Surfeit of Suspects

by George Bellairs

  ‘Let’s assume they were taken over for some reason. Accumulated losses, for example, which the company taking-over could claim back from the income tax people. With £5,000 Excelsior could pay off the bank loan and have £900 left. They borrowed £1,800 in loans from directors and friends. The £900 would repay ten shillings in the pound on the loans. But… But… Excelsior must have had a lot of creditors, who’d be on the doorstep clamouring for their share of the money, as well. They’d hardly see the bank and the loanholders liberally helping themselves without wanting their cut as well…’

  Obvious! Cromwell was showing signs of impatience at Newell’s banal analysis. He thrust his hand in his pocket for his cigarettes, remembered that his doctor had persuaded him to give up smoking, and withdrew it sadly.

  ‘If the directors were arranging a takeover which would rid them of all the worries of Excelsior, who’d want to blow them sky-high…?’ he said irritably.

  ‘Wait. Wait. You’re breaking my train of thought… It’s this takeover which might give us a clue. Who was taking over and why?’

  He looked at Littlejohn and Cromwell as though either or both of them had the answer pat and were holding out on him.

  ‘Polydore I. & P. Whatever that might mean.’

  Newell looked annoyed at Cromwell for thus producing a rabbit from the financial hat prematurely.

  ‘Exactly. Why were Polydore interested?’

  ‘Who is Polydore? What is she?’

  ‘Don’t be frivolous, Cromwell. I. & P. probably means Investment and Property Company.’

  ‘Have you heard of them before?’

  ‘The name rings a bell. May I use your intercom., Superintendent?’

  He rang up his office in distant parts and told Constable Williams to search the files for Polydore and bring the information.

  ‘If it’s a property and investment company, they’re hardly likely to invest in a tumbledown ruin like the Excelsior. There must be something else. The site! The site and buildings. That’ll be it.’

  ‘Those are rented from the former owner’s daughters, who inherited the freehold from him.’

  Newell looked crestfallen.

  ‘Had Excelsior a lease or option to purchase?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not a financial wizard. You’re the Fraud Squad, not me.’

  Cromwell was out of his depth, too. Littlejohn, sitting smoking and silently amused at the duet going on between Cromwell and Newell, thought he’d better interfere.

  ‘We’ll find out.’

  He took up the ’phone.

  ‘Look up the Bournemouth telephone directory, will you, please, and see if some Misses Jonas are there? I’ve forgotten their initials, but it’s an uncommon name and shouldn’t be hard to trace.’

  The answer came almost right away, just as Constable Williams arrived. A good-looking, blonde, buxom girl, with a file tucked under her arm. She smiled at Cromwell, who shed his irritability right away. He glanced across at Littlejohn, who was talking to the telephone operator, as though surprised at his continuing to practise humdrum routine with such a Juno there to minister to them.

  ‘There is a Miss Jonas? Right. Please get her for me.’

  ‘Hullo, Miss Williams…’

  Littlejohn knew her well. Her hobby was breeding cocker spaniels in kennels at Clapham and last year she’d won the Littlejohn Cup for the best bitch in the Metropolitan Police Dog Show.

  She had a file on Polydore. It was an old one which had fallen in the hands of the Fraud Squad when the secretary had misappropriated some of the trust’s fund instead of paying them over to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.

  ‘We’ve had nothing on it since 1952. The secretary apparently paid up and the case was dropped.’

  ‘Where did he get the money from, Miss Williams?’

  ‘I don’t know, Inspector Cromwell. I was too young to know anything about such things at that time.’

  Newell did not smile at his assistant’s humour. He never laughed or saw a joke. Fraud had taken all the fun out of life for him.

  ‘Never mind that. What’s happening to Polydore now? That’s what we want to know.’

  ‘There’s a note here, sir, presumably made when the files were gone through and cleaned up. “Moribund. Assets realised”. It seems to be a dead company with nothing in it.’

  ‘That was when?’

  ‘The note is dated 1953. The directors must have packed up and divided the assets after the secretary defaulted.’

  ‘What were their names?’

  ‘A family, by the looks of it… Henry, Arthur, Eva and Agnes Jonas.’

  ‘What!’

  Cromwell looked at Littlejohn to see how he was taking it. The Superintendent had been lighting his pipe and continued to do so until it was going to his satisfaction. Then he took up the telephone.

  ‘Cancel the call to Bournemouth, please.’

  ‘There was no reply, sir.’

  ‘So much the better. Thanks.’

  ‘We’ll call at Bournemouth on our way to Evingden in the morning, Cromwell.’

  Newell took out his handkerchief and sneezed heavily.

  ‘I hope it’s warmer there than here. Will there be anything more? I’m starved to death in this cold room.’

  Constable Williams shrugged her powerful shoulders gently. The place was like an oven.

  ‘You might enquire if Polydore has been revived since your last note. I take it, a moribund company can start to flourish again under the right treatment.’

  ‘Yes, it could be bought for an old song and revived. A few pence a share and the thing’s done. It’ll be a private company, though. Not as easy as a public one, you know.’

  Littlejohn smiled at Newell.

  ‘Not to you, surely, Newell. You have your methods, I take it.’

  ‘We have. And you needn’t smile about them, sir. They’re perfectly straightforward and above board, I can assure you.’

  It was Constable Williams’s turn to smile, disarmingly, as though confirming her boss’s statement. Newell didn’t appreciate it.

  ‘That will be all thanks, Miss Williams. You may go.’

  ‘Goodbye and thank you, Miss Williams. How are the dogs getting along?’

  ‘Fine, sir. We’ll be keeping the cup, I hope, at the next show.’

  ‘Cup? Show? What’s going on?’

  Nobody enlightened Newell, who didn’t seem to mind. He was very engrossed in his daily duties and was already mentally on the trail of Polydore.

  It was sunny in Bournemouth when Littlejohn and Cromwell arrived there next morning. People were strolling along the promenade enjoying the weather and, in odd corners, protected from the breeze, some were sitting reading their newspapers.

  The Misses Jonas lived in a cosy, ground-floor flat in a huge block overlooking the Isle of Wight. Littlejohn had telephoned earlier in the day to make sure of a favourable reception and had been most cordially invited to call whenever he liked.

  Both Miss Agnes and Miss Eva Jonas met Littlejohn and Cromwell in the small vestibule of their flat. They were a pleasant pair and one was as different from the other as chalk from cheese. Miss Eva, who was small, slim, and grey-haired and looked to be well in her fifties, played the piano very well and, in her time, had been a well-known accompanist. Miss Agnes, large and benevolent, with her auburn hair obviously skilfully dyed, for she was reputed to be only two years younger than Miss Eva, had been a prominent contralto in her heyday, and the overall physical development for such a reputation had increased her size to twice that of her sister and given her twice the volume of sound into the bargain.

  The two ladies, eminently qualified for the now out-of-date title of gentlewomen, shook hands and immediately started a round of hospitality by leading their visitors to their magnificent drawing-room for coffee an
d chocolate cake, to which Miss Agnes did full justice as the time went on.

  A large, light, airy room, with views of the sea on two sides and the Isle of Wight included in the other. It was furnished in contemporary style, with plenty of colour about. The antiques and Victorian knick-knacks of the old Jonas home near the factory in Evingden had obviously been shed somewhere on the way to Bournemouth. Miss Agnes, in the course of explaining their decorations, gave reasons for their tastes.

  ‘Our dear father taught us never to be sentimental about the past. “Never live in the past,” he would tell us. “The present and the future are yours. Regrets for the past and sentiment over its accumulated rubbish, can only bring sorrow.” He taught us that, didn’t he, Eva, and we have found wisdom in it?’

  There were, none the less, accumulated on the walls innumerable relics of departed pleasures. Portraits of famous singers whom Miss Eva must have accompanied and others showing Miss Agnes, then much younger and shapelier, appearing in Tosca, Rigoletto, La Bohème, Aïda and other rôles which Littlejohn failed to identify and at which Cromwell struggled to conceal his amusement. There were no signs of instruments or singing about the present room and, scenting Littlejohn’s interest in their affairs, Miss Eva, in her gentle cultured way, gave the reason.

  ‘Live music is not allowed in the flats. There was once here a Mr. Ludwig, who played the oboe so beautifully and frequently that it cast a cloud of melancholy over the whole building. Now only radio and television are tolerated in reason. Happily, in the grounds of this place, was an old bellevue belonging to the house which was demolished to make place for the flats. We persuaded the owners to retain the summer-house, which was a roomy one, as our studio and we rent it and enjoy our music there without causing a disturbance.’

  She then passed what was left of the cake after the inroads by Miss Agnes and her sister poured the tea.

  Dominating the room was a huge oil painting of Mr. Henry Jonas in the red robes and befeathered hat of Mayor of the ancient borough of Evingden. The regalia was the same as that worn by Alderman Vintner in the similar picture in his own home, although Vintner carried it with much less dignity and flair. Littlejohn recognised Mr. Jonas from first acquaintance with him in the snapshot recently shown to him of the group taken at the works’ outing of long ago. The same torpedo beard, bright eyes, air of gentlemanly ease and the Captain Kettleish humour and confidence.

  The expensive flat, the mode of life, the cultured grace and the social standing of Henry Jonas and his two girls must at one time have had their roots in the now tottering Excelsior Joinery Company. At some time or other, it must have yielded abundant profits.

  Both ladies, forewarned by Littlejohn of the purpose of his visit, seemed quite unexcited by the sensational happenings in their old hometown.

  ‘We’ve been so long away and everything there has changed so much. We feel now that we never really belonged there at all. There is, of course, the property which we own and our dear father’s and our mother’s grave in St. Michael’s churchyard, but the town itself has ceased to exist as we knew it.’

  ‘The property is really what concerns us quite a lot in our investigations, Miss Agnes. You still own the freehold?’

  ‘Yes, of course, although we may just as well not do so now. We haven’t received any rent for it for the past two… or is it three years, my dear…?’

  She made a gesture in the direction of her sister.

  ‘Eva looks after our finances. I was never any good in money matters except in extravagant spending. My sister, on the other hand, has quite a flair and considerably augments our income by fortunate investments on the Stock Exchange.’

  Miss Eva made little signs and noises, intended to indicate that this talent was a mere nothing. She was quick to answer the financial enquiry, though.

  ‘We haven’t had any rent for three years. The company, whose name was changed to the ridiculous Excelsior title after we sold it, has made a series of losses in recent years. We didn’t take any steps to recover the arrears of rent. Our dear father would not have wished us to pursue old servants of the firm who took it over from us.’

  ‘All except that awful Dodd,’ interjected Miss Agnes.

  ‘All except Dodd, as you say.’

  ‘Why the dislike of Dodd, Miss Eva?’

  ‘We ought not to speak ill of the dead, but he was a rogue. Our dear father was adept at finance and during his lifetime always made the company pay profits. When Dodd took charge, however, they always made losses.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that was roguery, would you?’

  ‘There are other things…’

  Miss Eva hesitated.

  ‘I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, as I said before.’

  ‘In the circumstances, I think you’d better tell us all you know. It will probably help us find whoever killed the three men.’

  ‘In the First World War, Dodd’s father was my father’s servant, batman, as they call them. My father was an officer in the territorials in those days and he owed his life to Dodd, senior, who went into no-man’s land and rescued him as he lay there wounded in the leg. Dodd’s father was later killed and my father felt responsible for young Dodd and found him work at the company, where he rose to be confidential secretary. He was not like his father; there was a streak of weakness in his character, perhaps derived from his mother. Dodd was placed in the company office and there did private and family work for father, as well as the company’s business.’

  Miss Agnes thereupon produced a box of Havana cigars and gave Littlejohn and Cromwell one apiece.

  ‘Excuse my interrupting, but I’m sure you smoke. The smell of a good cigar always reminds us of our dear father. These cigars were some he left behind…’

  Years ago! Yet, they’d been well kept and preserved. Littlejohn and Cromwell carefully cut and lighted them, Cromwell, who’d forsworn smoking, mentally excusing himself for a brief lapse. It was like a rite in memory of the dead. The smoke rose like incense and there was a short pause as the spirit of Mr. Henry Jonas pervaded the air.

  ‘To resume, Superintendent. Over a number of years, John Dodd manipulated the books of the Jonas family trust. He appropriated funds for his own use. Quite a substantial sum. More than a thousand pounds. He didn’t pay the income tax when it fell due and suppressed letters sent demanding it by the Inland Revenue. A police case was only avoided by my dear father’s intervention. For the sake of Dodd’s father, our father paid the thousand pounds out of his own pocket, plus a penalty of £2,000 for submitting improper returns…’

  That perhaps explained the record of Polydore Trust in the Fraud Squad files!

  ‘What was the name of your family trust?’

  ‘Polydore Trust Limited. My grandfather who founded the fund for the benefit of his children, was called Henry Polydore Jonas. It was named after him. After Dodd’s disgraceful behaviour, we abandoned the use of the trust. It was no longer needed in any case.’

  ‘Did the trust company remain in being?’

  ‘Yes. There were no investments or other assets in it, but the company remained and eventually, strange to say, it was sold.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘I will explain. My father actually forgave Dodd. As I told you, he felt he owed it to Dodd’s father. He removed everything financial from Dodd’s care and gave him the post as traveller, “on the road”, as the saying goes. Had father cared to do so, he could have prosecuted Dodd and only with great difficulty prevented the Inland Revenue people from doing so.’

  ‘How did Polydore come to be sold?’

  ‘Our banker approached us and suggested it. Although it was an empty shell, he said he knew some London people who were seeking a moribund company in which to place certain reserve funds. They offered us a nominal sum for the company. Two hundred and fifty pounds for what to us were shares not worth two hundred and fifty pe
nce. Our banker said it would be perfectly legal and, as the name of Jonas did not appear in the title, we felt we could accept the offer without fear. The parties making the offer were said to be very reputable…’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Our solicitor and our banker both made enquiries and assured us of the integrity of the people.’

  ‘May I ask the names of the lawyer and bank manager?’

  ‘Of course. Mr. Christopher Boycott, was, and still is, our lawyer and Mr. Handel Roper, of the Home Counties Bank in Evingden, was our banker at the time. Both men of repute.’

  Littlejohn wondered!

  ‘Two hundred and fifty pounds for nothing. We decided to accept.’

  Miss Eva, whom her sister had described as the financial wizard of the pair of them, had evidently known a good thing when she met it.

  ‘What was the name of the purchasers?’

  ‘The Deliverance Investment and Development Trust.’

  What a name!

  ‘Who was behind it?’

  ‘I really don’t know and I took the word of Mr. Boycott and Mr. Roper for the integrity of those concerned. They said it was a reputable London private banking connection and the good name of our trust would be preserved. They urged us to accept, as the offer was exceptional.’

  ‘These two gentlemen frequently advised you on such matters?’

  ‘In the confusion arising from the sudden tragic death of our dear father everything was upset and Mr. Boycott and Mr. Roper were most kind to us.’

  Miss Agnes had now made some more tea and produced another chocolate cake. They sat for a time, watching the sea and the sunshine across the water and the changing colours of the Isle of Wight as the clouds scudded across the sky.

  ‘May I ask if the new Excelsior company took a lease of the property of the works and offices from you?’

  ‘Yes. When the new company, composed of father’s old employees, took over, we agreed to a ten years’ lease at £200 per annum. It was specially favourable due to sentiment, you see. My father would have been glad to know into whose hands the family business was passing, although he would not much have cared for John William Dodd being a party to it. Neither did we, but there was nothing we could do without injuring the rest. After all, Dodd seemed to have gone straight after father rescued him.’