The Case of Naomi Clynes (12 page)

“Very good,” said Morden, initialing it. “What are you going to do if they are found?”

“With your approval, sir, I propose to have an interview with the husband alone.”

“Right. Let me know what he says. We have to think about what witnesses are to be called at the adjourned inquest. We must give the coroner a list of them, and Bryant may be an important witness. Who else is there?”

“Besides the medical witnesses there are Mrs. Corder from the milk-shop; Ellen McDougall, the girl clerk to that Jewish committee upstairs; Annie James, the charwoman; Superintendent Willis, about the fingerprint on the typewriter; Sergeant Hammett from B Division and myself. I don't know what you think about calling that member of the Jewish committee, Peter Stammer?”

“The man who went to the office after hours to meet a girl? What can he say?”

“Only that when he was passing Miss Clynes' door he heard a man's voice.”

“We had better let the coroner decide that question. You must warn him to attend.”

“Very good, sir. I don't suggest calling any of the witnesses from Liverpool.”

“No, they can throw no light on the case. But what about your friend, the publisher? Oughtn't he to be called to prove that the woman had every reason for clinging to life? At any rate we'll put him in the coroner's list and let him decide. You have no one else? Very well, then get on with that A.S. message.”

O
N THE
following morning Richardson received the promised message from Mrs. Corder. He called Williams, and together they made their way to the milk-shop in King's Road.

“Oh, I'm glad you've come, gentlemen. The parcel that's come for the poor lady is cluttering up the shop, and I thought you'd be glad to take it away with you and examine it at your office. There it is.”

She pointed to a very substantial bundle of newspapers tied up with thick string. It was too heavy to carry to the station in Sloane Square, and too big to take into a motor-bus. This was one of those cases in which a detective officer might be excused for incurring the cost of a taxi. They had the urgent duty to examine the bundle before the adjourning inquest. They took a taxi back to the Yard, and Richardson made a note in his diary of his reason for departing from the official rule.

Williams knew not a word of French, but with the aid of a dictionary, Richardson could master the meaning of a paragraph in a French newspaper.

“Now, Williams, you can set yourself to arranging this file of newspapers in order of date. You can do that without knowing any French.”

“Yes, I fancy that I'm equal to that much.”

He worked assiduously, while his chief was looking through the first newspaper he came upon.

After five minutes' work he spoke. “It's a funny thing, Inspector: all these papers are dated on Christmas Day and the two following days. They are full of very bad illustrations of a railway accident: there are columns and columns about it.”

“I remember reading about a bad accident at a place called Lagny somewhere about Christmas last: one train telescoped another in a thick fog, and dozens of passengers were killed. I took particular notice of it because the driver and stoker of the second train were arrested.”

“But why should Miss Clynes send for newspaper accounts of the accident nearly four months after it occurred? Was she going to use it for one of her stories?”

“Quite possibly, but I shall know more when I've waded through all this stuff. I remember hearing in Liverpool that her employer's little nephew was killed in that accident, and that his death quite broke up the uncle. Ah! Here's a list of the killed and injured as far as could be ascertained. I wonder whether there were any English names in the list. Hullo! What's this? ‘Monsieur Wilfred Bryant and Madame Bryant removed to hospital suffering from shock.' That may be the explanation.”

“How?”

“Well, Wilfred Bryant was Miss Clynes' fiancé, and the fact that she sent for these newspapers seems to show that she was aware that her former fiancé, who had been reported killed, was alive. This may have been the first time that she heard that he had married another woman.”

With a short break for meals they worked conscientiously at translating the gist of the newspaper reports. Richardson could not help feeling that he was on the eve of a discovery which might prove to be the solution of the mystery. A few replies to the All Station message had already come in. They were negative. When they returned from their hasty meal they found that the telephone operator had piled another sheaf of replies on their table. Richardson ran through them and pushed them over to his colleague. “Nothing so far, but we haven't yet had replies from A and C Divisions where the big hotels are to be found.”

He had scarcely spoken when the junior telephone operator entered the room with a message in his hand.

“This may be what you want, Inspector—a message from C Division.”

The message ran:

He threw the message over to Williams. “This is a job that I shall have to tackle alone,” he said. “You can make a precis of these newspaper paragraphs from what I dictated to you.”

He looked at his watch. Half-past four. It was a good moment for catching hotel guests before they went out for the evening. He set off with one of the French newspapers in his pocket, walked to the desk at the Cosmopolis and asked for Mr. Wilfred Bryant.

“What name shall I give?” asked the clerk.

“Mr. Richardson. He may not know my name, but you might say that I've come with a newspaper.” He hoped that the message would be garbled to the extent of crediting him with being connected with the Press.

He was asked to take a seat in the hall while a page carried the message upstairs. The page returned to say that if the gentleman would wait for a few minutes Mr. Bryant would come down. That was one point gained: he would have his interview with Bryant alone.

He waited but a very few minutes. The gate of the lift clashed back and a man of about forty, very thin and frail, emerged from it, leaning on a stick. He looked inquiringly round the hall, and Richardson rose and went towards him.

“Excuse me, but are you Mr. Wilfred Bryant?”

“I am.” The man looked hunted and apprehensive.

“Shall we sit down, Mr. Bryant? I'm not going to interview you on behalf of a newspaper. I have brought a French newspaper to show you.” He took from his pocket a copy of the
Intransigeant
, and pointed to a marked passage. “I see that you and your wife were in that terrible railway accident in France on Christmas Eve.”

“We were, but if you don't mind I'd rather not talk about it. We were lucky to get out of it alive. My wife has never quite recovered from the shock. I don't quite understand why you have brought me this newspaper.”

“Only because it had been ordered from Paris within the last week or two by an old friend of yours, Mr. Bryant—Miss Naomi Clynes.”

The shot told. The hand which he put out for the newspaper was trembling.

Richardson continued, “You know, of course, that that poor lady is dead?”

He was watching Bryant's face: he saw that this was not news to him. The man bowed his head and did not reply.

“No doubt you saw the mention of her death in the newspapers. May I ask when you last saw her?” Bryant glanced at him apprehensively and quickly averted his eyes. “Perhaps I ought to say that I am particularly interested in her death, Mr. Bryant, and, knowing that you had been engaged to be married to her during the war ...”

“How did you know that?”

“I heard it from someone who knew her in Paris.”

“You mean Mrs. Sidmore?”

“It may have come from her in the first instance. Well, it is true, which is more than can be said of most of the gossip since the war.”

“What else did she say?” asked Bryant.

“She said that you had been very badly wounded in the war and were reported killed; that you had been removed to a French hospital and nursed back to life by your present wife; and…that you married her without informing your former fiancée. That was why I asked you when you last saw Miss Clynes.”

“But I don't understand how you come into it. I hope you don't intend to rake up the whole story in a newspaper article.”

“Not at all. I'm not a journalist. I am Detective Inspector Richardson from Scotland Yard, and I am anxious to establish all that is known of the cause of her death.”

Again it was impossible not to notice the confusion into which this announcement threw the man. He mastered himself, however. “As a matter of fact, the only time I met her was on the day before her death. My wife was with me at the time. I don't think that I should have noticed Miss Clynes if she hadn't stopped in front of me and put out her hand. She said, ‘I hope I'm not making a mistake, but are you not Wilfred Bryant?'”

“Did she appear surprised at seeing you?”

“No, not at all. She said that she had seen the correction of my death in the casualty list. Then my wife cut in and asked me who Miss Clynes was. I told her that she was an old friend of long ago. Well, to tell you the truth, my poor wife has been very unbalanced since that accident, and to avoid a scene in the Stores I bowed to Miss Clynes and got my wife away. That was the only time that I saw Naomi, and you can imagine what a shock it was to read about her death two days later in the paper.”

“Did she give you her address?”

“Yes, I asked her for it and she gave me her card.”

At this juncture the page made his appearance and came towards them.

“Please, sir, Mrs. Bryant rang for me to ask where you were, and I said that you were seeing a gentleman down in the hall, and she said, ‘Go down to the hall and tell him that I wish to see him at once, and he can bring the gentleman up with him.'“

Richardson rose. “I'll say good-bye, Mr. Bryant; perhaps you can arrange to see me later in the evening.”

“I'd rather you came up, if you don't mind. My wife will never believe that I was seeing a gentleman unless you do.”

“Very well, Mr. Bryant, I'll come,” said Richardson, who was curious to see this fire-eating lady.

The lift carried them to the first floor where, it appeared, they were occupying a suite of rooms. Bryant dismissed the page on the landing and led the way. The courage appeared to ooze out of his boot heels at every step he took. He opened the door with the hesitation of a keeper who enters the cage of a wounded tiger, and before his wife could utter a syllable he introduced Richardson as the gentleman who had called to see him. The lady seemed to be too much occupied with her grievances to acknowledge Richardson's bow.

“So here you are at last! I've been talking to your mother on the telephone. You told me a barefaced lie when you said that you had been to see her that night—the night after you had met your former lady-love.” Richardson became all ears. “Yes,” she went on, “I felt it was a lie at the time. I saw that woman give you her card, and you spent the evening with her—your former love. That's where you were that night. Oh, it's no good denying it, and she committed suicide for love of you. It's a pretty story.”

“My dear Simone,” expostulated Bryant, “this will not interest Mr. Richardson at all.”

The lady's voice rose almost to a scream. “It should interest everybody, the way I have been treated.”

She was a thin, acid kind of woman with a wide mouth, prominent teeth, and a fire of almost insane jealousy in her black eyes.

Bryant took Richardson by the arm, opened the door and whispered, “I will come down and see you at your office later in the day. I must stay now to pacify her.”

Richardson returned to the office in deep thought. Why should Bryant have told his wife a lie about the visit to his mother, unless he had been on a mission that would not bear investigation, and yet, on the other hand, what motive could he have had for ridding himself of a woman who had never injured him. He sat down to write out his report about the newspapers from Paris and his interview with the Bryants. He was still engaged upon this when the messenger announced that a gentleman was in the waiting-room asking to see him.

“Is he a lame man?” he asked.

“Yes, he's a poor-looking fellow, and he limps with a stick.”

“I'll go and see him. See that we are not interrupted.''

He found Bryant in the waiting-room. He was obviously in a very nervous state. He struggled to his feet. “This is the only time I could slip away, Inspector. As I told you before, that cursed railway accident has entirely ruined my wife's nerves, and her state of mind is making life a hell for both of us. I suppose that you want to know the truth about where I was that evening when I told my wife that I was going down to see my mother?”

“Yes, Mr. Bryant. In view of what happened that evening, I think that an explanation is necessary.”

“Well, then, I will tell you the actual truth, and you can draw what conclusion you please. I had written to Miss Clynes asking her to dine with me and talk over old times. I wanted to explain to her why I had never let her know when I came out of hospital. I didn't dare tell my wife—you saw what she was this morning—so I told her that I intended to pass the evening with my mother. The two do not hit it off together, and I knew that she wouldn't offer to come with me.”

“How did you send the invitation to Miss Clynes?”

“I wrote a note to her and dropped in into her letter-box at 37
A
Seymour Street.”

“At what time?”

“Just after lunch that day when we met at the Stores.”

“Where did you propose to dine?”