As if by Magic (11 page)

‘We've not searched the dressing room yet,' said Jack, leading the way out of the bathroom.

The dressing room contained a chest-of-drawers, a large wardrobe and another full-length mirror. Jack opened the top shallow drawers of the chest. They contained winged collars, ties and cuffs, all for evening wear. Jack idly noted that Culverton had taken a size seventeen in collars and moved on to the next drawer. Here there was a collection of small boxes from Asprey's. He opened them in turn. ‘Diamond studs, pearl studs, ruby studs.' He moved on. ‘Three sets of cuff-links, also sporting, variously, diamonds, pearls and rubies. A small Wedgwood tray containing a signet ring with A.C. in entwined initials. Empty box which did contain studs. Ditto cuff-links. Presumably those were what he was wearing when he bought it.' He put down the empty stud-box. ‘Let's have a look at his clothes.'

Jack swung open the wardrobe door. Two evening coats, three suits of dress clothes and various shirts hung inside with a suit of morning dress, consisting of a black coat, waistcoat and pin-striped trousers. A shoe rack containing three pairs of patent leather shoes and a pair of black brogues stood underneath. A square wicker basket sat neatly at one end of the wardrobe. ‘What's in here?' asked Jack, lifting the lid. ‘Dirty linen. Not for washing in public, I presume. Silk underwear, silk socks, and a shirt. I like that shirt.' He picked it up and looked at the label. ‘Rothbury and Co., Jermyn Street. These are the things he changed out of, of course.' He closed the lid of the basket and picked up the shoes, looking at them in turn. ‘Size ten and a half at a guess.' He turned one of the dress shoes over in his hands. ‘Bill, these shoes have been cleaned by a valet. There's polish caught on the instep between the sole and the heel. That's where a valet or a bootblack from a decent hotel always leaves his mark.'

‘You're right,' said Rackham, looking at the shoe. ‘And, Sherlock, your inference is?'

Jack grinned. ‘I haven't got one yet. Let's have a shufti at his clothes.' He took a dress suit out of the wardrobe and looked at it intently. ‘I'd say this has been valeted too, wouldn't you? It looks very fresh.'

‘I don't suppose it's new, is it?' asked Rackham. ‘Look at the label, Jack. That usually gives the date it was made.' Jack turned back the breast of the coat. ‘Where is it?' asked Rackham. He pointed to where the label had been stitched into the seam. ‘That's odd. It looks as if it's been sliced off with a razor blade.'

‘The suit's made by Lockyer and Co.,' said Jack, examining the trouser buttons. ‘I wonder why he took the tab off? Hold on.' He put the suit back in the wardrobe and looked at the rest of the suits in turn, before rifling through the dress shirts. ‘There's no tailor's tab on any of the evening clothes but there is on the morning suit.' They looked at the tab together.

Lockyer and Co.

A. Culverton Esq.

June 1921

17 Savile Row, London

Rackham looked frankly puzzled. ‘I don't understand this, Jack. Why should he take the labels off his clothes? It doesn't seem to make any sense.'

‘Off his evening clothes,' corrected Jack, absently.

‘Well, off his evening clothes then. It still doesn't make any sense.'

‘No . . .' Jack drifted away to the dressing table once more. There was a silver cigar case and a book of matches lying next to an ashtray. Jack opened the cigar case, looking at the elaborately engraved
Alexander Culverton
inside. The matchbook, with three matches gone, was a shiny black cardboard packet with
C
embossed on the cover. Jack raised his eyebrows slightly. Did he have his own matchbooks printed? Three cigars about the size of young torpedoes were left in the case. He picked out one and sniffed it, raising his eyebrows in unconscious approval. He wouldn't have left a cigar like that behind. He stopped as the significance of his unspoken phrase struck him.
Left behind!
Culverton had left all this stuff behind.

He whirled round. ‘Bill! I think I've got it!'

Rackham looked startled. ‘Got what?'

Jack indicated the room with an impatient hand. ‘Look at these things. Just look at them. There's the cigar case with his name inside, a signet ring with his initials and his name's been removed from every single piece of evening wear. If the clothes he was wearing had been treated like the clothes in his wardrobe then they'd have their tabs removed too. Now why this modest self-effacement, Bill? He doesn't seem to have been a shrinking flower in any other walk of life. He was concealing his identity.'

Rackham stared at him. ‘Good grief, Jack, I wonder if you're right. What about his valet?' he asked. ‘Where does he fit in?'

‘He doesn't,' Jack said positively. ‘Look, this is Culverton's private room. This is where he keeps his private clothes, his unidentifiable private clothes.'

‘What about the morning suit?'

‘That doesn't count. That's for the daytime.'

‘But the valet's seen these clothes, even the ones with no labels.'

Jack gave a sudden grin. ‘I think you're going to find the valet's a bit dumb. I think you're going to find he's the sort of man who doesn't ask questions. He's probably a perfect treasure. Naturally Culverton wouldn't mind his valet – especially if he is dumb – seeing his stuff because the valet knows exactly who Culverton is. But there's someone else, someone who
doesn't
know who Culverton is, and our Alexander isn't giving them any clues.'

Rackham stood for a moment, thinking. ‘Who?' he said eventually. ‘It can't be Nigel Lassiter or this Dr Maguire. They know who he is, too.'

‘So?' prompted Jack softly.

‘So it must be someone he's going to see afterwards.'

‘Exactly,' said Jack. ‘What's more, if you include the clothes he was wearing, he had no fewer than four sets of evening dress, all doctored, so it must be a fairly frequent occurrence.'

‘But you don't normally examine the label on a man's coat to see who he is,' objected Rackham.

Jack grinned once more. ‘You might, if the man had taken his clothes off.'

Rackham whistled.
‘That'd
do it. By crikey, Jack, I wonder if you're on to something. If he wasn't behaving himself he'd be frightened of blackmail.' He jabbed his finger at the photograph again. ‘You can't hang around with government ministers and suchlike and be involved in that sort of scandal. I'll tell you something else, too. If he was involved in a scandal then he could kiss goodbye to his hopes of being a director in this new government airline Lloyd was talking about. It'd really scupper his chances.' He rubbed his hands together. ‘Could he have been leading a double life?'

‘A mistress, you mean? That's possible,' said Jack. ‘That's certainly possible. Judging by the tabs on his clothes, though, he only ever saw her at night. That means no weekends away and no little nest in the country or St John's Wood or wherever.'

‘And I can't see a mistress dumping him in the Thames with a mutilated face. Someone attacked him, viciously attacked him. He was in the river, damn it, Jack. How did he come to be there?'

Jack walked away and leaned against the desk. ‘
What was he doing, the great god Pan, down in the reeds by the river?'
he quoted softly to himself. ‘Look, Bill, whatever he was doing, he was doing it fairly frequently, as I said. As to where he was doing it, it was upstream of Southwark Bridge steps.'

‘Which leaves a lot of London.'

‘Which leaves a lot of London,' agreed Jack. ‘Could he have been going to a club? A dodgy club, I mean? It can't be too vile if he was wearing evening dress and jewelled studs. He'd have to be wearing decent clothes because he met Nigel Lassiter and Dr Maguire for dinner.'

‘He could have been doing a few things,' said Rackham. ‘But none of it tells us how he came to be murdered.' He shook his head impatiently. ‘I've got some leads to follow up, though.' He gestured to the secretary's door. ‘I think I'll ask Mr Lloyd a few more questions before I go. I think he's perfectly above board but he might know something or have guessed something about Culverton's private life. I need to see the valet and I also need to talk to Nigel Lassiter and Dr Maguire.'

‘What about Mrs Culverton?'

‘I'll have to talk to her again,' agreed Rackham. ‘D'you know, looking back, I think she might have been trying to tell me what Culverton was like. I didn't see it at the time but now, now we know something, certain remarks of hers don't half chime in.'

‘So you think I'm right about our Alexander?'

Rackham nodded slowly. ‘It explains things, doesn't it? It's not proof but it explains things. I think you're on to something. Are you going to stay and talk to Lloyd?'

Jack glanced at his watch. ‘As a matter of fact, I think I'd better get back to Eden Street. George isn't up to staying out too late yet. Nigel Lassiter should be there, if that's any help. Old Mr Lassiter was telephoning him as we left.'

‘In that case,' said Rackham, ‘that's one more place to visit. Look, what are you doing for the rest of the evening? If you're not busy I wouldn't mind calling round.'

‘Be my guest,' said Jack. ‘If you don't mind cold grub, you can eat with me if you like.'

‘Thanks, Jack. I can't imagine I'll have time for dinner anywhere else. I'll see you later on.'

It was gone ten o'clock by the time Rackham made it to Chandos Row. ‘I haven't eaten a thing since lunchtime,' he said, drawing his chair up to the table and loading his plate with the cheese, bread, cold sausage and pickles Jack had left out for him. ‘I'm starving. I've been knuckling down to it tonight and no mistake,' he added, between mouthfuls. ‘I talked to Gilchrist Lloyd again, then I went to the Mulciber. I saw Culverton's valet, then the porter who was on duty in the lobby the night Culverton went west, before I went on to Eden Street.' He looked round the room. ‘Where's your pal, Lassiter, by the way?'

Jack jerked his thumb at the door of the spare room. ‘He's gone to bed. This was his first day up and about and the poor beggar was all in. He was wiped out by the time I got back to Eden Street, so we made our apologies and came back here.'

‘How's he getting on with his new-found family?'

‘Pretty well. He and his grandfather obviously hit it off. When his grandfather understood he was well and truly broke, he gave him a fair old chunk of money to see him through.'

‘Lucky George,' commented Rackham.

‘Well, he really didn't have a bean and it's not a straightforward gift. As George is being drafted into the firm, he insisted on treating the money as an advance on his wages. That pleased his granddad, I could tell. He's taken a real shine to Anne Lassiter, as well. I liked her, too. Neither of us saw much of David Lassiter but he seems all right. The only one we didn't meet was Nigel Lassiter, the chap who had dinner with Culverton.'

‘Nigel Lassiter, eh?' said Rackham, meaningfully. ‘Well, I don't want to do down your friend's family, but I wouldn't pay you in washers for Nigel Lassiter.'

Jack looked at him, his head to one side. ‘Why not?'

Rackham speared a piece of sausage. ‘He's one of the awkward squad and no mistake. He told me he couldn't see it was any of my business what Culverton had for dinner. He's been knocked sideways by Culverton's death but he couldn't give a damn who killed him. You'll probably come across him at some stage. Let me know what you think, but I'd be surprised if your opinion was very different from mine.'

‘I'm going to come across him tomorrow, I imagine. George and I have been invited for lunch and, as it's Saturday, I suppose all the family will be there. I'm not sorry to have the chance to meet them. You know I told you about George's missing legacy? Well, he's got his birth certificate.'

‘Has he, by Jove?' said Rackham, adding a pickled egg to his plate.

‘Yes. It was in the desk in the library at Eden Street, together with a lot of other family papers. Anne Lassiter looked it out for him. Now, George was told that the legacy was claimed from South Africa on the strength of that certificate.'

Rackham ate thoughtfully for a few moments. ‘What are you saying? That someone used George's birth certificate to snaffle the loot?'

‘Either that or the certificate the solicitors saw was forged.'

‘Can a birth certificate be forged?'

Jack shrugged. ‘I don't see why not. The details would have to be correct, of course, but they're all on record at Somerset House. All a certificate is, when you come down to it, is an extract from the register. Anyone who pays a shilling can take a dekko, which isn't a bad investment when there's forty-six thousand pounds in the offing.'

‘How would anyone know there's that amount of money up for grabs?'

‘They might not know,' said Jack. ‘However, the advert was in the South African press, and it's fairly obvious there must be something to gain. It might be sheer speculation or someone at the solicitors may be on the make or it might have been someone who knew George's mother and realized she had a fair old bit to leave.'

Rackham finished the rest of his supper and pushed his plate away. ‘Thanks for that, Jack. It was just what I needed.' He stood up and took his pipe from his pocket. ‘Look, you'd better get Lassiter to call in at Scotland Yard to make a formal complaint. I'll leave a note that it's to be referred to me.' He covered a yawn with his hand. ‘I've got my work cut out with the Culverton case but I'll make time to go and see the solicitors on Monday.'

‘Thanks, Bill. I couldn't get a damn thing out of Mr Marchbolt. He was very frosty.'