The Case of Naomi Clynes (2 page)

“Come quick, Mrs. Corder, there's a terrible escape of gas upstairs. I just opened the door of my lady's flat and the gas drove me back. I didn't dare go in.”

“Oh, my God! And not a man about the place! I'll come up with you. The first thing to do is to open the window and get the gas turned off. Come on; the shop'll have to mind itself.”

Mrs. Corder caught up a towel as she went and the two women raced up the stairs. When they reached the top the smell of gas was overpowering, but Mrs. Corder held the towel over her mouth and ran to the door of the first floor flat. She was a woman of decision. She threw the door wide open and with her free hand flung back the shutters and threw up the window sash. Then she ran back into the passage to breathe.

“It's coming from the kitchen from the gas-oven,” she gasped. “You stay here while I run in again and turn it off.”

With the towel pressed against her face she made a second plunge into the poisoned air and emerged white and shaking.

“I've got it turned off, but oh! My God! Miss Clynes is lying in there with her head in the gas- oven.”

“You don't mean it? Whatever made her do that? I suppose I'd better go out and find a policeman.”

“No, you needn't do that. I'll ring up the police- station from the 'phone upstairs. You go and keep your eye on the shop a minute. Call me if I'm wanted.”

Three minutes later Mrs. Corder returned to her shop. “The gas isn't so bad now. If we keep the shop door open the draught will blow it all out.”

“I can't go up there by myself, Mrs. Corder; I wouldn't have the nerve.”

“No one must go up there or touch anything until the police come. They're sending round a plain clothes officer, and they say that they've 'phoned the police surgeon, so we can't do any more till they come.”

“Are you sure she's dead, Mrs. Corder?”

“She must be. No one could have lived through all that gas. Ah! Here's John at last! He'll go up.”

A rosy, broad-shouldered man rolled into the shop and stopped short. “Why, what's up, Jenny? You look all scared.”

“Miss Clynes has been and gassed herself, Mr. Corder,” said the charwoman, who was beginning to enjoy herself, “and Mrs. Corder has been risking her life turning off the gas.”

“Go up, John, and make sure she's quite dead. I'm sure I don't know what you do to bring people round when they've been gassed.”

The husband turned to obey the order: she called after him, “Mind and not touch the body or anything else, more than you can help. The police are on their way down with the doctor. And you, Mrs. James; you mustn't go away. The police will want to question us all.”

Annie James was thrilled to the marrow. “Will they? It's the very first time I've been mixed up in a suicide.”

A heavy step was heard descending the stairs. John Corder, the roses faded from his cheeks, returned to the shop, shaking his head. “She's dead all right, poor lady—stone cold.”

Two men darkened the shop door: the one a tall, broad-shouldered man approaching forty; the other a younger man with a professional air about him. He carried an attaché-case.

“Are you Mrs. Corder?” asked the first, addressing the mistress of the shop.

“Yes, sir.”

“You telephoned to the station that a woman had been gassed in this house.”

“That's right, sir. It's the lady that has the flat overhead. I suppose that you're the police inspector?”

“No, I'm Detective Sergeant Hammett. The detective inspector is on leave. This gentleman is Dr. Wardell, the police surgeon. Will you kindly show us the way upstairs?”

“This way, gentlemen. Shall I go first to show you?” said John Corder, leading the way.

Mrs. James, the charwoman, in a spasm of curiosity, would have followed if Mrs. Corder had not held her back.

The three men seemed to fill the little kitchen.

“Can we have a little more light?” asked the doctor.

“Certainly, sir.” The dairyman switched on the electric light.

The doctor knelt down beside the body.

“We'll leave you, doctor,” said the sergeant. “You'll find us in the next room when you want us. Now, Mr. Corder, I want a few particulars from you.” They had moved into the bed-sitting-room. The sergeant looked round it and clicked his tongue. “Nicely furnished,” he said. “The poor lady knew how to make herself comfortable.”

“Oh, the furniture doesn't belong to her. She was only a sub-tenant.”

The sergeant had taken out his notebook. “What was her name?”

“Miss Clynes; first name Naomi.”

“Her age?”

“I couldn't tell you that. I should think by the look of her that she was between thirty and forty.

“How long had she been with you?”

“Let me see. It must be three months now.”

“Do you know the address of any of her friends?”

“No, Sergeant, I don't. She was very reserved and we scarce ever saw her. You see, the flat has its own front door—37
A
Seymour Street—just round the corner, and she had no occasion to come into the shop.”

“But she must have had friends who called on her?”

“Funny you should say that. My wife was talking of that very thing less than a week ago—wondering whether she ever had any visitors.”

“Was she regular with her rent?”

“I can't tell you that either. She took a sublease of the flat from Harding & Anstruther—the house-agents in Lower Sloane Street. It's them that receive the rent and pay it over to the real tenant.”

“The real tenant?”

“Yes; you see we let the flat by the year to Mr. Guy Widdows, but he's travelling abroad most of the time, and then the house-agents let his flat for him by the month. He's out in Algeria now, and we forward his letters to him.”

“Was she employed anywhere? What did she do with her time?”

“Oh, she was an authoress, I believe, but her charwoman you saw downstairs might be able to tell you more about that.”

“I'll see her presently. Now tell me, who was sleeping on the premises last night?”

“No one but my roundsman, Bob Willis. He sleeps in that little room at the back of the shop.”

“Where do you and your wife sleep?”

“We've got a room at 78 King's Road.”

“Who has the floor above this?”

“It's an office of some Jewish society, but no one sleeps there. A girl clerk goes up there once or twice a week to open their letters, but that's all.”

“Have they got a latchkey to the door in Seymour Street?”

“Yes, they have, otherwise they would have to come through my shop.”

The doctor entered the room from the kitchen and addressed Sergeant Hammett. “It's a clear case of gas-poisoning, Sergeant. If you'll give me a hand we'll carry the body into this room.”

“Very good, sir. Can you form any opinion about the hour when death took place?”

“Before midnight, I should say. At any rate the woman's wrist-watch stopped at 5.10, so she hadn't wound it up overnight.”

“There is no trace of violence?”

“Not a trace, except a slight bruise on one of her wrists, but she might have got that in knocking it against the kitchen range. I shall know more when we get the body down to the mortuary. Now, if you'll come along.”

The three men carried the body reverently into the bed-sitting-room and laid it out on the divan-bed. Corder was sent downstairs for a sheet to cover it, and to call Annie James, the charwoman, to answer Sergeant Hammett's questions.

“You'll report; the case to the coroner, sir?” said Hammett, “and, if you are passing the police-station, perhaps you will give the word for them to send along the ambulance to take the body to the mortuary.”

“I will. I suppose that you'll be able to tell the coroner's officer when he comes where the woman's relatives are to be found. The coroner is always fussy about that.”

“That's the trouble, sir. Nobody here seems to know that she had any relatives, or for the matter of that, any friends. She had no visitors, they say. Perhaps you'll mention this to the coroner when you ring him up. I'm going to inquire at the house-agent's on my way to the station.”

“Then you are not going to search the flat?”

“No, doctor. I'm going to take a statement from the charwoman, and then I shall have to ask for help from Central. You see my inspector is away on leave, and I've more on my hands than I can do without this case.”

Annie James, the charwoman, knocked at the door. The doctor nodded good-bye to the sergeant and stumbled down the dark staircase. The woman entered the room timidly and shook with emotion at the sight of her late employer lying pallid and still on the couch.

“Please, sir, I've brought the sheet.”

“Then help me to cover her up.”

“Oh, pore thing! Pore thing! It's awful to think of her being took like that, and that I shall never hear her voice again. So kind, she was, to me.”

“I want you to sit down there and answer my questions. Is your name Annie James?”

“That's right, sir.”

“And you used to do charing here for this lady, Miss Clynes?”

“That's right, sir. I got to know of her through an agency. She wanted a lady's help, and of course, knowing me as they did, they said, ‘You couldn't do better than take Mrs. James—that is, of course, if she's free to oblige you, and…'”

“And she engaged you. How long ago was that?”

“Let's see: it must have been eleven or twelve weeks ago. I know it was ...”

“Did you find her cheerful and happy?”

“I wouldn't go so far as to say that, sir. She would pass the time of day with you, but she was never what you might call chatty. Very reserved and quiet I'd call her.”

“Did she ever talk to you about her friends?”

“No, sir, not a word. And another thing I thought funny. She never had anyone to tea—at least I never saw more than one cup and plate used in the flat. She seemed to spend all her time tapping on her typewriter. She was so busy at it that sometimes she didn't seem to hear me when I spoke to her.”

“She had letters, I suppose?”

“Very few that I know of, sir. Sometimes I used to see an envelope or two in the dustbin.”

“Did she ever say what part of the country she came from?”

“No, sir. I did ask her once, but all I could get out of her was that she came somewhere from the north. She cut me quite short.”

“But she didn't seem to you to be depressed—as if she had something on her mind?”

“No, sir. If she wasn't talkative, it was just her way, I think. Some are born like that, aren't they, sir?”

“And so it was a great surprise to you this morning to find that she had taken her own life?”

“Yes, sir. I can't tell you what a shock it's been.”

“Thank you, Mrs. James. I have your address in case we shall want you again.”

After calling on the house-agents in Lower Sloane Street, Sergeant Hammett took the Underground from Sloane Square to Westminster and sent in his name to the Chief Constable.

He was standing in the Central Hall when a gentleman of middle age, who appeared to be in a hurry, was stopped by the constable on duty and asked to fill up a printed form stating his name and his business.

“Nonsense! Everybody knows what my business is. I'm the coroner for the South Western district, and I want to see the Assistant Commissioner of the C.I.D. at once.”

“Then please put that on the form, sir.”

“This is quite new. I've never had to do this before.”

“Those are the Commissioner's orders, sir. You can put on the form that you are in a hurry, sir.”

“Oh, well, if those are your orders—there, but please see that the form goes to Mr. Morden at once. I've no time to waste.”

The constable carried the form upstairs, and two minutes later returned with the Assistant Commissioner's messenger. “Please step this way, sir.”

The coroner was conducted to a large room on the first floor where Charles Morden was sitting at his office table.

“You seem to be full of red tape since I was here last.”

Morden laughed. “Yes, it's a new rule, but there is a useful side to it. What can I do for you?”

“My officer reported to me this morning that the Chelsea police had failed to find the address of any relations or friends of a woman who committed suicide last night by gassing herself. How can I hold an inquest with nothing but the medical evidence to go upon? It's absurd! The woman must have had friends somewhere.”

“Let me see; the divisional detective inspector is away on leave, but the first-class sergeant ought to be working on the case.”

He rang the bell for his messenger. “Find out whether Sergeant Hammett from B Division is in the building,” he said. “Send him in if he is.”

In less than a minute Hammett was ushered into the room.

“This is the officer in charge of the inquiry,” said Morden to the coroner. “He will tell you how far he has got. The coroner wishes to know whether you have found any friends of the woman who gassed herself last night?”

“I've questioned everybody in the house, sir, and I think that they are telling the truth when they say that the woman received no visitors at her flat, and, as far as they know, received very few letters. I've called at the house-agents', and there I've got a little further. She was required to furnish two references before entering into possession. I have their names and addresses here.” He took out his note-book. “A clergyman, the Vicar of St. Andrew's, Liverpool, and a Mr. John Maze, a solicitor of Liverpool. Both references were satisfactory: both were shown to me.”

“Did you find any correspondence in her flat?”

“To tell you the truth, sir, I haven't had time to search it yet. Our hands are pretty full with that big burglary in Tedworth Square, and that shopbreaking case in Lower Sloane Street, and I came on here to ask for help over this case.”