Being incomplete, my act escaped success.
Guido, R. Browning.
“Well, Inspector,” said Hetherington, kicking the fire to an even brighter blaze, “come along in and sit down, and tell me all about it. Personally I feel I’ve assisted the course of justice and I’ve earned my reward.”
As he spoke, the door opened and Dr. Ainslie came in. Seeing Woods, who had sunk with an air of fatigue into one of the big, shabby arm-chairs, struggling to rise to his feet, the doctor spoke hastily:
“Don’t get up, Inspector. You look dead beat. Stay where you are, and Hetherington will give you something to buck you up. You’ve been on your feet all day, I know.”
The kindliness with which the words were spoken made Woods feel here was a genuine effort to wipe out the unpleasantness of their last meeting. While Hetherington busied himself in getting glasses, a decanter, and a siphon out of a cupboard, Ainslie pulled up another chair, and Woods sank back comfortably, realizing with thankfulness that now at last he could relax. George Fordham had been removed, still shouting and swearing, to prison; Henry Godfrey had been removed, quite silent and still, to the mortuary. Woods, after his day’s labours, had dropped in to assure Hetherington that the morning’s manœuvres had not been meaningless. Now, at the close of a cold January day, he found himself very pleasantly established before a roaring fire, with a hospitable host ready to ply him with drink and tobacco, and, being a bachelor, with no home of his own to tempt him back, he was not unwilling to stay. But, while he might stay, he might not talk, in the sense of revealing what must wait for a trial to bring to light.
“No, sir,” he said, turning to his host, “I’ll stay and just have a chat, if I may, but I can’t tell you anything about the case yet. But I promise you,” seeing the look of disappointment in Hetherington’s face, “I’ll come back here one day, when the trial’s been held, and I’ll explain to you then what I’ve been after all these days.”
Realizing the need for accepting this offer, Hetherington said no more, and, after a cheerful half-hour, Woods got up to go.
“I’m very grateful to you, Mr. Hetherington, and to you too, Doctor,” turning to Ainslie, “for making me welcome and letting me have this rest. I dare say you can guess partly what a strain this case has involved. There’s always a feeling of reaction once the man is caught. This has been worse than others,” he added, a shade darkening his face, “because Mrs. Fordham oughtn’t to have lost her life. No one could foresee what happened, and, of course, in my profession, as in others, one learns to put the past behind and just think of what one has to do in the present, but it’s difficult for me to forget, though many people think a policeman has neither nerves nor imagination. It’s been the greatest relief to me to have this restful evening, and I’ll make some return for it later on, you may be sure.”
He was gone before either of the two men had quite known what to say.
“H’m, yes,” said the doctor, “I expect he does feel a reaction to-night, and he’s still got the trial ahead of him. That’s an anxiety, however sure of his ground he is.”
Hetherington walked to the windows and gazed across the street. No lights shone from either No. 5a or b.
“Odd,” he said, “to think how commonplace this street seemed when I moved in, less than a month ago. I used to look across and see those flats opposite lighted up. I watched the people in them one late afternoon while I waited for the furniture men. They seemed such ordinary, peaceable, middle-class people, prosperous, comfortable, friendly. Now those two homes are smashed up, and the flats won’t be lived in for a long time, I should say. No one will be in a hurry to set up house in those rooms.”
The doctor, who had come over to stand beside him, nodded agreement.
“No, can’t say I should care to, myself. Well, I suppose it’s all ended now. I shall look forward to hearing the inspector tell us how he brought it all about.”
The two returned to the fireside, and the conversation turned to other topics.
Spring had almost come before Woods redeemed his promise, but the intervening months had not made him forgetful. One evening in early May he sat again in Hetherington’s arm-chair. The doctor also, summoned by appointment, was installed opposite, and this time there was no need for Woods to observe professional secrecy.
“Well, Mr. Hetherington, if it will interest you and the doctor to know how I set about it, I’ll tell you. The court proceedings only show you, so to speak, the climbers standing on the tops of the hills. Now I can tell you how we worked our way up. It takes endless patience to get the case together; I hope it won’t require as much from you to listen to its reconstruction.”
Hetherington laughed, and settled himself comfortably to listen. Dr. Ainslie said nothing, but merely lit his pipe.
“Now, this was the first situation I had to face. Mr. Simon Ewing was murdered, robbery being almost certainly the motive. No weapon was found, and the murderer left no scrap of his possessions behind. If the man seen leaving were the murderer, he hadn’t any traces on himself, so to speak, for his clothes weren’t noticeably torn or stained, and he wasn’t, as far as could be told, marked in any way. In short, we hadn’t any definite clues.
“I solved the problem of the weapon as you heard in court. The old man was killed by blows from the leg of the chair. The murderer had swung it in his hands, and struck at the man on the floor, himself remaining upright, and thus inflicted the injuries from a fair distance. That is to say, his hands and arm did not come into close contact with his victim, nor was his face near enough to be splashed. Probably the chair, interposed between the two, kept off all stains. Certainly its under-surface was stained and not its upper. I saw that either the murderer was very far-seeing, and had decided beforehand to use something he found on the spot, or the crime wasn’t premeditated, and he’d used what came nearest to his hand.
“From this two very important things followed. First, we must not expect the murderer to give us clues in the shape of blood-stained clothes. Second, the very use of this chair seemed to me to throw light on the personality of the murderer and his connexion with Simon Ewing.
“Now, in either case I felt there was some indication the murderer knew the flat and knew it well. I don’t believe anyone, meaning to kill, would rely on the chance of there being a suitable weapon somewhere about; or if he’d only meant to rob, he must have thought he could get into the flat and take what he wanted without anyone preventing him. The way an entry could be effected did not puzzle me very much, once I saw the flat had an upper part with an empty room. Any visitor could, in certain circumstances, pretend to leave, and really go upstairs instead of out of the flat door. These circumstances would arise if Mr. Ewing were laid up with his rheumatism and if the nurse were out or down at a meal. In that case, anyone wanting to rob could get upstairs and let himself out again later without the old man hearing. Mr. Ewing was just recovering from a bad bout of his illness on the 20th, and though out of bed in the afternoon was confined to his sitting-room.
“I put this possible scheme of events against the knowledge that the jewellery had been, in fact, kept in that upstairs unused room. It seemed clear that the thing could have been done, but only by someone familiar with Mr. Ewing and who knew all these details—the geography of the house, the habits of Simon Ewing, and the existence of the jewellery.
“Anyone in possession of this information could plan a robbery. If anything went wrong, it would always be possible to render the old man helpless.
“Mind you, I deliberately don’t put it more strongly than that, for I doubt if many men ever voice the idea of committing a murder to their inner selves. They don’t go quite so far as to put these things even into the form of ideas; they leave them to the subconscious. It gives a sort of feeling of preserving the decencies, but I’ve no shadow of doubt the thought is lurking there underneath, and the man knows it, and knows he can call it forth and act upon it if the occasion should arise.”
Woods paused and glanced at the doctor, who nodded briefly.
“Yes, I suppose that’s sound psychology, Inspector. There are things George Fordham might not say to himself even if he thought them, though he’d have no scruples of any sort if action were needed.”
Woods went on:
“Now, the next thing which struck me very forcibly, and which was indeed the outstanding feature in this crime, was the question of time, or, in other words, when was there the opportunity for someone to commit this murder? The nurse went out at 4 p.m. Mr. Ewing was left alone, but the murderer didn’t go up until 5 o’clock, when the nurse, even if delayed, might reasonably have been expected back, since she was due to return no later than half-past four. I considered that the evidence of all the members of Mrs. Dutton’s tea-party did definitely establish the fact that the murderer went up at 5 o’clock or just after, and that the murder took place when the heavy fall occurred at round about ten minutes past five.
“The murder took place then, but I wasn’t convinced it was planned for that time. I was sure it had been intended to take place while the nurse was out. That was all I could feel was definite as to this question of opportunity, namely that the opportunity was provided between the hours of 4 and 5 p.m.
“Then I came on to the next stage. Given the opportunity, who would be likely to avail themselves of it? In other words, who had a motive? Or who, to narrow it a little further, amongst those persons familiar with the flat and with Mr. Ewing’s habits?
“The first person to be considered was the nurse. She might have had all the knowledge required; she certainly knew of the opportunity, and either she herself or an accomplice might have taken it. It was, however, difficult to find a motive. Her character was investigated and was excellent. She was in no financial difficulty, and there seemed no adequate reason for her to be involved in the crime. Next came persons, not living in the flat, who knew Mr. Ewing well, and at once, heading the list, came George Fordham. He had knowledge of the flat, of his uncle’s health, of his possessions, and he would have been readily admitted. Had he motive?
“We knew that he was very poor and in very low water. At first I could not get beyond that. In the very early stages of the investigation we had only suspicion to go on, and of course other people might be found who were equally implicated. We dared not be too open in our inquiries. The attempts I made to discover Fordham’s financial position were not very successful; tentative questions at his place of business produced nothing. His employer had been an intimate friend of his parents, had taken George on out of kindness, and, not aware he was suspected of the murder, was trying to shield him from other investigations. We had no idea of this, and could make no progress in that direction.
“I think it will make things clearer, however, if I tell you now what I discovered later. The second murder put into my hands the very information I had sought in vain after the first. Through it I got proof of Fordham’s career of fraud. As you know from the trial, the man sent to look through Mrs. Fordham’s papers found the blank order book, with the impression left on the top page of a previous entry. We proved that entry was a false one. Fordham had been making use of false addresses. Armed with that, I then went back to his employer, and we soon unravelled the whole business.
“At first Fordham had begun quite honestly. He had obtained genuine orders for the firm, received payment for them, which he passed on, and claimed his due commission. Then, when he began to be pressed for money and in difficulties, he hit on an ingenious plan which, though dishonest in one sense, didn’t at first involve stealing. He would book an order, and represent it as being for a smaller amount than it was, keeping for himself the difference in cash, which was greater than his commission would be. He would see that part of the order, corresponding to what he had reported as the total, was delivered, and he would notify the purchasing firm the rest was to follow. In biggish amounts of stuff like this, it often isn’t all required at once, and it is quite usual for delivery to be made in instalments. He banked on that, of course. Later, when he’d got in fresh orders which enabled him to balance his cash, he’d send in the rest of the order and have it delivered. In this way his employer ultimately got the complete amount of business, Fordham got his commission, the buyer got his goods. Only during the interval Fordham had had control and use of part of the sum paid for the goods. His employer got wind of this, and, of course, Fordham, when found out, could not immediately produce all the money owing. Anxious not to send him to prison, his employer gave him notice that if restitution were made within a certain time, no prosecution would be made, he would simply be dismissed.
“What his employer did not know, and what that bill-book enabled us to discover, was, that his frauds had gone a step farther. Betting and speculation were the groundwork of his efforts to get straight, and in these hard times they had failed him. So he fell back on the crude expedient of booking up false orders for imaginary addresses. He never sent those false orders in to the warehouse, but up to the office where he claimed and received commission. He must have known this would come to light eventually, but he was a born gambler, always hoped he’d get the funds to replace his defalcations, and reckoned his employer would in that event be willing not to prosecute.
“When he knew he’d got to make good and somehow or other produce the money within six weeks—that was the time his employer allowed—he began to look round for any means whereby he could get the cash. He didn’t tell either his wife or his uncle of his predicament. Instead, he invented this story of a possible partnership, and tried to induce old Ewing to advance him some money for it. If Simon had let him have this hundred or two, there would have been no robbery and no murder—or at least not at this stage. Whether George would have come to it at the end no one can tell. Judging from the savagery he showed since he gave rein to his worse nature, I think myself he’d have broken out sooner or later.
“However, all this story we only got in its entirety later. At the early stage, I considered Fordham a possible suspect. I believed his finances gave him a motive, and I set out to trace his associates and, of course, his movements on the day itself. First I wanted to know his whereabouts during the vital period Where was he at five o’clock? As you know, he hadn’t tried for an absolute alibi, but that did him no harm. An innocent person might be hard put to it to produce an alibi, and that, of course, he knew. I did notice one small point. He’d told his wife he’d be back early that day, and it transpired that in point of fact he had not been early after all. That fitted with my theory. If the robbery or murder were originally planned for four o’clock, he would have been home early. As somehow it had been delayed for an hour, so he too had been delayed. Only theory, you’ll say, but all these little straws showed the wind.
“Now, did this belief that a delay had occurred receive confirmation elsewhere? I believed that it did. For I thought I saw corroboration in the way in which the man was seen leaving the flat. He could never have intended that should happen; he must always have meant to get away before the nurse returned. She’d gone out, and met with the accident nearly an hour before. He couldn’t have meant to stay so long. Of course, we had to bear in mind he’d never imagined, either, that she would return accompanied by anyone. He’d expect her to be alone, and he may have intended, if she should, by some mischance, arrive before he’d done, to silence her. He wouldn’t, however, wish to do that unless it were absolutely forced upon him. He wouldn’t want to let himself in for a double murder if he could avoid it. No, I was confident his plans had gone awry. He’d meant to have his job done as soon after four o’clock as possible, and be away. Now, if he’d been obliged to wait and go up to the flat at five o’clock instead of four, surely he’d have had to hang about outside? I began to hope that might be so, and to inquire if any such loiterer had been seen in the street. Unluckily for us, it had been cold and wet. People in that residential street were all at home, curtains drawn, no one either about or watching from the windows. No one came forward to make any report. Then I got on your tracks, Doctor, and you did at last tell me what I wanted.”
He turned to Dr. Ainslie.
“Your evidence, when it came, caused me a lot of trouble, sir. I had begun to hope my way was to be made clear by your story of a watcher in the street. Instead, when I came to test and examine it, my trail became confused and split up. For the description you gave didn’t tally with that of George Fordham. If you were speaking the truth, he was not the man hanging about in the street after all. Then you told me of Mr. Hetherington, and his description of the man who’d come to his flat tallied with yours. I had to reconsider my theory, and I’m bound to confess I had to look with an eye of suspicion upon you two. For neither of you had come forward to help the police; you’d both kept things to yourself, on your own showing. You were both newcomers to the neighbourhood, and, if you’ll excuse me saying so, you were both found to be hard up.”
He broke off at the rather rueful looks which dawned on the faces of his companions.
“Well, you know,” he went on, “we have to find out these things, but, of course, they go no further, and I expect by now you know each other well enough for this to be no secret to either of you?”
Ainslie laughed.
“You’re right there, Inspector, and, of course, Hetherington and I don’t object in the least to you having the information. I only hope you also know we’re both on the up-grade now.”
“Well,” said Woods, smilingly, “I’m glad to hear that, but, of course, three months ago your prospects weren’t quite so good, and at least we had to consider you both as in need of cash. Then again, you lived so close to the scene of the crime, and had ample opportunity for watching it; in the case of both of you, your front windows overlooked the flats opposite; Dr. Ainslie knew Mr. Ewing, knew about the jewellery, knew, probably, when the nurse was out. There was quite a case piling up against you. What really made me not take you seriously”—this with again a slight smile at the doctor’s horrified air—“was that question of time. I found you’d been seeing patients all the afternoon by appointment, and you’d gone in to Mrs. Fullard in these flats. You couldn’t, of course, have managed the bicycle attack on Nurse Edwards. If you had been concerned, you’d have needed an accomplice. That was where Mr. Hetherington might have come in. He might have been in it with you. That wasn’t really a serious proposition, but as I just sat turning things over in my mind, it came idly into my thoughts, as things do, and though I dismissed it in your case, for I didn’t seriously suspect you, Doctor, it suddenly lit a train in my mind.
“Supposing this were a crime executed by two men after all, though not by you two, how would that theory fit the facts?
“Well, in that case we began to clear up one muddle. The watcher whom you two had described, it was clear, wasn’t George Fordham, my chief suspect. If you told the truth, this person was shorter, more thick-set, fairish in colouring. Nor did this description tally with the one given by other people of the man seen leaving the flat, whom we were told was slim and probably dark. The clothes were alike in both cases.
“This was the real cleverness of the plot, for the two involved had definitely tried to merge their identities and so confuse the trail. They stressed superficial similarities and so led to attempts at identification which closer investigation was bound to discredit.
“They succeeded pretty well, as you know. Of the people who saw Fordham, neither Nurse Edwards nor Miss Godfrey had ever seen him before the evening of the 20th. Afterwards Miss Godfrey met him at her aunt’s house, but not only was he differently dressed, and naturally she saw him then without his hat on, in addition, he took the precaution of altering his appearance a little, faked a cut on his face and put on plaster, drawing up his lip a little—a small thing which alters a person a good deal. Nurse Edwards he could avoid, and he did. He took care she should never see him again, sending his wife to inquire after her, and all that. So I got no recognition from either of them.
“Then the third person who had seen the murderer—Henry Godfrey. His evidence threw me off the track at first, as it was meant to. He knew Mr. Fordham quite well; he did not identify him, and in fact gave a slightly different description from the one his sister gave.
“Now, when that day, after seeing you, doctor, and Mrs. Fordham, I was thinking this all out afresh, I got a flash of light on the whole picture. When Mrs. Fordham at last told of her visit to her uncle, she gave me the reason for the whole crime taking place later than it had been intended. You gave me the idea that there had been a watcher in the street who wasn’t necessarily the man in the flat. If Fordham were the man in the flat, then quite deliberately Godfrey had not admitted having recognized him, and was, in consequence, an accomplice.”