The Case of Naomi Clynes (6 page)

“Why to Liverpool?”

“Because the two references Miss Clynes obtained for her lease of her flat both live in Liverpool, and I hope that they will be able to give me information about her friends and relatives.”

“Who are they?”

“The clergyman of her parish and a solicitor named John Maze who was her former employer.”

“Can't you get the information on the telephone?”

“I might get something, sir, but I want particularly to see them both and get the names and addresses of her friends. One can't well do that on the telephone.”

“When would you be back?”

“By to-morrow night or certainly early the next morning, sir. I've still a good deal to do in London. I've seen the clerk belonging to that Jewish Association upstairs, and I find that one of the Board of Directors persuaded her to lend him her latchkey on the night of the alleged suicide. I've brought down with me a coffee-cup with some grounds in it in case you think it advisable to have an analysis made, both of the coffee-cup and the contents of the dead woman's stomach.”

“You think that this ought to be done?”

“I do, sir.”

“Very well, you can go to Liverpool and get back as soon as you can. Sergeant Williams can take that cup round to be analysed while you're away. If any poison is found we can have a second post-mortem by Sir Gerald Whitcombe.”

M
ORDEN SAT
thinking when he found himself alone. Usually he made up his mind quickly and resumed the work he was doing, but in this case he felt that he was being rushed—rushed by the junior inspector in Central—rushed, probably, into unnecessary expenditure on an expert's fees, and yet—had Richardson ever let the Department down? It would be easy enough to leave things as they were and let a coroner's jury return a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind; nobody would ever be likely to raise the case again; and yet Richardson had always proved to be right hitherto, however fantastic the theory he had put forward might have seemed at the time. He picked up his telephone and asked to be connected with Sir Gerald Whitcombe.

“Is that you, Whitcombe? Look here, I want you to make a P.M. on the body of a woman named Naomi Clynes who was found gassed yesterday morning in 37
A
Seymour Street, Chelsea. Have you written that down?”

“…”

“The police surgeon of B Division, Dr. Wardell, is certifying that the cause of death was suicide, but one of our men sticks out that it was murder.”

“…”

“Yes, that she was given some kind of quick-acting poison and then dragged to the gas-oven while unconscious. I'm sending you up a coffee-cup with dried dregs in it. He suggests that it was used to administer the poison.”

“…”

“No, it was just the contrary. All the witnesses so far are agreed that she was in good spirits and had every reason to be so. She was an authoress, and a publisher had just accepted her first book on liberal terms.”

“…”

Morden laughed into the telephone. “I agree. In these days it's as good as winning a horse for the Dublin Sweep. Then you'll go right ahead with the P.M. and the analysis? Good.” He hung up the receiver.

On reaching Liverpool, Richardson wasted no time. He drove out to St. Andrew's Vicarage and sent in his card. If he had been less hurried he would have reported himself to police headquarters in Dale Street, but that would have entailed a loss of time which he could ill spare.

The vicar himself came to the door with his visitor's card between his fingers. He was a mild-mannered man approaching sixty, one of those clergy who do not seek preferment by self-advertisement, but are content to remain among the hewers of wood and the drawers of water for their church. He invited his visitor into his study and begged him to sit down. Richardson opened his business at once.

“About three months ago, Mr. Crispin, you became a reference to a house-agent in London for a Miss Naomi Clynes.”

The poor vicar's face betrayed anxious concern. “Yes, I remember. I do hope that nothing unpleasant has happened.”

“The poor lady was found dead in her flat yesterday morning. There is to be an inquest, and the coroner is most anxious to be put into communication with her friends.”

“How shocking! My wife will be terribly upset. Miss Clynes was an active member of my congregation—a regular communicant and always ready to help us in the work of the parish. We missed her very much when she left.”

“You have known her for some years?”

“Yes, she was in Paris during the Peace Conference, working for some American Society, and when that broke up she came to Liverpool to be near an aunt who has since died.”

“Do you know whether she had any other relations?”

“No, I'm sure she hadn't. She told me so herself. It was partly through me that she obtained a post in the office of a well-known solicitor, Mr. John Maze, in this city. Poor thing! She had no money from her aunt, who had only a small annuity which died with her. What do you think was the cause of Miss Clynes' death?”

“The doctor believes that it was a suicide. She was found with her head in a gas-oven.”

“Oh, I can scarcely believe that. She was a most level-headed and conscientious church woman. If you would like to see my wife I'm sure she will confirm all I have said.”

“I should like to see Mrs. Crispin very much.”

The vicar went out to call his wife, a middle-aged lady, who came in fluttering with emotion.

“I simply can't believe it, Mr.…”

“Richardson,” prompted her husband.

“I simply can't believe it. Miss Clynes was one of the most sensible women I know. She had literary ambitions, and she wrote to me only a few days ago to say that her first novel had been accepted. It was a most cheerful letter; I wish I'd kept it to show you. She was used to living alone, so she wouldn't have got depressed on that account.”

“Where did she live?”

“She was in lodgings at 10 Rosewear Road, quite close to the church.”

After noting the address Richardson asked, “Had she any intimate friends?”

“No, I believe that I was her greatest friend. She was a reserved woman who did not make friends very easily.”

“She never gave you the impression that she had something on her mind?”

The vicar's wife searched her memory. “You know, of course, that she had one great sorrow in her life. She was engaged to an officer in the Liverpool regiment, and he was killed in 1917.”

“No, I did not know that, but after seventeen years that could scarcely have been a motive for suicide. Why did she leave Mr. Maze's employment?”

“Only because Mr. Maze was retiring from business. He, poor man, has never been the same since the death of his little nephew. He was taking him to school in France and they were in that dreadful railway accident outside Paris when one train ran over another and half the passengers were killed. He escaped with nothing worse than a shaking, but the boy was killed. Miss Clynes told me that he could not bear to speak of it.”

“He spoke of it to me just once,” said the vicar.

“He said that the business of identifying the body and arranging for the funeral was the most horrible in his experience.”

“Everyone noticed the difference in him,” added his wife. “It was natural that he should want to retire. Miss Clynes told me that he had been very generous to her, but of course he could afford it as he is a very rich man.”

Richardson slowly closed his notebook, having come to the end of his questions. “Thank you very much. You have been very helpful, Mrs. Crispin. I think that I will call at Miss Clynes' late lodgings and see whether her landlady can throw any light on the cause of her sad death.”

The vicar came to the door with him to point out the direction of the lodgings, and they parted with mutual expressions of goodwill.

No. 10 Rosewear Road proved easy to find. The bell was answered by a buxom, smiling landlady, who wilted a little when she heard who he was, but invited him into her kitchen in order not to disturb her lodgers who were at supper in the parlour.

“I have called to ask you a few questions about the late Miss Clynes, who, I am told, formerly lodged with you.”

“The
late
Miss Clynes, sir? Do you mean that she's dead? How dreadful! It must have been very sudden.”

“It was. There is to be an inquest, because she was found dead yesterday morning with her head in the gas-oven.”

“Never! She wasn't one to commit suicide. She lodged with me for years, and if she'd had any troubles I'm sure she'd have told me. Not that she was one to talk about herself, but she was always one to look on the bright side, and only a week or two ago she wrote me such a nice bright letter to say that all was going well with her writing and she was very happy in London. Dear, dear! One never knows. ‘In the midst of life we are in death,' as Shakespeare used to say.”

“Had she any friends—people who came to tea with her, for instance—while she was lodging with you?”

“I can't say that she had any special friend. There was, of course, Mrs. Crispin from the Vicarage, and some of the other ladies who do Church work, and sometimes one or other of them would stay to tea, but when I say no special friend, there was none of them that she called by their Christian name.”

“Have you kept the letter she wrote to you from London?”

“No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't. The few letters I get have to be used for lighting the fire.”

“Apparently she wasn't a lady who made friends very easily. Did she make enemies?”

“Good gracious! No! She was the quietest, gentlest woman that you'd meet anywhere, and yet she could hold her own when it came to the point. Why, one morning, from my kitchen window, I saw her out in the road without a hat, trouncing a boy who'd set his dog at a poor little kitten. He didn't get away from her without hearing some home truths, I can tell you.”

“When she decided to go up to London did she seem pleased to be leaving Liverpool?”

“I think she was looking forward to it on the whole, sir. You see, it was a new adventure, but sometimes she'd get thoughtful like, as if she was wondering how she'd get on up there.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Clark. I think that that's all I need ask you.”

“Good-bye, sir. I shall watch the papers for that inquest.”

The church clock was striking eight as Richardson left Rosewear Road: it was not too late for his visit to John Maze at his private address, which was in the residential part of Liverpool. The butler who opened the door to him exhibited surprise at receiving a visitor at such an hour, and even greater surprise when he read the name on the card which was tendered to him. “Is Mr. Maze expecting you, sir?”

“Probably not. I should not have dreamed of disturbing him at such an hour if the matter were not urgent. Will you tell him that I shall not detain him for more than a few minutes?”

He was shown into the library—a room furnished luxuriously with dark leather armchairs and a carpet into which the feet sank deep. He was not kept waiting. A tall man in a dinner-jacket opened the door. He was past middle age, but he was still erect and active in his movements. He held Richardson's card in his hand.

“Good evening, Inspector. I'm very glad to see you. Sit down and tell me what I can do for you.” He took the armchair opposite to Richardson. “Perhaps before we discuss business we had better wait until we know that we shan't be disturbed. They are bringing us a glass of port.”

The door opened and the butler brought in a tray carrying a decanter, glasses and biscuits, which he set down between them. As soon as they were alone Richardson spoke.

“The Assistant Commissioner sent me to see you, sir, on the subject of a reference you signed for a Miss Naomi Clynes when she engaged her flat in Chelsea.”

“I remember perfectly. Why, has anything gone wrong?”

“She's dead, sir.”

“Good God! Her death must have been very sudden. What was the cause of it?”

“It is ascribed to suicide. She was found in the morning lying in her kitchen with her head in the gas-oven with all the taps turned on. There is to be an inquest, of course, and the coroner has applied to the police for information about her relatives and friends. She seems to have had no friends in London, and that is why I am making inquiries in Liverpool.”

“The news is a great shock to me. She was my confidential clerk and worked for me for ten years until three months ago, and if I had searched the country through I should never have found a better one. I'm afraid, poor woman, that she can't have made a success of her new venture.”

“According to her publishers, things were going well. Do you happen to know anything of her life before she came to Liverpool?”

“She told me that she had been working for one of those American philanthropic societies that were formed in Paris at the time of the Peace Conference, and they gave her the highest character. At first she was living with an aunt in Liverpool, but three or four years later the aunt died and she told me that she was the last relation she had in the world. She was a curiously reticent creature; even her fellow-clerks seem to have known very little about her.”

“May I ask why she left her employment with you?”

“Only because I am retiring from business and have no longer any need of a secretary. I wanted to do my best for her, as one always does for a faithful employee who has been with one for years. Quite by chance I had heard from one of the other clerks that in her spare time Miss Clynes had been writing for one of the magazines and had had a story accepted, and that she had literary ambitions. I made a jocular allusion to this, and she told me quite seriously that it was true; that her dream was to establish herself in London and devote herself seriously to writing. This seemed to be an opportunity for helping her. I broke the news to her that I was going to close down the office, but that I would give her twelve months' salary in lieu of notice and let her go at once if she liked, and that, of course, she could give my name as a reference in case she found another employer. She seemed very grateful and she wrote to me from London, asking me to become her reference for a little flat she was taking. I suppose, poor woman, that she must have found the market for fiction as overcrowded as everything else in these days, and that this depressed her…”