Collected works of j s f.., p.762
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 762
‘Not often,’ interrupted Miss Hetherley.
‘But sometimes,’ continued Doxford. ‘However, last night wasn’t one of ’em. He was well known by sight there, of course, and this paper has a man in the Lobby and another in the Press Gallery. Neither of ’em saw him last night. So — we don’t know what he did with himself after Miss Hetherley saw him go down the street towards the Embankment. One thing’s certain — he didn’t go straight from here to Cheverdale Lodge. He went somewhere in between. Of course, when Miss Hetherley told us that she saw him go off in the direction of the Embankment, my idea was that he was going on the Underground to either Charing Cross or Westminster Bridge — Charing Cross for the National Liberal Club; Westminster for the House of Commons. But he went to neither. And if he’d walked all the way from here to Regent’s Park it wouldn’t have taken him three hours. No! — he went to see somebody. But who it was, Heaven knows! We’ve issued a request to drivers of taxi-cabs — some one or other of ’em must have driven him up to Cheverdale Lodge. If we can find the man who did — and I’ve no doubt that we shall — he’ll be able to tell us where he picked him up.’
‘There’s something I particularly want to know,’ remarked Chaney. ‘Do you know at what time Hannington was killed?’
Doxford fumbled in his breast pocket and brought out a note-book. He began to turn its pages.
‘I know what the doctors said who were on the spot when Windover and I got there at one o’clock in the morning,’ he answered. ‘I wrote it down, and you’re welcome to it if you like. I’ll read it:
‘Dr. Henry John Price-Webb, of Hanover Terrace, N.W., says he was called to Cheverdale Lodge almost half-an-hour after midnight on February 8th. Arrived there he was taken into the grounds by Mr. Watson Paley, Lord Cheverdale’s private secretary, and shown the dead body of a gentleman, who, Mr. Paley said, was Mr. Thomas Hannington, editor of the Morning Sentinel. Dr. Price-Webb says he immediately examined the body. In this he was assisted by Dr. Hydeson, who arrived just after he himself got to Cheverdale Lodge. He found that Mr. Hannington had been killed, almost instantaneously, by blows on the head from some blunt instrument. He will give a detailed technical account of the injuries at the inquest. Dr. Price-Webb is of opinion that Mr. Hannington had been dead about from thirty to forty minutes when he examined the body.’
‘That would fix the time at just before twelve o’clock,’ remarked Chaney. ‘It was just after twelve when the footman found Hannington.’
‘Here’s a note, too, of what the other doctor said,’ continued Doxford. ‘Nothing much, though ——
‘Dr. Charles James Hydeson, of Albany Street, says he agrees with Dr. Price-Webb as to the cause of death, nature of injuries, and time of murder.’
‘Did you take statements from anybody else?’ asked Chaney. ‘But you would, of course. Harris, no doubt.’
‘Oh, we got one from Harris,’ replied Doxford. ‘He found the body. Want to hear it?’
‘No — we’ve heard Harris’s account from his own lips,’ said Chaney. ‘But if you’ve made a note of it, we’d like to know what Mr. Watson Paley had to say. Because we heard from Harris that when he ran to the house to give the alarm he found Mr. Paley up, reading in the library, and it strikes me as a rather queer thing that Mr. Paley heard nothing. You’d think that Hannington would have let out one cry, at any rate — and the grounds, after all, are not so big as all that.’
‘Ah, I don’t know,’ replied Doxford, shaking his head. ‘From what the two doctors said, I gathered that in their opinion Hannington may have been killed outright by the very first blow. At any rate, the first blow would render him instantly unconscious. He might let out a groan, as he fell — but I don’t think there’d be any cry or scream. However, here’s my note of what Mr. Paley told us:
‘Mr. Watson Paley, private secretary to Lord Cheverdale at Cheverdale Lodge, Regent’s Park, and resident there, says that last night, February 8th, Lord Cheverdale had a small dinner-party of intimate friends. There were present Sir Robert Kellington, Mr. James McCallum, Mr. Alfred Stack, all business friends, and Mr. Francis Craye, who is Lord Cheverdale’s business manager and is the fiancé of his daughter, the Honourable Miss Chever. Of these guests the first-named three left together in Sir Robert Kellington’s car at 10 o’clock. Mr. Craye left on foot about 10.30. After Mr. Craye had gone, Lord Cheverdale and Mr. Paley had a game of piquet in the library. At 11.15 Lord Cheverdale retired. Mr. Paley remained up, reading. Shortly after 12 o’clock, the first footman, Harris, came hurriedly into the library and told Mr. Paley that a man was lying on one of the paths in the shrubberies, and that he appeared to be dead. Mr. Paley immediately went back with Harris to the place spoken of, and found the man to be Mr. Thomas Hannington, editor of the Morning Sentinel, of which paper Lord Cheverdale is proprietor: he also found that Mr. Hannington was dead. Mr. Paley at once telephoned for the police and for medical assistance. Mr. Paley heard no cry for assistance nor any sound of a struggle during the time which elapsed between Lord Cheverdale leaving him and Harris entering the room.
‘Mr. Hannington had not been to the house, nor was he expected. He had not ‘phoned to say he was coming. It was most unusual for Mr. Hannington to visit Cheverdale Lodge. He never came there unless asked to a dinner or garden party. Lord Cheverdale was in the habit of visiting the Morning Sentinel office three or four times a week.
‘Mr. Paley, as private secretary to Lord Cheverdale, and intimately familiar with his business affairs and correspondence, has not the remotest idea as to the cause of Mr. Hannington’s presence in the grounds of Cheverdale Lodge. He can only surmise that Mr. Hannington had some very urgent reason for visiting Lord Cheverdale at that late hour.’
Chaney, after a moment’s reflection on these communications, turned to Miss Hetherley.
‘I suppose you know Mr. Watson Paley?’ he asked.
‘Very well indeed!’ replied Miss Hetherley.
‘Comes here with Lord Cheverdale, I suppose?’
‘Regularly!’
‘Is he the sort to be trusted? Straight?’
Miss Hetherley glanced from one to the other of us and shrugged her shoulders. She made no verbal reply.
‘Ah!’ said Chaney. ‘You don’t like him!’
‘Frankly, I don’t!’ assented Miss Hetherley. ‘Never did!’
‘Well,’ said Chaney, slowly. ‘I don’t either. Don’t know why — but I don’t.’
‘Yes — but Lord Cheverdale does,’ remarked Miss Hetherley. ‘Paley’s the power behind the throne, there. Whatever Paley does or says, goes!’
‘Did Paley shove his oar in here?’ asked Chaney. ‘Interfere with — what do you call it? — policy of the paper?’
‘He made his opinions and influence felt — sometimes,’ admitted Miss Hetherley. ‘There were occasions when suggestions — or orders — came from him rather than from Lord Cheverdale.’
‘Did Hannington like him?’ persisted Chaney.
‘I don’t think he did.’
‘Ever know of any quarrel between ’em? Bad blood, you know?’
‘No, I can’t say that, Mr. Chaney. Not to my knowledge.’
Chaney became silent and sat twiddling his thumbs — a habit of his when he was thinking hard. Doxford spoke.
‘What are you getting at? Are you suggesting — best to be plain-spoken amongst each other — are you suggesting that Paley killed Hannington?’
‘Somebody killed Hannington in Lord Cheverdale’s grounds last night,’ said Chaney, waking up with alert look. ‘Paley was on the spot!’
‘But — motive?’ retorted Doxford. ‘What motive?’
‘Got to be sought for,’ replied Chaney. ‘Secret! Paley looks to me the sort of chap who’s got secrets. Lots of secrets. Deep ‘uns, too. Born like that — if you ask me. Wire puller!’
‘You’re a psychologist, Mr. Chaney,’ remarked Miss Hetherley. ‘However — I agree with your last word. Mr. Paley is — a wire-puller.’
Windover, who had been showing signs of impatience, raised his voice into prominence.
‘This is all speculation!’ he said. ‘I see no reason to suspect Mr. Paley — he gave us a straightforward account of things. Might as well suspect the footman. I think the thing’s plain enough. That woman who came here with some political secret. She was followed here. When she went away, a man remained hereabouts to watch Hannington when he left. Hannington was followed — wherever he went after leaving this place, he was followed to Regent’s Park, and attacked and finished off in Lord Cheverdale’s grounds. What did they want — these people who attacked him? Those papers that the woman left with him. Well, they got ’em! That’s my line, anyhow — I reckon it’s as straight as a length of railway metal. Obvious!’
Doxford yawned again. He nodded at Chaney.
‘Don’t think Windover’s far out,’ he said, sleepily. ‘Obvious is a good word.’
‘Um!’ muttered Chaney. ‘I’ve no great belief in the obvious. Strikes me — —’
Before he could say more the telephone bell rang at the desk at which Miss Hetherley was sitting, and she picked up the receiver. In a minute or two she turned to the rest of us.
‘That’s from Mr. Paley,’ she said. ‘Lord Cheverdale wishes Mr. Chaney, Mr. Camberwell, Inspector Doxford and Sergeant Windover to go up there at once. I’m to go, too.’
V
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT WAS received by the two detectives with anything but favour: Windover made a face expressive of dislike to the news; Doxford once more made no effort to restrain a prodigious yawn.
‘I was just going home, to get a good sleep!’ he grumbled. ‘Now I suppose we shall have to trail up there!’
‘No trailing!’ said Miss Hetherley. ‘Lord Cheverdale is sending a car for us — it’ll be at the door in a few minutes.’
‘Oh, well — —’ said Doxford. ‘All in the day’s work, I suppose.’ He got lazily out of his chair and turned to Chaney. ‘There’s a certain thing we ought to do, in my opinion, when we get there,’ he continued. ‘Lord Cheverdale, no doubt, will have this right-hand man of his, Paley, with him. Now I should like to have a word or two with his lordship in private. — No Paley! What d’ye say, Chaney?’
‘I agree,’ replied Chaney. ‘We should ask for it. Your idea’s — what?’
‘To know — from Lord Cheverdale himself — if there was anything between Paley and Hannington,’ answered Doxford. ‘There may have been.’
‘I’m with you!’ said Chaney. ‘Very well — we ask to see his lordship alone?’
‘You’ll be lucky — or exceptional — if he grants your request,’ observed Miss Hetherley, ‘Lord Cheverdale never sees anybody unless Paley’s present!’
‘Oh?’ exclaimed Doxford. ‘Um! We’ll see about that, Miss Hetherley. But — your meaning is that Paley’s all powerful there — is that it?’
‘Didn’t I say that Mr. Paley is the power behind the throne?’ retorted Miss Hetherley. ‘You’ll see — as things progress. But let’s go down, if you please — the car will be there, and Lord Cheverdale doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He’s — you may as well know it — he’s a good deal of an autocrat.’
We left the luxurious room in which this conversation had taken place, and went down to the front entrance where a magnificent car with a couple of liveried servants stood ready for us. Rolling away from the Morning Sentinel office in great style, in twenty minutes we were set down at the door of Cheverdale Lodge, to be received — with obvious condescension — by a very solemn-looking butler.
‘His lordship awaits you in the morning room,’ announced this functionary, motioning a couple of footmen to take our hats and coats. ‘Be pleased to follow me.’
Led by Miss Hetherley we trooped across a big entrance hall, across an inner and smaller one, and were duly marshalled — as if, Chaney whispered, we had been prisoners ushered into the dock at Quarter Sessions — into a somewhat sombre and depressing apartment, wherein, at the head of a long centre table, with three persons in attendance upon him, sat Lord Cheverdale, looking more formidable than a Lord Chief Justice. Pausing within the threshold, awaiting speech from this portentous figure, we had time to consider and appraise him and his entourage. Paley we had already seen; Miss Chever we had also seen, but Lord Cheverdale was new to us — to me, at any rate — and there was a man sitting by him who was also a stranger, so far as I was concerned, though I had a dim notion that I had once or twice seen him in Bond Street or Piccadilly.
I took a good look at Lord Cheverdale first. He was an elderly man of a solid figure and a heavy solemn face: I could see at once that he had been born without any sense of humour, and that Puritanism in its worst forms had flourished mightily in him. He was the sort of man you see in churches and chapels, habited in black broadcloth and going round with the plate, mouth drawn and eyes veiled; he gave you the instant impression of disapproval of almost everything, and if he had been a judge in wig and robe, and I a miserable prisoner put in the dock before him, I should have pleaded guilty at the mere sight of his eyes turned on me. Indeed, there was something in what Chaney afterwards said — that it looked, and felt, as if the five of us, one woman and four men, were convicts, coming up for deferred sentence. What was most impressive was the silence with which our entrance was greeted; Lord Cheverdale regarded us with pursed lips and penetrating eyes; the others followed his lead. And as a slight relief, and while the pompous butler was marshalling us into chairs at the lower end of the long table, I made an inspection of the man whom I didn’t know.
This was a man of, apparently, thirty-five to forty years of age, of slim build, middle height, and pleasant appearance — that is to say he had a frank, open countenance, smiling eyes (I could see that he was secretly much amused by our entrance and reception) and, I guessed, cordial manner. He was a very good-looking man, dark hair, dark moustache and carefully trimmed beard, and he knew how to dress himself in the height of fashion without appearing foppish or conspicuous. He sat on Lord Cheverdale’s left-hand side; Miss Chever sat on her father’s right; Paley, with a lot of writing material before him, sat at a corner of the big table. And when we had taken our seats, it was Paley who opened the proceedings; Lord Cheverdale, beyond giving us a general and comprehensive inclination of his head, had scarcely acknowledged our presence. He turned to us pretty much as if — I repeat — we had been prisoners in the dock, and he a Clerk of Assize, asking us to plead to the indictment.
‘Lord Cheverdale has sent for you so that you may give him an account of what you have done so far,’ he said. ‘It will be best, perhaps, if Inspector Doxford, as representing the police authorities, speaks first.’
But Doxford showed himself in no hurry to speak. He turned to Chaney, and after exchanging a few words with him in whispers, looked direct at Lord Cheverdale, ignoring Paley.
‘Before we say anything,’ he said, ‘we should like a few minutes private conversation with your lordship.’
Had Doxford asked for one-half of his lordship’s kingdom, his request could scarcely have produced more surprise. Lord Cheverdale palpably started; his daughter stared; the man I did not know smiled, and Paley turned to the detective with an unpleasant look.
‘There is no need — —’ he began.
‘We are the best judges of that, sir!’ interrupted Doxford. ‘We wish for a brief conversation with Lord Cheverdale in private. Otherwise — —’
‘Well — what of otherwise?’ asked Paley, with something very like a sneer. ‘What do you mean?’
‘That — otherwise — we shall not make any report, at present, except to our superiors,’ replied Doxford, quietly.
‘You appear to be—’ began Paley.
But Lord Cheverdale had been stirred out of his aloofness. He motioned his secretary to silence and turned to Doxford.
‘What is it you want, Mr. — er, I don’t know your name?’ he said, testily. ‘What is it, eh?’
‘My name is Doxford, my lord — Inspector Doxford. We wish — my colleague, Detective-Sergeant Windover, and these two gentlemen, Mr. Chaney and Mr. Camberwell, whom you are employing privately — to have a few minutes talk with your lordship, in private. Your lordship will appreciate our reason when you hear what we have to say. All we have to say is that we consider it necessary to make this request.’
There was a slight sneering sibilation from Paley as Doxford spoke his last word. But Lord Cheverdale suddenly rose from his chair. Without a word, and with one or two impatient movements of his hand and arm, he motioned us to leave our seats and precede him to a door at the lower end of the room. Driving us before him like sheep, he pointed one of us to throw the door open; again he shepherded us into a small room beyond it, and when the door was closed on us, turned to Doxford with a petulant look.
‘Now, now, what is it?’ he demanded. ‘Not used to being ordered about, you know, in this way —— don’t see any need for secrecy, you know — —’
‘My lord!’ said Doxford. ‘This is a case of murder! We are policemen. It is for us to judge as to the necessity of asking you certain questions. We wish to put a plain question to your lordship. Does your lordship know if there was any quarrel between the dead man, Mr. Hannington, and your private secretary, Mr. Paley? We want to know!’
It was easy to see that the very idea of this came to Lord Cheverdale as an intense surprise. He threw up his hands and head, shaking head and shoulders vigorously.
‘Oh, no, no, no, no!’ he declared. ‘No, no, no! Utterly ridiculous! Nothing whatever. No dissension, no cause of dissension, no reason for dissension! Besides that my secretary is a man of the utmost probity — as Miss Hetherley there is well aware — most excellent man. Ridiculous!’
Doxford glanced at Chaney; Chaney glanced at Doxford. And Doxford turned towards the door.
