Franklin knew that conference of Wharton’s reminded him of something and suddenly remembered what—a distribution of Sunday School prizes without an audience. The General himself at the lounge table, with his old-fashioned glasses drooping nearly to the walrus moustache, looked beneficent and just the least bit obvious. On the table were assortments of notes, a pile of autograph albums, and still in its gaudy wrapper, a copy of Two Years in the Ring. Less pious were the pistol that had shot France, and the decanter and siphon. At the ends of the table sat Franklin and Norris—appendages that rounded off the whole.
Wharton peered round benignantly over the glasses. “Mr. Franklin might like to know where we stand with regard to Hayles. On the Saturday morning early, he withdrew from his private account at Baker Street the sum of one hundred and five pounds, leaving a balance of five pounds only. The day he disappeared from his flat, he went straight to Chingford, where he sold the proprietor his car for less than half what he gave for it a year ago. Details don’t matter at the moment.” He peered round again. “I think that leaves no doubt as to the intentions of Mr. Hayles. However, we’re looking for him, memory or no memory. A good man—Prentiss—has gone to Dijon, via Paris. If necessary we shall give information to the Press, but between ourselves I don’t think we ought to scare him just now. We’ll let him think he’s genuinely dead.”
“Why not tell the Press he’s dead?” suggested Franklin.
“Well, I’ve rather suggested it already,” said Wharton apologetically. “Now to the case proper—from the beginning. First the anonymous letters and who sent them. I’m absolutely satisfied the real Lucy had nothing whatever to do with it, and France himself was satisfied about the same thing. Now then, who wrote them?”
“The man who made the entry.”
“Very well. Then who made the entry? Not a confederate of either Hayles or Claire, because either of them could have provided him with a key. Certainly not a professional housebreaker; he’d have run like hell as soon as he heard voices. Who could have done it? And have we got to enlarge the circle of inquiry? And if so, in what direction?”
“Any professional enemy of France?” suggested Franklin. “Say somebody in line for the title with him out of the way.”
“Don’t think so. We’ve talked that over with those in the real know. There’s nobody—at least in England. I may say we’re still making inquiries in that direction.… Nothing to suggest? Very well then; we’ll leave that for a bit. Something may lead back to it, then perhaps we’ll see it from a different angle. Now we’ll go on with France’s movements on the day of the murder, after Usher saw him last.
“He lunched in Coventry Street and on his way to town called up at Willaments of Baker Street and ordered those roses, with very strict instructions that they were to be delivered at the front door between half-past five and six—which they were. While the boy was there, another delivery was made, probably the biscuits. The ordering of those we haven’t traced. As he was alone in the house, we might assume he didn’t give a damn for the anonymous letters. He watched another man eat at the Girandole, as Franklin told us, and just before eight was at the Paliceum. The entry to the lounge must therefore have been made after he left the house and before his return. That’s all plain sailing. Now let’s review the situation in the light of what Hayles wrote to Mrs. Claire in his dying confession.
“Hayles definitely states that he did something for Mrs. Claire, on the strength of what he heard upstairs on the Friday night. Our other evidence shows that he’d been suspicious of France’s attitude towards Mrs. Claire, and I suggest therefore that what he heard on the Friday, merely crystallised what he’d brooded over in his mind for some days before. He got the poison some time before, for instance. He got it from Young on the plea that he wanted to do away with a dangerous cat. The cat at Ripley Norton did actually die of poison the week-end he was down there, but the servants say it wasn’t dangerous or bad tempered. We’re practically agreed that Hayles put this poison into the decanter for Hayles to drink. When he put it, we don’t know. It might have been before he left on the Saturday morning, or he might have come back later and done it.”
“By the way, sir, if he heard those arrangements on the Friday, he must have taken into account the fact that Mrs. Claire might have come round to the house before he’d taken that drink. Then why shouldn’t he have poured her out one?”
“He wouldn’t!” said Wharton quickly. “Mr. Franklin told me she never touched whisky—and Hayles knew it. However, to go on. The poison in the decanter involves the certainty that Hayles’d have to return in sufficient time on the Sunday to fake the suicide. That would need new whisky, and needless to say, we haven’t been able to trace the purchase by him of the particular proprietary brand required to refill the decanter. But we do know that he wouldn’t let Usher unpack his bag at Martlesham, and when Usher went into the room while Hayles was out, the bag was packed again—and locked! And remember that Hayles denied that he was in a desperate hurry to get back to town.
“Now to the crucial point. When he did get to number twenty-three on the Sunday, he expected to find the body of France. Suppose the body had been discovered before he got there—and he had to allow for that—he’d have had to leave nice and handy the confession France was supposed to have written, so that whoever discovered the body might think it was suicide. Where did he leave it?”
“Personally,” said Franklin, “I regard it as vital that Hayles should have got back in time to fake the suicide; otherwise he’d have to face a nasty inquiry as to why a man who wanted to poison himself should dope the whole decanter, and not the tot he was going to drink.”
“That may be so—but it’s begging the question. Shall we say he put the confession on the mantelpiece where France wouldn’t notice it. If the death were discovered prematurely, then on his arrival Hayles would have ‘discovered’ the confession himself. Let’s take that as hypothetical. But there’s something else. There was on the desk of the secretaire bookcase a blotter, which—the experts are positive—was actually used for blotting that confession. You’ll say that Hayles put it there for the sake of creating verisimilitude but—”
“That blotting paper had no other marks on it?”
“None. It was a virgin sheet except for the reverse marks of the last few letters of the confession. And now you’re going to be very annoyed with me! I wanted to talk about all this to see where we stood, assuming certain things. But all that house of cards falls to the ground. The confession was actually written by France, and so, of course, were the marks on the blotting paper, in the strictest sense! The experts refuse to consider any other suggestion!” After that, Wharton took off his glasses and leaned back in the chair.
“Do you know, I rather anticipated that,” said Franklin. “It looked too easy the other way.” He hook his head. “All the same, I don’t see any sense n France writing it. Did he really intend to commit suicide or did he—I’ve got it! Do you think he wanted to convince Mrs. Claire that he did intend to commit suicide. He definitely intended to induce her to spend the remainder of the night with him. Could the confession have been a species of blackmail?”
“I don’t follow,” said Wharton. “Make it more concrete.”
“Well, France says to Mrs. Claire: ‘If you don’t agree to this, I’ve made up my mind that life isn’t worth living any longer. I’m going to do myself in and here’s the note to prove it!’ Crude, I admit, but there it is. He had that note all ready in the secretaire. He was shot against the secretaire, mind you! And that’s what he left Mrs. Claire for; to get it or see it was handy. Now when Somers came in, he had some reason to go to the secretaire and there he saw the confession, which he took with him to the lounge to puzzle over. The rest we know.”
Wharton shook his head dubiously. “Ingenious! Very ingenious! Still, it’s a suggestion, and that’s more than I’ve had. However, we all agree that Hayles tried to poison France and got Somers instead, and that he was the man you and Usher heard in the house. Is that so?”
“I’m agreed,” said Norris.
“And I,” said Franklin; “at least as a working hypothesis.”
“Right! That eliminates the Somers murder, and Hayles. It becomes a separate and clean cut affair of its own. Now to the murder of France, and before we go on to that, we’ve got to go back to those specimens of writing and the anonymous threats. Why did France suspect the three people in his house?”
Franklin smiled. “Suspect! What of? A genuine desire to murder—or a practical joke?”
“Not a joke,” said Norris. “He wouldn’t have consulted you if he’d thought that.”
“We’re wandering from the point,” said Wharton. “Why should he suspect them at all? My own idea is that this was a single occurrence out of many. He may have suspected Usher, and he may have had his ideas about Hayles—”
“Just a minute!” broke in Franklin, and related the affair of the man in the taxi—the man whom Travers suspected of being Hayles.
“The very thing!” said Wharton. “France suspected espionage and that scared him. He thought, when he saw the word ‘Lucy,’ that somebody knew about that establishment at Harrow and would split to Mrs. Claire, and so spoil what looked like a promising intrigue. He decided not to risk anything. Somebody was trying to frighten him away from London over the week-end, when he’d planned to consummate that delightful affair; therefore he decided not to take any chances. While he was sending specimens of writing of the two men he most suspected, he threw in a specimen of Somers’s writing for luck. And he made sure by sending the whole three of those people away for the week-end.”
“That sounds logic,” said Franklin. “By the way, has Dyerson any ideas?”
Wharton grunted. “He’s got ideas—but nothing much else… at present. He says the threats were written in two processes; first crudely with the left hand, then the paper was turned upside down and a copy made, still with the left hand. That’s what France got.… And he’s inclined to Hayles; inclined, mind you.”
“Hm!… And was Hayles the only one who knew about that Cambridge affair with Lucy?”
“Somers probably knew—who else we don’t know I think Hayles might have written them. Claire couldn’t. He didn’t know anything about the week-end till Usher ’phoned him on the Friday, whereas the first anonymous threat arrived early in the week.” He reached over to the pistol, balanced it in his hand, then passed it over to Franklin.
“Perfectly ridiculous—and a tragedy! A toy like that… to kill a man like him!”
That was the first time Franklin had really seen that pistol. It looked of the size to be carried unobtrusively in a lady’s handbag, and there was something effeminate in the apricot-coloured enamelling of the stock.
“Looks foreign!”
“Yes, it’s French. Garnier-Lafitte’s the make. We think it’s a war souvenir. And it’s the one that killed him all right. Here’s the diagram of the path of the bullet; report in medical language underneath.”
He passed the diagram over. “Notice anything peculiar about that pistol?”
Franklin tried its weight, then the pull of the trigger. “Good God! It goes off at a touch! It’s been tampered with.”
“That’s right. A woman, for instance, could fire it as easily as dab her nose.”
Franklin looked at him, then back at the pistol.
“Take those hairs,” went on Wharton. “A woman, alone or with a confederate, enters by the lounge window. She goes over the house and enters the bedroom, which she may have known from experience, and sees the roses and other preparations, which give her information or inflame her jealousy, or both. She sits on the settee and waits for France, then decides to give him a surprise. She waits in the cloakroom, sees the entry with another woman, and that decides her. When the time comes, she shoots!”
Franklin nodded. “Then according to this diagram of the path of the bullet, she must have been a tall woman—or have stood on something, and I’m damned if I see why she should have done that.”
“There are a couple of hassocks in the cloakroom she might have stood on.… But that maid of Mrs. Claire’s is a tallish woman—best part of five foot nine!”
“And what about the hairs?”
“All I can say at the moment is that apparently—almost certainly—those hairs found on the settee were hers!”
Franklin gave a whistle. “Interviewed her yet?”
Wharton shook his head. “I only got the news this morning. Also, between ourselves, I can’t credit it. She isn’t the type; I don’t mean the sex appeal business, I mean for the shooting and so on. That woman’s not an actress; she’s immature—no, that’s not the word; she’s transparent, unsophisticated; that’s it; pretty face and empty head—except at her work probably.”
“Well, you know best,” said Franklin. “It’s a pity, that’s all.”
“You’re right there!” added Norris. “That woman’d fit like a glove. She knew all Mrs. Claire’s movements; she knew Mrs. Claire daren’t say a word about having been in the house, and she could have slipped back at any time to have shifted the body.”
Wharton waited with exaggerated patience till they’d finished. “I know all that—but there’s a snag you haven’t seen. At the present moment I don’t want to worry Mrs. Claire again, and I don’t want to set Claire thinking too much—as I should do if that maid were questioned. I may say, however, that a little diplomatic work is being done. Now where are we?”
“We’ve got France killed.”
“That’s it. The rest I told you down at Marfleet and you agreed with how Norris and I worked it out. Two different entries, you remember, at two different times by two different people—the first probably Claire and the second Hayles. The Claire one now suggests that he and the maid were in collusion and that’d be a satisfactory solution. It seems to me, therefore, the best thing we can do is to leave that till we’ve got her alibi.”
In spite of that they spent a good half hour re-traversing the ground; going into minor details and shying down the coconut theories that kept popping up. As for the immediate points of concentration decided on—other than the maid’s alibi—they were the possibility of an intrigue between her and France, the tracing of the ownership of the pistol, and the finding of Hayles. With regard to that last, however, Wharton produced a bombshell.
“There’s something unusual I’d like to ask you and Norris to do. Imagine I’m Hayles. I’ve just been found by you two and I know as much as you. You ask me if I’d care to make a statement or answer any questions. Got that? Right! Now you two fire away with everything you want to ask!” and he leaned back in the chair with a look of pleasant anticipation.
Franklin. “Why did you ask Young for poison to kill a cat which wasn’t dangerous?”
Wharton. “In my opinion it was—and cats are unhealthy things in a house. I didn’t want to hurt my mother’s feelings, so I naturally mentioned it to nobody but Young.”
Norris. “Doesn’t it strike you as peculiar that you and Usher were the only ones who could have doped that whisky, and you should have been in possession of the very poison that was used?”
Wharton. “Not in the least! The person you say broke into the house, he’s the one who doped the whisky. As for it being in my possession, that’s nonsense. It’s used all over the country for destroying wasps’ nests.”
Franklin. “Why were you listening in on Friday?”
Wharton. “I wasn’t! Everybody thought I was out, but I happened to be working upstairs and heard voices.”
Franklin. “In your note to Mrs. Claire you say you did something as a result of that listening in. What was it you did, exactly?”
Wharton. “I had a confidential word with France the following morning and he threatened to abandon the attempt on Mrs. Claire. I threatened, if he didn’t, to go straight to Claire. Only when he’d promised did I consent to go to Martlesham. I thought afterwards that France had been so upset about this, that he’d committed suicide.”
Norris. “In your note to Mrs. Claire—”
“You can hold on there!” said Wharton. “Whatever you ask me about that note I shall deny—or accept—as it happens to suit me. Remember, the doctor will be prepared to swear I was suffering from loss of memory, and the doctor’d have the whole of the Medical Association behind him. I can get that memory back just when it suits me—and vice versa.”
That was enough for Franklin. “I see your point. If Hayles has his case all ready, we’ve a very flimsy, circumstantial case against him; not enough to proceed with, shall we say.”
“That’s just it. He may even decline to make a statement at all, then we’d be still more in the dark. Now if he’d forged that confession—which he didn’t—he’d be a goner! That’s why I’d like you and Norris to make a special attack on Hayles’s position from the point of view we were just rehearsing.”
Franklin glanced at Norris. “We’ll have a shot. By the way, what about France’s will? Any motives disclosed by legacies?”
“None at all. Mrs. Claire and Somers were down for souvenir legacies, and Hayles for the sole rights of the partnership book. Lucy gets the house at Harrow and a sum of money which doesn’t exist. There’s nothing to incite murder in any of that. I ought to say, however, that in view of the big fight where he’d have made an enormous sum—win or lose—he’d expressed to his solicitors the desire to make a fresh will at once.”
That was the virtual end of the conference, except that as the three of them were on the point of leaving the lounge, Franklin suddenly thought of something.
“Would you mind if I had a look round that cloakroom by daylight. One or two things I don’t understand.”
“Come along!” said Wharton, and led the way through the lounge door. “Here are two lavatories. That, as you see, is the twin wash-basin with towel rack,” and so on from the tiled floor with its rugs, to the stands for sticks and umbrellas, and the row of pegs for hats and coats.
“And this is where the shot was fired from!” said Franklin, opening the door and looking out to the drawing-room. He seemed to imagine himself as firing the shot, for he closed the door gently and drew back quickly to one side. As he did so he caught his head a nasty jab against a coat-hook set in the upright of the panelling.
“Blast the hook!” He started to rub his ear. “Why the devil did they want to plaster that door with pegs? The room’s full of ’em already!”
He looked round. “By the way, wasn’t this Usher’s headquarters for spying? The two doors are nice and handy. Wonder if France ever caught him here—you know, that question we were discussing of France being suspicious.”
“He’s in the kitchen. Bring him here, Norris, will you?”
Usher’s contribution to the part played by the cloak-room, proved to be unexpected. As Franklin had said, it had been his headquarters for espionage. On occasions when he’d been on hand at the entry of Mrs. Claire, he’d retired to the kitchen and so into the cloak-room by the lounge window—his entry being screened by the tall out-houses. Once France had almost caught him and he had to make a quick pretence of wiping the wash-basin.
He had been rather annoyed, with a “What the devil are you doing here?” whereupon Usher had explained and withdrawn.
As for the other special advantages of the room, as Usher pointed out, with the door slightly ajar a conversation could be heard in either of the main rooms. Moreover, an eye could be kept on the end of the screen and even the staircase, and surprise be guarded against.
“Then I discovered this knot-hole, sir,” said Usher, in the manner of one who approaches his chef d’œuvre. He indicated what would certainly have passed unnoticed—a knot-hole clean up against the side of that coat hook which was nearer the lock.
“How it happened, sir, was that one day the door slammed and I found a knot on the floor and wondered what it was; then I found the hole and put the knot back, and it stuck all right. Then I saw it might be useful, sir, and as there were plenty of coat-hooks about I put these two up here on the door munting, sir—”
“Door what!”
“This upright, sir; muntings they call ’em. Well, sir, as I was saying, I put up the two hooks. I knew they’d never be noticed; also I kept a coat hanging on this particular hook so that the knot shouldn’t be seen. Also I dabbed the hole and the knot with black enamel. After that, sir, I could prise out the knot with a pin and keep an eye on the end of the screen without having the door open. Also the coat being there kept the knot from falling out.”
“Let me have a look,” said Wharton. Usher felt for a pin. Franklin anticipated him with the blade of his knife but found the knot difficult. Finally it levered out.
“The resin must have exuded,” said Franklin, making a face and wiping his fingers.
“I’m sorry, sir! I ought to have remembered,” said Usher hurriedly. “I put a dab of seccotine on it.”
“Mr. Claire told me to, over the ’phone that Friday evening, sir. He said the whole thing was a wash-out, and I was to close up this hole as he didn’t want anything suspicious left about; especially if I could induce Mr. France to give me the sack straight away.”
“I see.” Wharton, shorter than Usher and Franklin by two inches, tiptoed and peeped through. Franklin and Norris had a look. Through the hole, thanks to the angle at which it was set, was a good view of the approaches to the door itself.
Wharton stood back and surveyed it, then turned to Usher.
“You had a pretty low-down game to play but you certainly kept an eye on the main chance. Still, that was not your fault.” He frowned. “Suppose he couldn’t have been shot through that hole?” He approached it again and squinted through. “Of course he couldn’t!” He turned round to the others and made a gesture of explanation. “You can only shoot what you can see, and this hole was barely big enough for a pistol, let alone a look through at the same time. Also it’d have been burnt round the edges.”
“That’s right enough,” said Franklin. Norris had another look, then agreed. Wharton replaced the knot, then turned to Usher.
“Inspector Norris will be here till tea time, Usher, and I shall be in later. You can take the afternoon off if you care to.”
Wharton and Franklin parted company at St. John’s Wood Station, the latter going back to town and the other to Harrow—at least, that’s what he said. But under cover of his train that came in first, Wharton made his way up again to the street. Five minutes later he was back again in the cloak-room of Number 23.