The Milliner's Hat Mystery (5 page)

“I haven't forgotten that you were once a naval officer and that presumably you must know a good deal about motorboats. Given a motorboat about twenty-five feet over all, could she safely cross the Channel to the French coast from north Cornwall?”

“That depends on the weather. In a calm sea of course she could. But why these intriguing questions?”

Vincent explained what had happened at Newquay and his companion frowned when he heard that the launch had no name. “That longshoreman with the foul clay pipe wasn't far wrong when he said that there was something crooked about that boat. I wonder what it was. But don't worry. You'll get to the bottom of it all right. You might put me down in St James's Square. You'll know where to find me tomorrow if you want me.”

As soon as Vincent had set down his passenger, Sergeant Walker took the vacant seat beside him, and he asked: “What did they say at the Lab about that broken window?”

“That the glass was perforated by a pistol bullet.”

“As we thought. Well, now we have got to see the manager of the Asiatic Bank. We have his name from Lindsay, but it is after closing time. Here's a telephone box. Jump down and look up his address in the directory.”

Sergeant Walker found the address without difficulty and they were fortunate enough to find the manager at home and at liberty to see them. The poor man listened gravely to what Vincent told him.

“I've been expecting this,” he said. “I think that you will find that it was a case of suicide. For some time past the auditors have been working late hours at the bank—in fact they are there at this moment—and they have reason to believe that they have found evidence of extensive defalcations in the accounts, very cleverly carried out, but none the less capable of proof.”

“Have you had suspicion about him for long?”

“No, only for about ten days or a fortnight. The discovery came as a great shock to the directors and to myself. He was entirely trusted and no doubt he had greatly extended the bank's business.”

“What first made you suspect him?”

“I received an anonymous letter.”

“Do you know anything about his private life?”

“No, not very much. He seemed to be living on a scale within his salary. He had a small flat in Bloomsbury.”

“I may tell you confidentially that his tailor gave me a different address—that of a large house standing in its own grounds in Hampstead.”

The manager stared at him aghast. “You mean that he was leading a double life?”

“Certainly the house of which I speak was costing him far more than his salary as your cashier would run to. He had a staff of menservants—mostly foreigners.”

“Good Lord!…This will be a shock to the directors when they hear of it and I suppose that most of the blame will fall on me. Still, you'll have to tell them, of course, unless you leave me to do it and so save my face a little.”

“I've only just started my enquiries; probably I shan't see the directors myself for a day or two and if you like to prepare them I shall have no objection at all. In any case it will be in all the papers tomorrow that he's been found murdered. It may even be in the stop press news tonight.”

“Have you established the fact that it was a murder and not a suicide?”

“Only to my own satisfaction: the inquest has been adjourned.”

Although it was obvious that the manager was bursting with questions to which he wanted answers, Vincent firmly took his leave.

His next visit was to the house in Hampstead. He waited in the car while Walker rang the bell: a deferential foreign butler or valet opened the door. The man had a startled look and Vincent caught a glimpse of a knot of other menservants huddled together at the top of the back stairs, listening. He guessed that they had already seen the stop press news in their dead master's evening paper.

Walker's first question was: “Can we see Mr Pitt?”

“He is not at home, sir.”

“Indeed? When did he leave home?”

“On Saturday, sir.”

“For long?”

“I do not think he will come back ever. If you wish I will show you the evening paper.”

“You mean that he is dead?”

“Yes sir.”

Walker turned towards the car. “It did get out in the stop press news: these people all know about it.”

Vincent alighted quickly and addressed the man at the door. “Are you Mr Pitt's butler?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, I am a chief inspector from Scotland Yard and I have come to lock up and seal the rooms containing his property and also to take down the names of you and your staff.”

“Will you come in, gentlemen?”

“Where is the dining room? I will see you all in there.”

The man threw open a door on the right. “This is the dining room, sir.”

At a sign from his chief, Walker sat down at the highly polished table and took out writing materials. The room was very expensively furnished; it was obviously far beyond the means of a bank cashier.

“Your name, please,” said Walker.

The man gave a name that sounded like a sneeze and Walker asked him to write it down. Instead he produced the envelope of a letter on which the name and address were clearly inscribed. While Walker was copying this the man said: “You need not call me by those names. Everybody know me as ‘Anton.' The postman also, he know me by that name.”

“Well, Anton, how long have you been here in Mr Pitt's service?”

“About ten months. I come in September last year.”

“When did you enter the country?”

“Just after the war. I was treated as ally. I served many distinguished noblemen. I have all my references upstairs. Shall I show them to you?”

“Later we will see them, but now I want you to bring in the other servants one by one and act as our interpreter.”

“Very good, sir.”

Anton proved to be an efficient master of ceremonies, though his manner of proceeding might not have satisfied a Master of the Household. His summons to his subordinates was a snap of the fingers reinforced by a whistle through the teeth and the hissing of a name. One by one his myrmidons were brought in. Their names and duties were recorded by Sergeant Walker, and not one of them omitted to mention the amount of wages due to him. When the list was complete this question of wages became acute.

“The police cannot pay your wages, nor provide you with lodgings for the night. You may remain in the house for the time being, but you must not attempt to enter any of the rooms that are locked.”

Vincent then dismissed all the servants except Anton, telling them that they were free to come and go and to seek other employment. To Anton he said: “I'm going to leave you in charge of the house. You must not admit anyone without first ringing me up at Scotland Yard—Whitehall 1212. Now, I want you to answer a few questions. Did your master leave this house alone, or had he a friend with him?”

“He went alone, just as he did when going to his office and at the same hour.”

“Did he go by car?”

“No sir; he went never to his office in the car. That stop here till the evening and he did not take it out often in the evening and never on Saturday because the chauffeur always had the day off.”

“Did he ever drive himself?”

“No sir; he always had the chauffeur: you have seen him.”

“When your master left on Saturday, did he say that he would be away for some time?”

“No, he said nothing. Always on Saturday he give dinner party and Francis he did the marketing on Saturday and prepare as usual.”

“Now, Anton, I want you to think carefully before you answer my next question. Did any lady or gentleman call here and ask to see him last Friday—the day before he left home?”

“Yes, two gentlemen dined with him here.”

“Were they English?”

“Oh yes.”

“Had they ever been here before?”

“Oh yes; often.”

“What were their names?”

“Mr Blake and Mr Lewis.”

“Can you describe them?”

“Mr Blake he was very big and heavy, and Mr Lewis he was tall, too, but thin, and he looked older than Mr Blake.”

“Now, Anton, I want to see every room in the house. We must see that there is a key to every room and we must put a label on each key.”

“I have no labels, sir.”

“No, but this officer has them. He will go with you round the rooms, lock them up, label the key and bring it down to this room. As you are all anxious about your wages, I advise you to apply to the Home Office tomorrow morning and there you will find that I have reported your case, too. They will tell you what to do.”

When all the rooms were locked and the keys stowed in Sergeant Walker's bag, Vincent gave Anton his final instructions.

“You quite understand, you must admit no one before I come here tomorrow morning. They can wait if they please until I come, but they must not move beyond the hall. If you have any trouble with one of them, ring up the number I have given you and ask for me—Chief Inspector Vincent.”

V
INCENT
and Walker arrived at the house in Hampstead at nine o'clock the next morning. Anton admitted them. He had the appearance of a man who had slept ill.

“You look at if you'd spent a disturbed night,” said Vincent.

“Sir, I have no sleep at all. These journalists they are terrible. They keep me up answering the telephone till after two this morning and then because I will tell them no more than your communiqué, they come round and ring the bell. When I tell them to go to Scotland Yard they become angry.”

“In your case I should not answer the bell or the telephone.”

“Then, sir, they start knocking and keep on knocking. No one can sleep when that knocker is going rat-tat-tat…”

Walker produced his bag of keys and the officers began their search in the library. Not a single letter or paper of any kind was found in the desk or in the drawers. Vincent rang the bell and Anton appeared.

“Go and bring me the man whose duty it is to clean this room, and stay here with us to act as interpreter.”

“Yes sir, but that man speaks English very well.”

“Bring him in then.”

Anton returned with an upstanding young man with an open face. He was a Serbian and a fluent linguist.

“You clean this room every morning?”

“Yes sir.”

“Before your master left the house on Saturday did you find burnt papers in the grate?”

“Yes sir, for many days last week the grate was full of burnt paper.”

“Just letters or bigger documents?”

“Both, sir, but mostly letters.”

“Did you notice anything else remarkable in the room when you cleaned it on Saturday morning?”

“Only that I think my master had been studying late on Friday night. There were books everywhere—on the table, on the chairs and even on the floor. Some were open, some closed.”

“And you put them all back tidily in their shelves? Can you remember which books they were?”

“Some of them, sir. I will show you some that I remember.”

He brought down from the shelf three or four books which Vincent examined with curiosity. They were all in quarto size, but they varied greatly in their subjects—history, biography, travel and science. In one respect they were alike, there was a note in figures on the flyleaf—a pencilled note such as (to quote the first three) 797, 1325, 410.

Having dismissed the manservant, Vincent turned to Walker. “What do you make of these figures? They must mean something.”

“A code, do you think?”

Vincent shook his head. “I remember hearing in France that when a certain statesman died and his effects came to be examined they found that he was apparently penniless, until someone had the inspiration to flutter the leaves of one of the books in his library and out slid a thousand-franc note. This led to a systematic search in the books and it was found that a fortune was thus hoarded in his library. Needless to say that this statesman was foremost in the cry, ‘defend the franc.' He was the great opponent of devaluation.”

“You think, then, that these figures represent amounts of money hoarded in each book. But they are such odd numbers.”

“Not if the greater part of them consisted in treasury notes which cannot be traced.”

 “Then you think that the owner was absconding with a large sum?”

“I think it is very probable. This is a large house; probably Pitt entertained friends here a good deal. We'll get Anton in again and ask him. Call him, will you?”

Anton crossed the hall almost at a run. “Yes sir?”

“Did Mr Pitt entertain friends here to dinner or lunch?”

“Not to lunch, sir, but to dinner—oh yes. He had very important people to dinner—people with titles. And François, the chef here, is very noted for his cooking.”

“How often did your late master give dinner parties?”

“Quite once a week, sir, and sometimes oftener—always on Saturdays.”

“Were there ladies among his guests?”

“No sir; only gentlemen.”

“They played cards, of course, after dinner.”

“Yes sir, always. There were four card tables set out upstairs.”

“Mr Blake and Mr Lewis—were they always present at these parties?”

“Yes sir, always, and I think they used to win a good deal of money.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Well, sir, Mr Pitt used to come down with them to the door, while I held it open and helped them to put on their coats and I heard Mr Pitt say: ‘You've been lucky again tonight. I hope you won't frighten all my guests away!'” Anton seemed to plume himself upon having given some useful information.

“Did your master dine out in the evening sometimes?”

“Oh, yes sir, very often.”

“And the chauffeur will remember where he went for dinner?”