit properly. What if Mr. Beauregard wasn’t using Mr. Reginald’s flat as a mail drop, but was the one renting the flat? That was why he’d snuck over in the night to empty it out and why he’d left so much money under Mrs. Branston’s door, stopping any chance of her questioning it. He couldn’t have Mrs. Branston see him when he cleared the place out. She would have known he was the man she’d rented the place to, not the deceased Mr. Reginald Hilliard, and then the police would have looked into what he was doing. He was very lucky they hadn’t asked Mrs. Branston to identify the body. Had she seen him, she would have known he wasn’t the brother she’d rented the flat to. With her leg, they’d probably only asked for the name of the tenant and a description, and if he’d looked enough like the description, and as they were brothers it was likely he did, it would have been enough until they could get a family member to make a proper identification.
That explained the metal skeleton I’d seen too. Not something for Mr. Reginald’s shop, something for Mr. Beauregard’s betting system. Sensible, favored Beauregard Hilliard had a system all right. He was planning to fix races. He’d been hiding his debts in his brother’s failing shop while he worked out his plan, or perhaps he really had been thinking he had a system and was merely refining it. He probably placed the new bet on the way home while Mr. Reginald was still at his shop. In any case, no one had noticed the extra losses while they all thought Mr. Reginald’s shop was failing, but when Mr. Reginald thought he ought to be turning a profit, he asked for an audit. And Mr. Beauregard couldn’t have that, not if he wanted to continue hiding his losses. And then somehow Mr. Reginald had gotten the address of the room in Portland Road. Or perhaps the envelope of gears had made him curious. In any case, he must have gone to see what was being rented in his name and surprised Mr. Beauregard there. Mr. Reginald ran a tinkering shop. He would have known enough to know what Mr. Beauregard was working on. And seeing his brother using him to pay debts and rent a room and make him look like a failure, he must have wanted it to stop, said something about taking steps to make it stop. And Mr. Beauregard couldn’t have that, couldn’t have his father know he wasn’t the responsible one after all.
“Have we solved it?” Jimmy asked around a mouthful of the pie he’d ordered.
“I think so. I need to bring this to Inspector Peterson. I hope you’ll excuse me. Feel free to finish my lunch as well.”
Jimmy nodded with his mouth full as I got up. I found our waitress on my way out and left enough money to cover our meal and hurried out.
When I left Jimmy, I had every intention of going directly to Scotland Yard, but I was so close to Hilliard’s Sundries, it seemed silly not to confirm a few points. Miss Shepherd would know if the resemblance between the brothers was enough to make the misidentification possible, and if Mr. Beauregard might know something about tinkering. The more information I could give Inspector Peterson, the better, particularly as none of what I had was, strictly speaking, evidence. More a theory that explained everything that had happened, but with no actual proof, which was what Inspector Peterson needed.
When I got to the shop, Miss Shepherd was re-arranging the displays with the look of someone trying to find something to do. Miss Hopkins was nowhere to be seen.
“Miss Pengear, hello. Did you think of some way I could help you investigate, or did you want to try one of our kits? I don’t think we have any investigating dogs, but we do have one that winds yarn with his tail that actually works quite well.”
I’ll admit I was rather tempted by that—an automatic yarn winder sounded quite practical to me and one can never go wrong with puppies—but I thought I should probably work on the murder before I started a new project. “I was wondering about a couple of loose ends, and I was hoping you might have some ideas on them.”
“I’m more than happy to help. It’s certainly more interesting than anything that’s happening here. What sort of ends are they?”
That was something I’d been thinking of as I’d walked over. “You said Mr. Hilliard been arguing with his brother not long before he died. Do you know what it was about?”
She seemed to have been expecting that sort of a question. “They did argue quite a bit, but I never thought of it as more than the sort of thing brothers do. That time I think Mr. Beauregard was complaining about something. The paper knives, I think.”
“The paper knives?”
“Mr. Hilliard wanted something to commemorate the shop doing well, so he was having paper knives made up. I think it was the fifth sample he was going to pick up that day. None of them were very practical. He kept trying different arrangements to make them look mechanical without actually being mechanical.”
That sounded like the knife Milly had picked-up. That was something I hadn’t considered, that the knife didn’t have any prints on it because it was brand-new. So perhaps the killer hadn’t dropped it, but it had fallen out of the victim’s pocket. I’d have to ask Inspector Peterson if that was possible.
Miss Shepherd went on, “It wasn’t working very well. He’d been having samples made up, and Mr. Beauregard was complaining about the expense. Mr. Hilliard told him they’d discuss it after the audit. I think he was expecting good news about the shop and wanted to have that to back up his decisions, or perhaps flaunt it in Mr. Beauregard’s face. Most likely both.”
“So Mr. Beauregard knew there was going to be an audit?” I was quite glad I’d stopped at the shop first. Miss Shepherd was proving quite good at finishing off loose ends.
“I assume so.”
“How long before the murder was that?”
Miss Shepherd looked surprised at that question but she didn’t ask anything. “It was the morning before he died, I think. I know they’d argued just before because I felt quite bad for Mr. Beauregard when he told me about the murder. I was hoping they’d had time to make up before it happened.”
“Mr. Beauregard was the one who told you it had happened?” Somehow, I’d been thinking it was the police.
“Yes, the morning after it happened. He was in the shop when I got here and broke the news.”
The shop seemed an odd place to go upon hearing your brother had died, unless he had some other reason for coming to the shop. Hiding the gears he’d gotten from the shop, perhaps, or the notes he’d left ordering them, or even hiding the murder weapon. That hadn’t been found yet. I remembered the first time I’d spoken to Miss Shepherd, the trouble she’d been having with the cash register. I tried to remember what a gear turner looked like. “You said he was in the
shop when you arrived?”
“That’s right. I had the impression he’d been waiting for me for a while. At least he seemed quite impatient when I arrived.”
So he would have had plenty of time to hide the murder weapon in the toolbox. “What did the tool you had two of look like?”
Miss Shepherd went behind the counter and took out a box of long, screwdriver-like tools. “These two. We ought to have a full set of sizes, but we have two of this size.”
I leaned over to look at it. It was similar to a screwdriver, only the flat head of it had a sharp edge, almost like a chisel, and there was a second, slightly shorter, piece crossing the flat part about half-way down, making a sort of X shape. The one they had two of looked as if it could reasonably be said to have a one-and-a-half-inch main piece and a one-inch crosspiece. In other words, the spare tool could have been the murder weapon. The only question left was how Mr. Reginald had ended up at Portland Road. “Have you ever heard Mr. Hilliard mention Portland Road?”
Miss Shepherd didn’t seem to be expecting that question, but she answered readily. “Oddly enough, yes, not long before he died. He had been trying to find out why he wasn’t getting samples of those paper knives I mentioned, and the factory said they’d been sending them to an address on Portland Road. They’d lost the original order and didn’t have the address he’d given them. He was quite upset about it. It seemed that wasn’t the first time something of his had gone to that address. I was trying to agree with him to calm him down, so I said something like they should have contacted someone at Andsdale and Lennox as that was where their payments came from, and he said that’s who gave them that address. And then he said ‘that’s why it’s odd—but I’m sure Lennox can explain it tomorrow,’ and then he shrugged and left.”
So someone at Andsdale and Lennox must have gone into the same account box Jimmy had shown me and found the address for the Portland Road room. If he was paying rent on it, it would be logical to assume that was where he lived or where his shop was. “Was anyone else here when that happened?”
“No. Miss Hopkins had left for the day, I think. And there weren’t any customers.”
“Not Mr. Beauregard?”
“No, but he had been in earlier. That’s when they had the argument over the paper knives.”
“Was Mr. Beauregard around a lot?”
“Not really. He used to come in every now and again to give his brother advice. More to see how he was doing and gloat, I think. He’s been around more since—recent events. I suppose he thinks he’s going to inherit and wants to see if it’s worth anything.”
“So Mr. Reginald wouldn’t have asked him about the paper knives?”
“No, and when you say it like that, I don’t really know how Mr. Beauregard would have known about them to begin with.”
He would have if he’d opened the package expecting to find some of his tinkering goods that he was getting from his brother’s store and found a useless paper-knife instead. And if he realized the mistake at the factory was about to lead his brother to his embezzlement, that would be a reason to be angry and a reason to try and get him to stop ordering them. That was plenty of information to bring to Inspector Peterson. I was just about to tell Miss Shepherd to put the toolbox somewhere safe until it could be collected when the shop door opened. I was prepared to ignore the customer when I heard a familiar voice.
“How are things, Miss Shepherd?”
“Just fine, Mr. Beauregard. Did you need something?”
I stepped away from the toolbox as unobtrusively as I could.
“I thought I’d come to help you tidy up. I’ll be selling this place soon, I think. Good afternoon, miss. Didn’t I just see you at my accountant’s?”
How on earth had he connected me to his accountants? He must have seen me with Jimmy. But why would Jimmy have asked to meet me when my main suspect was in the office? Clearly, he wasn’t as good at detective work as I’d thought. “I wouldn’t think so. I’m only visiting from America. I can see you’re both busy. I’ll get out of your way.”
“Nonsense. You keep looking around. We’re not closing up yet, are we, Miss Shepherd? In fact, allow me to show you a few things.” Mr. Beauregard stepped forward as he said that and knocked a full box of screws onto the floor. I thought he was going for a casual accident, but he failed quite obviously. “Never mind, I’ll get them.” He was on his hands and knees before either Miss Shepherd or I could say anything.
I thought it seemed an odd thing to do. How could knocking screws on the floor stop me from leaving unless he thought I’d feel obligated to help pick them up? Miss Shepherd looked downright perplexed. I started for the door. If I could just get past him, I could hurry to the Underground and get Inspector Peterson to come sort it all out. Or find the local constable and send him over. And then Mr. Beauregard started knocking the screws about and chasing them. I felt several hit my shoe as I walked past. “Why, miss, I do think you’ve lost a shoe button.”
I’d been so worried about Inspector Peterson finding my shoe button at the crime scene, it had never occurred to me to worry about the murderer finding it, and Mr. Beauregard had just cleaned out the room and done a thorough job of it according to Mrs. Branston. “I did that on the train. The steps are so far from the platform.”
Mr. Beauregard was on his feet before I could move any closer to the door, the screws forgotten. “Did you now? Well, I think we should get that repaired, shouldn’t we? There’s a shop just around the corner. I’ll show you.” He grabbed my arm.
Miss Shepherd came around the counter. “I’ll show her where it is. I wouldn’t want to put you out, Mr. Hilliard.”
“Nonsense. You have the counter to mind.”
“I was going to close up for lunch anyway,” Miss Shepherd said without missing a beat. I realized the toolbox had already been moved from the counter.
I tried to pull my arm away. “I’m sure there’s someplace near my hotel. Or I’ll have the desk clerk send them out. They’ll know just what to do.”
Mr. Beauregard did not loosen his grip on my arm.
I was trying to think how to signal to Miss Shepherd that she ought to leave me and go for a constable without alerting Mr. Beauregard when Inspector Peterson walked into the shop.
“Miss Pengear, I might have known.”
Mr. Beauregard smiled at the inspector. “Good afternoon, Inspector. Hard at work on my brother’s case, I see. I was just going to show Miss Pengear where the cobbler has his shop. I’m sure Miss Shepherd can help you with whatever you need.”
I tried to signal to Inspector Peterson that I wasn’t about to leave with Mr. Beauregard when Constable Jenkins came forward and grabbed his arm. “You’re going to have to come with me, sir.”
“Inspector, what is the meaning of this?” Mr. Beauregard was trying to look furious. He only managed to look scared.
“Just a few more questions, sir. If you would just go with the constable, we have a cab waiting.”
Mr. Beauregard looked as if he didn’t know whether it would be more suspicious to struggle or to agree. While he was still making up his mind, Constable Jenkins steered him towards the door.
Inspector Peterson waited until the pair of them had left then turned to me. “Do you remember what I said about one body per crime?”
I decided it was best to change the subject. “You might want to take the gear turner Miss Shepherd has behind the counter. I think the spare size six is the murder weapon.”
Miss Shepherd had already retrieved the toolbox from the shelf where she had hidden it. “I thought the shop girl had misplaced one of our tools, but Mr. Hilliard must have swapped the murder weapon for one of ours. I wouldn’t have noticed, only he took the size five and replaced it with a six. There’s a quarter-inch difference between them, but he might not have noticed if he wasn’t using it to adjust anything.”
Inspector Peterson looked at the tray of tools. “I’m going to have to take these.”
“Of
course. I’ll get a bag. Would you write out a receipt?”
As he scribbled out the receipt, Inspector Peterson glared at me. “You’ll have to come to the station to answer some questions.”
I nodded. Hopefully, he’d answer a few as well.
Constable Jenkins had already taken Mr. Beauregard away in their cab, so Inspector Peterson found us another, which was a relief as I had no desire to spend any amount of time trapped in a small carriage with Mr. Beauregard. Inspector Peterson sat me down in his office and had me tell him the entire story slowly and with many interruptions, mostly for questions, although there were also quite a few to remind me of his one-body rule per case. But he did listen, and he did take notes. When I’d gotten to the end, which I decided was when he arrived on the scene and was able to see everything for himself, he handed his notes to a constable to type up.
As we had to wait for the constable to return with a statement for me to read and sign, it seemed an appropriate time for conversation, so I asked, “So how did you know where to find me?”
“Are you ready to admit that police work is best left to the police?”
I tried to brush him off with, “Thank you, is that what you want?”
He smiled. “So you won’t admit it. Fortunately, your friend Jimmy has more sense. I met him when I was following up on the next name on my list of suspects.”
“The list I gave you?”
“A list culled from many sources.”
“So it was my list.”
“Do you want to hear the story or not?”
“Sorry.” Inspector Peterson really was being very patient with me.
“Fortunately for you, the next name on the list was Mr. Lennox. Your friend Jimmy spent most of my visit trying to signal me. I finally figured out that we were supposed to meet secretly outside.”
“And he told you where I was.”
“He told me everything he told you, and that he thought Beauregard Hilliard had seen him meeting with you. Seems he didn’t know Beauregard Hilliard was coming in to discuss his inheritance that day. He saw which way you went out of the window of the tea shop and thought you might have gone to check the shop, and then he saw Hilliard heading in that direction when he left, so I thought I’d better come and check on you.”
