Death Comes to Cambers (28 page)

‘Done in, both of us, sir, if you ask me.

‘I beg to respectfully suggest for both our sakes it would be best for all concerned if I went abroad, having friends in Canada and same speak well of it with my fare paid and adequate compensation for risk run and loss of situation and prospects (both first-class) at home.

‘I beg to respectfully suggest one thousand pounds in one pound and ten shilling notes, in a brown-paper parcel, delivered to above address, same being moderate enough when you come in for all her money.

‘I beg to respectfully suggest an early reply by return will oblige, same being necessary on account of me not knowing if I am acting right and feeling all the time I ought to split, being so troubled sometimes I feel I must though fully sympathizing as a married man and knowing well what it's like.

‘I am,

‘Honoured sir,

‘Your obedient servant,

‘Samuel Jones

‘Ps. What I mean is, the sooner I'm out of it, the safer for you.'

Bobby folded the letter again, and replaced it in its envelope.

‘Quite plain,' he said. ‘I take it Sir Albert had employed you to watch his wife?'

‘That's right.'

‘How did you get in touch with him?'

‘Saw the old girl at the Henry VIII one night having dinner. They were at my table. You could see the young chap with her wasn't her class, and when you see an old girl like her standing treat to young fellows like him, you know what's up. I made a few inquiries on my own, because there's times when a gent will come down handsome for a tip about what his wife's been up to – worth a lot sometimes. I found out easy enough there had been a split, and Sir Albert was living in London on his own and sweet on a bit of skirt himself, and wanting a divorce she wouldn't agree to, aggravation being woman's nature all along. So I rung him up, and sounded him cautious what he would give to know how his wife was carrying on. He bit at once. Recognized the young man the moment I said what he was like, been suspicious of him before, seemingly. So he engaged me at five quid a week, my ex's, and a hundred bonus if it came off, fifty when the divorce suit was entered, twenty-five when the decree nisi was pronounced, and the rest of it when made absolute. He wasn't taking any risks. At first it seemed a wash-out. They had put it across so well down there where they lived it was only digging for bones and suchlike they was interested in; no one spotted what was behind. Lapped it all up at face-value,' said Mr. Jones, with a superior smile. ‘Called the young fellow her ladyship's tame cat, and left it at that. Innocent lot down there – comes of watching the flowers grow and hearing the birds sing, but it takes more than a tale like that to kid you when you've lived in London all your life. But they covered careful – remarkable careful – I will say that for them, and I was getting a bit worried till I got the tip I wanted.'

‘Who from?'

‘I didn't know; I didn't ask; I didn't care,' answered Mr. Jones. ‘The tip was all that I wanted. Never drag in others if you can help it, or most like they'll want a share of the coin. So I just said, “Thank you,” and acted according to my own judgement.'

‘But surely you knew who had told you?'

‘I was rung up,' Jones explained. ‘First time I was told to be in a call-box named at a certain time. So I did, and what was said was that Eddy Dene and Lady Cambers used the shed in the field where he did his digging to meet in, and if Sir Albert waited in the rhododendrons on Sunday night, then, somewhere about twelve or soon after, he would see Lady Cambers slipping out on the q.t. by the front-door, and if he followed her he would find Eddy Dene waiting for her in the shed. And that's what happened – only they fell out on the way,' concluded Jones, his voice a little shaken now, as if some sense of the tragedy of which he told had penetrated even his dull consciousness.

Nor did Bobby speak for a moment or two, so plainly did he seem to see visualized before him that dreadful deed in the darkness of the night. Presently he asked: ‘Had you no idea who was speaking to you?'

‘If you ask me – then, from internal evidence alone, it was Eddy Dene himself.'

‘But why should he...?'

‘Lummy, ain't that plain to anyone but a blessed dick?' demanded Jones impatiently. ‘If there was an open scandal and a divorce through them being caught out that way, wouldn't she have had to marry him afterwards, and isn't a rich wife like her, even if a bit old, a catch for a grocer's assistant? Smart, I call it, real smart.'

‘Yes, I see,' agreed Bobby thoughtfully. ‘You told Sir Albert to be there that evening?'

‘That's right. He told me to keep out of the way – wanted it private, I thought at the time, but now I wonder if perhaps he had it in his mind all the while what he meant to do. But when the rain come down the way it did, I wasn't so sorry to get along back to the pub where I was stopping.'

‘You mean,' Bobby asked, ‘that Sir Albert had instructed you to keep out of the way, but you had intended to be on the spot all the same?'

‘That's right. You never know what you mayn't pick up; though never once, I take my Bible oath, did I dream what he might be up to – a row, yes, and just as well to know the details in case of same coming in handy later on. But strangling is what never once I thought of.'

‘It was the rain drove you back to your room?'

‘That's right. Only it wasn't rain so much as buckets – buckets it was all right, and me never the same since laid up with rheumatic fever, and not wanting same any more, thank you. So I changed my things, being drenched, and waited a bit, and, soon as the rain stopped, I slipped out of the window same as I had before when I wanted to keep an eye on Lady Cambers and the young man without causing talk or notice took. But never any luck as far as that goes.' He paused and hesitated. ‘It was a shock all right,' he said. ‘Uneasy, I was, in a manner of speaking, and that's what took me out after changing to my dry things and being snug and dry in my room at the pub. But I never thought of – of that. Most like he didn't either; most like it just began with words, and then he got her by the throat and squeezed a bit harder than he meant, and there you are! Easy done. So then I thought I had best get out. You can see for yourself how awkward I was placed – with my duty being to go straight to the police and tell 'em all, and my duty to my employer, remembering how the Bible says who was their neighbour when the disciples fell among thieves, and what right had I to send my neighbour to the gallows? Torn I was – just torn this way and that – but in the end I come to it I must face my duty to the bitter end. I said to myself: “Samuel, split you ought and split you must, painful as such must be.” So my mind being made up and peaceful, I come back to tear up that letter you've got; and blackmail you can't bring it in nor nothing else, when same wasn't ever posted nor going to be.'

‘I'll have to ask you to come along with me to Scotland Yard and tell them your story there,' Bobby remarked.

‘I thought that was coming,' Mr. Jones sighed dispiritedly. ‘It's a place I never could abide. But duty's duty, though hard.'

‘There's just one little point,' Bobby remarked. ‘About Eddy Dene's fountain-pen.'

‘Eddy Dene's fountain-pen,' repeated Jones, evidently puzzled. ‘What about it? What are you getting at? I never even knew he had one. Why should I?'

To Scotland Yard, therefore, Bobby escorted Mr. Jones, and there Mr. Jones was somewhat pressingly invited to remain till his story could be further investigated, and till it could be decided whether a charge, if not of attempted blackmail, then of having been an ‘accessory after the fact,' should be laid against him, or whether he should be accepted as a witness of fact for the Crown.

‘And if you don't,' Mr. Jones pointed out, ‘where's your case, for there's nobody saw but me?'

He was told in official language that all relevant facts would receive careful consideration, and then was shown to his room, a small, plainly furnished, but quite comfortable apartment, provided, too, with a bell within sound of which, he was assured, would be an attendant all night long, so that every want of his would be certain to receive prompt attention – and there are quite expensive hotels where a bell rung in the small hours has small notice taken of it.

While Mr. Jones was thus being so carefully looked after, Inspector Ferris was instructed to return in Bobby's company to Mr. Jones's lodging, where careful examination was made of all his personal belongings.

‘May turn out,' said Ferris, ‘this bird didn't only look on – he may have helped as well.'

The task was not very arduous, for Jones's personal possessions were scanty enough. They were contained in a large, old, and exceedingly shabby trunk, and a small, very smart, brand-new suit-case. The brand-new suit-case contained equally new underclothing, night-wear, and so on, all of good quality and recent purchase, some of the articles, indeed, with the price-tab still upon them. And in the old and shabby trunk all the contents were equally old and shabby. There was an ancient dress-suit – a necessity, of course, to a man who worked as a waiter – an old and threadbare lounge-suit in tweed, and other clothing, all very much patched and worn. To the aged tweed lounge-suit Bobby drew Inspector Ferris's attention, and explained why it seemed important, since at first the inspector did not seem to grasp its significance. But when he did he nodded in agreement.

‘Yes, I see what you mean,' he agreed. ‘It does look a bit fishy. We'll rub that in all right.'

‘In the same way,' Bobby went on, ‘if he was pretending at the Cambers Arms to be a well-to-do man, retired on what he had made in business, he had to have luggage to fit the part. That explains the suit-case being brand-new, and its contents all nice and new, too.'

‘“Ex's”,' pronounced Ferris, ‘paid for by Sir Albert. And his tumbledown old trunk, and all the old junk in it that looks as if it came out of the Ark, he would just store somewhere. Hullo, what's this?'

Fumbling at the bottom of the trunk he had discovered a pile of manuscripts, the first scrap of paper they had found so far, since Sir Albert Cambers himself was apparently Mr. Jones's only correspondent. Examination showed the manuscripts to include a play, of which it seemed only the first half of the first act had been completed, the author having apparently not been quite sure how to go on after the Duke had fallen dead beneath the avenging pistol of the fiancé – a waiter at the Savoy – of the girl he had betrayed. There was also a novel, which, however, had more nearly reached its appointed end; an essay entitled ‘Customers I have Known', but whereof only the title had been set down, the writer's feelings having apparently been too strong to allow him to continue, and, finally, a poem on the Jubilee, whereto had been carefully pinned a printed rejection-slip from
The Times
.

‘Quite the literary man,' observed Ferris.

‘Yes,' agreed Bobby. ‘Yes. You know, that has its interesting side, too.'

‘Nothing to do with us, anyhow,' declared Ferris, beginning to put the manuscripts back again.

‘Only as a sidelight on character,' observed Bobby.

‘Oh, well,' answered Ferris, not quite understanding this, ‘I wouldn't say writing plays and poems and stuff proves a bad character – suspicious, of course, but some of them as does so is quite respectable.'

‘Anyhow, there's nothing to show Jones ever tried his hand at any other blackmailing stunts,' Bobby observed.

‘Never had such a chance before; dropped right into his lap, so to say,' Ferris pointed out. ‘Must have thought it as good as an income for life. Nothing else here, I think.'

Bobby agreed, so they locked the room, warned the landlord that his tenant would not be back for a day or two, and that the room must not be entered or its contents interfered with in any way, gave him a receipt for the suitcase of which they had taken possession, and then separated, Inspector Ferris returning to headquarters with the suitcase, and Bobby deciding that before he caught the last train back to Cambers there was time to look in at the Hotel Henry VIII and find out if anything was known there of Mr. Jones's literary ambitions.

He found they were well known, and had earned for him much respect, so that his aid was often sought in solving crossword-puzzles and other competitions in the papers. The rejection-note from
The Times
had, for example, been shown to many admiring fellow-workers, though one or two, suspicious or envious, had pointed out that it bore no name, and might quite easily have been sent to some other poet. Most of the staff, however, had been disposed to accept it as perfectly genuine – as, in fact, it was.

Even the manager had heard, apparently, but had not been pleased, for he distrusted literary men and thought his hotel the better without them, either as guests or staff.

‘You never know where you are with them,' he complained. ‘You may see two of 'em hobnobbing thick as thieves, and one of 'em perhaps selling neckties at one of the big shops, and the other with an income in five figures; and, what's more, the five-figure-income man listening humble and respectful while the necktie-seller tells him all about it – not natural, to my mind. You don't know where you are with 'em.'

‘I've only known one,' Bobby observed. ‘He came to a bad end. They gave him the Hawthornden Prize.'

‘Pity,' said the manager vaguely. ‘There's an American gentleman here – a Mr. Tyler. He's been talking about the murder – it seems he knew Lady Cambers.'

Bobby was a little startled. He knew the Yard had been trying, at the request of Colonel Lawson, to get into touch with Mr. Tyler, but so far without success, as he had been said to be motoring or visiting friends in France. Of course, if Jones's explicit statement could be accepted at its face-value, the case was at an end. And certainly, while it remained on record, there would be no possibility of bringing the crime home to anyone else. The statement of an eyewitness seems conclusive enough. Nevertheless Bobby had learnt to take nothing for granted, and never to be satisfied while any of the pieces of the puzzle refused to fit in the completed pattern. So he thought it might be as well to try to find if Mr. Tyler had anything interesting to say; and, when he sent up his card, he received, late as the hour was, a prompt invitation to join Mr. Tyler in his private room.