The Studio Crime (12 page)

“Your Serafine terrifies me,” said Newtree gloomily.

“Then you'll probably end up by marrying her.”

“Thanks. I'd rather marry Lucrezia Borgia.”

“Well, you can't,” said Christmas reasonably. “She's dead. So get your coat and come along.”

As if cowed by his friend's terrible prognostication, Laurence meekly got his coat and followed John out into the street, and it was not until they had turned into Greentree Road that he stopped and asked:

“Where are we going?”

“We are going to call on Mr. Gilbert Cold, of 9a Camperdown Terrace, W.9,” replied Christmas calmly, taking his friend's arm firmly to make sure he should not slip back to his studio.

“Gilbert Cold,” repeated Laurence, who had an excellent memory. “Who Oh, yes, that's the chap who wrote poor Frew's books for him.”

“The same. I am Sherlock Holmes. You are Doctor Watson.”

Laurence shook his head.

“I'll be Watson for this afternoon, but let it be understood that I'm not going to make a habit of it. I've got a great deal more work to do than that obliging gentleman had.”

Camperdown Terrace proved to be a row of shabby but dignified Victorian stucco houses fronting an exact copy of itself across a quiet backwater near the Edgware Road. Once solid and prosperous family residences, the large basement houses had passed from gentility to shabby-gentility, and had a look now of awaiting the housebreaker's hammer and the rising of a phoenix, in the shape of a large red-brick block of flats, from their quiet ashes. Many of them, in fact, had anticipated the future by turning themselves into self-contained maisonettes, as the rows of door bells at some of the porched and pillared doors testified. No. 9 was one of these.

Christmas rang the bell of 9a, and they waited some time in the little lobby before they heard a footstep inside the flat. Then the door was opened suddenly and noisily, and Christmas, who had subconsciously expected to see a small, timid, scholarly figure, could hardly repress a start as he found himself looking up into the scowling, square, rather fine face of a broad, burly man two or three inches taller than himself. The unexpectedly commanding presence of Mr. Gilbert Cold, combined with his extraordinarily unfriendly frown, took the wind out of John's sails for the moment, and the other spoke first.

“Well? Well?” he rapped out impatiently, his deep-set dark eyes glancing swiftly from one to the other of his callers.

“Mr. Gilbert Cold?”

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

But though he still spoke brusquely his frown had relaxed a little, as though he found the appearance of his visitors more to his taste than he anticipated.

“My name is Christmas,” said John with a smile. “And this is my friend Laurence Newtree.”

Mr. Cold's dark, sallow face cleared. He smiled.

“I know the name well. In fact, I take the
Comet
every morning principally on account of Mr. Newtree's brilliant cartoons. Is it the same Mr. Newtree?”

Newtree smiled uncomfortably, blushed and glanced reproachfully at John. The stream of self-expression which had flowed so fast and turgidly alone in his studio with John, was dried up within him. He hated talking to strangers, and hated himself for hating it. He cleared his throat and made a benevolent, inarticulate sound.

“I wonder whether I might have a word or two with you, Mr. Cold?” said Christmas, who had planned his line of attack in the omnibus. “I do hope we are not interrupting your work?”

“Come in, come in,” said the large man genially, and led them through a narrow, dark passage into a very large, untidy, shabby room where an enormous cut-glass chandelier glittered mournfully over a horse-hair couch, a large table littered with books and papers, two or three worn arm-chairs and ah inadequate gas-stove. From the appearance of the couch, on which lay a disarranged rug, several cushions and a magazine of the more lurid type, John guessed that they had disturbed Mr. Cold's siesta rather than his labours.

“The fact is,” said John with effrontery, “I am thinking of writing a life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and I understand that you knew the family well at one time. I was wondering whether you would think it presumptuous if—”

Mr. Cold, who had looked perfectly blank at John's opening sentence, now pursed his thick but well-cut lips and shook his head slowly from side to side.

“I am afraid you have been misinformed. I can't claim to have been personally acquainted with any members of that distinguished family, although I am second to none in my admiration of their genius.”

Having delivered himself of this sonorous period, Mr. Cold sat down carefully on the creaking sofa and surreptitiously pushed the rather gaudy magazine under a cushion.

“I have met a great many interesting people in my time,” he went on, “but the Rossettis are not among them. Dante Gabriel, of course, was a leetle before my time.”

His manner seemed to indicate that, had it not been for this unfortunate fact, he would have been able to oblige his inquirer with as many personal reminiscences as he could desire.

“Now I wonder who can have so misinformed you, Mr. Christmas?”

He spoke to Christmas, but he looked most of the time at Newtree, and it was plain that Christmas's proposed work did not interest him half as much as Laurence's accomplished fame. Christmas, recognizing in Mr. Cold the more amiable type of snob, was glad that he had brought his friend along with him as bait, and thought that he would have little trouble in hooking the fish he wanted.

“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Christmas slowly, “it was a mutual friend of ours whom I am afraid it will be painful for us both to mention, as he died so short a while ago as last night in rather horrible circumstances.”

Mr. Cold turned sharply from a scrutiny of Newtree which that gentleman was beginning to find embarrassing.

“Not poor Gordon Frew?” he exclaimed. “Yes? I see by your face that it was. Oh, what a terrible thing that is, Mr. Christmas! I don't know that I have ever had a more unpleasant shock than when I opened my
Comet
this morning. These terrible things happen every day, and yet it is so rare that one has it brought home to one like this. Was poor Frew a friend of yours also, Mr. Newtree?”

“M'm,” said Newtree, rather inadequately, he feared. He added: “He had the flat above mine.” In response to a glance of encouragement from Christmas he went on unwillingly: “He was a—a nice chap. Did you know him long?”

“Some time, some time,” replied Mr. Cold vaguely. “I had the pleasure of helping him with some of his literary work. He had a great deal of material, and not much—ah! time for putting it together. I can hardly believe that he is dead—and in such a way. Only a few weeks ago I saw him, looking the picture of health and prosperity. I suppose robbery was the motive?”

“I—I suppose so,” agreed Newtree. “He had a lot of valuable things.”

“Ah, worldly possessions are not always a blessing,” murmured the writer philosophically. “I have always thought so. I prefer a simple way of living myself, as you can see. Though, as a matter of fact, even the simplest way of living doesn't exempt one from the attentions of burglars, apparently. You may hardly believe it, Mr. Newtree, but this humble flat of mine was broken into last night.”

“Really?” said Newtree, glancing at John for guidance. “Did the thieves take anything?”

“Not a thing,” replied Mr. Cold blandly. “In fact, I should not have known of their visit if it had not been for the chaos in which I found this room when I got down this morning—or I should say, got up, for I sleep in a very pleasant room in the basement, looking on to the garden. Every drawer and cupboard in the room was pulled open and the contents hauled out on to the floor. But I have not so far found that anything is missing.”

“Didn't you hear anything of the thieves?” asked John.

“Not a sound. He, or they, must have come in through this window—not a very difficult feat, as the catch is broken. I fancy they must have mistaken this house for another in which they knew there was something worth their while. For certainly there's nothing here worth stealing except a few first editions and autograph letters, which do not appeal to the taste of Mr. Bill Sykes.”

“Have you notified the police?”

“Not yet. I suppose I ought to, as a good citizen. But personally I don't feel inclined to bother. I am not at all a nervous person, though I must say I could hardly eat my breakfast after reading my paper this morning.”

“Did you know Frew well?” asked Christmas sympathetically.

“Oh, very,” replied the other in a rather vague tone, and then more definitely: “He was writing a second book, I believe, which I was to have had the pleasure of revising for him. A book of memoirs, I believe, which would have been interesting. He was a much travelled man.”

“So I gathered,” said Laurence, once again in response to a sign from John. “Rather a mysterious fellow. I saw quite a lot of him, but I'm as much in the dark as to his origin as I was when he first came to Madox Court.”

“He rather liked to be thought a man of mystery, I imagine,” agreed Cold. “It was a—an amiable affectation of his. I, too, knew very little about him, although he reposed a good deal of trust in me.”

“With his literary work, I suppose,” murmured Laurence.

“Not only that,” replied the other, and he hesitated a moment. Then his vanity conquered his caution and he went on: “It seems now, poor fellow, almost as though he had a presentiment of his coming death... It was two or three months ago. I had called on Frew in connection with some small matter in his work, and he was looking through his drawers to find some papers I required. All of a sudden he tossed across the room to me a large envelope done up with tape and sealing-wax.

‘ By the way,' he said, ‘ would you take charge of that for me, Gilbert? ' (It was a pleasant habit of his to call all his friends by their Christian names, you remember.) I looked at the envelope and saw that it was addressed ready for posting. I naturally asked him what it was and whether it contained anything valuable. He replied that it contained family letters and papers, and that in the event of his death I was to put it in the post immediately. Of course I pooh-poohed the notion that he was likely to die before I did. He laughed, and said that he certainly didn't anticipate dying for several years, but all the same I should oblige him very much by taking charge of the packet. He added that it had no interest but for himself and the person to whom it was addressed—
a Mrs. Emily Rud—” Suddenly Mr. Cold's caution seemed to return to him. He coughed, cleared his throat, and finished: “I was rather touched at his confidence in me, as he had only known me for three or four months.”

“You must have had an anxious moment when you saw that you had been visited by burglars. I imagine they would take an unhealthy interest in a package tied and sealed.”

“Not at all,” replied their host blandly. “I had the package quite safe with me in my bedroom. Under my mattress, in fact, where I keep most of the small things I value. It is now in the post, and will reach its destination some time this evening, I imagine, if it has not already done so.”

“A queer request,” said Christmas in a casual tone, but inwardly much excited. “I don't think I should have cared to undertake such a responsibility.”

“Yes,” agreed Cold. “I don't to this day understand why he didn't leave the package with his lawyer in the obvious way. And I was certainly in two minds about accepting the responsibility at first. But when he assured me there was nothing of value in it, I thought I might as well humour his caprice—his rather flattering caprice.”

The big man stretched his long legs and sighed philosophically.

“I little knew the responsibility would be mine for so short a time,” he added. “And even now I find it hard to believe that so rich and live a personality is wiped out. He warmed both hands before the fires of life,” he continued to misquote impressively, edging his feet a little nearer to the gas-stove's weak yellow flames. “It sank, and he was—”

“Yes,” said John, firmly stemming the flow of a very inapplicable quotation which was leading them away from a more interesting subject. “These wealthy bachelors are often as incalculable and capricious in their doings as prima donnas. It comes of—”

“
But
,” interrupted Mr. Cold, and paused heavily, rubbing his imperfectly-shaven chin, and gazing meditatively at his boots. He paused so long that Christmas, fearing that he was about to take up the thread of his interrupted quotation or find a new one, repeated firmly:

“It comes of not—”

“
But
,” said his host mildly, “our poor friend Frew was not a bachelor. I've met his wife.”

With enormous self-control John managed to repress a start and an exclamation. This was an unexpected bombshell.

“Yes,” went on their host complacently, and he seemed to grow visibly larger with the importance his superior knowledge gave him, “he was a Benedick, all right. Or he said so, and I can't conceive why he should, if it weren't true. Did not Mrs. Frew live at Madox Court, then?”

“Certainly not,” replied Newtree. “Frew never so much as mentioned her to me, or to any of us. He lived alone, with a valet. We all took him to be a bachelor.”

“Queer,” commented Mr. Cold dreamily. “But he was a queer fellow altogether. And his death is as queer as everything else about him.”

John stood on the hearth-rug and looked narrowly at the big, lethargic man, wondering how to force him to be more explicit without arousing his suspicions. He was disposed to take everything Mr. Cold said with a healthy salting of scepticism, recognizing the man as one of those romantically-minded beings to whom the line between fact and conjecture is always a little blurred and who will make very positive statements on very flimsy evidence. Laurence came opportunely and unconsciously to the rescue.