The Will Again
Mr. Fairhurst shook his head despondently.
“I’m afraid, my dear Miss Arnell, that there is little to be done,” he said.
Violet Arnell gazed mournfully at him, tears forming in her eyes.
“Now, don’t be silly, Henry,” snapped his sister. “If all you can do is be a Job’s comforter like that, then you’re a bigger fool than I took you for, and that’s a pity.”
“Well,” Henry argued, “if all that the police will tell me is that Wilkinson died a natural death, that Mr. Baker was on the spot (that is, at Pinner) at which he could easily have put a poisoned sweet in the packet in your father’s pocket, and that he was undoubtedly outside the British Museum gates (if not inside them) on the night when Crocker was murdered, what can I do?”
“Do something, Henry,” snapped Sarah. She was clearly on tenterhooks, disliking the idea of seeing Violet Arnell in such a tearful, woebegone state.
“There’s only one thing,” Henry added, after considerable deep thought, “that occurs to me.”
“And that is…?” Violet Arnell awaited his words with an eagerness which was exceedingly flattering to his vanity.
“That is—your father’s will,” he announced, and then looked at her to see what effect this would have.
“But what use do you think that can be?” she asked in plaintive tones.
Henry did his best to look impressive. “I don’t quite know,” he said slowly. “The point is, in a case like this, where all the clues more or less peter out, to investigate as fully as we can the few clues that we have.”
“But in what way is my father’s will a clue?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry again. “But it is one of the few things which we have, and we must do our best to see what we can make of it.”
Violet Arnell smiled. It was not a very triumphant smile—it was, as a matter of fact, a very milk-and-watery smile, but the fact of its managing to break through the hitherto uniform gloom of her countenance was something to be grateful for, and Henry felt quite a hero in consequence. He was, however, quite prepared to admit that the smile was due more to her imagination than to any prowess which he had yet achieved as a detective.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I have it here in my handbag. I have been carrying it around with me, as Inspector Shelley, after photographing it, told me to take great care of it, as it might be an important clue later on.”
Henry beamed. “There; what did I tell you?” he said. “An important clue. And I went straight for it, you see.”
“You might,” said Sarah with a supercilious sniff, “do something more than talk about it, Henry. Then we might think a little more of you as a detective.”
Violet produced the document from her handbag, and handed it to Henry. He read it aloud.
“This is the last will and testament of me, Julius Arnell, Professor Emeritus in the University of Portavon. I hereby give and bequeath all my property to my daughter, Violet Arnell, for her sole use during her lifetime. At her death it is to go, whether she has issue or not, to my nephew, Moses Moss, to belong to him and his heirs and assigns, absolutely.”
Henry looked up. “Is that the sort of will that you would have expected your father to make?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Written in blue ink,” murmured Henry, “and dated December 3, 1936.”
“What’s that?” Violet Arnell looked at him in surprise.
“Written in blue ink, I said,” Henry repeated, “and dated December 3, 1936.”
An air of puzzled bewilderment came over her face. She frowned and gazed hard at the document, her eyes puckering up in surprise.
“But…but…I don’t understand,” she said.
“What don’t you understand?” asked Henry patiently.
“My father always wrote everything in blue ink in the past,” she said. “It was a little fad of his. But there was some trouble about a book that he wrote in the summer of 1936. The girl who typed it out from his written manuscript said that his bright blue ink—just this colour, you know—was trying to her eyes.” She paused.
“Go on,” said Henry.
“In the autumn of 1936, my father told me to throw away the blue ink, and get in a supply of the more usual blue-black. You know, the stuff that goes black when it’s been dry for a few hours.”
“I know.” Henry was all excitement now. This was the real thing, he told himself. At last it began to look as if they were on the track of something big!
“And at the time that the will was written there was no blue ink in the house!”
They looked at each other in silence. Sarah sniffed, and said: “Well; what are you going to do about it? Some fishy work going on there, I’ll be bound.”
“I don’t quite understand it,” Henry admitted frankly. “It just doesn’t seem to make sense. Why, if your father had no blue ink, did he go to the trouble of making his will in ink of that colour?”
“But…but…d-d-don’t you see?” Violet Arnell stammered in her excitement.
“I’m afraid I don’t. It’s a very remarkable business, but I can’t see what it means,” said Henry, a puzzled frown creasing his forehead.
“It means,” said Violet in impressive tones, “that my father did not write that will.”
“Oh, come, come, Miss Arnell,” Henry protested. “I don’t think that you can exactly say that. After all, what grounds have you for saying—”
Violet interrupted him. “My father,” she said again, “did not write that will.”
“Mightn’t there be a fountain-pen knocking about somewhere with some of the blue ink left in it?” was Henry’s next suggestion. “After all, it was only a few months from the time that the blue ink was thrown away. And there might easily be some left in a fountain-pen.”
“My father never used a fountain-pen,” she explained. “He was a very old-fashioned man in some ways, and he had a rooted objection to fountain-pens—said they made everyone write alike. He used an old steel-nibbed pen. And, although I have a fountain-pen, I never used the blue ink. I disliked the colour.”
“Well, it is, of course, possible,” said Henry. “And now, Miss Arnell, we may as well investigate this will a little further. I presume that Inspector Shelley has tested it for finger-prints?”
“Yes.”
“Any found?”
“No.”
“Well, let’s have a look at the paper.” Henry held it up to the light, and made a note on a pad that was before him.
“1937 Bond. Barnes and Co., Chiswick,” he said. “That doesn’t tell us very much, does it? Might be worth enquiring of them if they could identify it, but it really doesn’t seem likely.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” Violet Arnell was getting excited once more.
“What’s worrying you now?” Henry grunted out the question. This business of detection, he told himself, was not all milk and honey, by any means.
“1937 Bond,” she said quietly.
“What about that?”
“The will is dated 1936, remember.”
“Oh, that’s nothing.” Henry waved away the suggestion with an airy wave of his hand “Those figures don’t mean anything. My note-paper is called ‘1718 Bond,’ but that doesn’t mean that it was made in the year 1718, or anywhere near it. Probably the figure is just a trade-mark, and that’s all there is to it.”
“I’m not so sure. I think it’s worth finding out, anyhow,” Violet Arnell objected.
Henry sighed. “Very well,” he agreed. “I suppose that there’s no harm in ringing them up, and just asking them about it.”
He drew the telephone towards him, dialled a number, and then waited.
“That Barnes and Co.?” he asked. “I wonder if you can tell me at what date you commenced putting your ‘1937 Bond’ paper on the market? When? Oh, yes, that settles my problem very well, thank you. Thank you very much. Good-bye.”
He turned to face the others, and his complexion was the colour of milk.
“Your idea was right, Miss Arnell,” he said quietly.
“It is a forgery,” she announced.
“Quite right. It is a forgery. That paper was originally intended to be called ‘Coronation Bond,’ in celebration of the coronation of King George VI, but another firm took the name first. They therefore decided to call it ‘1937 Bond.’”
“And when was it first put on the market?” she asked.
“On February 10, 1937, two months after the will was supposed to have been written!”
“Again, Mr. Fairhurst?” Shelley almost laughed as the little man twisted awkwardly in the chair at Scotland Yard.
“Again, Inspector.” Henry found the subject very difficult to broach.
“Well, what’s the meaning of this visit?”
“I have found something very important, sir. Something which may alter the whole complexion of this case.”
“Still think young Baker is not guilty?”
“I don’t know what bearing this has on his guilt, but it is something that I think you should know. After that, you can do what you like about it.”
“Well, carry on,” announced Shelley cheerfully.
“The will of the late Professor Arnell is a forgery,” announced Henry in his grimmest tones.
“Sure?” Shelley snapped out the monosyllable.
“Certain.” And Henry told briefly of their investigations of an hour or two before. Then he had a revelation of the astounding efficiency of Scotland Yard.
“Where did you leave Miss Arnell?” Shelley asked.
“She went home to Pinner, and I said I would ring her up when you had told me what you thought about this business of the forgery.”
“What’s her number?”
Henry told him, and Shelley drew the telephone towards him, and rapidly got through to the number required. After holding the receiver for a few minutes, obviously listening to the ringing at the other end, he quietly replaced it on its hook, and picked up another ’phone.
“Send me Sergeant Cunningham, a flying-squad car, and half a dozen plain-clothes men,” he said.
“I don’t understand, Inspector,” Henry objected.
“You’ll understand soon enough,” snapped Shelley. “No time to waste.”
Now Cunningham entered, and Shelley, in sharp, staccato tones, gave him his orders.
“You remember Miss Arnell’s house at Pinner?” he said.
Cunningham nodded.
“Well, somewhere between there and Streatham,” his chief told him, “I think Miss Arnell has disappeared. See if you can get on her trail.”
“Disappeared?” Cunningham looked completely amazed.
Shelley looked at Henry again.
“Did she go by bus?” he asked.
Henry nodded. In this atmosphere of brisk efficiency it seemed unnecessary to say anything. And in any case Shelley had said that it was urgent, and he did not want to waste time.
“Follow the bus routes, and see if you can find any account of a young lady resembling Miss Arnell being picked up by a car,” Shelley went on. “If you can’t trace her any other way, see if you can find a bus leaving Streatham at—what time would it be, Mr. Fairhurst?”
“Eight o’clock,” murmured Henry, completely mystified by all this bustle, and not understanding this turn of events at all.
“Eight o’clock. Right. Got that, Cunningham?” asked Shelley.
“Yes, sir,” Cunningham answered dutifully.
“Take the car I’ve ordered, and the half-dozen men. And hurry. She’s in real danger. I’ll never forgive myself if…if…” He paused, and Cunningham rapidly left the room.
“What do you think has happened to her, Inspector?” asked Henry.
“I don’t know. Wish I did,” answered Shelley. “It’s the vague things like this that cause the trouble.”
Now he picked up the ’phone again, and spoke rapidly.
“See if you can spot any traces of forgery in that photostat of the will of Professor Arnell, Mac,” he said. “There are some documents by the man in the file in Room 126. I’m pretty sure it’s a forgery, but it’s as well to get confirmatory evidence, if I can.”
“But what,” asked Henry, when the detective had replaced the telephone receiver on its hook once more, “is the meaning of it, Mr. Shelley?”
“There can be only one meaning of that will being forged, my dear sir,” answered Shelley. “You recall that it left the money to Miss Arnell. Well, it is just possible that Mr. Baker forged it. Though I don’t think, if he did, he’d be so foolish as to leave the money to her for life only. No.”
“Then who did?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Why did you think that Miss Arnell would be likely to have disappeared?” asked Henry.
“Because she is a very rich woman. And because her death means that Mr. Moses Moss has a lot of money. That’s why!”
“And you think that Moses Moss is the murderer?”
“It looks very much like it,” Shelley admitted.
Suddenly Henry gazed at Shelley in horror. A chill ran down his spine, and his very blood ran cold in his veins.
“But that means, Inspector,” he said, “that means that there is a possibility that Moses Moss has got hold of Miss Arnell. That means that he may have kidnapped her, and taken her away somewhere.”
Shelley nodded glumly. “It not only means that, my dear Mr. Fairhurst,” he said quietly. “It means that Mr. Moses Moss may well be contemplating another murder.”