Giles's car drew up outside Arnold Vereker's house in Eaton Place just as Superintendent Hannasyde ascended the stone steps. The Superintendent turned, and when he saw Giles get out of the car, smiled, and said: “Good-morning, Mr Carrington. You're very punctual.”
“It saves trouble, don't you think?” said Giles. “Have you rung?”
“Not yet,” replied Hannasyde, pressing the electric button.
The door was opened almost immediately by a thin butler who had a sour expression and looked as though he suffered from dyspepsia. His gaze swept the Superintendent by, and came to rest on Giles. He gave a slight bow, and opened the door wider.
“Morning, Taylor,” Giles said. “Superintendent Hannasyde and I want to go through Mr Vereker's papers.”
“Yes, sir?” The butler eyed Hannasyde for one disapproving minute. “The library is locked, as the Superintendent left it yesterday, I understand.”
It was plain that the butler had no opinion of policemen who walked into well-ordered houses, and locked up rooms as they pleased.
“A bad business about Mr Vereker,” Giles said, handing him his hat and gloves.
“Extremely distasteful, sir.”
“I should like to have a word with you, please,” said Hannasyde, taking a key out of his pocket, and fitting it into the lock of a door on the right of the front door.
“Certainly, sir,” said Taylor, frigidly. “I regret having been out when you called yesterday, but Sunday is my Day.”
“Yes, I understand. Come in here, will you? Mr Carrington, will you take these?” He held out a collection of keys on a ring, which Giles took, while the butler walked over to the window and drew back the curtains.
The library had the same air of conscious opulence that pervaded every room in Arnold Vereker's house. It had expensive leather chairs, and expensive sets of calfbound volumes in oak bookshelves. There was a very thick pile carpet, and a very richly carved desk. Everything spoke aloud the unguided taste of a high-class firm of decorators; nothing gave any indication of the owner's personality.
Hannasyde waited until Taylor had arranged the curtains to his satisfaction, and then asked: “How long have you been in Mr Vereker's employment?”
“I have been here for three years, sir,” replied Taylor, in a voice that informed the Superintendent that that was a record.
“Then you are probably acquainted with Mr Vereker's habits. Was it his custom to spend the week-ends at his country cottage?”
“He occasionally did so, sir.”
“And when he did was it usual for him to drive himself down, or did he take his chauffeur?”
“Sometimes the one and sometimes the other, sir.”
“Upon Saturday, when he left town, was the chauffeur with him?”
“I believe not, sir. There had been a little unpleasantness.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Between Mr Vereker and Jackson, the chauffeur, sir. Mr Vereker gave Jackson his notice on Saturday morning, Jackson having brought the car round five minutes late again. There was a highly unpleasant scene upon the front-steps. I regret to say that Jackson so far forgot himself as to answer Mr Vereker back. It was quite a brawl, not what one would expect in a gentleman's house at all. Jackson talked extremely wildly, Mr Vereker hardly less so. Both being hot tempered, if I may say so.”
“And when Mr Vereker left the house on Saturday evening, Jackson was not driving the car?”
“No, sir. It was merely brought round to the door - Mr Vereker having stated that he did not wish to see Jackson's face again.”
“I see. At what hour did Mr Vereker leave this house?”
“He left at ten minutes to eight, sir.”
“You seem sure of that. What fixed the time in your memory?”
“Mr Vereker himself, sir. He remarked on it. I understood him to have a dinner engagement. He was not - ahem - pleased at being detained.”
“What detained him?”
The butler drew in his breath, for this was the moment for which he had been waiting. “A visitor, sir.”
“Who was this visitor?”
“I could not say, sir. He was not a person I had ever seen before. In fact, I should not describe him as the type of gentleman I have been in the habit of admitting to the house. Very down-at-heel, he was, and most determined to see Mr Vereker. Upon my informing him that Mr Vereker was not at home, he set his foot in the door, and replied that he should not leave until he had seen him.”
“Do you mean that his attitude was threatening?”
The butler considered. “Hardly that, sir. Oh no, not threatening! Very affable, he was, in a silly kind of way. Stood there smiling. I formed the impression that he was under the influence of drink. I was about to summon Matthew - the footman, sir - to assist in putting him outside when Mr Vereker came down the stairs ready to go out.”
“In evening-dress?”
“Precisely, sir. Mr Vereker called out to know what was the matter. The stranger kept on smiling, in what I could only think a very peculiar way, under the circumstances, and after a moment he said, amiable as you please: “You'd better be at home to me, old fellow.” Those were his exact words, and the effect of them upon Mr Vereker was remarkable. Mr Vereker was a gentleman with a high complexion, but he turned quite pale, and stood there with his hand on the banister, staring.”
“Did he seem to be afraid?”
“I should not like to say that, sir. He looked to me to be very angry and amazed.”
“Do you remember what he said?”
“He did not speak at all, sir, until the stranger said that it would save a lot of unpleasantness if he had a few words with him alone. Then he gave a kind of choke, and told me to let the man in. I did so, of course, and Mr Vereker led the way into this room, and shut the door.”
“How long were they both here?”
“Until Mr Vereker left the house, sir, which he did in company with his visitor. It might have been twenty minutes, or half an hour.”
“Have you any idea what took place between them? Was there any quarrel?”
“I should not call it a quarrel, sir. I never heard the stranger's voice raised once, though I could not help but hear Mr Vereker shouting occasionally. It is my belief that it was money the man wanted, for Mr Vereker said, “Not one penny do you get out of me!” several times.”
“Did you hear him say anything else?”
“Not a great deal, sir. The term scoundrel was frequently made use of, and Mr Vereker said once, very loudly: “So you think you can frighten me, do you?” But what the other man replied I don't know, him speaking all the time in a soft voice. After a little while Mr Vereker seemed to calm down, and I was unable to catch what was said. But at ten minutes to eight they both came out of the library, and by the way Mr Vereker damned me for being in the hall to open the door for him I judged that something had happened to put him in a bad temper. The other man was as amiable as ever, and seemed to be laughing up his sleeve, to my way of thinking. He said Mr Vereker could give him a lift, and Mr Vereker threw him a look which quite startled me, accustomed as I was to his moods. I could see he hated the man, and it is my belief that he had a deal of trouble forcing himself to agree to take him in the car with him. But whatever the reason he did actually do so, the stranger making himself very much at home, and Mr Vereker with his mouth shut like a trap. That, sir, is the last I ever saw of Mr Vereker.”
The Superintendent had listened to this story with an unmoved countenance. “Would you know the man if you were to see him again?”
“I think so, sir. I should, I believe, recognise both his smile, and his voice. His person was not, however, in any way remarkable.”
“Very well. You do not know of anyone else who may have visited Mr Vereker on Saturday?”
“Mr Vereker was at his office until lunch-time, sir, and no one called at this house during the afternoon. He went out at four o'clock, and did not return until shortly before seven. Miss Vereker rang up at about six, but my orders being to inform anyone who wanted him that he had gone out of town, I did so.”
“Do you know why Mr Vereker gave that order?”
“It was not unusual, sir. He had been out of temper all day, and when that occurred he never wanted to see or speak to anyone, least of all a - a member of his family.”
“I see. One other question: do you know what Mr Vereker's plans were for Saturday evening?”
“Oh no, sir! Mr Vereker was never communicative. I inferred from his attire that he was dining in town before motoring into the country, but where or in what company I fear I have no idea.”
“Thank you. I won't keep you any longer, then.”
The butler bowed, and looked towards Giles. “I beg your pardon, sir, but in the face of this unexpected occurrence there is a feeling amongst the staff that everything is very unsettled. I do not know whether the staff is to be kept on - ?”
“That will be for the heir to decide,” answered Giles pleasantly. “Meanwhile, just carry on as you are.”
“If you say so, sir,” said Taylor, and withdrew.
Hannasyde waited until he had gone before saying: “What did you make of that, Mr Carrington?”
“Not very much,” shrugged Giles. “I daresay it might be a good thing if you could run the seedy stranger to earth, but it sounds to me as though it were a somewhat inexpert blackmailer at work. Would you like the safe opened first?”
“Yes, please. And a certain amount of animus displayed against the chauffeur. Or merely protective measures?”
“Probably a bit of both,” said Giles, opening a very obvious door in the panelling beside the fireplace, and disclosing a steel safe. “Servants are always anxious to protect themselves against any possible accusation -even,” he added bitterly, “when it's only one of watering the whisky. Here you are.”
The Superintendent moved across the room to his side, and together they went through the contents of the safe. There was nothing in it relevant to the case, only share-certificates, a bank-book, and some private papers. Giles put them back, when the Superintendent had finished with them, and shut the doer again.
“We'll try the desk,” he said, going over to it, and sitting down in the swivel-chair.
“Did you bring the Will?” asked Hannasyde.
Giles drew it from his inner pocket, and handed it over. The Superintendent sat down on the other side of the desk, and spread open the crackling sheets, while Giles sought amongst the keys on the ring for one which fitted the drawers of the desk.
The Superintendent read the Will, and at the end laid it carefully down, and said in his measured voice: “I see that the residuary legatees are Kenneth and Antonia Vereker, who share equally all that is left of Arnold Vereker's fortune when the minor legacies have been paid.”
“Yes,” agreed Giles, glancing through a paper he had taken from one of the drawers. “That is so.”
“Both of them, then, benefit very considerably by Arnold Vereker's death?”
“I can't tell you, off hand, how much Arnold's private fortune amounted to. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of sixty thousand pounds.”
The Superintendent looked at him. “What about his holding in the mine?”
“That,” said Giles, laying a sheaf of papers on one of the heaps he had made on the desk, “in default of male issue by Arnold, goes to Kenneth, under the terms of his father's Will. I thought you'd want to see that, so I brought a copy.”
“Thanks,” said Hannasyde, stretching out his hand for it. “I really am grateful. You're saving me a lot of time, Mr Carrington.”
“Don't mention it,” said Giles.
The Superintendent read Geoffrey Vereker's Will, knitting his brows over it.
“This is a most extraordinary document,” he remarked. “All that seems to be left to his other children is his private fortune - and even that is divided between the four of them. What's the meaning of it, Mr Carrington?”
“It isn't as extraordinary as it appears,” replied Giles. “The Shan Hills Mine was an obsession with my uncle. In his day it wasn't the huge concern it is now. My uncle believed in it, and made a private company to work it. It was to be developed, and it was on no account to pass out of the family. So he left his holding to Arnold, with a reversion to Arnold's eldest son, if any; and failing a son, to Roger and his heirs; or, in the event of Roger's death without legitimate male issue, to Kenneth. The private fortune amounted to thirty-three thousand pounds, and was at that time the more substantial bequest. It was divided equally between the four children. But a few years after my uncle's death, his belief in the potentialities of Shan Hills was justified by the discovery, on one of the leases, of a very rich deposit — a limestone replacement deposit, if you're interested in technicalities. Arnold floated the mine as a public company - and you know pretty well how it stands today. Arnold's holding probably represents about a quarter of a million.”
“A very nice little packet to inherit,” commented Hannasyde dryly.
“Very nice,” agreed Giles.
There was a short pause. “Well, we'd better go through the desk,” said Hannasyde. “Have you found anything that might have a bearing on the case?”
“Nothing at all,” said Giles. He handed a diary across. “I hoped this might reveal his Saturday night engagement, but he's merely crossed off Saturday and Sunday. I haven't come across his cheque-book yet, by the way. Was it on him?”
“Yes, I've got it,” Hannasyde said, producing it. “I see he drew a cheque for a hundred pounds to self on Friday. At first glance rather a large sum to carry about with him, but he seems to have been in the habit of doing it.”
“He was. He got rather a kick out of a fat wad in his pocket, I think.”
“Lots do. What surprised me a little, though, was to find that he only had thirty pounds and some loose change on him when his body was discovered. Seventy pounds seems to be a lot to have spent in a couple of days, unless he paid some bills, of course.”
Giles glanced through a pile of receipts. “Nothing here for that date. Might have bought a trinket for his latest fancy.”
“Or the butler's mysterious stranger might have relieved him of it,” said Hannasyde thoughtfully. “I should like to meet this smiling stranger.” He picked up a small letter-file, and began methodically to go through its contents. Most of the letters he merely glanced at, and put aside, but one held his attention for some moments. “Hm! I suppose you've seen this?”
Giles looked up. “What is it? Oh, that! Yes, I've seen it. There's some more of that correspondence - oh, you've got it!”
The Superintendent was holding a badly worded request for five hundred pounds, written in Kenneth's nervous fist. The letter stated with exquisite simplicity that Kenneth was broke, engaged to be married, and must have funds to pay off a few debts. Appended to it was a typewritten sheet, headed Copy, stating with equal simplicity that Arnold had no intention of giving or lending a feckless idiot five hundred pence, let alone pounds. Further search in the file brought to light a second letter from Kenneth, scrawled on a half-sheet of notepaper. It was laconic in the extreme, and expressed an ardent desire on the writer's part to wring his brother's bloody neck.
“Very spirited,” said the Superintendent noncommittally. “I should like to keep these letters, please.”
“Do, by all means,” said Giles. “Particularly the last one.”
“Kenneth Vereker is, I take it, a client of yours?”
“He is.”
“Well, Mr Carrington, we won't hedge. You're no fool, and you can see as clearly as I do that his movements on Saturday night will have to be accounted for. But I'm no fool either, and we shall get along a good deal better if I tell you here and now that these letters don't make me want to go after a warrant for this young man's arrest at once. A man who makes up his mind to kill someone isn't very likely to write and tell his victim that he'd like to do it.”
Privately Giles placed no such confidence in his cousin's level-headedness, but he only nodded, and said:
“Just so.”
The Superintendent folded the three letters and tucked them into his pocket-book. His eyes twinkled a little. “But if he's anything like his sister well, that alters things,” he said. “Now let's take a look at this memorandum.”
He picked it up as he spoke and opened it. Giles began to replace the papers in the drawers. “Hullo!” said Hannasyde suddenly. “What do you make of this, Mr Carrington?”
Giles took the book, and found it open at a page of figures. In the first column were pencilled various dates; against these were set names, apparently of different firms; in the third column were certain sums of money, each with a note of interrogation beside it, and a countersum, heavily underlined. At the bottom, each line of figures had been totalled, and the difference, which amounted to three hundred and fifty pounds, not only underlined, but wholly encircled by a thick black pencilmark.
“John Dawlish Ltd,” said Giles slowly, reading one of the names aloud. “Aren't those the people who make drills? These look to me like Company accounts.”
“They look to me as though someone has been monkeying around with the accounts, and Arnold Vereker found it out,” said Hannasyde. “I think we'll step round to the Shan Hills office, if you don't mind, Mr Carrington.”
“Not at all,” replied Giles, “but I don't see quite why you should want me to -”
He was interrupted by the butler, who at that moment opened the door, and stood holding it. “I beg your pardon, sir, but Mr Carrington would like to speak to you on the telephone,” said Taylor.
Giles looked up surprised: “Mr Carrington wishes to speak to me?”
“Yes, sir. Shall I switch the call through to this room or would you prefer to speak from the hall?”
“No switch it through, will you?” Giles lifted the receiver of the desk telephone, and glanced towards Hannasyde. “Do you mind? —- It's my father, though what he wants, I can't imagine. By the way, it is he who is the legal adviser to Arnold's Company. Arnold transferred his private affairs to me, partly because we were more of an age, and partly because he and my father couldn't hit if off, but the business remained in - Hullo, sir! Morning. Yes, Giles speaking.”
The Superintendent opened his note-book and began tactfully to read through the entries. He could hear a staccato quacking noise, which he rightly inferred to be the voice of Mr Carrington, Senior. It sounded irascible, he thought.
Giles's side of the conversation was mild and soothing. He said: “So sorry, sir. Didn't I tell you I should come straight to Eaton Place? . . well, never mind: what's happened?… something to do with what?” The lazy look faded; he listened intently to the quacking noise, which went on for quite some time. Then he said: “All right, sir, I'll bring him round as soon as we've finished here.” The voice quacked again, and the Superintendent was almost certain that he heard the words: :"flat-footed policemen". However, Giles merely said: “In about twenty minutes, then. Good-bye,” and laid down the receiver. He raised his eyes to the Superintendent's face, and said: “My father wants to see you, Superintendent. He tells me he found a letter from Arnold Vereker waiting for him at the office this morning, which he thinks you ought to see.”