Vintage Crime Read online

  He was halfway up the stairs when the study door opened and Major Rix appeared. He snapped his fingers at Bohun and said, “Come on down here a moment, there’s something I want to tell you.”

  “I must—”

  “It’s important,” said Rix. “You’d better hear it.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Bohun.

  “They’ll tell you Mallet died of a stroke,” said Rix, as soon as the library door was shut. “Nothing further from the truth. The doctor’s an old fool. He wouldn’t know a stroke from German measles.”

  “I—” said Bohun.

  “Just let me tell you this,” said Rix urgently. “Mallet was murdered. Morgan did it. I don’t know how. Poison or something, I should think. There’s enough poison in this house to finish off the French Navy. Herbal muck. Rachel brews it. Another thing. What did Morgan slip up to London for last Thursday? Mallet never sent him. But I saw him. I was up there on business. He was coming out of some place off the Gray’s Inn Road. Lot of shady chemists’ shops in that district. Don’t tell me he was up to nothing.”

  Bohun hardly liked to point out that if there was plenty of poison in the house it seemed a waste of time to go all the way up to London to buy more. But Rix was beyond such considerations. He was also more than a little drunk.

  “Have you any idea,” he said, “why Morgan should want to do that?”

  “Of course,” said Rix. “You know it as well as I do. Mallet had left him five thousand in his will. He was going to change it when Rachel married me. Morgan was afraid he’d get left out of the new one. I needn’t tell you.”

  “Er – no,” said Bohun. He had Mr. Mallet’s will in his pocket and was reasonably familiar with its contents. “Well, I think perhaps you ought to be rather careful about saying things like that to anyone—”

  “I wouldn’t say them to anyone,” agreed Rix handsomely. “After all, you’re just a bloody lawyer. You’re paid to have things said to you.”

  “Quite so,” said Bohun. It was a view of his professional duties which had been expressed to him before, though never quite so bluntly. He went upstairs to find the doctor.

  Dr. Runcorn was just finishing. He was a dignified little sheep with a respectable crown of smooth, white hair, and muddy grey eyes. He shook Bohun’s hand and said, “I’m glad you’ve come. The lawyer takes on where the doctor leaves off. Very sad, a busy man like him. But businessmen often go that way.”

  “It was the stroke, then.”

  “A recurrence of the stroke, yes.”

  That seemed to be that.

  Bohun said, “I know nothing about strokes, of course, but I saw him two days ago and he seemed so alert and vigorous.”

  “Vigorous enough in mind,” said the doctor. “That’s often the way. It attacks the body first.”

  “He seemed comparatively vigorous in body, too.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” said Dr. Runcorn.” I saw him myself on – let me see – Monday morning, and he was completely paralysed. He could only move his head and neck.”

  “Then he’d made a remarkable recovery,” said Bohun. “When we were discussing business on Tuesday afternoon he sat up without apparent effort, handled the various papers extremely vigorously and generally behaved like a man who was perfectly well, but happened to be taking a day’s rest in bed.”

  “Did you see him out of bed?”

  “Well – no.”

  “You’re quite sure you’re not exaggerating his other movements?”

  “I’m not in the habit of exaggerating,” said Bohun.

  “Well, it’s very remarkable. But, then, nature is remarkable. It is of academic interest now, poor fellow.”

  “There was more to it than that,” said Bohun steadily. “Once or twice in the course of our conversation he suggested that the whole of his illness was a sham. Something intended to deceive his children.”

  Dr. Runcorn went very red and his mouth tightened disagreeably.

  “Am I to understand that you are suggesting that he deceived his medical adviser, too?”

  “Well, it would be possible, wouldn’t it? Who’s to know? A man says to you, ‘I’ve had a stroke. My mind is quite clear but my body won’t move.’ There’s nothing to show, is there? Or is there?”

  “There can be certain secondary symptoms—”

  “Were these present in Mallet’s case?”

  “To a limited degree. But I’m afraid I cannot see where this is taking us. Are you suggesting that he is not dead now?”

  “No,” said Bohun softly, looking at the sheeted figure on the bed. “No. That is a fact that I think we will have to accept.”

  “Then what do you suggest, pray?”

  “Perhaps a further examination into the cause of death.”

  “I have made my examination.”

  “Then I suggest a second opinion.”

  “And your authority for making the suggestion?”

  “The lawyer,” said Bohun unkindly, “takes on where the doctor leaves off. I act for the sole executor – who happens to be my partner. I will obtain his written directions if you insist.”

  Dr. Runcorn went white. “Really,” he said, “I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. You realise, I hope, what you are doing. Perhaps you would like the police in the house as well—”

  The door crashed open. The noise and urgency of it made both men jump. It was Major Rix. He looked almost sober.

  “Morgan’s been shot,” he said. “I just found him in the spinney at the back of the house.”

  “Well, now,” said Inspector Franks patiently, “and where do you come into this?”

  Bohun told him where he came in.

  Inspector Franks spelled his name out carefully, and said, “It’s a long shot, but you wouldn’t by any chance happen to know a Superintendent Hazlerigg?”

  “Yes. He was a Chief Inspector when I knew him.”

  “Then you’re the chap who doesn’t go to sleep?”

  “The eye that never closes,” agreed Bohun.

  “Ah,” said Inspector Franks. He thought for a minute, and then said, “I expect it’ll be a help to me, having an independent inside view, as you might say. If you’ve no objection.”

  “None at all,” said Bohun. “But don’t expect too much. I’ve known Mallet for some time, but I only met Rachel when I came down on Tuesday – and I actually saw Norman for the first time this morning.”

  “Norman and Rachel,” said Franks. “Those would be the only children?” He turned back the pages of his book. “I’ve seen both of them, but I couldn’t make much out of them. Both a bit young for their age, I thought.”

  “Retarded adolescence,” agreed Bohun. “Stern parent. Not much contact with the outside world. Norman keeps foxes and badgers. Rachel brews herbs.”

  “Well now,” said Franks. “Herbs?”

  “Just before we go on with this,” said Bohun, “there’s a point I’d like to be quite clear on. Which death are you investigating?”

  “Both, at the moment,” said Franks. “Morgan could be suicide – but I don’t think it is. Mallet could be natural causes. I’m keeping an open mind about that.”

  “Have you got someone doing the necessary?”

  “Police surgeon. Yes. He won’t miss much.”

  “Good,” said Bohun. “As long as that’s settled.”

  “I’ve got one or two other people to see. Perhaps you’d like to listen in. Representing the next of kin.”

  “That’s very good of you,” said Bohun, trying to conceal his surprise. It occurred to him that Hazlerigg must have given him an exceptionally good ticket.

  The middle-aged maid came. Her name was Placket.

  “Such a good master,” she said, “and such a kind father.”

  “Really, now,”
said Franks. “No trouble at all?”

  “A happy, united family,” said Placket. “The children stopping at home, and not rushing off the very moment they were out of the schoolroom.”

  “Let me see. Mr. Norman is just forty and Miss Rachel is thirty-five?”

  “She was thirty-five last month. I still make them each a cake on their birthday. Thirty-five candles. It has to be a big cake.”

  “So I should think,” said the Inspector, impassively. “You say they were a happy, cheerful family? I suppose Mr. Mallet spent a lot of time up in town. What did the children do all day?”

  “Employed themselves as country people should,” said Placket, rather tartly. “Master Norman had his studies. He’s a great naturalist. What he doesn’t know about birds and beasts – but there! You’ll have seen for yourself. And Miss Rachel, she collects herbs. She’s published a book—”

  She went over to the shelf and pulled out a volume. It was a solid-looking book and published, Bohun saw, by a well-known firm. The Herbs and Plants of East Anglia: Their Uses in Medicine and Cookery by Rachel Mallet.

  The Inspector looked happier. “I’d like to keep that for a bit.”

  “I expect Miss Rachel would sign it for you if you asked her,” said Placket.

  “Happy family?” said Major Rix. “Don’t you believe it. I’ve never seen such a little hell-kitchen in my life. Wogs, Wops and Wuzzies – I’ve seen them all. Believe me, for real hating you want to come to the English Shires.”

  “Well, now; that’s very interesting—”

  “Old Mallet was a pirate, you see. He’d got the pirate mentality. When he’d made his haul, he liked to put it in a chest and sit on it. He liked his bits and pieces all round him, where he could see ’em. Rachel and Norman were bits and pieces. If he’d had his own way, he’d just like to have had them sitting round, quietly, as if they’d been carefully preserved and put under glass. Only human nature doesn’t work out like that. All it did was to make ’em branch out in other ways. Norman and his birds and bees, and Rachel and her herbs. That sort of thing. The more they tried to lead lives of their own, the more he tried to stop them. First he tried to argue them out of it – no good. Then he tried to laugh them out of it. Do you know, he got a chap to write a sort of skit of Rachel’s herb book – not very funny really. I read some of it. I reckon he had to pay through the nose to get that published—”

  “Rather an elaborate joke,” said Franks.

  “Oh, he was like that. Go to any lengths for a laugh. As long as it made someone else uncomfortable. Very like a man I once knew in Jamaica – trained a tortoise to drink rum. However, that’s another story. Lately it’s been leg-pulling. Country superstitions and that sort of thing. Norman knows ’em all. Swallows go up at night, good weather coming. Rooks fly round the trees, it’s going to rain. Norman believes in ’em all.”

  “There are certain scientific explanations—” began Bohun, but he caught a look from Inspector Franks and subsided.

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” said Rix. “Prefer a barometer myself. However, Mallet used to pull his leg about it properly. When they had visitors. Particularly when they had visitors. I’ve heard Mallet say, ‘Oh, Morgan, when I was out in the garden this morning, I saw the bees flying backwards round the hive. What do you suppose that means?’ And Morgan would say, solemn as a judge, ‘I am given to understand, sir, that it signifies that Consols will rise two points before the next account.’ And so on. The more he bullied ’em the quieter they hated him.”

  “Not a very happy family,” said Franks.

  “You’re telling me.”

  “But you were proposing to marry into it?”

  “Yes. But I wasn’t going to live with them afterwards.”

  “You didn’t anticipate any trouble, then.”

  “Marriage always leads to trouble,” said Major Rix frankly. “It’s just one of those things you’ve got to put up with. My last wife used to shoot at me with an air gun.”

  “Hmph,” said Inspector Franks. “Now, about the evening of Mr. Mallet’s death.”

  “I know just what you’re going to say,” said Major Rix, “and I know it didn’t sound good, all that stuff I was telling you about Rachel and Norman hating their father. But it doesn’t mean they killed him. It wasn’t them at all. That sort of hating doesn’t lead to killing. You can take my word for that. It was Morgan. I never trusted him an inch myself. Then, after he’d done it he got cold feet and went out and shot himself. I’ve seen that happen before.”

  “Yes,” said Franks. “No doubt it’s one of the solutions we shall have to investigate. Thank you very much for what you have told us. Meanwhile—”

  “There was one thing,” said Bohun. “When you found Morgan this morning – were you certain he was dead?”

  “Of course I knew he was dead. I’ve seen lots of dead men before.”

  “Did you disturb the body in any way?”

  “Did I – certainly not.”

  “To be quite specific,” said Bohun. “Did you take a key from the ring of keys in his hip pocket?”

  Involuntarily the Major turned to look over his shoulder at the corner cupboard. It was ajar.

  “All right,” he said. “Very smart of you. I borrowed the key of the drink cupboard.”

  “Why did you do that?” said Franks sharply.

  “Well, really,” said Rix. “Just because the bloody man had shot himself, I saw no reason to put all the whisky into pawn.”

  “Well, now,” said Franks. “You’ll be doing me a service if you tell me what you make of all that?”

  It was evening, the oil lamp had been trimmed and lit, and they were alone in the coffee-room of the Black Goats, an ancient apartment approached by so many twisted stairs and winding corridors that it seemed improbable that anyone else should ever find his way to it.

  “I don’t mean the routine bits,” he went on. “I shall have to wait for the reports to come in tomorrow. There’s the doctor’s report on Mallet and on Morgan and I’ve had an expert look at the gun which killed Morgan – it’s an ordinary twelve-bore sporting gun from the case in the gun room, but it might tell us something. And there’s the fingerprints and photographs and so on. They might be useful.” He spoke as a man who has not got a great deal of faith in fingerprints and photographs, but Bohun was not deceived.

  He did not know much about police routine, but he did know that most cases were solved by simple hard work on matters of detail by a great number of policemen.

  “It’s the shape of the thing that rattles me. Usually you can see which way a thing goes, right at the start. Man or woman gets killed – in nine cases out of ten it’s the husband or wife who did it. That’s one of the things about marriage. You do know where you are. Or else perhaps it’s a professional – breaking and entering and so on. You just look up the list. But this—” He spread his hands despairingly.

  “It is a bit confusing,” agreed Bohun. He got up, trimmed the lamp, and sat down again sympathetically.

  “First of all you’ve got Mallet, if that was murder. Even allowing for it being an inside job, you’ve got plenty of candidates. Norman and Rachel who hated him – according to Rix. Morgan who wanted his money—”

  “Oh, there’s nothing in that one,” said Bohun. “I’ve got the will here. So far as I know it’s the only will Mallet made, and he never had the slightest intention of changing it. Morgan got five hundred pounds in either case – not five thousand.”

  “It’s not always what’s in a will that causes the trouble,” said Franks. “It’s what people think may be in it. Can you tell me what happened to the rest?”

  “Oh yes, I think I can do that. There are a few other little gifts – five hundred pounds to Placket – the others are people in his London office. Then the rest goes into two parts. One half to Norman and one half to Rachel. Only
she can’t touch her capital. It’s tied up in the usual way to prevent a husband getting hold of any of it.”

  “Do you suppose Rix knew that?”

  “Even if he did, he was on to quite a good thing when Mallet died. They couldn’t touch the capital, but Rachel’s income would have been about six thousand a year. That would have done very nicely to pay the bills – he’d have had free board and lodging, food and drink for the rest of his life. Particularly drink.”

  “So far as money goes, then, Rix and Morgan both had motives. Only Morgan’s may have been smaller than he imagined.”

  “That’s about it,” said Bohun.

  “When you look at the means,” said Franks, “there’s nothing to choose between them. We make it as difficult as we can for people to buy poison, but the law hasn’t yet got round to stopping them making it for themselves. Mallet used to have a hot whisky at nine o’clock. Almost anyone got it ready and took it up. There was no rule about it. Norman and Rachel say Morgan took it up that night. Placket says she thinks Norman did. Rachel certainly went up to see him at nine o’clock.”

  “And what about Morgan’s death?”

  “There’s even less there. The gun was in a cupboard with the cartridges – not locked. Anyone could pick it up, follow Morgan into the spinney – and shoot him. No one would take any notice. The fields are full of those automatic bird-scarers. They go off about once an hour.”

  “Then perhaps Morgan did shoot himself.”

  “If he did,” said Franks. “All right. He’s the obvious candidate for Mallet. Then the thing’s reasonably straight. But if he didn’t – it doesn’t seem to have any shape at all. There’s a piece missing somewhere.”

  “I’m only here to make suggestions,” said Bohun. “You do the work. I’m under no delusions about that. I quite agree with what you said – the middle piece is missing, and the other pieces won’t match up till you find it. All I’ve got at the moment is three questions in my head. The first’s a tiny matter of fact. What was Morgan doing up in London last Thursday?”

  “I’ve got an inquiry going,” said Franks. “I circulated a photograph. Unfortunately it’s not a very good one – and there are quite a lot of shops in and around the Gray’s Inn Road.”