Smallbone Deceased

‌Chapter Six —Friday— Preliminary Enquiries

But above all, those judicious Collectors of bright parts and flowers and observanda’s are to be nicely dwelt on; by some called the sieves and boulters of learning; tho’ it is left undetermined, whether they dealt in pearls or Meal; and consequently whether they are more value to that which passed thro’ or what staid behind.

Swift: Tale of a Tub

I

“Bohun seems to spend a lot of his time chattering to that policeman,” said Mr. Birley.

“Which policeman?” It seemed to Mr. Craine that the office was full of policemen. Already he had been forced to postpone visits from one ducal and two lesser clients.

“The one who asks all the questions.”

“Oh, yes. The chief inspector.”

“Chief inspector? I don’t think the fellow’s even a gentleman.” Mr. Birley himself had been to Sherborne.

“Oh, well,” said Mr. Craine, tolerantly, “I expect the fact is that he—er—rose from the ranks: or whatever they do in the police force. We mustn’t mind his questions. He’s got his job to do.”

“I don’t mind him doing his job,” said Mr. Birley. “It’s Bohun spending all day chattering to him. If he wants advice why doesn’t he come to me? Bohun can’t know much about things. He only joined us this week.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“We don’t pay him a large salary for him to spend all his time chattering with policemen.”

“Of course not,” said Mr. Craine. “I’ll have a word with him about it. By the way, let me see, what do we pay him?”

“Four hundred and fifty a year,” said Mr. Birley without a blush.

II

“The trouble with you,” said Inspector Hazlerigg, “is that you read too many detective stories.”

He pivoted slowly round in the Horniman swivel-chair.

“How do you make that out?” said Bohun.

“Admit,” said Hazlerigg, “that you expect me to spend my time sitting here asking a million questions. Occasionally moving round the office in a catlike manner, popping up unexpectedly when people are talking to each other, stooping to pick up minute scraps of paper and invisible threads of wool; all the time smoking a foul pipe or playing on a mouth organ or quoting Thucydides in order to establish a character for originality with the book reviewers—”

“Well—”

“Then, at the end of about seventy-five thousand words I shall collect you all into this room, and inaugurate a sort of verbal game of grandmother’s steps, creeping up behind each of the suspects in turn and saying Boo! to them in order to make them jump. At the end of which, when everybody is exhausted, including the reader, I shall produce a revolver, confess that I committed the crime, and shoot myself in front of you all.”

“Well,” said Bohun, “omitting the melodramatic conclusion, isn’t that just about how it’s done?”

“As a practical method of detection,” said Hazlerigg, “it would be about as much use as leaving an open creel beside a trout stream and expecting the fish to jump into it.” He scratched his nose thoughtfully, watched a small girl teasing a cat on the other side of New Square, and went on: “So far as I’ve found out, there are only two ways of fishing for men. One is to drop a grenade into the water: you might call that fishery by shock. The drawback is that you haven’t always a grenade of the appropriate size and power ready to your hand. The other method is more laborious but just as certain. You weave a net. And you drag it across the pool, backwards and forwards. You won’t get everything at first, but if your mesh is fine enough and you drag deeply enough, everything must come up in the end.”

“Well,” said Bohun. “I can quite understand why the detective story writers don’t set about it in your way. They’d never get any readers.”

“You’re right,” said Hazlerigg. “It’s a damned dull process.”

III

But even as he spoke the process was beginning.

Hazlerigg’s orders to his assistants, given the night before, had been explicit.

To Mr. Hoffman he had said: “I want you to go through the accounts and the papers of the firm. First I want to find out if they are solvent. They look solvent, I agree, but you never know. And even if they’re solvent I want to know how their profits at the present day compare with their profits—let’s say, ten years ago. I don’t want you to confine yourself strictly or solely to the money side of it. It’s wider than that. I want a note of any bit of business which is reflected in their papers and records which seems in any way out of the ordinary; any references which aren’t self-explanatory; anything which doesn’t quite fit in.”

Mr. Hoffman nodded. He was a qualified accountant attached to the Fraud Squad. A man who hunted down facts with the passionless pleasure of a butterfly collector and pinned them to his board with the same cold precision. His last six months had been spent investigating the affairs of two Poles who specialised in treading that narrow path which runs between bankruptcy and favourable compositions with creditors. Mr. Hoffman had dropped both these over-ingenious gentlemen into his killing-jar the week before, and was therefore luckily available to help Hazlerigg.

“I’ve given instructions,” went on the chief inspector, “that you’re to be treated as one of the firm’s auditors. Any books or papers you want will be shown to you. Of course, if you find that anything is being kept from you—that’ll be helpful, too.”

Mr. Hoffman nodded again.

To other gentlemen Hazlerigg entrusted the detailed investigation into the lives and habits, the pasts and the presents of all the members of the firm who figured on Colley’s List Two.

Into the life’s history of William Hatchard Birley, a Bachelor of Laws of Oxford University, who lived in a large sunless house in St. George’s Square, Pimlico, and spent a surprising proportion of his income on patent medicines.

Into the daily round of Tristram Craine, possessor of the Military Cross, father of two children and the owner of a house at Epsom.

Into the doings of Robert Andrew Horniman of Harrow School and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, the passion of whose otherwise dull life was the sailing of small boats in dangerous waters.

Down into the questionable genesis of Eric Duxford, the colours of whose old school tie proved puzzling to the pundits of the Burlington Arcade, and whose expenditure seemed, contrary to Mr. Micawber’s well-known dictum, to exceed his income without diminishing his bank balance.

Into the vivid past of John Ambrey Cove, whose public school had grown reluctantly but definitely tired of him in 1935, and who had spent the succeeding three years, before he became articled to Horniman, Birley and Craine, in a series of half-hearted jobs in the United States of America, Canada and Japan; who had had a markedly successful war, moving from staff to staff, keeping a step ahead of Providence and the Postings Branch of the War Office.

Into the career of Eustace Cockerill, late a sergeant in the Royal Artillery, a member of the Corps of Commissionaires, who expended such tender care over the fuchsias in the garden of his house in Muswell Hill, and had, as appeared later, another and more surprising hobby.

Nor were the ladies forgotten. From Elizabeth Cornel, of Sevenoaks, that participator in women’s golf championships, via Anne Mildmay, daughter of a celebrated father, to Cissie Chittering who lived in Dulwich and spent her evenings in country dancing and decorative poker-work, and Florence Bellbas, who lived in Golder’s Green but apparently had no other hobbies.

To Sergeant Plumptree, in whose unspectacular methods he had great confidence, Hazlerigg allotted an important part of the routine.

“I want to find out more about Smallbone,” he said. “I want to know what sort of man he was. We’ve had one picture from the people who did his business for him in this office, and quite a different one from his landlady. I expect you noticed that. Which one was the truth? I want you to find out. Talk to his friends and family—”

“I don’t think he’s got any family, sir.”

“If you go back as far as the twelfth century,” said Hazlerigg gravely, “you will find that everyone in England is related to everybody else in England in at least one hundred and thirty-five different ways.”

“Indeed, sir,” said Sergeant Plumptree insubordinately.

He started his investigation by revisiting Wellingboro’ Road; but beyond another cup of strong tea he got little that was new from Mrs. Tasker. She suggested that Sergeant Plumptree might try at some of the museums. Mr. Smallbone had been quite an enthusiast for museums. Apparently, he’d often spend his whole day there.

This did not seem to be an outstandingly hopeful idea, but for want of anything better the sergeant started on a tour of the many large museums which lie in a compact belt along the southern edge of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. He paid particular attention to the china and pottery sections. None of their custodians could give him any help. It appeared that all museums are full of small, earnest, elderly men who spend timeless days drifting from exhibit to exhibit, along the marble aisles.

It was late in the afternoon, and Sergeant Plumptree was very tired indeed when he arrived, on his pilgrimage from west to east, at the last and greatest of all the museums: and here he had both an inspiration and a piece of luck. At the reading-room he exhibited his card and was soon in conversation with the senior librarian. Indexes and files were produced, and with a speed which any Horniman disciple might have envied, the name of Marcus Smallbone was unearthed.

“We make them register,” said the librarian, “when they first come here; a matter of routine. We can’t have just anyone at all wandering in and out. And we take a reference, one reference, at least. Some of the books are valuable, you know. Can’t be too careful.”

In the section of the card devoted to Mr. Smallbone’s references Sergeant Plumptree noted with quickening interest the names of Abel Horniman and the Reverend Eustace Evander, Vicar of St. Cuthbert’s-Within-the-Minories, E.C. The librarian obligingly departed in search of an up-to-date Crockford. Sergeant Plumptree had a momentary presentiment that the Reverend Eustace might have died or been promoted Bishop of Hawaii. However, all was well. He was apparently still at his post. Plumptree took a bus for the City.

Evensong at St. Cuthbert’s takes place early, to suit the convenience of the few City workers who can be induced to attend, and it was just finishing as the sergeant arrived.

The Reverend Eustace, a vast red man who had taken his college eight to the head of the river in ’08, sinking outright two of the four boats which stood in his way, and had been treating the powers of darkness in the same summary manner ever since, welcomed Sergeant Plumptree with a paralysing handshake and invited him round to a cup of cocoa.

Ten minutes later they were seated in his snuggery, which was liberally adorned with school and college groups, cross-laced with oars and topped with the head of a water buffalo which had been rash enough to cross the Reverend Eustace’s path on a holiday in South Africa. Sergeant Plumptree sipped at his mug of scalding cocoa and manœuvred his notebook on to his knee so that he could write unobtrusively.

“First of all,” said the priest, “what is it all about?”

There seemed to be no object in suppressing the facts, so Sergeant Plumptree related the essentials of the case to his host and summarised the information that Hazlerigg had asked him to obtain.

“Well,” said the clergyman, “I haven’t seen Smallbone for more than a year. Tell you why in a minute. But if you want to know what sort of man he was, then I can probably give you as much help as anyone alive. I’ve known Marcus Smallbone for more than thirty years. We first met at the university—we were both up together at Angelus. Our tastes were rather different, but we happened to live on the same staircase, and on one occasion”—the Reverend Eustace smiled reminiscently—“I saved him from being immersed in an ornamental fountain. Six against one seemed to me heavy odds so I weighed in and—er—lent him a hand. Dear me, yes. That was a long time ago. After we had both come down we still corresponded occasionally. When I had my first London living I looked him up, and we met once or twice for a meal.” He got to his feet, kicked a bull-terrier off the sofa and resumed. “The chief thing wrong with Marcus was a small settled income. Big enough to save him the trouble of earning his living, but not big enough to keep him busy looking after it. He had too much time. He used to spend a good deal of it over his collections. One year it was first editions, then it was Toby jugs. Lately, I believe, it’s been pottery. He never stayed in any one branch long enough to acquire any real knowledge of it. Well, that’s a harmless enough pursuit. But there was a worse side to it, I’m afraid—there’s nothing to be gained by not being absolutely frank—he had rather a small and uncomfortable mind. Possibly, again, this was due to having too much time on his hands. He loved writing to the papers, you know, to expose the errors of authors, or to call rather malicious attention to discrepancies in the statements of public men. These people were fair enough game, I suppose, but it didn’t stop there. I can only give you one example of this, because it’s the only one that came personally to my knowledge, but about two years ago a fellow parson of mine got into bad trouble with the bishop. He was lucky to keep his cloth. I won’t tell you the details—but the information on which the bishop acted came from Smallbone—”

Sergeant Plumptree nodded. He didn’t need to be told that this information was important. It opened, in fact, a startling vista. But there was a question which had to be asked and he found it difficult to frame it. The Reverend Evander saved him the trouble.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “and you can put it right out of your mind. Smallbone was not a blackmailer. That wasn’t the way his mind worked at all. He’d ferret around unearthing these awkward and unsavoury facts, but he didn’t expose them for gain. I don’t know why he did it. It’s a question that won’t be answered now, this side of Judgment. Get off that sofa, Bungy, or I’ll brain you. Partly, as I said, it was not having enough to occupy himself with. It’s a terribly true tag about Satan and idle hands. Partly, I think, it was because that sort of business gratifies an overdeveloped sense of self-importance. Have another mug of cocoa, sergeant? That’s right. I can’t think why people should glorify beer at the expense of cocoa. It was that hearty vulgarian, Chesterton, who started it…”

IV

A thousand miles to the south.

Although it was only mid-March the sun of Central Italy already had power in it. Il Sergente Rosso, of the Carabinieri Reali, district of Florence, sub-station of Arrugia, sweated and grumbled as he wheeled his black-painted bicycle up the steep hill from the Arno Valley to the upland village of La Chioccola.

It was a Sunday and it was a fiesta: one of the many fiestas which bestar the Italian Catholic year. At lunch in the sub-station there had been consumed, besides the inevitable pasta schuta, lamb, a rare delicacy, and great square wedges of Monte Nero cheese. Wine had been drunk. Sergeant Rosso sweated.

Nevertheless, he persevered. There was a certain measure of pride in the perseverance. It was not every day that appeals for help came from England to the police of the sub-station of Arrugia. Prestige was involved. And beside and above all this, Sergeant Rosso was a friend of the English. Had he not fought, in the black days of 1944, as a member of the partigiani? Had he not shared in the triumphs of 1945? Had not the very bicycle which he was wheeling been stolen from the Royal Corps of Signals?

Sergeant Rosso sweated but persevered.

Presently he reached the iron gate and white walls of the Villa Carpeggio, and five minutes later he was in official converse with Signora Bonaventura. He produced for her inspection a photograph and a card. Signora Bonaventura laughed over the one and clucked over the other. Certainly she recognised the photograph. It was Signor Smolbon, who stood apart from all other Englishmen in her memory, in that he was of a reasonable size. Not two metres high and one metre broad, like most Englishmen. But of reasonable stature: smaller, almost, than an Italian. But to say that he owned her house! She examined the card and clucked again. Certainly, he had stayed there for some weeks—two months, perhaps, in the previous summer. He had visited the galleries of Florence, and had purchased a number of earthenware cooking utensils of doubtful value. She had not seen him since, nor heard of him. What was it that brought the sergeant on his mission? So! Signor Smolbon was dead. Santa Maria! All must come to it.

A thousand miles to the north.

Sergeant Plumptree called on the secretary to the Bishop of London. He referred briefly to the circumstances outlined to him by the Reverend Eustace Evander. The secretary was able to reassure him. The clergyman concerned in the incident was now on missionary work in China; he had been out of England for more than a year. Sergeant Plumptree thanked the secretary. It had not seemed to him a very hopeful line, but all lines had to be hunted out.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Plumptree’s colleague, Sergeant Elvers, had visited Charing Cross and spent a tiresome hour in the stationmaster’s office. All the booking-office clerks who had been on duty on the morning of Friday, February 12th, inspected a photograph of Marcus Smallbone and they all said that he looked very like a lot of people they had seen but they certainly couldn’t swear that he had taken a ticket to anywhere in Kent on that particular morning. Sergeant Elvers thereupon departed to repeat the process at London Bridge, Waterloo and Victoria. One of his difficulties was that there was no station in Kent called Stanton or Stancomb.

At Maidstone, a member of the Kent Constabulary, equipped with a gazetteer, a large map, a county history and other useful books of reference, was compiling a list. Stancomb Peveril, Stancombe Basset, Stancombe Earls, Stancombe House, the Stancombe Arms, Stanton-le-Marsh, Stanton Heath, Staunton, Staunston-cum-Cliffe…

So the little wheels clicked and the spindles bobbed and curtsied, and the mesh was woven.

V

“The monetary position would seem, at first sight, to be fairly straightforward,” reported Mr. Hoffman that evening. “Under the Articles of Partnership the total net profits of the firm—and by that I mean, of all the allied firms—are to be divided into ten equal shares. Of these shares Abel Horniman took four, Mr. Birley three, and Mr. Craine three. The whole of Abel Horniman’s share has now passed to his son, who is, I understand, his sole executor and beneficiary.”

“What about the other partners—Ramussen and Oakshott and those people?”

“They are salaried partners only.”

“I see. Yes. What did the total profits amount to last year?”

“After everything had been paid”—Mr. Hoffman consulted his notes—“a little short of ten thousand pounds.”

“That’s not an awful lot, is it,” said Hazlerigg. “That would mean that Abel netted—let me see—a little under four thousand. He had that big house in Kensington to keep up—and I understand, a country house.”

“A large farm-house,” said Mr. Hoffman. “Almost, as you say, a small country house, with about two hundred acres of land, in Kent.”

“Yes. I thought he was making rather more. How do the figures compare with ten years ago?”

“A gradual but marked decline. In 1938 the net profits were in the neighbourhood of fifteen thousand.”

“But he was solvent. I take it—”

“That’s not a question I can answer at once,” said Hoffman cautiously. “There may be undisclosed debts. But I think that the probability is that he was solvent.”

“Is there any real doubt about it?”

“Both the house in Kensington and the farm in Kent were subject to very full mortgages. No doubt, with house and farming property at their present levels, they could afford to carry them. But there was no margin in them.”

“What about other assets?”

“There’s just his current account at the bank. As I say, it’s difficult to be precise about it at this stage. There is about four thousand pounds in it at the moment.”

“I see.” It didn’t accord very well with Hazlerigg’s notion of the senior partner of a well-known firm of solicitors. “It’s a bit hand-to-mouth, isn’t it? Are you sure there were no securities—no investments?”

“None that I can trace,” said Mr. Hoffman. “Most of the entries in his account are self-explanatory. There is his share of the firm’s profits coming in, and regular payments out for housekeeping, tradesmen, club subscriptions and so forth. It’s all done very methodically. There is a quarterly payment out of £48 2s. 6d, for which I can see no immediate explanation. It may have been an insurance premium.”

It was not for him to comment or speculate. He was interested only in facts. Figures were facts. And facts, if handled aright, could be considered as so many figures. They could be grouped and set in proportion; they could be added together or subtracted from each other. And someone would doubtless say what the result signified. But not Mr. Hoffman.

“I’ll be quite blunt with you,” said Hazlerigg. “I want to know if Abel Horniman had been embezzling money from clients. Our first idea, as you know, was that he might have been embezzling from a certain trust—the Ichabod Stokes Trust. If that trust proves to be all right, then I want equally to know about all the others. All the trusts of which Abel was trustee and the estates of which he was executor. Any place where he may have dipped his fingers into money which did not belong to him.”

“The present system of solicitors’ accounting,” said Mr. Hoffman, “was designed to prevent that sort of fraud, or if it could not prevent it, then to bring it easily to light. I can assure you that if any such irregularity exists I shall very shortly know about it.”

“I’m sure you will,” said Hazlerigg. “But don’t forget—Abel Horniman was a very good lawyer. He was also a methodical and painstaking man.”

Mr. Hoffman said nothing. He himself was exceedingly methodical and infinitely painstaking. It was not his place to say so.

As he was going a thought occurred to the chief inspector. “That farm that Abel had. You said it was in Kent. It hadn’t got a name like Stanston or Stancomb?”

“Not that I know of,” said Mr. Hoffman. “As I recollect the name, it was something like Crookham—Crookham Court Farm, I think. I’ll check it up for you.”

“Don’t trouble,” said Hazlerigg. “It was just a passing thought.”

VI

“I couldn’t help noticing,” said Eric Duxford to Bohun, “that the chief inspector confides a good deal in you. I understand that you knew him previously.”

“He is the friend of a friend,” said Bohun cautiously.

“Ah, yes.” Eric on-offed his smile briefly. “It must be very nice to have a friend at court.”

Bohun was not unduly upset by this innuendo. He was too busy speculating on what might lie behind the approach. Nor was he kept long in doubt.

“If I was the inspector,” said Eric, “there’s one person I should keep a very careful eye on, and that’s John Cove.” He leaned a bit closer and added: “I suppose you know that he was expelled from his public school for dishonesty.”

“As a matter of fact, I believe he did mention it,” said Bohun. “I didn’t take him very seriously though. Even if it is true,” he added mildly, “I can’t think that it forms a very firm ground for suspecting him of murder.”

“Once a bounder, always a bounder,” said Eric.

“Well, I’ll pass it on to the inspector.”

“I thought you’d like to know.”

VII

“Are you off?” said John Cove.

“I think so,” said Bohun. “It’s been quite a week, hasn’t it?”

“Never a dull moment,” said John. “I say—you seem very pally with that copper.”

“Er—yes. Yes. He’s a friend of a friend of mine.”

“Good,” said John. “Well, you can pass this on from me. If he really wants to lay his hands on the murderer, he can’t do better than watch our Eric.”

“Eric Duxford?”

“That’s the chap. Oleaginous Eric, the only man who has been to more public schools than the Western Brothers.”

“What makes you say that—not about the public schools, I mean about the murder?”

“Well,” said John. “I admit it’s not much to go on, but you can take it from me that he’s a slippery customer. When he used to share this room with me he was always sliding out somewhere, and saying to me, ‘If anyone asks where I am, tell them I’m at the Law Society,’ or ‘Tell them I’m examining deeds in the City.’ He’d always have the excuse cut and dried. Well, that’s fair enough in a way, and I expect I shall ask you to alibi me if I want to get off early or push out and have some coffee or something. But Eric was always doing it. I got quite browned off telling lies for him. And another thing, I believe he fiddled the petty cash—”

“Even so,” said Bohun, “that’s a long way from murder.”

“Once a cad, always a cad,” said John.

“Well,” said Bohun, “I’ll pass it along to Inspector Hazlerigg.”

“That’s the stuff,” said John. “After all, even if we don’t get him for murder, we may catch him for embezzlement. Well, if you’re coming my way, I’ll walk across with you.”

They were putting on their coats when John said: “Just a second, whilst I warn Mrs. Porter. She’s on with me tomorrow.”

“What do you mean, ‘on’?” said Bohun. “Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“Of course, you only arrived on Monday, so you wouldn’t know. We always keep a skeleton staff here on Saturday mornings. You know—to attend to telephone calls and deal with any important letters.”

For a moment the full import of this did not strike Bohun. “Who has to do it?” he asked.

“We do it in pairs, in turn. I expect you’ll be next on the list, being the new boy.”

“You mean,” said Henry slowly, “that on Saturday mornings there are just two of you in the office—one qualified man and one secretary?”

“That’s the style,” said John. “What’s so madly exciting about it? If you’re looking forward to a long Saturday morning alone with Anne Mildmay, take my tip and lay off. That girl’s ginger.”

“No. It wasn’t that. Tell me, who opens up the office on these occasions?”

“Sergeant Cockerill. He gets here at nine, and opens everything up. Then he comes back after everyone’s gone and locks up again. That’s about twelve-thirty, after the mid-morning post has come in.”

“Excuse me a moment,” said Henry, and fled.

He found Hazlerigg on the point of departure.

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg, when he had told him. “Yes. That certainly does sound promising. I’m afraid we’ve been wasting our time a bit. Thank you very much. Oh, and by the way, you might get me a list showing who was on duty on different weekends for the last three months.”

He took up the phone and dialled a code number, asked for an extension, and found Dr. Bland in his laboratory. “Hazlerigg here. That Smallbone job. Yes. I want a re-autopsy.”

The telephone said something grudging.

“Certainly it’s important,” said Hazlerigg. “I want to know exactly when he died. Anyway, to within a week.”

This time the telephone sounded distinctly rude.