Mystery of Mr. Jessop (25 page)

“Lot of rubbish,” growled Ulyett. “T.T.'s place was gone over with a comb, and he wouldn't keep it there, anyhow, when he knows we are watching and might raid him again any moment. Dickson has just been listening to gossip. Of course, he was quite right to come and tell us.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby automatically. “Someone had been pulling Dickson's leg – told him a firm in Crust Lane, in the City, was where we got the van from on Saturday.”

“Find out who it was and tell him off,” said Ulyett. “Leg-pulling's not allowed in Government time.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby as usual, and retired, though his efforts to find out who had been misleading Dickson were without success. The offence was hardly grave, but no one would admit to it, and so Bobby turned his attention to his formal report. That finished, he signed off, and returned home for supper and bed in such a mood of abstraction and deep thought he as nearly as possible got himself run over by an enormous furniture van making a stately progress through the streets at about four miles an hour.

“Nothing but furniture vans, furniture vans, all the way, just now,” complained Bobby, and the driver was, naturally enough, most indignant.

“Ain't we big enough and slow enough for a blind cripple paralysed from birth to keep out of our way?” he demanded, and Bobby agreed, and apologised, explaining, in doing so, that sometimes it was the big things and the slow that were the most difficult to see. Whereon the driver expressed an opinion that Bobby was balmy, and Bobby said anyhow he had cause to be, and so went still more thoughtfully upon his way.

All that remained of the evening he spent in meditation and the consumption of tobacco. Next morning, reporting for duty, he found instructions waiting him to interview Miss May, stated now to be in a condition to receive visitors.

“Funny lot at that hospital,” complained Inspector Ferris. “Talk as if a bit of a tap on the head was something nobody had ever hardly seen before. A Dr. Perkins rang up to say the patient is not to be pressed in any way or questioned closely, and there's to be no formal statement taken – too exciting. Strongly recommended that the per-son interviewing her should be tactful and not a complete stranger, if possible. Suppose they think we're full up with all her old friends. And if we don't do just what they say, they won't be answerable for the consequences. Seem to think we may drive her off her head. So the super says you had better take the job on – not,” added Ferris sternly, “on account of tact, which the Duke of Westhaven doesn't seem to think you've much of, to judge from what we're hearing confidential like. But, seeing as it was you found her inside the cupboard, you ought to be like old friends almost. And mind,” concluded Ferris, “you wash your face and curl your hair first – and don't forget to powder your nose. Better put on your old school tie, too, if you've got one, or even if you haven't. A good first impression goes a long way with the feminine sex. Why, if it wasn't for my moustache” – he touched it lovingly in all its waxed and pointed perfection –”why, but for that, I might be a free man to-day.”

Bobby, having carried out these instructions to the best of his ability – though more in the spirit than in the letter – presented himself at the hospital, and was a little astonished to be told there that he had arrived only just in time, as Miss May was on the point of departure. She was, in fact, only waiting for the taxi she had ordered.

“But I thought,” protested Bobby, “we were told – I mean, in a case of concussion...”

“Oh,” said the nurse to whom he was speaking, “old Peter Perkins been talking to you? He's got a concussion complex. Miss May had better keep quiet for a day or two still, and so I've told her, and, if she doesn't, she'll know it – dizzy, and pains in the head most likely. But she's practically all right if she's sensible, and three weeks in bed is only Perkins piffle. We can do with her bed, too. So when she insisted on taking her discharge, and threatened to scream the place down if we didn't bring her clothes, and going to ring up her tame lawyers, too – well, Perkins's instructions or not, we caved in, and glad to. Perkins will rave a bit, and tell everyone he won't be answerable for the consequences; but, then, he never is. He's not answerable for more things than anyone else on the register.”

“I can see her before she goes though, can't I?” Bobby asked.

The nurse thought so, and promised to tell Miss May he was there. He was ushered into a small waiting-room accordingly, and was soon joined by Hilda, looking a little pale but otherwise not much the worse for her adventure.

Hilda began by protesting that she knew nothing and could tell nothing, though she consented to the taxi she had ordered being used by someone else who had need of one at the moment, so that her talk with Bobby might not be troubled by thoughts of ticking up pennies.

She had been out on Sunday she said, and on her return to her flat had noticed that the door was open an inch or two. Her first impression was simply that the lock had failed to catch. She remembered thinking she must be more careful, pushing the door more widely open, entering, and that was all she knew, except for a vague, confused impression of falling and of darkness. She had had no glimpse of her assailant, and could not even offer a guess at his identity or his purpose. The next thing she remembered was waking up in hospital and wondering where she was. She had no knowledge of her rescue from the lobby cupboard or of her narrow escape from death by suffocation.

“Was there anything of value in the flat?” Bobby asked.

“Some jewellery I have, and a little money, and my post office savings book,” she answered, “nothing else, and I've asked, and they're all safe.”

“Would you think it possible,” Bobby asked, “that there might be an idea about that Mr. Jessop had left the missing Fellows necklace in your charge, and that was what the thief was after?”

“Good gracious, no! Why should they?” retorted 

Hilda, with a very surprised air. “I'm sure Mr. Jessop would never have done anything of the sort.” She began to look a little disturbed. “I don't see how anyone could have such an idea,” she said.

“We are looking for some explanation,” Bobby explained. “It doesn't seem an ordinary case of housebreaking. Your flat had been thoroughly ransacked, turned upside down. Something was being looked for, something badly wanted, and yet not your money or your jewellery.”

She was looking very worried now. Her feet began to move in that strange, rhythmic manner that seemed her natural response to difficulty or to danger. She said slowly: “Well, I don't see what it could be, unless someone did think I had the necklace, and I don't see why anyone should.”

“Did you return to your flat because you were expecting Mr. Chenery?” Bobby asked.

“Oh, no,” she answered. “It was his Sunday at the garage – he owns a garage business. One Sunday in four he has to be there himself to let the foreman off.”

“He is said to have been seen leaving the flats where you live about the time of the attack on you.”

“Oh, that must be a mistake,” she answered. “He wouldn't be able to get away.”

But Bobby knew there was no mistake; inquiry had produced evidence confirming Charley Dickson's story.

“Do you mind,” Bobby went on, “telling me if you are on friendly terms with Mr. Dickson?”

“He's been making rather a nuisance of himself,” she answered, flushing a little, “that's all.”

“There's no ill feeling on your part at his having taken your post as secretary to the duchess?”

“Gracious, no,” she answered. “After the frantic row I had with her, of course I had to clear out in a hurry. We were nearly at the eye-scratching stage, I was so furious and so was she. I just bunged out as quick as I could, and the job was there for anyone to take – Mr. Dickson or anyone else. Nothing to do with me.”

“I am sorry to ask you private questions,” Bobby said, “but they are purely official, you understand. I gather both Mr. Dickson and Mr. Chenery would like to marry you. Is there any chance for either of them?”

“I shall never marry anyone,” declared Hilda with grave emphasis. “That is quite certain. Never.” Having registered this unalterable decision, she permitted her solemnity to relax into a smile. “And I don't think Mr. Dickson really wants to,” she added, “only I think he seems to feel he ought to make up somehow for having my job. Besides, he never has any money; he's always hard up.”

“Or Mr. Chenery?”

“That, of course, is entirely out of the question, after what the duchess said,” explained Hilda with cold dignity.

“Thank you,” said Bobby. “Have you any plans for the future?”

“I shall have to get another job,” she answered. “Why?”

“You are leaving Jessop & Jacks?” Bobby asked. “I don't think you told me that before, did you?”

“The other night, you mean?” she said. “No. Why? There was no reason to, was there?”

“I think it was rather important,” he answered.

“Why? You told me Mr. Jessop had been shot, and you asked for Mr. Jacks's address and I told you. I don't quite see what my leaving had to do with it.”

“Was there any reason for your leaving?”

She hesitated for a moment or two.

“Mr. Jessop's dead,” she said. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“I think I must ask you to be perfectly frank.”

“Well, he was getting silly. If you are a girl,” she said moodily, “you may be in business, but you're a girl just the same and you jolly well can't help it. Some of them don't try, either.”

“You mean?”

“You soon get to know the signs,” she said. “If you give them the letters to look at, they try to hold your hand. If you make a bloomer, they don't get raggy. Tease you about it instead. Theatre tickets for you and a friend they can't use themselves, and then presently they want to be the friend. Oh, it's quite a technique. You can hold them off for a time, but when it gets too hot, the only thing to do is to go before they turn nasty and you're reported for insubordination, or there's a discrepancy in the petty cash or something like that.”

“Mr. Jessop was forcing attentions on you, and to avoid them you made up your mind to leave?”

“Yes. Sounds silly and prudish, but it's just horrid when a man goes sloppy when you're working for him – especially if he's awfully old, like Mr. Jessop; over sixty. I just couldn't stick it. And it wasn't only that.”

“Please go on,” Bobby said. “You must remember there has been murder done. Any detail may give us the clue we want.”

“I don't see that it can help, and I don't think I ought to now the poor man's dead so dreadfully. And then very likely there's nothing in it, and I was nervy and fancying things. The firm's been losing money for a long time – not so much in trading, but because of all the capital they have locked up. I think they over-bought before the slump set in. Mr. Jessop used to play cards a good deal, too, and I know he often lost a lot.”

“We knew that,” Bobby said. “Please go on.”

“Very likely he never really meant it. He was only joking, perhaps. But I did think he had some idea about selling the Fellows necklace for more than Mr. Jacks or Miss Fellows knew and keeping the extra for himself.”

“Rather risky,” Bobby suggested. “Might have got a stiff sentence.”

“I thought,” Hilda said uncomfortably, “he had an idea that if I helped him it could be done without breaking the law. Only I didn't want to help. It wasn't honest, really. It might have been legal, perhaps. I don't know. And he said no one could possibly find out. He said even if it was – found out, I mean – the only thing that could happen would be his having to leave the firm. And he wouldn't have minded that. They may have to close down soon anyhow.”

“I should have thought,” Bobby remarked, “they would be able to do a jolly sight more than asking him to get out. I think I should in their place.”

“It's only what I – guessed,” she continued; “he kept on hinting. I think he was trying to find out what I thought. It frightened me. He was never plain about it; only hints and little jokes. Miss Fellows put a reserve price of £50,000 on her necklace. I think Mr. Jessop was going to say there was a good offer of £55,000 and it had better be accepted. Only the purchaser didn't want his name known and I was to be a kind of dummy, a nominee, to act for him and to receive the necklace when the money was paid. We had Miss Fellows's written authority to accept anything over £50,000, and Mr. Jessop thought Mr. Jacks and Mr. Wright would agree.”

“Was Mr. Wright's consent necessary? I thought he was only the manager?”

“He has money in the firm – a mortgage or something. I don't think he wanted to be a partner. If a smash came, he thought he would be better off as a creditor than being responsible for the debts. But they had to treat him as a partner because of the money he had put in the business. He might have drawn it out.”

“Do you mean Mr. Jessop had a genuine offer of £55,000?”

“Yes. But he didn't want to sell on the firm's account, because then the commission due would have gone to the firm – really to the firm's creditors in the end. What I think is that really he had an offer for a very much larger sum – not £55,000, but £65,000.”

Bobby gave a low whistle.

“I'm beginning to see,” he said. “It might be worked like that. You mean his idea was that the firm was to sell to you, as nominee of someone else, for £55,000, and afterwards Jessop would have sold on his own for £65,000, pocketing the difference?”

“He thought it would be quite legal to do it like that,” Hilda remarked.

“I don't know,” said Bobby doubtfully. “Of course, there's a lot of sharp practice you can get away with in Big Business. Jessop's dodge sounds a bit thick, though. Smart, of course.”