The Bath Mysteries (17 page)

“There was a heavy insurance on his life, wasn't there?” Bobby asked.

“Twenty thousand pounds,” said Mrs. Charles, in an awed voice. “Poor gentleman, he meant she shouldn't suffer. I've always thought perhaps he had a feeling something might happen to him, what with cars and suchlike and the streets safe for none, let alone when having had a drop too much. It was living alone done it, and, the pity of it was, it happened just when him and her was likely to make it up again.”

“Were they?” said Bobby. “I didn't know – what makes you think that?"

“She had just given him a ring – ever such a nice one,” Mrs. Charles explained. “He showed it me. I saw it on his finger, and I said how lovely it was – three little fishes cut on it; ever so pretty.”

“Three fishes?” Bobby repeated; for three dolphins formed the ancestral crest of his family, and were carved, as he knew, upon the signet ring that had provided the first hint of Ronnie's fate.

“That's right,” said Mrs. Charles. “That was the first time I knew he was married.”

“Did you – did you see her – his wife, I mean?”

“No, he had been to meet her at Charing Cross station, under the clock, but she wouldn't have given him a ring like that if she hadn't meant it was going to be all right again. I always say it was because of that he took too much the day the accident happened, being excited and such. When he showed me the ring, he said it was the first time he had seen his wife for ever so long, but it was going to be all right now. And the funny thing is,” said Mrs. Charles, “when she came she had forgotten all about it, and didn't know what I meant when I said how happy it must make her feel to think they had as good as made it up and him wearing the ring she gave him as a sign.” Bobby was thinking deeply and unhappily. The story seemed to suggest very strongly that in point of fact Cora had been in touch with her husband more intimately than through the advertisement which was all she had spoken of. He remembered it had always been said that after the crash Ronnie had gone away leaving all his possessions behind. Vague, disquieting possibilities seemed to be floating in his mind. He tried to dismiss them as merely fanciful, but they remained. He said:

“She never came here, to his flat – his wife, I mean?”

“Not that I knew of,” Mrs. Charles answered. “All he said was he had met her and she gave him the ring and it was going to be all right; poor soul, it wasn't to be, and all because of a drop too much – that might happen to anyone,” said Mrs. Charles tolerantly.

“He hadn't many visitors, had he?” Bobby asked.

“I never remember but one,” Mrs. Charles answered. “But I do remember him, on account of his giving me a ten-shilling note for a bit of old china I had standing on the mantelpiece – took a fancy to it soon after I was married and bought it for sixpence, and this gentleman took a fancy to it, too, only he gave me ten shillings.”

“What was it like?” Bobby asked slowly, making his voice as flat and dull as he could, though now he was aware of a kind of terror in his thoughts.

“Two figures of a boy and girl by a gate, with bits of crockery like flowers growing all over it,” answered Mrs. Charles. “Many a good laugh I've had to myself to think of buying it for sixpence same as I did and then selling it for ten shillings.”

“Should you know it again, if you saw it?” Bobby asked.

“Anywhere,” Mrs. Charles answered. “There was a bit of the gatepost chipped, behind, which when the gentleman saw it nearly stopped him from buying it. But then he said perhaps it didn't matter, and he took it just the same.”

“And the ring you told me about,” Bobby asked. “Should you know that again, too?”

“I should so,” answered Mrs. Charles tranquilly. "Trust me. Why?”

But Bobby did not answer or explain as he went moodily away.

It was indeed in a troubled and thoughtful mood that Bobby went slowly back to Scotland Yard.

Assuming that Mrs. Charles's statements could be trusted – and it would be easy enough to test their truth – there seemed to be now clear evidence of closer communication between Cora and her husband immediately before his tragic end than she had admitted.

Did that mean, then, that there must be taken seriously the suggestion, already put forward once or twice, that, becoming convinced of Ronnie's treachery and deception, as she would naturally hold his connection with another woman to be, she had in her anger and disillusion taken a terrible revenge?

It was a conclusion Bobby was reluctant to accept. Nor did he see how to relate it with the equally strange, and possibly also suspicious, fact that Chris must have known of Ronnie's existence and where he was living. Impossible to suppose that Chris's appearance in the Islington block of flats had not been a result of Ronnie's residence there.

But this knowledge that both Cora and Chris seemed to have had, was it independently acquired or communicated from one to the other? Their silence, too, was that independent or mutually agreed on? And silence is a thing that wears an ugly aspect where murder is concerned.

Bobby told himself firmly that there must be some explanation, though he could think of none, and there came into his mind a strange and disturbing memory of the woman who had appeared at the inquest as Ronnie's wife, and in that capacity had received the insurance money though by means of forged documents.

Was it possible those documents had been forged and presented less to obtain wrongfully money not lawfully due than to provide cover against any possible future investigation? Grimly Bobby faced the possibility that the explanation might just possibly lie there – that Cora was guilty and the money had been Chris's reward for helping her?

And then, was it possible that Chris, finding so large a sum so easily earned, had continued the series with victims picked up on the Embankment?

More grimly still, he told himself that whatever the consequences, however involved members of his own family might be, he would neither rest nor pause till he had dragged out the truth.

He remembered that the self-styled Mrs. Oliver had been described as tall, dark, slim. So far that description fitted in well enough with Cora, even though the Islington pawnbroker had apparently declared definitely that Cora was not the woman who had sold him the signet ring. But that declaration had been made to Cora herself, and was it possible she had been at pains to obtain it? An ugly possibility! A different hat, a new way of doing the hair, a difference in “make-up” – all that could easily render casual identification difficult. Nor, after so long a time had elapsed, was there much hope of getting any more positive result. Nor, again, would there be any reasonable chance now of being able to obtain satisfactory evidence of Cora's movements during the relevant time, though Bobby was aware she had certainly been in London during those days. Then there was that disturbing matter of the leopard-skin coat. One had been mentioned in connection both with the typist, Alice Yates, and with the unknown, self-styled Mrs. Oliver, and it was certain Cora had at one time possessed one.

But then, again, there was the fact that, according to Mrs. Charles, the woman she had talked to had betrayed ignorance of the gift of the signet ring. If that were so, it seemed good evidence that another, not Cora, was concerned.

Bobby's head was beginning to turn. He told himself it was no good losing his way in a haze of conjecture. More facts must be patiently collected, sifted, related; after all, that was what detective work was, not brilliant deduction, not imaginatively accurate conjecture, but just the patient digging up of fact after fact and the fitting of them together till at last the pattern of truth was complete.

Then his mind went racing off again to Alice Yates, who, according to the evidence of the porter at the building where she worked, was one of the possessors of a leopard- skin coat, and whose action in choosing to become his fellow-lodger was so hard to understand. What had induced her to come and live in the same house with him, and how, indeed, did she know what his address was? And behind all these confused, dark, troubled thoughts of his remained always a clear picture of the story Cripples had told him with its background of that fatal haunting figure on the Embankment, slipping to and fro in the dark evening between the lights cast by the tall electric standards.

When at last he reached the Yard he went first to find Inspector Ferris, who was acting in this case as a kind of “registry” – that is, his duty was to receive all the different reports coming in and all information received from the different officers engaged, following up the various lines of inquiry suggested, so as to make sure that no item was overlooked, and to see that all concerned were kept informed of all relevant developments.

“Getting to know things,” Ferris said cheerfully. “Though heaven alone knows what they all mean. But we've got the address of the London, Brighton & South Coast Syndicate.”

“Oh, it does exist, then?” exclaimed Bobby, who had been inclined to suspect it would turn out to be purely imaginary.

He knew, of course, that instructions had been issued to every constable in the London district to keep a lookout for any business of that name. Name-plates were to be looked at, porters at blocks of business offices questioned, the usual routine in fact gone through; and now word had been received that one constable, chatting to a postman, had learned that letters so addressed had been delivered to a small flat on the first floor of a house in a street behind Green Dragon Square, off Holborn.

“The postman noticed the name,” explained Ferris, “because his father was employed by the old London, Brighton & South Coast Railway. There are only very few letters, he says, so apparently it is not a concern that does much business. There's a sweets, news, and tobacco shop on the ground floor. The man who keeps it is the tenant of the whole house but lets off most of it. The Syndicate has been in occupation about six months. The landlord thinks they are A1 tenants. They pay regularly – it's a monthly rent – and there's hardly ever anyone there, so there's no trouble or wear and tear or anything. Besides, they paid all the cost of redecorating – and of the new bathroom they wanted put in.”

“The – what?” exclaimed Bobby, startled in spite of himself.

Ferris did not answer for a moment or two, and in the silence he and Bobby looked strangely at each other.

“Gave me a bit of a turn, too, when I heard that,” Ferris went on presently. “Bath, geyser, all complete, been put in in the back room.”

They were both silent again, occupied with their own heavy thoughts. Ferris said:

“Well, there it is, whatever it means, and none of us like the look of it, but what are we to do till we know more? Nothing wrong about putting in a bath – nothing we can take action on there.”

“No, sir, I suppose not,” agreed Bobby, and their eyes met, and there was a deadly fear in that mutual glance.

“Oh, well,” Ferris said briskly, “no use getting the jim-jams. The landlord was shown a photograph of Mr. Percy Lawrence – recognized him at once. If you ask me, fellows like him, with a record like his, oughtn't to be let out at all. You don't let a wolf loose from the Zoo, do you, just because, having been behind the bars, it hasn't had a chance to bite?”

“He has seemed to lead such a quiet, regular life lately,” observed Bobby. “Office all day, that long walk at night, and that's all.”

“Seemed?” scoffed Ferris. “It's him made all the arrangements, pays all the rent, and so on. Only there's something else. While Peters – it was him went round to make the inquiries – while he was talking in the shop, another man dropped in and toddled upstairs, and let himself into the L.B. & S.C.S. flat with a key. Who do you think it was? Luckily Peters had seen him before and knew him at once. Your Park Lane friend, Mr. Norris.”

“Dick Norris?” Bobby echoed, utterly bewildered. “Why... why...?”

“That's right,” said Ferris. “Very much why... it's what we all said. Why? Some connection... only what? Where does it fit?”

It was a question to which Bobby had no answer.

“If you ask me,” Ferris went on, “Mr. Percy Lawrence means Mr. Norris to take a bath there some night – and then there'll be another inquest and another fat insurance to draw. Or it might be the other way round. This Norris bird may have started with the Islington case to clear the way to his girl, found it easy money, and made up his mind to go on. Lawrence would be the sort he would pick on – no awkward inquiries. They've got the front room fitted up in first-class style as an office, only comfortable, not strict business, managing director's private-room style. The second room is a kind of bed-sitting-room with a small electric cooking-stove in one corner. It's the third room right at the back, quite small, where the bath's been fixed up; special water supply. Landlord's quite bucked about it; thinks when the Syndicate goes, the fitted bathroom will make letting much easier, and a higher rent, too.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” agreed Bobby, thinking to himself that the suggestion Ferris had just put forward about Norris was exactly the idea that he had had about Chris.

“Or what about this?” Ferris went on. “Remember that queer old bird you met at the Berry, Quick office – Beale wasn't his name – Dr. Beale? Well, what about him for the next bath?”

“I suppose there is that,” agreed Bobby thoughtfully.

“It looks like it, if you ask me,” Ferris declared. “We know they're in touch with him; we know he has a pile of money – £20,000 – seems to be always that same figure – they're trying to get hold of. We know there's already been talk about getting him insured. If you ask me, they will get that insurance policy issued somehow or another. Then the old boy will be asked to stay in town a night or two. The yarn will be he has to be on the spot because there's a big chance coming along – one that will mean big profits if he likes to take it on after he has the facts. That's what he'll be told, and there's this Green Dragon Square flat all ready for him – bath and all. That's how I see it.”