His colleague, Chief Inspector Franklin, had not yet come in, and Pointer had to work alone, sorting out on one side those Crosswords whose clues seemed to him of the kind to be written by such a man as Ingram, to be worth such a salary as Pointer believed might have been paid him for their composition.
Then he took these selected ones, discarded for the moment those with no money prizes attached, though he was not so sure of this being necessary, and concentrated on what remained. The fourth paper which he studied suddenly made his eyes sparkle. He was looking at the answers to the last week’s puzzle, reading them along with the clues reprinted beside them. The first clue had read:
“Was called an idol, and whether one or not, contributed to the loss of an order.” The solution was Baphomet.
A pamphlet rose before Pointer’s mind, a nearly-finished article on the little copper image of a man with a beard and a crown found in every Chapter of the Knights Templar when their Order was broken up. Ingram was one of those who believed that the name Baphomet, or the little idol, as their enemies called it, stood for a cipher in which their True Rule and their Rite of Initiation had been written.
And then further down among the solutions was a word which again brought him up with a mental shock—the word Devon and further down still was an Of.
He thought of the so-called tri-lingual cipher of VON DE and chuckled. From the first he had seen no reason why the letters might not stand for “Of Devon.” He looked for Hell, Light, Claire, which also had seemed to him a fortuitous combination, but did not find them. He finished the clues and their solutions and sat back The solver, the prize-winner, was given as a Mrs. Sampson of Lordship Lane, Dulwich. She must be a well-read woman to have solved this puzzle. A scholar had set these clues, and meant them to be tricky. The paper was the Weekly Universe, one which was pre-eminently a lottery paper, that is to say, its sales were influenced by the size and number of its prizes. This crossword for instance was a weekly feature it seemed, and always with a three-thousand pound prize for an all-correct solution.
He picked up the telephone and was put through to a news agency whose manager was a personal friend.
“Who is the writer of the Weekly Universe’s Crosswords?”
“Lord Bulstrode himself,” came the reply. “He’s awfully proud of them. Some crosswords, aren’t they?”
Lord Bulstrode was a man who, from the position of a cigarette salesman, had risen, first to be a tobacco merchant, and then to be the founder and editor-in-chief of the Weekly Universe, which had been running its sporting life for some eight years now. Lord Bulstrode...self-made if ever that adjective can be used...There was erudition in these puzzles...
He laid down the receiver and decided to try once more for Franklin. This time he found the other in, and with a minute to spare, while some fingerprints were being identified for him.
“First of all,” Pointer began, “I want to say that I'm dropping your post-office robbery for the time being. I can’t find anything to support it. But look here, Franklin, you’re keen on crosswords; what about the one set by the Weekly Universe? The three-thousand pound prize one. Is it a good one?”
“Best going,” came the unhesitating reply. “And the hardest. No initial letters or spaces to help you. And I don’t say the clues aren’t a bit too clever. Oh, none of your Personal Pronoun or Japanese Coin tricks, but for sheer difficulty, well, I’ve never known more than one person at a time to win it, if that. Often there’s no correct solution. I got within two breaks of it myself once.”
“I was wondering whether it would be possible to deduce the writer of a puzzle from his crosswords,” Pointer said slowly.
Franklin was a man of quick apprehension.
“Easily. The difficulty would be to check one’s guesses or deductions. As a matter of fact, we discussed the Weekly Universe’s man at my Crosswords Club some time ago. And we think we’ve got him pretty well taped. You see, to win a really good puzzle, you’ve got to get yourself into the writer’s skin mentally.
We mean to capture that prize yet between the lot of us. But about the writer—he’s one person. Has been for at least the last five years. He’s distinctly a gentleman. A Cambridge, not an Oxford man. No great cricketer or footballer. Fond of tennis and fair at golf. Possibly a rowing man; we differed on that. No knowledge of animals. Traveled very little, if any. Well up in science. Personally I think he’s a clergyman, but the others decided he was a schoolmaster, probably science master at some public school. He’s unmarried. Post-war, of course. Rather young, I think. They say early middle age. Fond of John Masefield. Staunch Conservative. Member of at least one good London club. Lives out of town. Fair knowledge of flowers but hardly enough for a really good gardener. No good at music. Fond of a good play with a weakness for Ibsen. Loathes Strindberg. A first-class knowledge of chess. And one of the men of our Crosswords Club, a very brainy chap, says he’s an authority on the Knights Templar or at least on their Order. I don’t quite follow him there...but it’s possible. There, that’s the outcome of five years’ close study—very close study.”
“I’m told that Lord Bulstrode writes these crosswords himself,” Pointer said innocently.
“Rot!” was the reply. “You mean that he wants it thought he writes them. That’s true enough. So keep my opinion and that of the club to yourself. But what have crosswords to do with your murder?”
“Have you had any clues lately that Hell or Light or Claire would fit?” Pointer asked.
“Claire!” Franklin said in a tone of anguish. “Claire! I never thought of that. Well, it’s not too late yet. That one has to be sent in this week. Half a minute——“ He dived into his pocket and out with his letter-case. From it came a folded notebook, and opening it at a page, he jotted down on a printed Crossword square Claire. Pointer looked over his shoulder. He saw no words among the other’s solutions that interested him. But four of the words found on the scattered bits, four of the so-called “tri-lingual cipher,” had turned up already. The others would doubtless follow, for none of them fitted here. He was still studying the squares and making quite sure of this, which was not so easy as it sounds—for the clue to Claire was “Means light in some places, and yet may mean much more”—when Franklin was called away by his superintendent. He picked up his notebook and ran for it, with a murmur about having no time to waste as he was not on a murder case.
Pointer stood a moment quite still, looking down at his shoe-tips. That Ingram was the writer of crosswords for which he was paid a thousand pounds a quarter, each of which carried big prize money, explained several things...that inner pocket with its special fastening...the folded waistcoat under his pillow...supposing he had some notes or memoranda of the solutions...still in it, or even a notification of where he had sent his registered letter. His refusal to help with crossword solutions, or even to hear them discussed in his presence. And the crossword puzzle with Claire in it had only come out the day before yesterday, Sunday. And Hell and Light were not yet out. For they would not answer any of the clues published so far. That meant that Ingram had sent off several crosswords, not merely one on the night of his death. Probably, as he was paid quarterly, he posted thirteen puzzles. And if the murderer was out to get Ingram’s most carefully guarded copy of the thirteen solutions which Pointer now believed was the real motive for Ingram’s death, then the murderer would naturally have waited until the puzzles were posted. But not longer. The next morning might see Ingram taking his copy of the solutions to some safe, or Pointer was much mistaken. He judged the dead man to have been scrupulous down to the last detail in his work. He’d been in a hurry to get something—manuscript—to the post in time...He had worked as a rule with his door shut, if not locked. No one had been allowed to see at what he was working. No one, as far as Pointer could find, knew that he was a composer of crosswords. Thirteen puzzles possibly sent off in one batch. Thirteen times three thousand is thirty-nine thousand pounds. Quite a nice little sum. Yes, here was a motive which was quite as good as even an infallible system, and which explained all the actions of the dead man as well. It was a motive, moreover, which would not be as dangerous as playing the system would be. For that was known by at least four people to exist. It would have to be played openly. The solutions could be worked in secret. No one seemed to have suspected Ingram of being the author of these puzzles. Pointer went through the papers on his table, and made a list of the winners. The lady who had solved Baphomet interested him, for the clue set for that word had been all but beyond the allowable in sketchiness. The week before, the prize had been won by a Mr. Nevern, of Pawcett Road, Hammersmith. The week before that, there had been no winner. The week before that, it had been a parson...Pointer had his constable clerk write down all this year’s winners. Meanwhile he picked up the telephone, and again talked to his friend of the news agency. How did people receive their money, if they won one of the Weekly Universe three-thousand-pound prizes?
He was told that if living in England, the winner had to apply in person at the Weekly Universe’s office. If they lived in some impossible place, Bulolo for instance, the check would be paid into their account on receipt of a duplicate of the coupon sent in showing the claimant’s writing and with a photograph of himself attached. The paper wanted advertisement, of course, and tried to interest the local press in the matter. As far as his informer could say, the prize had only once been won by a man outside the British Isles, and that had been a Remittance man who had died of drink two days before his check was sent him.
Pointer said he wanted information about the last four winners of this particular prize. He wanted some bright intellect sent along to secure it, while he himself made his swift way to the room of the Competition Editor of the Weekly Universe, whose name the agency gave him as Henry Orlebar. As he walked around to the huge white building only a stone’s throw from the Yard, he remembered that Lord Bulstrode had got his barony for his financial aid to the Conservative party, that Ingram had done well when he stood as Conservative candidate for his university town, lowering the Liberal majority handsomely. That Bulstrode and Ingram were both members of the Junior Carlton Club, of which Haliburton was a member too. Could the link be political as well, supposing it to exist, between Bulstrode and that quarterly thousand pounds?
He found Henry Orlebar ready to see him immediately on his official card being sent in. Orlebar was a lean, horsey-looking man who might have sat for a painting of the horse prophet the world over. But his manners were good, and his smile very engaging.
“Circumstances look as though Mr. Ingram’s death might be due to foul play, Mr. Orlebar, which is why I have called on you for a full account of why a thousand pounds has been paid him once a quarter from this office for the last five years.” Orlebar let this pass, so Pointer had guessed right.
“It’s really Lord Bulstrode’s fine feeling,” Orlebar began with a frank gaze bent on his visitor, as though delighted to clear up any perplexity. “Of course this is quite confidential, but Mr. Ingram was of such enormous use to him when he met him not long after starting this paper. I mean, by working out figures concerned with advertising and circulation which revolutionized all hitherto conceived ideas of such things. Bulstrode followed his advice—his system really—and the paper has advanced by leaps and bounds. Lord Bulstrode offered him a sort of extra post as Director of Circulation and Sales but Ingram turned the offer down quite decidedly. So Bulstrode insisted on his accepting a salary of four thousand a year, a mere one per cent, of what he saved the paper, thanks to his genius for figures.”
It all sounded so straightforward. But apart from his preconceived notion as to what the payment was for, Pointer would not have believed a word of it. Such a sum, paid for such a reason, would have been sent in directly to Ingram’s banking account, or posted him by check.
“And why has not the usual thousand been sent in this quarter day?” he asked.
“We’re waiting for Lord Bulstrode to be back and give his directions as to sending it in,” Orlebar said brightly. “Ingram’s death, of course, alters the usual procedure.”
“Why was it always sent in such a fantastic way?” Pointer asked next.
“Ingram’s own wish entirely. He insisted on notes being posted him in a registered envelope. Whether he has any relatives who sponge on him...of course, it’s not for me to say. But getting it in this way, it’s obvious that he need not pay it into his account unless he wished to. Say it was overdrawn...he said something to me once—“ Orlebar seemed to have a perfect spasm of frankness at the remembrance, his eyes looking positively infantile in their candor—“which rather suggested that. Though I’ve forgotten the exact words by now.”
The one-hundred-pound notes looked to Pointer much more like Bulstrode’s own preference, but Pointer thanked him, was assured that Orlebar had only been too delighted to be of use, as Lord Bulstrode would be, if he were not in South Africa getting some cool breezes instead of this heat. Of course, Orlebar went on to say, had he himself had any idea that Ingram’s salary, for it was virtually that, was of any interest, he would have at once told the Yard all about it. But seeing that there seemed no question but that the poor chap had been shot by Gilmour—most unfortunate devil—he, Orlebar, had not even considered the matter.
“But now that you do know our suspicions, now that I tell you in confidence that we are thinking of murder as an explanation for Mr. Ingram’s death, are you willing to put in writing what you have just told me, and swear to it?” Pointer asked. “I mean the reason given by you for his salary. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Orlebar, that what you have just told me does not square at all with certain information in our possession. Certain written information.”
Orlebar no longer beamed frankness and candor. His thin face grew stiff. He rubbed his chin.
“Umph...I couldn’t do anything like that, of course, without consulting Lord Bulstrode,” he said promptly. “I might be mistaken...I wouldn’t care to swear to anything without consulting him.”
Pointer said that he thought that just as well, and inquired when the editor-in-chief would be back. He was expected next week. Pointer said the Yard would try and wait for his return, leaving Orlebar looking as though he would like to chew a straw, and meditate a while. Pointer quite understood his silence. The position was one which only Bulstrode himself could clear up. Fortunately, the Yard would insist on having a full acknowledgment from him of the exact work done by the dead man, for that work—the concoction of the weekly crossword puzzles set by the paper, would, Pointer now felt sure, be the motive put forward by the prosecution for the murder of Charles Ingram. Back at the Yard, Pointer was deep in his notes, when a clever-looking young reporter was shown in. He was from the agency.
“Here you are!” He pulled out some papers from his pocket. “Mrs. Sampson, winner of The Weekly Universe’s Great Crossword Competition. Very little but that is known about her. Here’s her picture, and I’m told it’s a very poor one.” He showed a grim-looking, middle-aged woman wearing a rather obviously false fringe that came down into her eyes.
“I got on to the Weekly Universe’s reporter who had been sent down to break the glad tidings to her and interview her. He said she refused to tell anything about herself except that she was a widow, and was fond of crosswords. She claimed to have solved this one with the help of a friend. Friend to remain anonymous. The paper wanted to give her a reception, but she said she had a sore throat, and must not expose it to the night air. She really did seem in pain, and could hardly croak, the Weekly Universe man said, so they let her off the function, as she said she was leaving for a trip around the world as soon as it could be arranged. She was handed the check last week at the newspaper office, thanked them in a way that suggested that she was only getting her deserts, and cashed the check at once at Cooks, as had been arranged at her request by the paper. One of the editorial staff went along with her. She paid for a tour round the world, which took close on five hundred pounds, and had the rest handed over to her in French franc notes.”
Pointer looked at the date of the payment. It was the day preceding Ingram’s death.
“I went on to her address myself,” the reporter continued. “It’s a small house which lets out rooms. She had taken hers for a fortnight, the time just covering the reception of the news that she had won the prize and the receiving of the check. She had left there, though her tour is not due to start for another week yet, but she looked in at Cooks twice since then, once three days ago, once this morning. Only to pick up some folders. She’s the sort of vision not encountered by the dozen. Corkscrew ringlets, and a black veil floating down her back pinned to her hat by a silver star in front. She didn’t dress like that in Dulwich, and therefore it doesn’t show in her picture. The Weekly Universe chap thinks she put them all on in honor of the great occasion of coming to the office.”
Judging by the fortnight for which the rooms were taken, it almost looked as though Mrs. Sampson had known that they would cover just that particular period. Which, Pointer thought, was extremely likely.
“Now as to the winner of the week before,” went on the reporter, “he’s a chap called Algernon Nevern, and lived off the Hammersmith Broadway, a retired schoolmaster. Pawcett Road, No. 21, is the address. He was given quite a reception at the Hammersmith Town Hall a week ago, has left his room in Pawcett Road, and has vanished. I can’t find anyone who has seen him since.
So Nevern had vanished. That brought things looping back again to Pointer’s idea of a disappearance being connected with Ingram’s murder. He would look up Mr. Nevern at once, otherwise the lady with the obviously added fringe, would have had his first attention.
He felt in his letter case for a fragment of wall paper which had never left him since he picked it up in the passage where lay Ingram’s dead body, a piece of wallpaper which, so far, he had not been able to match. He was now going to see fresh rooms. One certainly, and probably two. He would not be at all surprised to learn within a few hours where this scrap came from. Since it was Nevern who seemed to have vanished, he would expect it to match Nevern’s paper, supposing as he did, that it had been dropped in the corridor by the merest mischance, and had not been noticed by the person dropping it.