Collected works of j s f.., p.769
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 769
‘You knew the people, madame?’ suggested Chaney.
Madame knew them well — were they not next-door-neighbours? Mrs. Crowther — madame had some difficulty in pronouncing the name, and Mr. Crowther. Three years they were there, and then — oh, well, there was the end. They retired from the battle, as one would say. The Chez Crowther closed its doors.
‘And where did Mr. and Mrs. Crowther go, madame?’ enquired Chaney. ‘To England, perhaps?’
But no, said madame. Not at all, but quite close by — to Monte Carlo. She knew that well, for Mrs. Crowther left certain things in her charge, and afterwards sent for them from Monte Carlo. Did messieurs wish for the address in Monte Carlo? — she had it somewhere — an old letter or two ... she disappeared into a room at the back of her café.
‘We’re in luck, Camberwell,’ said Chaney. ‘Link by link, we’re making a chain. Monte Carlo, eh? But — all these years ago!’
Madame came back, with a crumpled sheet of flimsy note-paper. In silence she handed it to Chaney — we both looked it over. It was merely a note asking madame to send on to Monte Carlo a certain box which had been left in her care. But it was signed Alice Crowther, and it bore an address Pension Hagill, Rue Antoinette, La Condamine.
I pointed out the date — nine years before.
‘Yes,’ said Chaney. ‘Still....’
We thanked madame for her courtesy, and went away.
‘Camberwell,’ observed Chaney as we strolled back to our hotel, ‘as I said just now, we’re making a chain, link by link. We’ve established the fact that Crowther and his wife came here, to Mentone, after their marriage, and set up an English tea-shop. It didn’t pay, and they left and went to Monte Carlo. Very well! — now we go to Monte Carlo. But at Monte Carlo we want to know something about Crowther! So far, we know next to nothing. Where is Crowther, nowadays? Is he alive? Certainly, the war’s intervened in everybody’s fortunes — perhaps Crowther went under. But if Crowther’s alive, then, as that old limb of the law said at Milthwaite, very likely Crowther is behind these murders. Anyhow, when we get to Monte Carlo, we want to have some news of him! — not so much of her. Let’s think, now — according to what Perkins told us, Mrs. Crowther got that legacy while they were at Mentone. Perhaps they’d some of her original £2,000 left: perhaps they put what was left to the £1,500 legacy and went to Monte Carlo to try their luck at the tables, eh?’
‘Surmise, Chaney, pure surmise?’ I said, smiling.
‘Very likely — but I think it possible,’ he retorted. ‘Anyhow, we must get more information about the man. We know what’s happened to the woman.’
We went along to Monte Carlo that afternoon, and after putting ourselves up at a quiet hotel in the Pereira district, walked down to La Condamine to find the Pension Hagill. And there again we were in luck; the Pension Hagill was run by two Englishwomen, the Misses Wakeman, sisters, elderly, one of whom we presently interviewed. She was a sharp-witted, business-like woman, who was quick to understand our explanations, and who smiled shrewdly when we mentioned the Crowthers.
‘Ah!’ she exclaimed. ‘I always felt that there would be enquiries sooner or later! You want to know — what?’
‘All that we can learn, ma’am, about them during their stay here,’ replied Chaney.
Miss Wakeman considered matters.
‘Come in this evening, after dinner,’ she said. ‘Come about nine o’clock. My sister and I will be free, then. Then we can tell you all we know. It’s — it’s a good deal.’
We went back to the Pension Hagill at the appointed time; the sisters Wakeman received us in their private parlour. The one we had not previously seen proved to be, if anything, even more shrewd and business-like than her sister, and in the conversation that followed it was she who did most of the talking — after she had first made herself sufficiently acquainted with our credentials and our object.
‘We get the English papers here, of course,’ she said. ‘And we read about the murders at Cheverdale Lodge and in Little Custom Street, but we never connected Mrs. Clayton with poor Mrs. Crowther. Do you really believe they’re identical?’
‘I don’t think there’s the least doubt about it, ma’am,’ replied Chaney. ‘There’s no doubt at all in my mind!’
‘We knew Mrs. Crowther very well indeed for a year or two — nine years ago,’ said Miss Wakeman. ‘And we used to hear of her — from her, I mean — for a year or two after she left here. Then we heard no more, and we’ve often wondered what had become of her, poor thing.’
‘You appear to commiserate her,’ said Chaney. ‘Why?’
‘You’ll know why when you’ve heard what I’m going to tell you,’ replied Miss Wakeman. ‘You want, now, to know what we know about Mr. and Mrs. Crowther? Very well — what we know is this. They came here, to this Pension, from Mentone. Mrs. Crowther told me and my sister — when we’d got to know them better — that they had had an English tea-shop there, thinking that it would attract English and American visitors; they had found, however, that it had no such particular attraction, and they had cleared out of it before suffering further loss. They certainly had money when they came here — but in our opinion it steadily went.’
‘How, ma’am?’ enquired Chaney.
Miss Wakeman smiled cynically.
‘I should say it went at the establishment on top of the hill,’ she said, pointing a forefinger towards the window. ‘Crowther was always there! He had invented a system. Well, my sister and I, having lived here some twenty-five years, have heard of a great many systems, but we have not yet heard of an infallible one! Our impression is that Crowther steadily lost money at the Casino. He did no work — what was there for him to do, here? — and he went to the Casino as soon as it was open and remained there as long as it was kept open. I knew his wife used to get more and more anxious: she confided to me, at last, that she knew he was losing money. What was more, she said it was her money — a recent legacy.’
‘Just so!’ muttered Chaney. ‘She’d had one — £1,500 — just before leaving Mentone.’
‘Well,’ continued Miss Wakeman, ‘I said to her — why didn’t she keep a tight hold on it? She answered that Crowther had command over it — he was the sort of man who insisted that what was his wife’s was his, and from the time of their marriage, when, she said, she’d handed over her little fortune of £2,000 to him, he’d always done what he liked with her money. And now, she said, he’d got the gambling fever strong on him, and she didn’t know what would come of it. However, the thing came suddenly to an end — a very sudden end.’
‘How?’ asked Chaney.
‘Crowther disappeared!’ replied Miss Wakeman. ‘He went out of this house one morning, as usual, and never returned. We never heard of him again, and, as long as we knew her, or heard from her, Mrs. Crowther never did, either. Within twenty-four hours of his disappearance she ascertained that he’d drawn all the money out of the bank here — the Credit Lyonnais — but had said nothing there of where he was going. Anyhow, he’d gone— “clean gone”.’
‘Leaving her without money?’ asked Chaney.
‘She’d about twenty or thirty pounds in her possession,’ replied Miss Wakeman. ‘Enough to keep her going for a while. They didn’t owe us anything at the time of Crowther’s disappearance. However much of a gambler he may have been, he was most scrupulous and punctilious about paying his bills. He didn’t owe a penny in the place. But — he went off with all her money!’
‘Have you any idea of the amount?’ enquired Chaney.
‘Yes! Mrs. Crowther told us that he’d drawn at least £1,100 out of the bank. Her money, of course,’ said Miss Wakeman. ‘Indeed, she told my sister and myself that Crowther had no money when she married him, and had never earned any since. And yet — he always struck me as a singularly smart, able, clever man. He was, of course, an adventurer.’
‘Was any attempt made to find him?’ asked Chaney.
‘Not to our knowledge,’ replied Miss Wakeman. ‘I believe Mrs. Crowther made some enquiries at the stations at Monte Carlo and at Mentone, but failed to get any news of him. Of course there were lots of ways in which he could have left the town: that was easy enough. However,’ she added, laughing, ‘he left in what he stood up in! — he didn’t carry even a small suit-case away with him. He just — went.’
‘Leaving a very good wardrobe behind him,’ remarked the other Miss Wakeman. ‘He was always a very well-dressed man.’
‘I suppose he never sent for anything?’ asked Chaney.
‘Not he! As I say, we never heard a word more of him,’ said Miss Wakeman. ‘He completely vanished.’
‘And Mrs. Crowther? What did she do?’ enquired Chaney.
‘Mrs. Crowther was a sensible woman,’ replied Miss Wakeman. ‘I think she realized at once that he’d gone for good. She was also a practical woman — she began by selling all Crowther’s belongings, and realized quite a nice little sum. Then — staying with us in the meantime — she began to look for employment, and it was not long before she got some. She got a post as linen storekeeper at one of the big hotels — the Hotel de l’Empereur — and at a very good salary, and there she went. She stayed there about four years; she used to come to see my sister and me pretty regularly; we liked Mrs. Crowther. But she never had any news of her husband to give us. I think she felt pretty certain, all along, that she’d never hear of him again.’
‘And at the end of the four years, ma’am?’ asked Chaney. ‘What then?’
‘The war had broken out by that time,’ replied Miss Wakeman. ‘Things began to get very difficult for hotel and pension keepers. Staffs were reduced — hotels were commandeered as hospitals. And Mrs. Crowther left the Hotel de l’Empereur and went to Paris — to a similar situation — at the Hotel Mauriac.’
‘That would be — exactly when?’ enquired Chaney.
Miss Wakeman thought a little.
‘About the beginning of 1915,’ she replied. ‘The war had been in progress some six or seven months.’
‘Did she ever write to you from Paris?’
‘Now and then, up to about 1917. Since then, we’ve heard nothing.’
Chaney wrote down the Paris address in his book; we rose to go. The two ladies looked from one to the other of us with enquiring eyes.
‘And you really, really think that the Mrs. Clayton of Little Custom Street is identical with the Mrs. Crowther we knew?’ asked the elder, once more. ‘You really think it?’
‘I do, ma’am!’ replied Chaney. ‘Ugly thing to think of, but — —’
‘Then do you know what I think?’ she interrupted, speaking with sudden vehemence. ‘I think she came across Crowther! Find him, gentlemen, find him! Look for him ... in London!’
IV
‘IN LONDON, YES, certainly!’ said Chaney, when we had made our adieux and left the ladies of the Pension Hagill. ‘But Paris is on our way to London, Camberwell, and we’ll see what we can find at the Hotel Mauriac.’
However, we had not yet done with Monte Carlo. We had not been back at our hotel very long, and it was still scarcely ten o’clock, when a card was brought to us, bearing the name Mr. John Pettlegrew, and, pencilled beneath it, the words, Introduced by the Misses Wakeman. The card was presently followed by a little, elderly, very serious and solemn-looking gentleman chiefly remarkable for a pair of very large round spectacles through which he blinked at us like a wise owl. He made us a very polite and formal bow as he advanced to the corner of the lounge in which we were sitting.
‘Mr. Chaney? — Mr. Camberwell?’ he said in a very precise voice, as solemn as his expression. ‘You will excuse my intrusion, I am sure, when I state that I am waiting upon you at the desire of my friends the Misses Wakeman in whose house I am — and I may say have been for some years — a resident.’
‘Glad to see you, sir,’ responded Chaney. ‘Very kind of you to call, I’m sure.’
Mr. Pettlegrew bowed again, and taking the chair which I drew forward for him, removed his spectacles, and having polished them with a little cloth, taken from a waistcoat pocket, replaced them on his nose and regarded us more solemnly than before.
‘Yes,’ he observed, meditatively. ‘Miss Wakeman the elder thought — and Miss Wakeman, the younger quite agreed — that you might find it profitable to your purposes if I told you a little about Mr. Crowther, of whom you were speaking during your visit to the Pension Hagill — I was not in while you were there. I knew Mr. Crowther — I may say, intimately. I, of course, was a resident at the Pension Hagill all the time Mr. and Mrs. Crowther stayed there.’
‘Indeed, sir?’ said Chaney. ‘And what sort of man was Mr. Crowther?’
Mr. Pettlegrew placed his fat hands on his equally plump knees and bent forward with an impressive look at us.
‘A born — adventurer!’ he said. ‘Born!’
‘Bit of a gambler, eh?’ suggested Chaney.
‘Far more than a bit, my dear sir,’ replied Mr. Pettlegrew. ‘Every inch of him a gambler! The sort of man who was always trying for a big prize in the affairs of life. I, myself,’ he continued, rubbing his knees, ‘am not a gambler — I have a sufficient competence, and I do not care to tempt Fortune. But I am a student, a life-long student of Human Nature. For that reason I am a constant, a regular attendant at the Casino here. I like to study the types of human nature I see there — most interesting, I assure you. And, of course, I saw Crowther there — every day.’
‘What sort of luck had he, Mr. Pettlegrew?’ asked Chaney.
Mr. Pettlegrew shook his head.
‘He was there too often to have what a gambler would call good luck, my dear sir,’ he answered. ‘A man who haunts the gaming-tables morning, noon, and night, as he did, is bound to come out on the wrong side. I should say, from my own personal observation that Crowther lost a lot of money there. He had a system, invented by himself. Ah! — I have known a great many men who had systems!’
‘Did you ever hear his wife say anything about his losses?’ asked Chaney.
‘She gave me — and the Misses Wakeman — to understand that he had lost a lot of money, and that it was her money,’ replied Mr. Pettlegrew. ‘He was a masterful man — his wife was afraid of him. I feel sure the poor thing was happier when he vanished and left her — in spite of the fact that thenceforward she had to earn her own living.’
‘Do you know anything of the circumstances under which he left her?’ enquired Chaney. ‘Or anything about Crowther himself just at that time?’
Mr. Pettlegrew became more owl-like and solemn than ever. After staring steadily at us for a while, he leaned still nearer, and tapped first Chaney and then me, after which he carefully pronounced two words, very slowly and emphatically.
‘I — do!’
Chaney nodded his understanding of the decisive remark.
‘Just so, sir! You do!’ he said. ‘We should be glad to know, too.’
Mr. Pettlegrew went through the tapping process again: his forefinger, stretched stiffly out, poked itself first into Chaney and then into me.
‘Mark you!’ he said, oracularly, ‘I wish to be exact, correct. When I said “know”, I should perhaps have used another word. “Conjecture” or “surmise”. Or, perhaps, “suspect”. Suspect — yes! That is the better word. I suspect Crowther of — something! And — until now, I have kept my suspicions strictly to myself. But — as I understand you are private enquiry agents — I have no objection to telling them to you.’
‘Anything you tell us, Mr. Pettlegrew, will be regarded as a strictly confidential communication,’ said Chaney.
‘I am assured of it,’ graciously said Mr. Pettlegrew. ‘Well, it is this. You are aware that Crowther left his wife at the Pension Hagill without any notice or warning and completely disappeared, and — as far as I am aware — has never been heard of again. There was no question of suicide, for Mrs. Crowther quickly ascertained that he had drawn a considerable amount of money from the bank — some hundreds of pounds — and further enquiries proved that he had not visited the Casino after receiving this large amount at the Credit Lyonnais. No! — he just went; where, nobody knew or I believe, ever will know. But — a week or two after his disappearance, the dead body of a man was found in a lonely part of the country, in a gorge between here and La Turbie. Not Crowther’s, no! — the body was that of an elderly man, an eccentric sort of person, an Englishman, who had been staying in the town for some weeks, was a fairly regular attendant at the gaming tables, and who was well known — well known! — to always carry a considerable sum of ready money on his person. His name was Watkinson, Mr. Samuel Watkinson. Now, gentlemen, when Mr. Watkinson’s body was discovered, there was not a penny piece — or shall we say a centime? — on it!’
Mr. Pettlegrew paused and looked from one to the other of us, as much as to say ‘Now, what do you think of that?’
‘What are you suggesting, Mr. Pettlegrew?’ asked Chaney. ‘That Crowther killed this man and robbed the dead body?’
‘I have often wondered if he did!’ exclaimed Mr. Pettlegrew. ‘But I have never put my wonder into words till now.’
‘Was Crowther suspected?’ demanded Chaney.
‘Not by anyone, that I know of!’ replied Mr. Pettlegrew.
‘The police?’ suggested Chaney.
‘I don’t think the police ever suspected Crowther at all,’ replied Mr. Pettlegrew. ‘The police had its own theory.’
‘And what was that?’ asked Chaney.
‘Oh, the obvious one! That Mr. Watkinson had been watched in the Casino; was known to have large sums of ready money at his disposal, and was followed on one of the solitary country rambles he was fond of taking. The matter was never cleared up.’
‘Why did you suspect Crowther?’ demanded Chaney. ‘What grounds had you?’
