Henry at Home
“Really, Henry, I do think this is most unreasonable of you.”
Miss Sarah Fairhurst was as aggressive as her younger brother was the reverse. Tall, with penetrating blue eyes, and with greying hair tightly brushed back from a high, narrow forehead, she was the type of born spinster who nevertheless succeeds in lording it over the rest of mankind by sheer persistent unpleasantness.
“Why unreasonable?” asked Henry uneasily. He saw yet another squabble on the emotional horizon, and he had the mild man’s habitual dislike of squabbles.
“You distinctly promised me,” she said, “that you would be home to tea today. Quite distinctly, Henry. But there—when you get up in the West End with those disreputable literary friends of yours, what does your poor, lonely sister matter? Heaven knows what you do with yourself.” Miss Fairhurst’s tone hinted at unspeakable orgies.
“Still,” she continued, “if you do manage to get some work done which keeps us supplied in food, I suppose I must not grumble too much. Although I do think that, if there is any likelihood of your meeting some of your dreadful friends, you might do your best to let me know beforehand, so that the tea does not spoil in the pot while I wait endless hours for you.”
Rapidly Henry seized the olive-branch that was held out to him.
“As a matter of fact, my dear,” he said mildly, “I couldn’t help being late today.”
“No? What was it this time? A blonde or a brunette?” It was an accepted fiction with Miss Fairhurst that her brother spent all his leisure hours in the arms of attractive ladies with all the charms that she lacked.
“Neither. It was an inspector from Scotland Yard,” Henry explained.
“Scotland Yard. Rubbish!” exclaimed his sister emphatically. “What would Scotland Yard want with you? They only look after criminals, and with all your faults I have never suspected you of crime, my dear Henry, and neither, I am sure, has anyone else.”
“I am not a criminal, Sarah,” explained Henry with what he privately considered an air of quiet dignity, “but I was a witness to a crime—I was, as far as I can see, the sole witness to a murder.”
“Murder! Sole witness! My dear Henry, you’ll be getting all our throats cut in our beds.” Miss Fairhurst somehow contrived to give the impression that if her brother had become involved in such a disgraceful affair it was all his fault and would bring disgrace upon the house.
“The man died in the Reading Room at the British Museum,” Henry explained patiently, but his sister at first would have nothing of it.
“Don’t talk nonsense,” she said brusquely. “Drink your tea and don’t go dithering about things that you don’t understand.”
“All right,” said Henry, and did as he was told—as, to tell the truth, he always did with this formidable sister who had ordered him about since childhood, and who would apparently always continue to do so.
For a few minutes tea continued in silence. Then Sarah spoke again.
“A man died in the Reading Room,” she said. “Wasn’t there another case like that a few months ago?”
“Another case?”
“Yes. Some lecturer or professor of something,” answered Miss Fairhurst vaguely. “I seem to remember reading about it. In the papers, you know, though of course one realises that they tell the most dreadful lies, and one can never be at all sure of the facts of the case.”
“Are you certain?” Henry put down his cup and gazed at his sister, fairly trembling with eagerness. “Can’t you remember any of the details, Sarah?”
“I’m afraid I can’t. I’ve got something more important to do than to spend my time worrying about silly people who get themselves murdered in public places like the British Museum Reading Room.”
“Was the other man murdered?” Henry could not restrain himself from asking these questions, though, knowing his sister as well as he did, he was perfectly aware that he could not really expect any satisfactory answers.
“How should I know?” she retorted. “As far as I remember, he died of heart failure, but quite possibly that was just the story that the papers told. Quite likely he was murdered, really, only they hushed it up. Maybe he was a relative of the Prime Minister, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or something, and they wanted to save money on death duties.” Miss Fairhurst’s ideas of the law and its complications were completely chaotic, and Henry, very wisely, did not attempt to argue with her on this score. He was intent on information, and thought that he should be able to get what he wanted from somewhere.
“I shall ring up Macgregor,” he announced. “Maybe he will be able to find the information for me before he comes home tonight.”
“That, I presume,” said Sarah, very much on her dignity, “means that there will be a third to dinner tonight, and I, my dear Henry, shall have the unpleasant duty of persuading cook that she can make a joint purchased for two go around for three.”
“And I’m sure,” said Henry, now desiring to smooth her down, “that you will do the duty very successfully, my dear Sarah. No one can handle difficult servants more effectively than you can.”
Angus Macgregor was a reporter on the Post-Chronicle, and as soon as dinner was over that night he produced a bulky bundle of press-cuttings from his pocket. He had long been a friend of Henry, and he often helped him with information culled from the organ of the Press for which he worked.
“Heaven knows what ye want this for, Henry, old man,” he said. “Seems a bit out of your usual line to me. Still, you know your own business best, and I’ve got the information you asked for.”
“You heard what I wanted, did you?” asked Henry. “We had a dreadful line, and I could scarcely hear what you were saying over the ’phone.”
“Oh, yes, I heard all right,” returned the other. “You wanted to know all about a man who died in the British Museum Reading Room about a year ago, or less. Reports of his death, details of the findings at the inquest, and so on. Though, as I said, why on earth ye wanted all this information is more than I can imagine.”
“You’ll know in good time, Macgregor,” Henry told him. “In fact, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if I could put you in the way of what I believe you call a scoop.”
“What do you want to know first?” asked Macgregor.
“Who was the man?”
“His name was Wilkinson. He was Professor of English Literature at Northfield University.”
“What?” Henry nearly jumped out of his skin. “Was he the great authority on the Elizabethan drama?”
“That’s the fellow. Had some patent theory of his own that Shakespeare’s plays were written by two people together—one was Shakespeare himself and the other Kit Marlowe. He worked it out very well, though ’twas all balderdash, of course.”
“When did he die?”
“Let’s see.” Macgregor referred to the bundle of cuttings.
“It’s now June 20. It was exactly five months ago—on January 20 of this year.”
“What was the verdict of the inquest?”
“Natural death. It was proved that he’d been suffering from some form of heart trouble—I don’t understand the queer jargon of these doctor fellows. Still, everybody agreed that he was in such a condition that he might be expected to pop off at any moment, and it was just chance that he did so in the British Museum. He was handling some damned great book weighing about half a hundredweight, and he just collapsed on the floor and died. He was absolutely stone-dead before they could get him to the ambulance, let alone getting him near the hospital.”
“Was there a post-mortem examination?” Again Macgregor consulted the papers he had brought with him from the office.
“It doesn’t mention it here, and I shouldn’t think that there was anything of the sort, or they’d have made a special point of reporting it,” he said at length.
“Very careless of the coroner,” said Henry.
Macgregor looked at him cautiously. “Why would ye say that, now?” he ventured to ask. “After all, the whole business, though it was a nasty business, taken all round, was not mysterious. ’Twas a clear enough case. The poor old devil had had a groggy heart for years, and ’twas just unlucky chance that it gave out in that gloomy old mausoleum, and not in some more pleasant place. Anyhow, I dare say that he would have been quite pleased at dying in such circumstances. He seems to have been a regular old bookworm, and to die among his books would please him.”
“Difficult to explain, Macgregor, until I know a little more of the facts,” said Henry.
“Well, what facts do ye want? I’ve got ’em all here—all that were made public, anyhow.”
Henry sighed wearily. “Now, don’t you start that stuff about things being concealed from the public,” he warned his friend. “I get enough and to spare of that from Sarah, who thinks that there is a sort of conspiracy between the Press and the Government to keep all kinds of valuable information secret from her.”
Macgregor grinned. “Ask your questions,” he said. “If you think there’s some fishy business going on here, and can give me the low-down on it, I can promise you that it’ll be published from Land’s End to John O’ Groat’s—and farther.”
“At the moment,” explained Henry, “that’s the very thing that I don’t want. After all, publication often ruins everybody’s chances of catching a murderer.”
Macgregor whistled. “So you think the dear old Professor of English Literature was murdered, do ye?” he asked. “And why would that idea be entering your sweet head, I wonder? After all, ye’re not a suspicious man by nature, and don’t look on all your fellow-men as sunk deep in iniquity, as every born journalist like myself does.”
“Let me explain,” said Henry. “Wilkinson was a Professor of English Literature in an English university.”
Macgregor nodded. “Sceptic though I am,” he said cheerfully, “I’ll grant ye that.”
“Curse that perverted sense of humour of yours,” said Henry with a giggle. “Do please stop fooling in that way, and just listen to what I have to say.”
“I’m all attention, me dear fellow,” said Macgregor.
“He died,” Henry went on, “apparently of heart-failure in the Reading Room of the British Museum some six months ago.”
“Five,” Macgregor interrupted.
“The dates are immaterial,” said Henry. “He died in that way.”
“Yes.”
“Who gave evidence at the inquest?”
Once more Macgregor looked at the pile of papers that lay before him.
“His doctor, his son, and his friend,” he announced at length.
“His friend?” Henry at once seized on what he thought was the important piece of information.
“Yes.” Macgregor peered at the cutting. “Be damned,” he said at length, “if I’m not the world’s clumsiest fool. I’ve cut this paper so badly that a name is missing.”
“What name?”
“The name of the friend.”
“Can you get any of it? Any letters of it, I mean, so that there’s some chance of seeing who the fellow is?”
“’Tis difficult,” said Macgregor, peering into the smudgy print that lay before him. “It looks as if the name ends in two L’s, though even there I can’t be certain. You see, it comes at the top of a column, and with my clumsy scissors I’ve managed to slice off a piece of the damned paper, so that I can only make out the bottoms of the letters. And it may be they’re some other letters.”
Suddenly a thought came to Henry. It was a thought that almost made the meek little man’s blood run cold, so amazing was it in its clarity.
“Does it say anything about what the friend did?” he asked. “After all, the friend of a Professor of English Literature might easily occupy some sort of official position in the university. It would be perfectly easy to trace him then, if he’s a lecturer or anything.”
“Good idea,” said Macgregor. “Let’s see. Oh, yes; Professor Emeritus in English Literature in Portavon University.”
“God!” Henry’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He removed his pince-nez and polished them in an agitated manner.
“What’s the matter with ye, man?” demanded Macgregor. “You’re as white as a sheet. You look as if you’re going to faint. Explain yourself, quick! Shall I get a drop of brandy? What the devil’s the matter with you?”
Henry smiled the faintest of smiles. Then he perched his pince-nez perilously on his nose. He looked around him with what was almost a satisfied smile, and the colour slowly flowed back into his cheeks.
“Wull ye answer my questions, me mannie?” asked Macgregor, lapsing into his native dialect more and more in his agitation. “What the de’il’s the matter wi’ ye, that ye got so excited at that news? What the hell does it matter if the felly what gave evidence was professor at some crack-pot university in the south of England? Tell me.”
“Only this,” said Henry, and his voice was thin and clear. “Professor Julius Arnell, Professor Emeritus in the University of Portavon, died in the British Museum Reading Room this afternoon—died under my very eyes.”
And Macgregor, old hand as he was at the tackling of mysterious crimes, felt his blood run cold within his veins.