The Attic Murder by S. Fowler Wright (read me like a book txt) 📕

“THE question now is whether William Rabone were engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the bank, as I am much inclined to believe, and was murdered by associates whom he was proposing to betray for his own security, or whether he were a faithful servant to us, and lost his life through his zeal in tracing the authors of the frauds from which we were suffering.

“It is a question to which I am resolved that the answer shall be discovered, and, to secure this end, I am prepared to offer a reward of two thousand pounds for information which will lead to the conviction of the criminal.”

“You think,” Mr. Jellipot said doubtfully, when Sir Reginald had made this announcement, “that, if you discover the murderer, you will learn the motive of the crime?”

They were in Sir Reginald’s office, where he had also invited Mr. Banks and Inspector Combridge to meet him at noon on the day following Peter Entwistle’s release, to take counsel together.

The time was now twelve-fifteen, for Inspector Combridge, who was usually a punctual man, had been ten minutes late, and Sir Reginald had deferred this announcement till he arrived.

“Yes,” Sir Reginald replied, “I think when we know that, we shall soon know enough to get at the rest.”

Mr. Banks, a man of few words, nodded his agreement with this opinion.

Inspector Combridge might have said the same, but he had something else on his mind.

“Two thousand pounds is a big sum. It ought to make someone squeal. But I’m sorry to say that’s just the amount you may have to lose in another way, though I hope I’m wrong.”

He had no need to be more explicit before Sir Reginald had guessed his meaning, and repudiated the suggestion which it conveyed.

“You mean Hammerton’s jumped his bail? You won’t make me believe that. If I couldn’t tell when a man’s crooked, or when he’s straight, I shouldn’t be sitting here now. What makes you think that?”

Inspector Combridge was in a chastened mood. A Chief Inspector who has developed a habit of arresting innocent men cannot reasonably object to being charged with deficient judgement of criminal character. It did not occur to him to retort that, if Sir Reginald Crowe were so excellent a judge of the probity of others, it was strange that he should have failed to detect the authors of the frauds from which his bank had suffered so severely and over such a prolonged period, or that he should still have the character of William Rabone in doubt. He only said: “I’m not saying he’s jumped his bail. But he’s disappeared, and that comes to the same thing, if we can’t give an explanation to please the court in about ten days from now.

“You’ll say it’s my fault, for he asked me to let him go somewhere last night without being watched, and I w as fool enough to agree.

“He said I could trust him to report at ten-thirty this morning, if he were still alive, and he hoped to have got some information which I should be glad to have.

“When I’d waited till eleven-thirty, and he hadn’t come, I began to think he’d bolted, and to wonder whether he weren’t the murderer after all, and had bluffed us with a tale that Miss Weston agreed to support — if you think it out, you’ll see how everything fits in. Whatever had happened, I thought I’d better not break my appointment here, but I wanted to learn as much as I could first, so I drove round to the address he’d given us, and found that he hadn’t been in since yesterday morning, which looks bad.

“But there was a letter addressed to him on the hall-table, which I took the liberty of opening. It appears to have been posted in the West Central District yesterday morning, and delivered during the afternoon. There isn’t much of it, but you may think it suggests an explanation of a different kind.”

As he spoke, he pulled out a mauve envelope, from which he abstracted a single sheet of paper of the same colour. In a large, bold, probably feminine handwriting, hastily scrawled, were the two words: “Don’t come.”

“It looks to me,” Sir Reginald said, “like a case of foul play.”

“That’s what I’m inclined to think. As a matter of fact, I warned him of the risk he ran, but he said he didn’t care, having so much at stake. I thought at the time that he was straight, and meant what he said. I don’t say he wasn’t now. But you can take this letter two ways. It might be a warning, or it might be no more than a change of plan.”

“Beyond the postmark, it gives you no clue?”

“Only that it was posted without blotting, and before the ink had had time to dry.” He showed the blurred address as he spoke. “But you can read that in more ways than one. It might be done in a hurry, to be unobserved, or merely to catch a post that was due out.”

“You’ve no idea where he was going?”

“Not the least, except that it was almost certainly somewhere in London, as he expected to be able to report to me first thing this morning, and this letter supports that probability.”

Mr. Banks interrupted to ask: “May I see the letter, Inspector?”

He took it, and handed it back after what seemed no more than a casual glance. He asked: “No idea whose writing it is?”

“No, I wish I had.”

Mr. Banks said nothing more, appearing to lose interest in the subject, but it was a conclusion that anyone who knew him would be slow to draw.

Sir Reginald asked: “You won’t lose any time in starting a search?”

“There’ll be every available man on it at the present moment. I telephoned the Yard as soon as I got this letter, and learnt that he hadn’t got back to his room last night.”

Sir Reginald turned to the lawyer to ask: “I suppose he didn’t tell you anything, Jellipot?”

“No, I can’t say that he did.” But in spite of this negative reply, Mr. Jellipot looked mildly satisfied. He added: “I’m sorry about Hammerton, but I daresay he’ll come through all right. I don’t think it ought to be long before we see everything cleared up now.”

Mr. Banks permitted himself to look slightly surprised. “I wonder,” he asked, “what makes you feel sure of that?”

“Well,” Mr. Jellipot said, “there are two things. Two thousand pounds is a large sum. If Sir Reginald offers that, it ought to make somebody talk. And then it looks as though someone’s afraid of the enquiries that Hammerton was trying to make. That’s a good sign, and it’s better still if they haven’t the nerve to lie low and do nothing. If they try any violence against Hammerton it’s a likely chance that they put themselves into our hands.”

Mr. Banks said that it sounded simple when Mr. Jellipot put it like that. There was sarcasm in his voice.

Mr. Jellipot replied mildly that he didn’t mean that it was a problem which he would he equal to solving. It was not in his line. He relied for that upon the expert gentlemen to whom he was speaking now.

Sir Reginald, seeing some lack of geniality in these exchanges between gentlemen on whose help he relied, interposed to ask the inspector if he were satisfied with the strength of the alibi that Entwistle had set up.

He replied that he had already given instructions for it to be examined with the thoroughness that the case required. The characters and antecedents, even the identity of the witnesses, would not be accepted without verification. Mrs. Musgrave had been followed from the moment she left the court.

But he was more disposed, for the moment, to consider whether more could not be obtained from Miss Weston than she had yet told. He would ask both Sir Reginald, as having recommended her to the opportunity she had sought, and Mr. Banks, as her employer, to use all their influence for a fuller disclosure of the night’s events than she had yet made.

Sir Reginald said that he would be pleased to have a talk with her, but he was strongly disposed to think that she had told the truth already.

Mr. Banks did not decline, but showed no interest in the proposal. He reverted to the question of Peter Entwistle’s innocence, concerning which he showed a sustained scepticism. Sir Reginald remembered that he