Adventures of Martin Hewitt (14 page)

“Yes, of course I did.”

“Fortunately the whole of the cheque number is unbroken. It is Of course I
took a note of that, as well as of the other particulars distinguishable. It
is payable to Pullin, clearly, for here is the latter half of his Christian
name, Abel, and the first few letters of Pullin. Then on the line where the
amount is written at length there are the letters
u s a n d
and
p.
Plainly it was a large cheque, for thousands. At the bottom, where
the amount is placed in figures, there is a bad break, but the first figure
is a 2. The cheque, then, was one for £2000 at least. And there is one more
thing. The cinder is perfect and unbroken nearly all along the top edge, and
there is no sign of crossing, so that here is an open cheque which any thief
might cash with a little care. That is all we can see, but it is enough, I
think. Now would a thief, committing murder for the sake of plunder,
burn
this cheque? Would Pullin, to whom the money was to be paid, burn
it? I think not. Then who in the whole world
would
have any interest
in burning it? Not a soul, with one single exception—
the man who
drew it.”

“Yes, yes. What! do you mean that the man who drew that cheque must have
murdered Pullin in order to get it back and destroy it?”

“That is my opinion. Now who would draw Pullin a cheque for £2000? Anybody
in this house? Is it at all likely? Of course not. Again, we are pointed to a
stranger. And now remember Pullin’s antecedents. On his last voyage but one
his ship the
Egret,
from Valparaiso for Wellington, New Zealand, was
cast away on the Paumotu Islands, far out of her proper course. There was but
a small crew, and, as it happened, all were lost except Pullin and one Kanaka
boy. The
Egret
was heavily insured, and there were nasty rumours at
Lloyd’s that Captain Pullin had made sure of his whereabouts, taken care of
himself, and destroyed the ship in collusion with the owners, and that the
Kanaka boy had only escaped because he happened to be well acquainted with
the islands. But there was nothing positive in the way of proof, and the
underwriters paid, with no more than covert grumblings. And, as you remember,
Mrs. Heckle told us yesterday Pullin on his return had no money. Now suppose
the story of the intentional wreck were true, and for some reason Pullin’s
payment was put off till after his next voyage. Would the people who sent
their men to death in the Pacific hesitate at a single murder to save £2000?
I think not.

“After I left you yesterday I made some particular inquiries at Lloyd’s
through a friend of mine, an underwriter himself. I find that the sole owner
of the
Egret
was one Herbert Roofe, trading as Herbert Roofe & Co.
The firm is a very small one, as shipping concerns go, and has had the
reputation for a long time of being very ‘rocky’ financially; indeed it was
the common talk at Lloyd’s that nothing but the wreck of the
Egret
saved Roofe from the Bankruptcy Court, and he is supposed now to be ‘hanging
on by his eyelashes,’ as my friend expresses it, with very little margin to
keep him going, and in a continual state of touch-and-go between his debit
and credit sides. As to the rumours of the wilful casting away of the
Egret,
my friend assured me that the thing was as certain as anything
could be, short of legal proof. There was something tricky about the cargo,
and altogether it was a black sort of business. And to complete things he
told me that the bankers of Herbert Roofe & Co. were the Eastern
Consolidated.”

“Phew! This is getting pretty warm, I must say, Mr. Hewitt.”

“Wait a minute; my friend aided me a little further still. I told him the
whole story—in confidence, of course—and he agreed to help. At my
suggestion he went to the manager of the Eastern Consolidated Bank, whom he
knew personally, and represented that among a heap of cheques one had got
torn, and the missing piece destroyed. This was true entirely, except in
regard to the heap—a little fiction which I trust my friend may be
forgiven. The cheque, he said, was on the Eastern Consolidated, and its
number was B/K63777. Would the manager mind telling him which of his
customers had the cheque book from which that had been taken? Trace of where
the cheque had come from had been quite lost, and it would save a lot of
trouble if the Bank could let him know. ‘Certainly,’ said the manager; ‘I’ll
inquire.’ He did, and presently a clerk entered the room with the information
that cheque No. B/K63777 was from a book in the possession of Messrs. Herbert
Roofe & Co.”

The inspector rose excitedly from his chair. “Come,” he said, “this must
be followed up. We mustn’t waste time; there’s no knowing where Roofe may
have got to by this.”

“Just a little more patience,” Hewitt said. “I don’t think there will be
much difficulty in finding him. He believes himself safe. As soon as my
friend told me what the Bank manager had said I went round to Roofe’s office
to ascertain his whereabouts, prepared with an excuse for the interview in
case I should find him in. It was a small office, rather, over a shop in
Leadenhall Street. When I asked for Mr. Roofe the clerk informed me that he
was at home confined to his room by a bad cold, and had not been at the
office since Tuesday—the next day but one before the body was
discovered. I appeared to be disappointed, and asked if I could send him a
message. Yes, I could, the clerk told me. All letters were being sent to him,
and he was sending business instructions daily to the office from Chadwell
Heath. I saw that the address had slipped inadvertently from the clerk’s
mouth, for it is a general rule, I know, in city offices, to keep the
principals’ addresses from casual callers. So I said no more, but contented
myself with the information I had got. I took the first opportunity of
looking at a suburban directory, and then I found the name of Mr. Roofe’s
house at Chadwell Heath. It is Scarby Lodge.”

“I must be off, then, at once,” Truscott said, “and make careful inquiries
as to his movements. And those cinders—bless my soul, they’re as
precious as diamonds now! How shall we keep them from damage?”

“Oh, the glass shade will do, I fancy. But wait a moment; let us review
things thoroughly. I will run rapidly over what I suggest has happened
between Roofe and Pullin, and you shall stop me if you see any flaw in the
argument. It’s best to make our impressions clear and definite. Now we will
suppose that the
Egret
has been lost, and Pullin has come home to
claim the reward of his infamy. We will suppose it is £2000. He goes to Roofe
and demands it. Roofe says he can’t possibly pay just then; he is very hard
up, and the insurance money of the
Egret
has only just saved him from
bankruptcy. Pullin insists on having his money. But, says Roofe, that is
impossible, because he hasn’t got it. A cheque for the amount would be
dishonoured. The plunder of the underwriters has all been used to keep things
going. Roofe says plainly that Pullin must wait for the money. Pullin can’t
reveal the conspiracy without implicating himself, and Roofe knows it. He
promises to pay in a certain time, and gives Pullin an acknowledgment of the
debt, an IOU, perhaps, or something of that kind, and with that Pullin has to
be contented, and, having no money, he has to go away on another voyage, this
time in a ship belonging to somebody else, became it would look worse than
ever if Roofe gave him another berth at once. He makes his voyage and he
returns, and asks for his money again. But Roofe is as bard up as ever. He
cannot pay, and he cannot refuse to pay. It is ruin either way. He knows that
Pullin will stand no more delay, and may do something desperate, so Roofe
does something desperate himself. He tells Pullin that he must not call at
his office, nor must anybody see them together anywhere for fear of
suspicion. He suggests that he, Roofe, should call at Pullin’s lodgings late
one night, and bring the money. Pullin is to let him in himself, so that
nobody may see him. Pullin consents, and thus assists in the concealment of
his own murder. He waits at the front door smoking his pipe (you remember
that Mrs. Beckle told me so), waiting for Roofe. When Roofe comes Pullin
takes him very quietly up to his room without attracting attention. Roofe, on
his part, has prepared things by feigning a bad cold and going to bed early,
going out—perhaps through the window—when all his household is
quiet. There are plenty of late trains from Chadwell Heath that would bring
him to Stratford.

“Well, when they are safely in Pullin’s room Roofe hears the front door
shut and bolted, with all its squeaks and thumps, and decides that it won’t
be safe to go out that way after he has committed his crime. The men sit and
talk, and Pullin drinks. Roofe doesn’t. You will remember the bottle on the
table, with only one glass. Roofe produces and writes a cheque for the £2000,
and Pullin hands back the I0U, which Roofe burns.
That
would be the
lower of the two charred pieces of paper, which we have there with the other,
but can’t read.

“Then the crime takes place. Perhaps Pullin drinks a little too much. At
any rate Roofe gets behind him, uses the sharp seaman’s knife he has brought
for the purpose, and straightway the skipper is dead at his feet. Then Roofe
gets back the cheque and burns
that.
After that he ransacks the whole
room. He fears there may be some documentary evidence, which, being examined,
may throw some light on the
Egret
affair. Then he sets about his
escape. To make the thing look like a murder for ordinary plunder, and at the
same time account for the upset room, he takes away all the dead man’s
valuables tied in that shawl. He sees the hook—just the thing he
wants—and of course the sheets are an obvious substitute for a rope. He
takes away the door-key, to make it seem likely that somebody inside the
house had been the criminal, and then he simply goes away through the window,
as I have already explained. At 5.45 there would be a train to Chadwell
Heath, and that would land him home early enough to enable him to regain his
bedroom unobserved. After that he wisely maintains the pretence of illness
for a day or two.

“I guessed that the things carried off would be in that ditch, for very
simple reasons. I looked about the house, and the ditch seemed the only
available hiding-place near. More, it was on the way to the station, the
direction Roof e would naturally take. He would seize the very first
opportunity of getting rid of his burden, for every possible reason. It was a
nuisance to carry; he could not account for it if he were asked; and the
further he carried it before getting rid of it the more distinct the clue to
the direction he had taken, supposing it ever were found. The behaviour of
some of the people in the house might have been suspicious, if I hadn’t had
so strong a clue in my hand, leading in another direction. Foster probably
pawned all his clothes, and put those bricks in his boxes to conceal the
fact, so that Mrs. Beckle might not turn him away. He owed her so much that
at last he hadn’t the face to go and eat her breakfast when he had no money
to pay for it. He went out early, met friends, got ‘stood’ drinks and came
back drunk. Probably he had been kind to the girl Taffs at some time or
another, so that when she found he was suspected she refused to give any
information.”

“Yes,” the inspector said, “it certainly seems to fit together. There’s a
future before you, Mr. Hewitt. But now I must go to Chadwell Heath. Are you
coming?”

At Chadwell Heath it was found that a first-class return ticket to
Stratford had been taken just before the 10.54 train left on the last night
Abel Pullin was seen alive, and that the return half had been given up by a
passenger who arrived by the first train soon after six in the morning The
porter who took the ticket remembered the circumstance, because first-class
tickets were rare at that time in the morning, but he did not recognise the
passenger, who was muffled up.

“But I think there’s enough for an arrest without a warrant, at any rate,”
Truscott said. “I am off to Scarby Lodge. Can’t afford to waste any more
time.”

Scarby Lodge was a rather pretentious house. It was arranged that Truscott
should wait aside till Hewitt had sent in a message asking to see Mr. Roofe
on a matter of urgent business, and that then both should follow the servant
to his room. This was done, and as the parlour maid was knocking at the
bedroom door she was astonished to find Hewitt and the police inspector
behind her. Truscott at once pushed open the door and the two walked in.

It was a large room, and at the end a man sat in his dressing-gown near a
table on which stood several medicine bottles. He frowned as Truscott and
Hewitt entered, but betrayed no sign of emotion, carelessly taking one of the
small bottles from the table. “What do you want here?” he said.

“Sorry to be so unceremonious,” Truscott said, “but I am a police officer,
and it is my duty to arrest you on a serious charge of murder on the person
of —— Stop, sir! Let me see that!”