The Dartmoor Enigma (20 page)

As soon as they were out of earshot of the office, the man turned on Richardson almost menacingly. “Now, sir, have you any other questions to ask?”

“Yes, one question. Are you not Mr. Peter Sutcliffe?”

“I am,” he said shortly. He was more on the defensive than ever.

“I thought so. I have been wanting to meet you for some days.”

“You're a police officer, I suppose?”

“Yes, I am Chief Inspector Richardson from Scotland Yard, and the man standing over there is Sergeant Jago, my assistant. We're inquiring into the death of a man named Charles Dearborn at Winterton in South Devon. Naturally I did not want to alarm Miss Willis just now by putting any question to her which might suggest to her that the dead man might turn out to be her elder brother.”

While saying this Richardson was watching Sutcliffe's face narrowly. Its expression did not change; the man remained on the defensive as before; he seemed to suspect that a trap was being laid for him. “Tell me this,” he said. “If you have to inquire into a murder in South Devon, why have you come to us? That's what I don't understand.”

“It's a long story, Mr. Sutcliffe. I am one of the numerous people who consider that you were very harshly treated by the Court at your trial, which I have read. You may have been guilty of neglect of your duty to watch the interests of your clients, but that you were guilty of deliberately misappropriating the funds of your clients and converting them to your own use I do not believe.”

The man's manner began to soften. “I was a fool to trust people,” he said. “For that reason I suppose that I deserved all I got. As you have told me so much you may as well go through with it and tell me the whole story. You say there was a murder; where did it take place?”

“On Dartmoor, a little way out of Duketon on the road to Sandiland.”

“Did anyone see it committed?”

“Yes, there were two witnesses.”

“And the motive? There is always a motive, I suppose.”

“The motive suggested was revenge for an injury.”

“And you don't know yet the identity of the murdered man?”

“He passed under the name of ‘Charles Dearborn,' but that was not his real name, we feel certain.”

“I see. And so in the course of your inquiry your suspicions have attached themselves to me as a person who had an injury to avenge.” He laughed bitterly. “So that is the way you reason at Scotland Yard!”

“I will be quite frank, Mr. Sutcliffe. As a man who had an injury to avenge, done to you at Bristol, you were among the ‘possibles.' I have come to you in the confident hope that after talking to you I shall be able to strike your name off the list. Where were you on September 29 last?”

“I was here, working in this garage. If you doubt me go back into that office and ask Miss Willis what I was doing on September 29. No, I won't go with you. If I did you might suspect that I had signed to her what to say.”

Richardson took him at his word. He tapped at the office door; the girl looked up and signed to him to come in.

“Forgive me for troubling you again, Miss Willis, but Mr. Sutcliffe has suggested that I should ask you where he was on September 29 last. I suppose you keep a diary of how your men are employed?”

“Certainly I do, and very useful it is,” she said, taking a foolscap book down from the shelf. “September 29. Here it is. In the morning he was testing the ignition of J 3420, belonging to Mr. Jarrow. In the afternoon he took Mr. Jarrow out in his car to test the ignition and found it satisfactory. I'm glad you reminded me. Mr. Jarrow has not paid the bill I sent him for the repairs. I must jog his memory.”

“Would you think it very impertinent of me to ask to see the entry in the diary?”

“Not at all. Read it for yourself,” she said with wonder in her eyes.

There could be no doubt about the entry in her neat handwriting; Richardson felt that a heavy weight had been taken from his mind—whoever had waylaid Charles Dearborn it was not Peter Sutcliffe. This charming girl would have been relieved, too, had she but known how much had depended on her answer. At any rate, if “Charles Dearborn” was her brother hiding under an assumed name, he had not been killed by the man she loved.

Richardson thanked her and returned to Sutcliffe, who was standing moodily where he had left him. “I have seen the entries to Miss Willis's diary,” he said, “and I am glad to be able to tell you that your time is fully accounted for and therefore you are out of the picture.”

“Well, naturally.” He was still nursing his grievance. “You said that you were looking for a man who had an injury to avenge. May I ask what injury I am supposed to have suffered at the hands of the murdered man?”

“We thought that the ruin of your business as a solicitor might be rankling in your mind. Now that you are not suspect, I may as well tell you that we had an idea, in no way verified by proof up till now, that the murdered man, Charles Dearborn, might have been Mr. Frank Willis.”

Sutcliffe stared at him and emitted a low whistle. “Frank Willis, when last heard of, was reported to be somewhere in the Straits Settlements.”

“This Mr. Dearborn only made his appearance in Devonshire three years ago. There would have been time for him to come back.”

“If you want me to help you, I shall have to ask you to tell me as much as you can about Charles Dearborn without divulging professional secrets.”

“I can't tell you very much because he was an adept at covering his tracks. He arrived in Plymouth a little over three years ago and called upon the manager of the Union Bank with a large sum in cash —Bank of England notes. He gave the manager to understand that these were the proceeds of a sale of house property in London, and that one of the conditions of the sale had been that the purchaser should pay in cash. Then he went off to Winterton at the foot of the Moor and bought a small house. He engaged a housekeeper whom he married about a year ago. She was a lady who had been left very badly off by her father. The only man whom he took into his confidence at all appeared to be the bank manager, who advised him upon his investments.”

“You spoke of him having paid into the bank a considerable sum. How much was it approximately?”

“Twenty-five thousand pounds.”

“Well, Willis could easily have made that out of me. I could never understand how it was that I had no bank balance when the crash came.”

“I think you had better tell me exactly what dealings Frank Willis had in your office.”

“There's no secret about that now. We were going into partnership. You know, of course, that he had been admitted as a solicitor, though he had never practised. When I first met him he was mad about a gold mine in Borneo; he was full of that kind of enthusiasm. He firmly believed in this mine himself, but he admitted that big capital would be required. According to his information the heart of a mountain consisted of nearly solid gold, and to get at it thousands of tons of rock would have to be moved. Like a fool I got infected with his enthusiasm. I gave him carte blanche to go ahead with money which some clients had entrusted to me to invest. The end came very suddenly. I had no means of getting any information myself, but I strongly suspect that the whole story of this mountain of gold was fiction. I had strong personal reasons for not wishing to inculpate Frank Willis. Still, I can hardly believe that he would have been such a swine as to rob me of twenty-five thousand pounds and live on it in comfort as this murdered man seems to have done.”

“I haven't quite finished my story,” said Richardson. “About a year ago the bank manager told him of an investment—a granite quarry on the east side of the moor—which was going cheap. He jumped at it; bought a car and decided to run the quarry himself with a foreman. This meant that he had to visit it at least once a week to pay the wages. He always took the same road from Moorstead to Duketon, and he got into the habit of leaving his car outside the hotel while he was having tea. It was immediately after leaving the hotel that he was waylaid and killed.”

“That purchase of a quarry and trying to manage it himself sounds exactly like Frank Willis.”

“Where you may be able to help me is in suggesting anyone else who had discovered his identity and might have had a grudge against him.”

“Well, of course I was not the only one who lost money in this wildcat gold scheme. I could perhaps give you a list of some of them from memory.”

“If only I could get hold of a photograph of Frank Willis, I could get him identified, but I don't want to add to the troubles of Miss Willis by pressing her to look for one. She has already told me that she has none, but family groups are often taken and then forgotten.”

“I'll see what I can do about hunting up an old photo. It may take time; I suggest that you look in to-morrow. You may have other inquiries to make in the meantime.”

“I have. I want to find out what has become of your late clerk and your office boy. I will tell you why. Your office boy apparently was referred to by people as ‘the boy with freckles.'”

Sutcliffe laughed. “I'm not surprised; he had more than his share. But I can't tell you where he is now, nor do I know what became of my clerk Instone. I heard that my brother took them both into his office in Mincing Lane; they may still be there.”

“That point can easily be cleared up, Mr. Sutcliffe. I am particularly anxious to see the boy, because it appears that a young man extensively marked by freckles turned up at Winterton a day or two after the murder and asked for Charles Dearborn's address, and on hearing that he was dead, changed colour and walked back to the station without another word. Now, I have kept you from your work long enough. I will call again to-morrow afternoon at about this time.”

“I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Richardson, and you may be sure I will do all in my power to help you. Will you do me one favour? Will you deal with these questions through me and not through Miss Willis? You will agree, I think, that she ought to be spared anxiety until we are more sure of our ground.”

“Certainly I will promise that. And now I must call that unfortunate sergeant of mine, who has been studying the anatomy of every make of car for a good half-hour. Good-bye.”

S
ERGEANT
J
AGO
found his chief strangely reticent on their return journey to Victoria. He himself began to feel, not exactly a lack of confidence in his superior, but uneasiness as to how far he might be allowing his instinct to take the place of ascertained facts that could be proved in a court of justice. Also, he feared lest Richardson's reputation as an investigator of difficult cases might suffer at headquarters. He hazarded a hint of doubt.

“I suppose that you entirely cleared away any suspicion against Peter Sutcliffe as the murderer.”

“Entirely.”

“But that muddy suit which was bought in Sackville Street?”

“Whoever bought that, it was never worn by Peter Sutcliffe.”

“H'm!” grunted Jago doubtfully. “I wish that I could feel as sure as you do. I can't forget that the only thing we've had to go upon is the supposition that the man who called himself Charles Dearborn took that name because he had once heard it when Jane Smith went to Sutcliffe's office to ask him to look for her husband.”

Richardson grunted his acquiescence and added that in a case where one had no certain clue to go upon, one had to make deductions and to work upon theories. “Anyhow,” he added, “this case is the most interesting that I have yet had to work upon and I am determined to hunt down Frank Willis at all costs, and let the Department go hang.”

“What's going to be your next step?” asked Jago.

“We are going to Mincing Lane to see what they can tell us about those two people who lost their jobs when Peter Sutcliffe was convicted—Instone the clerk, and the freckled boy. You know why we want to trace the freckled boy; he was seen at Winterton: and I want to see Instone because he may be able to tell us something about Frank Willis.”

In Mincing Lane there came a check. The cashier to whom they were taken explained that his employer was away upon a long honeymoon. He himself had no very clear recollection of what became of Instone. He understood that his work in a solicitor's office was no qualification for a business such as theirs, and that Mr. Sutcliffe had given him recommendations to other firms in the city, but he did not know which of them had accepted his services. As for the boy, John Reddy, he had very quickly mastered his duties, but after working for the firm for twelve months, he had left in order to “better himself.” That was all he was able to tell them.

“What about advertising for those two people, Instone and Reddy?” said Jago.

“Yes, we'll go to an advertisement agency at once. After that I want to clear up one point on which only the real Mrs. Dearborn can enlighten me.”

“You mean that film star who calls herself Jane Smith?”

“Yes. Only she can tell us whether the Bristol solicitor she called upon was Sutcliffe in Bold Street. You will remember that when I last saw her she couldn't recall the name of the solicitor she saw in Bristol—only the street. I'm going to jog her memory.”

After their visit to the advertisement agency, the District Railway carried them to within walking distance of Arcadia Mansions. As they went up in the lift Richardson explained to his companion that he was going to see a type of Americanized Englishwoman quite unfamiliar to him. They rang the bell; Miss Smith's maid came to the door.

“You will remember me,” said Richardson. “I'm sure that Miss Smith will see me if she's at liberty.”

“I'll have to announce you, sir. Miss Smith has two gentlemen with her at the moment. I'll let her know quietly that you're here.”

“Is one of them her publicity agent? Because if so I'd rather call at some other time.”