The Bath Mysteries (8 page)

“Oh, yes,” agreed Bobby, still more respectfully, as he strove in a puzzled way to remember what in his university days he had learned of the different philosophies.

Dr. Beale helped himself to another cigarette.

“Sometimes people don't believe it,” he remarked. “They seem to think a philosopher must be at least a hundred years old, with a beard at least a yard long, and that he ought to live in a tub. And I do draw the line at that, though if I'm not a hundred I'm getting on – sixty-five.”

Bobby made polite sounds of incredulity, for, indeed it did seem to him hardly possible that a man of sixty-five should have retained the ease and swiftness of movement Dr. Beale displayed. He was, in fact, really surprised by the other's reference to his age; his whole appearance, his alert manner, his bright, quick glance, the extraordinary swiftness and lightness of his movements, all seemed to belong to a much younger personality. But, then, sixty is an age no one wishes to claim, neither young enough for adventure nor old enough for reverence, a dull, indeterminate age, indeed, to which no one would be likely to advance a false claim. So it was probably correct, however surprising, since, though time may have no bite upon the mind, the body remains its natural prey. Bobby said something polite about his companion looking much younger, and Beale gave that low laugh of his which had so much the manner of being so entirely under his control.

“Would you like to know why?” he asked. “Good wine and enough of it, good food and not too much of it. Overeating is fatal – makes you fat.” He paused to shudder at the thought, like any debutante detecting the approach of plumpness. “But you can't over-drink, because if you do you simply cease to drink and begin to swill. No drunkard can appreciate good wine. But dull food – ginger beer and cold mutton – that's fatal, too. Kills your interest in life. Good food well cooked – it needn't be expensive – and good wine – it must be expensive, unfortunately. Make those your slogans and live to be a hundred.” With his conjuring-trick air he flashed his watch from his pocket and back again. “Hope this Lawrence chap is not going to be much longer,” he said. “I suppose they do a big business here, but I've another engagement as well. Generally I deal with my regular brokers – most respectable firm; their notion of a flutter is a wild plunge in Consols. So when I want a fling in gold mines I come here. My own man hardly knows gold mines exist. Generally I only risk two or three hundred, but this time I've a surprise for these people.”

“Indeed,” said Bobby.

“Twenty thousand,” said Beale; and Bobby looked up quickly, wondering a little at the largeness of the sum, and guessing that perhaps it was a natural excitement over a prospective deal on so large a scale that was making his companion so talkative.

For the doctor of philosophy did not strike him as being of a type likely to chatter so freely in the general way.

“Twenty thousand,” Beale repeated now, rolling the words on his tongue as if to get the full flavour of their meaning. “Gilt-edged securities yield too low. What does a capital of £20,000 bring in today? Five or six hundred if you're lucky. And if a woman's been used to spending a hundred a month – well, it can't be done, can it?”

“No,” agreed Bobby, “only there's always the question of risk.”

“Oh, I've drawn up a perfectly sound, safe list,” declared the philosopher; and suddenly, Bobby hardly saw how, he was seated again in another of the armchairs with a bundle of papers on his knees. “Jolly good,” he said complacently, “only, of course, my old stick of a broker can't understand. So I'm going to see what these people think of it. It's a lady I'm acting for. I'm her trustee. She's a widow, poor soul, and lost her only son very tragically some time ago.”

“Indeed,” murmured Bobby, beginning to be a little bored by such a stream of confidential reminiscence.

“Found dead in his bath,” added Dr. Beale, and Bobby's heart nearly stopped with fear and wonder and excitement.

Dr. Beale was silent then. He was slowly turning over the papers on his knee, but less as if interested in them than as if oppressed by memory of this tragedy he had referred to. Bobby said presently, as indifferently as he could:

“Was that recently?”

“Oh, no, two or three years ago,” Dr. Beale answered. “Three years to be exact. Very sad affair altogether. Most tragic. The poor woman's only son, and making a big name for himself in the City. A financial genius. She misses the liberal allowance he used to make her, too. It stopped with his death.”

“Didn't he leave anything?” Bobby asked.

“Not a penny,” Beale answered. “Liabilities, in fact. Very sad affair – it happened on the Continent, no one could explain how. He was found dead in his bath in a furnished villa he had taken for holidays. They thought he fainted and his head went under the water. He had a number of big schemes in hand, and he had probably been overworking. Of course, everything collapsed with his death. I can tell you I've been very careful ever since never to fill my bath too full.”

“Wasn't he insured?” Bobby asked.

“Oh, heavily – £20,000, I believe, including £1,000 on a coupon from a diary they wouldn't pay because it happened out of England. His mother would have got that, I suppose, but all the rest went to the people who held the policies. I don't know why, but they tell me a life insurance policy with a good company is the most easily negotiated financial instrument there is.”

“I suppose so,” agreed Bobby. “Do you know what company it was?”

“Some American concern, I think. But I don't know much about it. All I'm sure of is that the mother didn't get a penny. I never understood why, but then I'm not instructed in business ways. Ask me anything about Hegel's philosophy of realism and I dare say I could talk about it for an hour or two. But ask me about business methods and I'm dumb.”

Bobby thought that improbable, but he said nothing. His mind was in a whirl of doubt, confusion, even dread. Dr. Beale added:

“The poor fellow had had dealings with this firm – or, rather, with their predecessors: that's how I got in touch with them.”

The door opened, and there entered the girl typist Bobby had seen before.

“Mr. Lawrence can see you now, sir,” she said to Dr. Beale. To Bobby she added: “Mr. Lawrence says he's so sorry to have kept you waiting, but it's always a little difficult if no appointment's been made.”

She was looking directly, even fiercely, at him as she spoke, and again Bobby was aware of that expression in her eyes he had seen before and that had then, as now, puzzled him so much. There was fear in it, but not the fear all officers of the law are familiar with in those whom at last the arm of the law has reached. There was hate, defiance, too, but a hate and a defiance different from that to which officers of the law are accustomed when their duty brings them into contact with those in whom hate and defiance are the general mood. There was desperation as well, and with that, again, Bobby, like all his colleagues, was only too sadly familiar. But it seemed as if there were in addition a kind of wild appeal and trust – almost hope – and that was less easy to understand. It was only for a second, or less than a second, that their eyes thus met; and then the girl was moving to the door of the inner office to open it for Dr. Beale to enter. With his characteristic light speed of movement Dr. Beale followed, and, as he vanished, Bobby heard a loud yet dull and curiously expressionless voice saying: “I'm so sorry, doctor. So awfully good of you to have waited. It was Montague with me, and he's such a suspicious, cautious old beggar he would have been dead sure something was wrong if I had made even the least attempt to hurry him through the papers. It's rather a big thing – ” The girl closed the door then, shutting out the voices. She went back to her cubicle by the outer door without another glance at Bobby, though he was certain she was acutely aware of him. For a moment, indeed, he had the idea that she was going to stop and speak, and then he thought that he would speak to her himself. But he did not. The only thing he could be sure of was that she was in an intensely emotional and nervous state, and he felt it would probably be better to let that nervousness and emotion find their own vent.

Besides, he did not know in the least what to say or how to approach her. His mind was in a turmoil, and, warm as was the day, warm the sunshine streaming in by the open windows, he felt strangely cold, so that he found he was shivering slightly.

He heard a slight noise of movement behind him. Turning, he saw that the typist girl had opened her door again an inch or two and was looking at him through the crack.

“Did you want to speak to me?” he said.

She closed the door again, and almost at once he heard the clatter of her machine as she banged it to and fro at a feverish rate.

But he found it difficult. The simplicity with which Dr. Beale had told his story had intensified a thousandfold the terrors it concealed. No doubt the doctor felt keenly the tragedy of a young and promising life abruptly cut short, but what did he know of the fresh light thrown by it upon what now appeared a conspiracy of murder as callous, widespread, and successful as any the whole dread history of crime could show?

It suddenly occurred to him that the very cigarette he was smoking might well have been bought with the proceeds and profits of what was beginning to show itself to him as a kind of murder factory. Perhaps that was why it was an expensive brand. Expense no object with death so easily transmuted into gold. With a strong effort he applied himself to clear his mind of all emotion and to consider dispassionately the facts so far established.

Of these, the first and most important was this series of deaths of men heavily insured, in each case but one the insurance on their lives being paid, not to their natural heirs, but to business associates, and in each case, too, the death occurring in a bath and arousing no open suspicion. Though, of course, it was likely enough, as Bobby knew well from his own experience, that many doubts and misgivings had been in fact aroused, even without sufficient justification being found to permit of open expression. 

He noted the second fact, apparently well established, that there existed some sort or kind of connection between this series of deaths and the firm of outside brokers in whose waiting room on the eighth floor of a London office building he was now seated at his ease, smoking one of their admirable and expensive cigarettes. It was a connection, too, that explained the luck of his chance encounter with Dr. Beale, but for the fortunate coincidence of the meeting with whom nothing might ever have been heard of the further death that had apparently taken place somewhere on the Continent. A bit of luck, Bobby told himself gravely, that showed, he hoped, Providence was on his side, intending to help him.

For he realized well that the task before him had been rendered so difficult by the passage of time that to gather convincing evidence of what had happened so long ago would require for success every possible aid that diligence, luck, or brain could give. At any rate there was one quarter from which he thought it reasonable to suppose he could calculate on getting every help. The Mr. Lawrence apparently in charge here, and so ominously insured for that sum of £20,000 which seemed to run like a
leit-motiv
through all these different tales of death, could surely be relied upon to give all the information in his possession. Warning would have to be given him with tact and care, but, once he understood that he was almost certainly destined to be the next victim – or why this heavy insurance? – then evidently he should be willing to do all in his power to help, if only for the sake of his own threatened safety.

A big point in his favour Bobby felt this to be, one that promised real hope of success. For Lawrence must know how and why and by whom he had come to occupy his position.

Another thing, Bobby reflected, was plain enough – that something was already known here about his own identity. Only some degree of previous knowledge could explain the behaviour of the typist girl. Not so would she have looked at any casual caller; only a degree of understanding of his identity and errand could account for the profound agitation she had displayed. But that implied also some previous knowledge of the ghastly realities this apparently commonplace business office concealed. Nor in that connection was it to be forgotten that both this girl and the woman who had passed as Ronnie's widow possessed a fur coat in what is often called “leopard skin” – one sufficiently smart and valuable to have drawn admiring comments from feminine beholders. Were they, wearers and coats, identical, then?

If so, must it be concluded that she was accomplice and decoy?

Bobby's looks grew grimmer still as he contemplated the probability. Yet there remained the enigma of her behaviour, it was a little hard to reconcile with the temperament of either accomplice or decoy or even dupe. A dupe would not have been terrified, a decoy would surely have shown greater self-control, an accomplice an alarm less oddly mixed with other elements less easy to understand. Bobby told himself that she had looked at him as a drowning person might look at one holding out a lifebelt, but doubtful whether to lay hold of it might not to be to risk a worse fate still. And, even if in all this his imagination was running away with him, and her troubled looks no more than his own fancy, it was fairly certain she knew who he was.

But that could easily be accounted for, since it was likely enough the caretaker had been chattering. Bobby blamed himself for not having paid his visit earlier in the day. The affair seemed now to show itself in outline with the typist as accomplice and Lawrence as dupe and prospective victim, while behind must be concealed the personality of the prime mover and originator of the whole conspiracy.