Who Killed Stella Pomeroy? (20 page)

“Now, Mr Grant, you've been so frank with me that I feel that I ought to tell you the truth. Ted Maddox died on the thirty-first of July last, and this Maddox is probably his brother.”

The look of astonishment on Grant's face was an assurance that this was news to him and that he was in no way implicated in the imposture.

“Ted Maddox dead! That explains a lot that I couldn't understand, but it's Otway who's got the brains: Maddox does nothing without consulting him first. And all this money they've been getting from the lawyers…what's going to happen about that?”

“That's easy to answer. The lawyers are going to proceed against Maddox for obtaining money under false pretences.”

“If they got to know that they'd be off to South America by the next boat.”

“No they wouldn't. The police at every port of embarkation are on the lookout for them. They'll have to stay here to answer the charge which is being made against them, or at any rate one of them, by the solicitor. All you have to do, Mr Grant, is to keep your mouth shut and carry on for a day or so as usual.”

I
T WAS
obvious that the next step to be taken was to see Mr Jackson, the solicitor, again and tell him that as it appeared probable that Maddox had landed with a legal passport of his own, the police had no ground for taking out a summons against him, whereas in respect of obtaining money under false pretences, the solicitors had a clear right of action. Richardson decided to give Mr Jackson time to return from luncheon before calling. When he saw him early in the afternoon it was decided between them that Mr Jackson should obtain a summons immediately. Then arose the question whether the information should include Otway as aiding and abetting the fraud.

“The difficulty in Otway's case,” suggested Richardson, “is that he may plead that he too was a victim of the fraud; that he had simply accepted the story of a fellow traveller and had had no means of checking it. Personally I believe that Otway was at the bottom of the fraud. He knew that if Maddox had presented himself as the elder of the surviving brothers of Ted Maddox he would have received only one seventh of his brother's fortune as his share, but by passing himself off as that dead brother he would get the lot. In looking up my reports I see that the purser of the Aorangi described how Maddox behaved on the voyage. At the beginning he had come into a modest fortune, but the fortune grew until when they were nearing England he had become something approaching a millionaire. At the time I thought that this was merely due to his bombastic character, but now I have come round to the belief that it was owing to suggestions made by Otway. I presume that the late Mr Colter's personal property in England amounts to a considerable sum, because I learn from Grant that their intention is to go to South America and not to return to New Zealand.”

“Mr Colter had investments in gilt-edged securities amounting to at least two hundred thousand pounds. After what you have just told me, Mr Richardson, I shall issue a summons for both the men.”

As he left the office Richardson had to remind himself that in tracking down these minor rascals he was not getting on with his real preoccupation—the discovery of the murderer. These two could now be left to the mercies of Mr Jackson, but he reflected ruefully that they were going to be no help to him.

In view of certain passages in Casey's letters there were questions to ask him, but a newspaper office was certainly not the place for an interview of that description. He would have to wait and send for him as he did before. This time, in view of the references to the “dangerous game” he was playing with the dead woman, there was fresh material for inviting him to a second interview and the invitation need not be too politely worded. Then from Casey his thoughts wandered to Ann Pomeroy, who had always suspected the Irishman. Was it woman's intuition, or some gift that had been denied to him? He himself did not believe that Casey was the actual murderer, but it was clear from the correspondence that he had been engaged in some illicit business with the dead woman. Ann Pomeroy had been right in suspecting from the very beginning that Casey was at the bottom of the mystery, and then the memory of those clear grey eyes set his thoughts wandering, and he brought himself up with a start on discovering that he, a staid detective officer, had allowed his feet to carry him two whole streets out of his way while his thoughts were filled with Ann Pomeroy.

It is not often that a superintendent has time to kill during an afternoon, but on this day Richardson found himself free for the afternoon to write his report at the Central Office and clear up a number of small points that had arisen during his investigation. He was at his writing table when Mr Beckett, the Chief Constable, looked in.

“Oh! It's not often that one finds you at your table in these days, and it's not very often that one has the opportunity of reading your handwriting. How are you getting on with that Ealing murder case?”

“Not very fast, Mr Beckett, I'm sorry to say. It's a complicated kind of case, and one after another the persons suspected have succeeded in producing alibis. It's entailing a lot of work, but it's not been altogether wasted. Two of the suspects are being prosecuted on a charge of fraud.”

“Do you want help? I fancy you're not finding D.D. Inspector Aitkin much good to you.”

“Oh, he's all right, sir. He's doing a lot of patient investigation, but I confess that it's an extraordinarily difficult case. There is documentary evidence that the dead woman was engaged in some unlawful business, and I hope that by this evening I shall know what it was. It may turn out to be important in giving us a clue towards finding out who was the murderer.”

“Well, there's one thing to guard against. We can't afford to make another arrest and then have to let the man go.”

“No sir. We must avoid that at all costs.”

The time passes quickly when reports have to be written. Richardson realized with a start that if he was to make an appointment with Casey he must either try to lure him to New Scotland Yard or to the police station at Ealing. He decided on the latter course and resolved to despatch a patrol to head him off from his lodgings when he returned from town. For this purpose he selected Sergeant Hammett as being the most likely man to use the fist in the velvet glove successfully.

He found himself comfortably seated in the divisional detective inspector's office about the time when Casey was likely to arrive. He must have returned by an earlier train than usual that evening, for Richardson's quick ear soon caught the sound of an Irish accent on the stairs. As far as he could judge the Irishman was still undeflated in his tone. Bluff was again to be his armour against inconvenient questions.

“Sit down, Mr Casey.”

“If it's all the same to you. I'd rather stand.”

“That is just as you please. Since I saw you last I have been reading pertain correspondence that passed between you and the late Mrs Pomeroy.”

“You police seem to spend your time in reading other people's correspondence. Don't you find it a dirty business?”

“In your case I confess that I did, but unhappily we are condemned to do that, though in many cases the correspondence produces a feeling of nausea. I speak in a general way; I do not specify the correspondence I am thinking of. Let us turn to your own letters written to the late Mrs Pomeroy.”

“Why, you'd read those letters before I saw you last.”

“I hadn't studied them. At that time I thought that the words ‘dangerous game we are playing' might refer only to Mrs Pomeroy's infidelities under the nose of her husband; now, in the light of what I have since heard, they seem to take on a different significance, and I want you to throw light on the phrase ‘dangerous game.'”

“You put a name to it just now. Marital infidelities, or words to that effect.”

“I suggest to you that the words meant more than that—that you were associated with this woman in some enterprise that would have cost you both dear if it had become known. I want you, if you can, to explain those words away.”

“In other words you want me to do your work for you. I've nothing to conceal. Supposing that I get a written guarantee of immunity from you, or a verbal assurance in the presence of a witness of my own that nothing I say will be used against me? You can take it or leave it.”

“You admit, then, that you have been engaged in some unlawful enterprise?”

“I admit nothing, but I daresay that under the conditions I have specified I might admit quite a lot that the police have been too stupid to find out for themselves. The interesting thing to me is that I've always understood that you British police prided yourselves on not using the third degree to extort confessions. In fact, that the practice was strictly forbidden.”

Richardson laughed at his effrontery. “I invited you here to explain a phrase used by you in a letter. You are a perfectly free agent; you can leave this room and walk out into the street whenever you like.”

“Thank you. I will.” And the young man clattered down the stairs. Richardson was on the point of signalling to the station sergeant to stop him when the footsteps on the stairs hesitated, turned and began to ascend again. The sleek head was thrust in at the door.

“You won't forget what I told you—that the ‘dangerous game' meant marital infidelity?”

“No, Mr Casey, I won't forget that you said so. By the way, have you lost an Irish shilling?”

This unexpected question did throw the young man off his balance for a moment. 

“I may have. Why do you ask?”

“Because one of your Irish shillings has been picked up in a most unexpected place.” He could not avoid marking the look of suspicion and alarm on his visitor's face. “Now here's a bargain, Mr Casey. You tell me the real meaning of those words, ‘dangerous game,' and I'll tell you where that Irish shilling was found.”

The hasty temper of the Irishman blazed up. “You're trying to blackmail me into making a confession.”

“Blackmail is an ugly word, Mr Casey. I'm trying to get the truth out of you by perfectly legitimate questions.” But even as he was speaking the truth flashed across Richardson's mind. Unconsciously Casey had supplied the explanation: the dangerous game the two had been playing was blackmail. For the moment he felt that he could afford to let the man go while he thought over the evidence in the most difficult of all crimes that confront detective officers.

“Well, good night, Mr Casey. I don't feel that our interview has been entirely wasted. When you do feel inclined to enlighten me further, I shall be very glad to see you.”

Inspector Aitkin was at that moment in the sergeant's room discussing what was to be done about a complaint of shoplifting. He looked up as Richardson entered and obeyed a signal to follow him into his own room.

“We've got one step further, I think, Mr Aitkin. The ‘dangerous game' referred to in that letter I told you about was blackmail.”

“Good heavens! As if we hadn't got enough on our hands without blackmail. I remember being told in the detective class that it was the most difficult of all crimes to bring home, because the victim would do anything rather than come forward.”

“You're quite right. It is the most difficult of all crimes, because almost invariably there is a modicum of truth in the threatened exposure, and the victim thinks that people will always believe the worst of him. The blackmail has to go very far before the worm turns, and when he does turn he is in a worse position than ever: his friends say that there must have been something in it if he paid hush money, and those who refuse to believe it regard him as a coward.”

“But hasn't there been a lull in blackmailing since the lord chief justice dealt with that gang of Taylor and those other rascals?”

“Yes, a life sentence and so on down the scale does make criminals think twice before they engage in the game. There has been a lull in prosecutions, no doubt, but how many of the little tin gods in provincial towns submit to blackmail of a minor kind rather than have their names dragged in the mud when they are aspiring to municipal honours or are preachers in nonconformist chapels and the like? In those little communities the blackmailer finds his victims. He does not seek a private interview and demand hush money: he comes forward as an indignant supporter who will expend his last shilling in defending the honour of the victim.”

“But how is this new discovery going to help us in the question of the murder, Mr Richardson?”

“That we cannot guess as yet, only we must bear in mind that when people feel the pinch of the blackmailer their instinct is to silence him, and there is always one alternative to buying him off. In thinking over the practices of that dead woman I cannot forget that expensive-looking bag that you found bearing the initial E, together with that burglary which was discovered by the Coxon boy. Let us put two and two together in the form of conjecture. Stella Pomeroy stole that bag, and in the bag she found something so compromising that she and Casey used it as material for blackmail. The victim of the blackmail, or someone acting for her, came down the other evening and tried to find that bag with its contents. Now, is it possible that they had already tried—on the morning of the murder?”

“Well, I've got every man I can spare going round the big stores to discover who was the owner of that bag.”

“And I shall just have time to run up to the Pomeroys' house to ask Mr Pomeroy whether his wife had received any money from unexplained sources.”

It might have been considered strange that when he rang the bell at the house of Pomeroy senior he should have asked the little maid not for Mr Miles Pomeroy, but for Miss Ann. He was shown immediately into the little den off the front hall which he was coming to know so well. Ann rose from her desk.