By the time Macdonald reached him, Mr. Thomas Burroughs had about reached the end of his tether. Neither obstinacy (and he was by nature obstinate), nor devotion (and he was very devoted indeed), were proof against the undermining effects of two nights spent in detention in a police station. He had had plenty of time to reflect on the exceedingly nasty nature of the hole in which he was placed, and his solicitor had done nothing to comfort him. That exceedingly competent legal luminary had indeed betrayed a consternation which had made Burroughs feel cold in the pit of his stomach. To have been caught investigating premises in which a murder had occurred, and, in addition, “to have resisted the police in the execution of their duties,” was, he was given to understand, as nasty a position as a man could be placed in. Nothing but the whole truth would assist him out of it. Mr. Burroughs temporised. He had his own reasons for not wishing to tell the whole truth, and apart from asking his lawyer to have a brief message telephoned to “his country place,” relating the nature of his predicament, Mr. Burroughs had sourly said that he would stop where he was and see every one at the devil.
By the time Macdonald arrived, however, Mr. Burroughs had begun to realise that something must be done about it. He was feeling too near the dock to be able to sustain the heroic attitude any longer.
Macdonald, imperturbably polite, bade him good-morning, and inquired if he wished to make any statement. It was more than ever essential that he should give an explanation of his presence in the Belfry premises, since the body concealed there had now been identified as a friend of Mr. Burroughs!
The stockbroker visibly paled.
“Well, I didn’t have anything to do with it. The whole thing’s a plant,” he protested. Macdonald waited.
“I’ve been staying down in the country for the past week,” went on Mr. Burroughs. “I had a guest with me—a lady. She had been troubled a lot by the behaviour of her husband, and I, well, I have a deep regard for her, and wanted to help her in any way I could. A letter came for her while she was staying at my place, saying that her husband was up to some games at this Belfry place. To cut a long story short, she asked me to look into it, and I went up to town for that purpose.”
He looked at Macdonald appealingly.
“Damned awkward position for me. I couldn’t answer your questions or make any statement without involving my guest. I didn’t know what to do, and that’s a fact. I still don’t—but I can’t stay here until you charge me with murder. Think of it for yourself, Chief Inspector. Damned difficult, whichever way you look at it.”
“Very difficult indeed,” agreed Macdonald, “but since you assure me that you had no hand in the murder, I can assure you in my turn that your only sensible course is complete frankness. Let me make myself quite clear,” he added. “Your actions have brought you under suspicion, and you have got to remove that suspicion. If I had any clear grounds for charging you, it would be my business to warn you that anything you say would be used in evidence against you. I have at present no grounds for such a charge, and it is to the interest of the police, as well as to your own interest, to clear away the suspicion aroused by your behaviour at the Belfry. But, to do that, a general statement without corroboration is of no value.”
Mr. Burroughs sweated freely.
“You’ve got me in a cleft stick,” he growled.
“No,” replied Macdonald, “you’ve got yourself into one, and you’ve got to get yourself out of it.”
“What exactly do you want?” asked the stockbroker feebly.
“A statement of your whereabouts since last Wednesday week, and the letter advising you to go to the Belfry. That for your own interest. For that of justice I want you to answer questions concerning the man Debrette, whose name I previously mentioned to you, and concerning Mr. Bruce Attleton, whose body has been identified as that found in the Belfry.”
“My God!” said the stockbroker faintly. “I’ve fairly put my own neck into a halter.”
“With outside assistance, so you assure me,” replied Macdonald. “It’s up to you to get yourself out of it—and believe me, the police system in this country does not aim at charging a man if it is possible to prove he is innocent.”
“Seems to me that whatever I say I shall only make things worse,” said Mr. Burroughs, “however, here’s the facts. On last Wednesday week, the day Bruce Attleton left for Paris, I drove down to Southampton. I got there about one o’clock and garaged my car at the Royal. It’s a Rolls Royce two-seater, number AAA 8181; you can check up on that,” he added eagerly, and Macdonald agreed politely. “I lunched at the Royal and then I went to meet my guest Mrs. Attleton.” He studied Macdonald’s face, as though looking for some sign of excitement in that saturnine visage, but got no satisfaction.
“I picked up the car again about three o’clock, and we drove out to my place in the Forest. It’s about six miles from Lyndhurst, in the parish of Forest Stanway, and the house is called Antibes. We got there just after four.”
“Your servants can corroborate that?”
Mr. Burroughs shook his head. “No. Unfortunately they can’t. I haven’t any resident servants, the place is only a cottage—not much room. There’s a married couple named Jobson living nearby. The man used to valet me before he was married—very competent servant. I put them into their cottage as a matter of fact. They keep chickens. Jobson and his wife look after Antibes for me, and if ever I want to go down there I just send them a wire and they see the place is habitable. I don’t think I saw the Jobson’s at all that day—in fact I’m damn certain I didn’t,” he added gloomily.
“That, of course, is a pity,” said Macdonald.
“Well, as things were, what’d you expect?” growled Mr. Burroughs. “Mrs. Attleton honoured me by coming down to stay with me as a friend. She was very done up—under the weather—after that long run of her play and then rehearsing. She didn’t want to see visitors—and well, there you are,” he ended lamely.
“Quite,” said Macdonald. “I can assume that you were only seen by your servants on a few occasions during that week, and that Mrs. Attleton was seen by nobody. Is that correct?”
Mr. Burroughs nodded, more gloomily than ever.
“And now for the letter which led to your visit to the Belfry.”
“Yes. That damned letter. Sybilla—Mrs. Attleton—had had reason to suspect her husband of not playing the game. Frankly, she intended to divorce him when she got the evidence. If he’d had any decent feelings at all he’d have supplied the evidence himself, months ago. The chap was a sponger, simply living on his wife’s earnings. Made my blood boil many a time, I can tell you.”
“For your own sake, I shouldn’t advise you to let it boil now,” said Macdonald. “I fail to see what prevented Mrs. Attleton from leaving her husband, if she found him so unsatisfactory, and letting him take proceedings.”
“He wouldn’t have. Knew a game worth two of that,” grumbled Mr. Burroughs. “Besides, why should the onus be on her—dragging her name through the muck? Mrs. Attleton has very fine feelings, I’d have you know. A very high-minded woman.”
“About the letter?” Macdonald reminded him, and Mr. Burroughs glowered.
“Yes, and wouldn’t I like to get hold of the swine that wrote it—I’d teach him. Well, as I was saying, Mrs. Attleton was on the qui-vive, when some chap signing himself de Brette wrote to her saying he could get the evidence she wanted if she’d pay for it.”
“Can you make any suggestion as to how this man Debrette knew that Mrs. Attleton wished to divorce her husband?”
Burroughs desisted from biting a nail.
“Well, Debrette knew Attleton. I reckon he blackmailed him. In fact I know it.”
“How?”
“Attleton as good as told me. He tried to touch me for five hundred one day after the blighter had been phoning him. Said it was a gaming debt. I.D.T. If Sybilla’d asked my advice in the first place, she’d never have had any dealings with Debrette at all. Double-edged tool. However, she answered his first letter, saying she’d pay up if the evidence was produced. I went and had a look from the address he wrote from—a shop called Blanco’s in Charing Cross Place. Pretty dirty shop, too, I tell you. Accommodation address, of course. Gone bust now. The chap who ran it—and a nasty bit of goods he was—coughed up a certain amount of information after I’d paid through the nose for it. Debrette, according to Blanco, was a spectacled chap with a beard with a white streak in it. Frenchman or German. Alsatian perhaps, or a Belgian, by his accent. Always spoke French to Blanco. I couldn’t find out any more. That’s up to you.” (Macdonald did not tell Mr. Burroughs that “Blanco” had been repatriated some two months ago, sent out of England as an undesirable alien, and landed in Ostend at His Majesty’s expense.)
“Well, when Debrette wrote this other letter to Mrs. Attleton while she was at Antibes, we put our heads together over it,” continued Burroughs. “Debrette wrote that if Mrs. Attleton—or an agent of hers—went to the Belfry Studio in Lime Tree Avenue sometime on Friday night, they’d get the evidence required. He added that Mr. Attleton would probably not return there until late, but it was possible to enter the place by a broken cellar window, just round the corner from the porch. I tell you I wasn’t keen on it, but I wanted that evidence as much as Mrs. Attleton did—more, by a long chalk. I thought it all over. It was plain that Debrette had a good information service, he’d given proof of that already,” (here Burroughs described the photograph incident) “besides, how’d the chap got hold of the address of my cottage? Tell me that!” he added truculently.
“Perhaps Mr. Attleton told him,” replied Macdonald pleasantly. “The address of Antibes was written in Mrs. Attleton’s private address book which was found locked up in husband’s desk.”
Mr. Burroughs’ face was a study. His naturally robust colour heightened until Macdonald wondered whether an apoplexy would put an end to his overtaxed cerebral processes. The stockbroker’s next remark, however, was not illuminating.
“Dirty dog!” he said feelingly. “Lifting his own wife’s private address book. That shows you!”
“It shows me nothing,” replied Macdonald. “From what I have heard of Mr. and Mrs. Attleton there was not much to choose between them.”
Most surprisingly the big man got to his feet with surprising agility and struck out at Macdonald’s face.
“Take that!” he shouted.
The blow did not reach its aim, but Macdonald’s counter landed true, well on the point, and Mr. Thomas Burroughs went back on the floor, mixing himself up with a very hard wooden chair, amid an outburst of profanity which demonstrated that just the right amount of force had been used. The door opened and an anxious-faced constable appeared, asking if any help were required.
“Yes,” said Macdonald. “Pick the gentleman up—he’s fallen off his chair—and then get him a glass of water.”
To Burroughs he said, as soon as the constable had withdrawn, “If you get over excited like that and lash out at people without thinking of the consequences, you’re simply asking for trouble. If you’d cracked my skull, how much better off would you have been? Have a little common sense.”
Mr. Burroughs blew his nose, and uttered a series of grunts which appeared to mean that he would like to knock Macdonald’s qualified head off, and the latter went on, after the glass of water had made its appearance.
“It is time you looked at all this in a reasonable perspective. Knocking my head off will not alter the fact that Mr. Attleton had, seemingly, as much ground for complaint against his wife as his wife had against him, nor that many a jury would credit you with a motive for desiring Mr. Attleton’s decease. Now listen to this question and answer it if you can. Where can I obtain any corroboration of any part of the story you have told me, except that your car was garaged in Southampton shortly after one o’clock on Wednesday, the 12th of March? Since it is, admittedly, a fast car, I don’t imagine that it would be beyond the bounds of possibility for it to have covered the road from London to Southampton in a little over three hours in the hands of a skilful driver. You can offer me no corroboration for your residence at the cottage, Antibes, and the matter of the letters is equally not susceptible to corroboration. I saw Mrs. Attleton yesterday evening, and her story coincides with yours, but the letter and the faded out photograph which she handed to me show no finger-prints save her own and yours. It’s not too easy a position, Mr. Burroughs, and the readiness to use violence which you have shown on two occasions is not much of an argument in your favour.”
Mr. Burroughs’ temper had evaporated by now. He sat on his hard chair looking a picture of surly dejection, biting his nails furiously.
“I’ve told you the truth,” he mumbled thickly. “I can’t do more. That fella Debrette must have killed Attleton. I always said he was a scoundrel. Stands to reason. He knew too much.”
“What is your opinion of Weller, the Attletons’ butler?”
The abrupt question made Burroughs look up, but he was slow in answering the question. He looked at Macdonald suspiciously.
“Weller’s all right, so far as I know. Decent chap. How can I tell? In a mess-up like this you don’t know what to believe. Why the hell should Weller have wanted Attleton done in?”
“When Mr. Attleton tried to borrow money from you, did he ever suggest that he expected money to be left to him, or to come his way for any reason?”
“Left to him? No. He always complained that there wasn’t a bean in his family. He’d only got one relation left, hadn’t he? The old beggar with the annuity whom they called the ‘Old Soldier.’ Attleton talked of making money getting his books filmed—only it never came off.”
“When you say that Attleton was unfaithful to his wife, what evidence have you to that effect?”
“I’ve seen him in some funny company myself, before I knew his wife, that is. Some fella told me Attleton kept an establishment in Maida Vale when he’d got the money to do it. I tried to get the story traced, but bless you, you might as well look for a snowball in midsummer. Half his time he didn’t sleep at home, but as for where he went, deuce knows.”
“As evidence, not very convincing. I shall want that letter of Debrette’s which took you to the Belfry.”
“You can have it. I left it at my bank on Friday when I came up to town. Didn’t want to lose it, and you never know with gentry like that. It might have been some dirty game leading up to a blackmail threat. I didn’t like to leave the letter at my flat. Always a possibility of burglary. Look here, how long are you going to keep me here?”
“Now that you have made a statement explaining your movements, I have no further reason to detain you when my interrogation is over. You will, however, have to undertake to remain at your own home, or be within reach, in case your further evidence is needed.”
Macdonald had been looking down at his notebook, speaking leisurely, but thinking furiously. He glanced up and met the eyes of the man facing him. Mr. Burroughs had brown eyes, lustrous and a little disposed to protrude, under strongly marked black brows. For a second Macdonald thought that he read their expression, half furtive, half questioning. If ever a man’s eyes said “Am I getting away with it?” it was the eyes of Mr. Burroughs at that moment. Even as their glances met, the dark brown eyes altered in expression, as quickly as an actor’s might. Jumping to his feet the dark man said:
“Oh, I shan’t try to bolt. I’m not such a fool as that. Let’s get out of this damned place. I’m about fed-up. If you like to come along to the bank with me, I’ll give you that letter of Debrette’s—and you can get on with trailing him. He’s the chap you want.”
“You needn’t worry about Debrette. He’s quite safe,” replied Macdonald. “Sit down again for a minute. I’m not quite through.”
“Lord, if I took as long over my business as you do, I’d miss all the markets,” retorted Burroughs, and Macdonald went on:
“I want a note of your parent’s names and the place of your own birth, also your grandparent’s names.”
An extraordinary change came over the fleshy face of Mr. Thomas Burroughs. It was not only that his colour altered, and a flush spread over his full cheeks and high forehead so that even the whites of his eyes seemed suffused, but the eyes glared in a way that expressed almost animal fury.
“What the devil for?” he spluttered. “What the blooming deuce has it got to do with you who my parents and grandparents were? I’m about sick of you and your silly questions.”
“That question has got to be answered,” replied Macdonald. “It will be put to every one who can be classed as a suspect in this case. Surely it is a very simple question. In any case, a visit to Somerset House will put me in possession of the facts I want.”
“Then go and find out,” spluttered Mr. Burroughs. “I’ve never heard such a damned piece of impertinence. My solicitor and my banker will answer for who I am, and for my integrity as a business man. That should be good enough for you, Mr. Chief Inspector.”
“I asked the question because I require an answer to it,” replied Macdonald. “To refuse an answer seems merely childish. Whatever facts you give will be treated as confidential once you have been eliminated from the case.”
“Well, I’ve told you everything that could have any bearing on your case and a damned lot that couldn’t,” retorted Mr. Burroughs, “and I’ve just about reached the limit of my patience and that’s flat. When it comes to asking my pedigree, I tell you frankly, it’s nothing but a bloody inquisition and I won’t stand for it.”
Macdonald let him go on talking. In his own mind he was wondering if he had arrived at an explanation of the past week’s happenings. If, in addition to winning Sybilla Attleton as his wife, Mr. Thomas Burroughs (descendant of Mary Anne Brossé, nee Marsham) had seen the opportunity of inheriting a fortune of a quarter of a million, he might have deemed it worth while to work out that extraordinarily complicated plot involving the use of Streaky Beaver as a tool or accomplice. Sybilla Attleton, with her knowledge of actors, past and present, might well have planned out the part that Debrette had played, and seen to it that Weller finished off Debrette before the police got him. In which case Robert Grenville had put in an appearance just at the wrong moment and suffered for his curiosity with a blow from the weighted “cosh.”
“Logical reconstruction number three,” said Macdonald to himself, his eyes still on his note-book, conscious of the man opposite to him sitting biting his finger nails.
“It’s Debrette that you want, not my great grandparents,” put in the indignant voice of Mr. Burroughs.
Macdonald looked across at him after a quick decision.
“We have got Debrette,” he said quietly. “His body was recovered from the Thames yesterday evening. At the same time another man was found on a wharf close by, but he was not dead, although seriously injured. The second man was Mr. Grenville, who was present, I understand, at a cheerful little discussion on murders which you heard at the Attletons’ house.”
Mr. Burroughs’ eyes bulged more than ever, and his face was frankly horror-stricken.
“Grenville?” he cried. “Grenville? You say he’s dead, too?”
“No, that was just what I did not say,” said Macdonald. “He is still alive, and will, I hope, be able to answer questions shortly. Now, while I do not pretend that your statement was entirely convincing, I do not wish to detain you here indefinitely. You are free to go to your own home on the understanding that you will be at hand when called upon. I will send an officer to accompany you to your bank to obtain the letter from Debrette. After that I caution you to use discretion in your movements. We shall expect to find you when we need you.”
A few minutes later Mr. Burroughs left his temporary lodging, and Macdonald at the telephone was saying:
“Lande’s Bank. City branch—and freeze on to him, Reeves. Freeze on to him.”