Who Killed Stella Pomeroy? (18 page)

“Yes, I see that.”

“Did you send in the advertisement inviting owners of the bags to come forward?”

“Yes, but there's scarcely been time yet for any answers. I searched the bungalow for other letters, but without finding any, except a few business ones addressed to Pomeroy. I feel that I've had a blank morning.”

“One can never say that in this job of ours. That seal may become a turning point in the case. Now I'll tell you what I've been doing before I go.” He described what he had found in the letters. “I'm running up to town now to see those solicitors Jackson and Burke, who have to prove Colter's will.”

“You'll find them out at lunch now.”

“Yes, but I can play at the same game and catch them when they come back.”

When Richardson presented himself at the office of Messrs Jackson and Burke in Southampton Street he was not kept waiting. He was shown into the room of the senior partner, Mr Jackson, who rose to shake hands with him.

“I have been expecting a visit from you, Superintendent, for a day or two.”

“I've called about the will of Mr Frederick Colter, who died recently in New Zealand.”

Mr Jackson was a man of about sixty—a man who inspired confidence. “As you may know, Mr Colter was a personal friend of mine and his death was a grief to me. He had been exceptionally successful with his sheep run in New Zealand, and he had always kept in touch with me, consulting me about his investments and so forth. He chose to have his will proved in this country and named me as his executor. Steps have already been taken to obtain probate. He had a fairly large sum invested in gilt-edged securities in this country. I suppose that you gentlemen from Scotland Yard know everything, and so it is not necessary for me to tell you the terms of his will.”

Richardson smiled. “I came to ask you whether you are satisfied with the proofs of identity brought by Mr Colter's adopted son.”

Mr Jackson appeared startled. “Why? Is there any doubt about his identity? He had all his papers in order—the will, his birth certificate, the certificate of death of my old friend Colter, and a personal letter written to me by Colter which was undoubtedly in his handwriting. If there is any reasonable doubt about the authenticity of any of these documents I shall be very glad to produce them for your inspection.”

“His niece, Mrs Pomeroy, as you will have seen in the newspapers, was murdered, and I am in charge of the investigation: that is my excuse for taking up your time. One point on which I seek enlightenment is this. Now that Mrs Pomeroy is dead, who becomes her heir?”

“That question is easily answered. We have ascertained that she died intestate, and, therefore, her share will go to her husband for his lifetime. We understand that at the moment he is ill in bed and unable to attend to any business, but that is the position.”

“Well, my reason for asking if you are sure of the identity of Edward Maddox is that I have some reason for doubting whether the young man is actually the person he represents himself to be. I have a letter here written by Mr Colter to his niece Stella Pomeroy in which he speaks of the studious tastes of his adopted son.”

“Studious?”

“Exactly. I have seen Edward Maddox more than once, and ‘studious' is the last word that I should have applied to him. What is your opinion of him?”

“The same as yours. He strikes me as a silly, blustering, ill-mannered young man. I have wondered after every interview with him how my dear old friend Colter could have been attached to him. I think that under the circumstances I should be justified in showing you the documents he produced to me.”

He rose and lumbered over to a big safe in the corner of the room and took from it a large official-looking envelope containing papers.

“I suggest that on the face of them these papers are genuine. There can be no question of forgery.”

Richardson took each of the papers to the window and held it up to the light. “No, I agree with you, Mr Jackson, there is no sign of any of these having been tampered with. If there is anything wrong with them it is that they are being carried by the wrong man.”

“Then you suggest…?” 

“I suggest that a cable should be sent to the police in Wellington, or to any responsible correspondent that you may have in Wellington, asking whether Edward Maddox is in charge of Mr Colter's sheep run. We ought to have a reply within a couple of days.”

“I forgot another proof of his identity. He came to this office one day with a young man whom he represented as being Mrs Stella Pomeroy's brother.”

“I know the man you mean—Arthur Grant, the actor. He was actually her brother.”

“Well, Grant professed to have known Maddox in New Zealand, and he vouched for his identity.”

“May I ask whether Maddox has been granted any advance upon his expectations as heir to Mr Colter?”

“Yes. He had a great deal to say about the law's delays, and as his certificates of identity seemed unassailable we have been paying him sums of money from week to week. I cannot tell you the exact amount without having the books looked up.”

“Well, Maddox is paying Grant's hotel bills and may be providing him with cash besides. He did not strike me as an open-handed young man, and it occurred to me that he feels himself in some way in Grant's power.”

“Oh! That's quite a new light. Are you having them watched?”

“I'm having some quiet observation kept upon the three. I ought to mention that there's a third man named Otway with them, and Otway is a person with a police record in New Zealand.”

“Indeed. It is, naturally, always the policy of my firm to assist justice. What do you suggest that I should do?”

“I should advise you to go on as you are doing for the next few days. I do not want to have them frightened at this stage of my enquiry. I am expecting to have a report from the man who is keeping them under observation, late this evening, and if there are any new developments I will let you know tomorrow morning. You will be in your office at ten?”

“Yes. Ten always finds me in this chair. Ask for me personally when you ring up.”

“And meanwhile you will send the cable?”

“Yes; to my agent in Wellington. You want me simply to ask the question whether Edward Maddox is still in charge of Colter's sheep run.”

“Yes, but I should add, ‘enquire through police.' That would shorten the delay for the reply by several hours, because there is sure to be a subsidiary police office nearer to the sheep run than Wellington, and the local police would be sure to know. If you have any news before ten o'clock tomorrow morning will you ring me up at New Scotland Yard, Whitehall 121a.” The lawyer made a note of the number on his blotting pad.

They parted with expressions of mutual good will. “I hope that my payments to this young man can soon be discontinued,” said the lawyer as they shook hands.

Richardson's next visit was to the Public Carriage Office in Scotland Yard. He wanted to see Police Constable Dunstan once more. He had now found that Maddox had a motive for committing the murder. There might have been a will, but was there a way? Evidence must be forthcoming as to what became of those two men when they took a taxi from the docks, and this could be furnished by the young constable, Dunstan. He saw him in the outer office and went to the superintendents' room.

“I want to have a word with one of your young constables, Mr Wilkins,” he said to the superintendent of the P.C.O. “May I see him here?”

“Certainly. Do you want to see him alone?”

“Oh no. I only want to put one question to him.”

“Take a seat then, and I'll call him in.”

The constable greeted Richardson with a smile. “I was just going to ask Mr Wilkins to let me ring you up, sir. We found the taximan, who remembered driving two men from the docks to Snelnar's Restaurant in the Old Kent Road that morning. There they paid him off. We got H. Division to make enquiries at Snelnar's, and they remembered two men who said they came from New Zealand that morning who drove up in a taxi, stopping to breakfast. They were asked whether they had a substantial meal and were told that they had. They did not leave the restaurant until half-past nine.”

“Did the people at Snelnar's make any mistake about the day, do you think?”

“No sir. It was the morning when the
Aorangi
berthed at the docks.”

“Thank you. I suppose I shall have a report to that effect in writing.” 

“It will be ready for you this evening, sir.” Richardson went to the telephone and called up Milsom once more.

“Hallo! You again—twice in the same day. Things must be humming with you.”

“They are. They have come to the point that I must see you late this evening at your flat after you have probed deep into the claim of your young friend to literary tastes.”

“You are coming to my flat? But I thought we were to keep ourselves rigidly apart.”

“Things have been moving so rapidly that I don't think we need any longer consider the risk of being known to be acquainted. So you can expect me at about ten o'clock.”

“You needn't wait until then. I'll get my little one-act play over before dinner, and then you'll come to my flat, where I can give you quite a decent meal. Make it eight o'clock and wait for me if I'm not there.”

It was always a great relief to Richardson to find himself alone in the superintendents' room to write his reports, for the business of setting down the facts helped him in forming a comprehensive view of the case as it had progressed so far. The superintendents' room was at this moment a haven of rest, for all his colleagues happened to be out upon enquiries. At this period the reports of C.I.D. officers were written in manuscript and were seldom dictated. The practice was less uneconomical than it sounds, because the reports never left the office and were intended only for the eyes of a superior officer. The result was that the vast accumulation of documents to be found in other public offices was avoided. The disadvantage was that the file belonging to each big case was swollen with half-sheets of foolscap paper—the reports of subordinate officers sent to make subsidiary enquiries. Even in the Criminal Investigation Department there was a rough adherence to the hours of duty in other public departments) in that officers employed in routine duties put on their hats at six o'clock and the stone passages ceased to resound to heavy boots. But since Superintendent Richardson had nothing else to do before a quarter to eight he sat on until the building became as silent as a church; even the telephones were stilled.

At length the hour arrived for him to keep his appointment at Milsom's flat. The ring at the bell produced the host himself, who shook hands with an air of suppressed elation, shut the door carefully behind his guest and pushed up a chair for him.

“I probed that ‘studious' brain to the bottom, and I can tell you it took some doing. If I'd been one of those Johnnies who from time to time talk through their hats on the B.B.C. from provincial universities it would have been an easy job, but remember that for me, whose books are ‘thrillers' and whose only authors are men and women who aspire to follow in the footsteps of Edgar Wallace, it was necessary to begin with sweating up English literature myself. It was an awful waste of labour, as I found in the first five minutes, because this bloke of ours of ‘studious' habits had never even heard of Sir Walter Scott, still less of George Bernard Shaw, and thought that H.G. Wells was the inventor of a cure for the liver.”

“How did you introduce the subject?”

“Oh, that wasn't difficult. We ordered the drinks as usual, and then I said to Maddox, ‘I suppose you don't get much time for reading over here.' And he said, ‘Reading? Do you mean the newspapers? Because I've never read anything else in my life.' At this moment there was an awkward accident: Otway managed to upset Maddox's glass of beer, and when they had mopped it up Grant said, ‘I remember when you were a youngster you always had your nose in a book of some kind, generally high-brow stuff.'”

“Then Grant can't be in the swindle—if it is a swindle, as I firmly believe.”

“No, I don't believe he is. But Otway was quite equal to the occasion. He said, ‘What a memory you have, Ted! It was when you were switched off onto the outdoor work that you had to put aside your reading.' I can tell you, I gave them a doing. I talked of nothing but books until they were thankful to see the back of me. You see I was charged up to the eyes with erudition, and I had to fire it off upon somebody. Now we're not going to have all this work for nothing. When are you going to arrest him for the murder, because I don't want to miss that little entertainment.”

“I'm sorry to tell you that, though we are on the track of a swindle, we are no nearer the discovery of the murderer of Mrs Pomeroy than we were a week ago. Every clue seems to melt in our hands when we turn it over. We have got reliable proof that these men were in another part of London altogether at the time of the murder.”

“Then all my hard work is thrown away.”

“Not at all. It's going to result in the arrest and trial of a couple of swindlers who've come all the way from New Zealand to exploit a fraud. We're only awaiting the reply to a cable which we ought to get tomorrow.”

“Well, while I've been overworking my brain here in town what have you been doing down at Ealing?”

“I'll tell you our latest discoveries.”

Milsom listened in rapt attention while his friend described the adventure at the bungalow, the discovery of the ladies' handbags and the hopes that he had that these might furnish a fresh clue.

“As is always the case in these complicated enquiries, one spends the first few days in eliminating what appear to be useful clues. This time our efforts have not been wasted, because, while hunting down a murderer, we have come across two swindlers ripe for prosecution.”