The Disappearance of Alistair Ainsworth

by Leonard Goldberg

  “They were found in the victim’s pockets,” Lestrade replied.

  “Strange.”

  “How so?”

  “That they were left behind,” Joanna said, and turned to the group who was gathered just outside the door. “Who was the last to see Montclair alive?”

  “I was,” Roger Marlowe answered. “It was almost seven when I said good night to Geoffrey and traveled down to the pub for a quiet drink.”

  “Did you lock the door after you?”

  “I do not recall, but it is my usual custom to do so.”

  “At the time of your departure was Geoffrey Montclair working on the message in his typewriter?”

  Marlowe nodded. “As he had been for most of the day. He felt certain there was something amiss within Tubby’s last message that was of critical importance.”

  “Are you referring to the one he decoded for the Germans?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Montclair give any hint as to what he was searching for?”

  “He continued to state that something was off,” Marlowe answered. “Apparently some fact tucked away in his photographic memory seemed to contradict the current message.”

  “Was it common for Montclair to remain after the others departed?”

  “That was most unusual, for he always seemed to have other engagements for the evening,” Marlowe said. “But in this instance, he thought he was very close to the answer and wished to pursue it, rather than break his line of concentration.”

  “So death could have occurred any time between then and now,” Joanna concluded.

  “Unfortunately that is so, for we have no way to time the event with precision,” Lestrade said. “Nevertheless, the coldness of the corpse would suggest death happened some hours ago.”

  “Perhaps my husband could be of assistance here,” Joanna suggested.

  “We would be most grateful for his expertise in this matter.”

  I began my examination from a distance and purposely avoided the fatal wound, for not to do so can distract the examiner from other less obvious clues that may be equally important. The slumped position of the corpse over his typewriter and the failure to see blood elsewhere indicated the death blow was administered while Montclair sat at his desk. There were no defensive wounds about his hands and wrists, which was additional proof that Montclair was caught totally unawares. I glanced down at the corpse’s groin and saw no blood or evidence of sexual mutilation which at times occurs when the victim is killed in a bout of homosexual rage. The muscles of the arms and face were only beginning to show signs of rigor mortis. Finally I inspected the knife wound that penetrated so deeply into the thorax it would have caused injury to or perhaps severed a great artery. Grasping the knife’s handle, I attempted to move it side to side in order to gauge the knife’s depth, but found it quite fixed in place. My gaze went back to the victim’s bloodied hand, and I wondered how the blood arrived there. There were no wrist or arm wounds to account for this.

  Joanna asked, “Tell me, John, what so draws your attention to the victim’s hand?”

  “I was trying to determine how the blood reached it.”

  A Mona Lisa smile came to Joanna’s face. “Curious, isn’t it?”

  Lestrade stepped in for a closer look and said, “He was probably reaching back in an attempt to extract the knife.”

  “The wound would have been quite painful,” my father interjected.

  “My reasoning as well, Dr. Watson,” Lestrade said. “The thief steals up on Mr. Montclair, stabs him in the back, and allows him to briefly struggle against the wound before removing the victim’s possessions and fleeing.”

  “Such a waste,” Mary Ellington declared. “He had such a fine mind. And he seemed so close to solving the coded message now in his typewriter. As a matter of fact, he called me last evening just before nine to confirm the exact number of Orkney Islands. He seemed to think that might be an important clue.”

  “Were you able to give him the answer?” Joanna asked.

  “I confirmed there are seventy islands in the archipelago,” Mary responded. “He said he would add the number into his equation, whatever that meant.”

  “Well then, we can now state with certainty that the victim was murdered some time after nine in the evening,” Lestrade said.

  “Can you be more precise than that, John?” Joanna asked.

  “Death occurred approximately five hours ago,” I answered. “Rigor mortis is now setting in more completely and involves the muscles of the jaw, neck, and upper extremities. In that the body was discovered at seven forty-five this morning and rigor mortis requires five hours to show itself, we can estimate he was murdered at two forty-five.”

  “At which time the pub below was closed,” Joanna said unhappily.

  “Of what significance is that?” Lestrade asked.

  “Possible witnesses,” Joanna replied. “Of which we currently have none.”

  “We are now scouring the neighborhood in that regard,” Lestrade said. “Although I must admit that I am not optimistic.”

  Joanna went over to the window and attempted to open it, but it was securely fastened. Next she gazed at the door and the transom over it. “Tell me, Lieutenant Dunn, is this facility not kept under some sort of surveillance late at night? After all, important, sensitive documents pass through these rooms.”

  “There is no need,” Dunn said. “As I mentioned earlier, the documents you refer to are secure in Whitehall at that hour. No personal items are left behind either.”

  “And that is why our common thief found nothing of value in Montclair’s desk,” Lestrade noted. “But his mistake may have been in taking Mr. Montclair’s gold timepiece. He will no doubt attempt to pawn it, and we will alert all pawnshops to be on the lookout for the timepiece, which, by the way, we are informed has Montclair’s initials engraved on its back surface.”

  “Do you believe the thief is that stupid?” Joanna asked.

  “Most of them are, madam.”

  “Well then, we shall leave you to your investigation,” Joanna said, taking a final glance at the typewriter and the bloodied hand that rested upon it. Something about the message within the typewriter seemed of particular interest.

  Lestrade followed her line of vision before saying, “I trust you will inform us if any further clues come to light.”

  “Rest assured I will.”

  As we stepped into the central area of the Admiralty Club’s rooms, Mary Ellington raced after us. She was holding up a folded slip of paper. “Mrs. Watson, I believe this just dropped from your purse.”

  Joanna took the slip and, without looking at it, returned it to her purse. “Thank you,” she said warmly. “I sometimes make little notes to myself.”

  “As do I,” Mary said, and retreated back into her office.

  Once we had carefully climbed down the wet back stairs and were seated in our carriage, Joanna sighed deeply to herself. “This is obviously not the work of a common thief.”

  “Surely you do not think the German agents performed this dastardly deed,” I said.

  “Of course not,” Joanna said. “Such an adventure would have been far too risky for them. If they wanted him silenced, why would they endanger themselves by coming to these rooms? There are a dozen other places they could have dispatched him without raising suspicion.”

  “Who then?”

  “The traitor.”

  My father and I leaned forward, both of us wondering what signs we had missed.

  “There is no other explanation, and all clues point to that singular conclusion,” Joanna elucidated. “Let us begin with the supposed common thief. He is tall and no doubt powerfully built, yet he enters Montclair’s office unnoticed. With Montclair’s desk facing the door, surely the thief would have been seen.”

  “How did you determine the thief was both tall and powerful?” my father asked.

  “From the angle of the knife, which was at forty-five degrees,” Joanna explained.
“Thus, it had to be delivered by someone who loomed above Montclair’s upper thorax. A short man could have never performed such a feat.”

  “Is your observation that the murderer was powerfully built based on the depth of the knife wound?”

  “That and John’s inability to move the position of the blade,” Joanna replied, and turned to me. “It was rather fixed in place, was it not?”

  “Indeed,” I said, then recited the obvious. “It was either embedded between the ribs or jammed into the vertebrae of the spine. Only a powerful man could have delivered such a blow.”

  “So we have a tall, well-built thief who passes within touching distance of Montclair, yet his presence goes undetected,” Joanna continued on. “This would have been highly unlikely, and even more unlikely is the conclusion that a common thief would kill Montclair. There was no need for murder. The thief could have easily overcome Montclair with a single blow to the head. Also, keep in mind that even stupid thieves will avoid murder at all costs, for if caught, robbery lands them in prison for five years, while murder assures them the gallows.”

  “You raise good points,” my father said. “But they are hardly conclusive.”

  “Ah, but the list goes on. What sort of thief takes a gold timepiece and wallet, yet leaves behind a leather card case and fountain pen that can easily be pawned? And there were four shillings in Montclair’s pocket that our thief overlooked or ignored. It is also striking that he didn’t bother with the ring on Montclair’s finger that would have brought a pretty price on the black market.”

  “I too saw the ring, but did not place great significance to it,” I admitted. “Pray tell what made it so valuable?”

  “Its Freemason symbol, which consists of a Masonic square and compasses, with the letter G in its center,” Joanna described. “No thief worth his salt would ever leave it behind. You see, after money, thieves search meticulously for the next most valuable item, which is jewelry. Finally, your attention should be drawn to the position of the corpse’s hands. Do you observe anything in that regard, Watson?”

  My father took several puffs on his cherrywood pipe as he considered the question. “There was a bloodied hand resting on the typewriter.”

  “A single hand,” Joanna emphasized. “Now, I ask you, who sits at a typewriter with only one hand on the keyboard? The answer is no one. He had a hand on the typewriter in a final effort to point to the sheet of paper it possessed. He even smeared his blood on the sheet so we could not help but notice it.”

  “Perhaps it was simply a random motion of a dying man,” my father suggested.

  Joanna shook her head at once. “Highly skilled codebreakers, like Montclair, do not make random moves. Every act they take has a purpose. Thus allow me, if you will, to reconstruct the last moments of Geoffrey Montclair’s life. Someone he knows enters his office, causing no alarm. That person gazes over Montclair’s shoulder at the sheet in the typewriter and becomes aware that Montclair is close to uncovering the traitor’s identity. The person then stabs Montclair in the back and attempts to make the scene appear that of a common robbery. He leaves the office, believing Montclair is dead, but the codebreaker still has a breath of life in him. With his last move on the face of the earth, Montclair dips his finger in his own blood, which is pouring out from the wound just below the neckline, and points to the sheet in the typewriter. You may recall that people facing such a death often try to leave a message behind that names the murderer. Thus, the message on that sheet will tell us who murdered Geoffrey Montclair and who the traitor is, for they are one and the same.”

  “Which narrows the list of suspects to Roger Marlowe and Mary Ellington,” I concluded.

  “With Marlowe being the most likely by far,” my father asserted.

  “So it would appear,” Joanna said as she reached in her purse for the folded slip Mary Ellington had retrieved.

  “I was unaware that you wrote notes to yourself,” I remarked.

  “I don’t,” Joanna said.

  “But you accidentally dropped a slip of paper from your purse.”

  “I lost nothing from my purse,” Joanna said. “I was simply covering for her.”

  “Covering what?”

  “Her rather clever way of sending me a message.”

  Joanna unfolded the slip. It read:

  THE POETS’ CORNER AT NOON

  20

  Westminster Abbey

  At noon, Westminster Abbey was overflowing with tourists, many of whom were congregated in the Poets’ Corner to pay homage to England’s greatest poets and writers. We found Mary Ellington standing over the tablet in the floor bearing the name Alfred Lord Tennyson.

  “Is Tennyson your favorite poet?” Joanna asked quietly.

  “My very favorite,” Mary answered. “His haunting lines in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ continue to resonate in my mind. You may recall how they read: ‘Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die’. Those few words remind us of the futility of war in a most powerful manner.”

  I did remember the famous lines that commemorated the tragic loss of life in the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. It brought to mind that Mary Ellington had also paid the terrible price of war, having lost her only son in battle just months ago.

  Mary sighed sadly and strode over to the William Shakespeare memorial. She waited for a group of tourists to depart before saying in a low voice, “What do you think of the message in the typewriter?”

  “It needs to be deciphered,” Joanna replied.

  “Oh, you think more than that. I could not help but notice how intently you studied it. Be good enough to inform me what so drew your attention.”

  “Notes left behind by the deceased can be quite revealing,” Joanna said. “When an individual commits suicide, the note will speak of despair and an occasional good-bye. Those in a case of murder are often an attempt to identify the person who perpetrated the crime.”

  “This is certainly not suicide, is it?”

  “Not unless you can describe the mechanism by which one plunges a dagger into one’s back.”

  “So we can conclude that Geoffrey Montclair was trying to name his murderer.”

  “That is a reasonable assumption.”

  “It is also reasonable to assume I remain high on your list of suspects.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “Because you considered the possibility that my invitation might be a trap of some sort,” Mary said tonelessly, then gestured with her head at the entrance to Poets’ Corner where my father was stationed. “Is he armed?”

  “Of course.”

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  “But I must say you are not very high up on the list of likely suspects.”

  “I should hope not, for time is now of the essence,” Mary said in a voice meant only for us. “With that in mind, let us return to the heart of the matter, which is the coded message within the message. I am your only chance to decipher it and that is why you are here.”

  “Roger Marlowe could be of assistance,” I suggested. “Particularly since he was quite close to Alistair Ainsworth.”

  Mary shook her head at once. “Roger is far too high on your list of suspects for obvious reasons. So you must either trust me or walk away now.”

  Joanna and I remained in place.

  “Let us begin with Geoffrey Montclair,” Mary continued. “He knew something was amiss with the message in the typewriter and wondered if the critical clue was the number three or some variation of it. For example, could it refer to every third letter in the message or such? Or to the square root of three or a multiple of it? Now, with Roger Marlowe being the mathematical wizard, Montclair went to him for ideas. Roger tried a variety of equations, but could not apply the number three to the remainder of the message. They both began to believe that the number was not the key and had little relevance in deciphering the code. I believed otherwise and still do, but find myself at a stalemate. Which brings us to the pur
pose of this meeting. At this point I require outside assistance to unravel the code. I need to know everything the police know about the life of Alistair Ainsworth outside the Admiralty Club. In particular, please focus on the number three, as in Tubby’s address, phone number, passport, appointment times unrelated to work, and the like. I am certain therein lies our answer.”

  “Might I inquire how a street address could be useful?” I asked.

  “Permit me to give you a simple example,” Mary replied. “Let us say the number in question is twenty-five and the person lives at twenty-five or two-five Iron Road. The two or second letter in the address is r, which is followed by an o. The five or fifth letter in the address is also an r, followed by an o. Thus, we have ro mentioned twice, and we recall that the first name of the prime suspect is Robert, and so the finger of guilt points directly at him.”

  “Or the ro could signify the name Roger,” I thought aloud. “As in Roger Marlowe.”

  “Good,” Mary approved. “Now you begin to see the light.”

  “Do you consider him a prime suspect?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “There is one consideration we have not yet discussed,” Joanna said, then paused as a well-dressed couple strolled by in front of us. “That being the message itself. Are we certain the line—‘Three U-boats off the innermost Orkneys’—is correct in every regard?”

  “To the best of my knowledge.”

  “Is there more written in the original message sent out to the Royal Navy?”

  Mary furrowed her brow in concentration, obviously thinking back. “Of that I cannot be certain. But the line you quoted is the essential one.”

  “We must have the entire message,” Joanna beseeched. “The number three or a variation thereof may point to other letters in less important lines. It would also be helpful to have all messages that relate to U-boats off the Orkney Islands.”

  “I very much doubt Lieutenant Dunn will let us pry into those,” I said. “Obtaining the complete first lines from him earlier was akin to pulling teeth.”

  “But I may have some of that information in my notes at home,” Mary volunteered. “Assuming I have not tossed them into the fireplace as is my habit when done.”