Collected works of j s f.., p.898
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 898
There was a tense silence for a time; then the Earl, who was unusually fidgety, spoke nervously.
“Better say something, you know,” he said. “Nothing to be frightened about — eh? So long as you say something or other you know — what?”
Mrs. Vanderkiste suddenly turned on him.
“Nothing to be frightened about!” she exclaimed scornfully. “That’s all you know. Nothing to be — Good heavens, it’s because I’m frightened out of my life that I took them!”
The Dean groaned sepulchrally; the Earl whistled.
“Whew!” he said as a final note of surprise. “So you did take ’em? Both?”
“Both!” replied Mrs. Vanderkiste.
“What on earth for?” demanded the Earl.
“Because I had to!” she retorted. “So would you, if you were fixed as I am.”
“Fixed as — I wish you’d just say plainly how you are fixed,” exclaimed the Earl. “Do! All amongst friends, don’t you know?”
“I’ll retire if Mrs. Vanderkiste wishes it,” suggested Lampard.
He moved towards the door, but Mrs. Vanderkiste stopped him.
“No!” she said. “You’re a lawyer, and you’ll understand. Oh well, I’ll tell you, and be done with it! The truth is, I’m completely in the power of somebody. A woman. You know her,” she went on, turning to the Earl, “or you know of her. Leonie!”
“What! The woman who makes gowns?” vociferated the Earl.
“Gowns — yes; but she’s two other businesses,” answered Mrs. Vanderkiste. “She runs an establishment in which she sells antiques, curiosities, and so on — and she’s also a registered moneylender.”
“Tell us all about it,” counselled Lampard.
“I owe her money — a pretty big lot,” continued Mrs. Vanderkiste. “Dressmaker’s bill to begin with. Then I borrowed money from her in her moneylending capacity and gave her bills, and of course, I had to renew, constantly. And at last I got head over heels in debt with her. And then she suggested to me that, as I was constantly visiting country houses, I had admirable opportunities of picking up—”
“Missals and medals!” snorted the Earl, who had been vigorously punching one clenched hand into the palm of the other. “What a pity this infernal old nag is a woman! Lampard, of course, Mrs. Vanderkiste isn’t the real culprit, don’t you know. It’s the other—”
“Where,” asked Lampard quietly, turning to Mrs. Vanderkiste— “where are the Missal and the medal?”
Mrs. Vanderkiste shook her head.
“I sent them to her by registered parcel post this morning,” she answered. “I sent them myself from the village post office here. Here’s the receipt with her address on it.”
Lampard took the scrap of paper and carefully put it away. Then he turned to the other men.
“That parcel won’t be delivered until to-morrow morning,” he said. “We must be at this woman’s address when the postman arrives. There’s no need for you to go up to town, Mr. Dean — I’ll act for you. But you ought to go, Lord Maxbury.”
“I’m going,” said the Earl with great emphasis.
The numerous ultra-fashionable clients of Leonie et Cie. have never been able to understand why that clever lady suddenly closed her doors, broke up her establishment, and vanished into the unknown. Similarly, other people have wondered why a certain curiosity shop, which in its day was much patronised by collectors, was shut up at literally a moment’s notice. Also, a great many folk have never ceased speculating on the sudden wiping out of a quiet moneylending office and wondering why the money they had borrowed from it has never been demanded from them. But the Earl of Maxbury and Mr. Guy Lampard know very well why these affairs suddenly declined, and so does a certain lady, who if she ever sees the names of these gentlemen in print, remembers a very bad quarter of an hour which she once had with them, and how they held an ultimatum at her head which left her no choice but to fall in with all their commands. The recollection of that little affair makes that lady feel morally ill and savagely vindictive, but whenever the Earl of Maxbury thinks of it, he shows his teeth from ear to ear, and chuckles with holy gratification.
The Murder in the Mayor’s Parlour
CHAPTER I
THE LONDON EXPRESS, stopping for a bare minute in the little station of Lyncaster, set down a single passenger, a quietly-dressed, middle-aged, spectacled man, whom casual observers, had they looked at him at all, would have taken for a member of the professional classes, a doctor, a solicitor, a chartered accountant. The few people on the platform paid no attention to him; within a moment of his arrival he had given up his ticket, passed through the booking-office, and was rapidly walking up the road to the town, — a collection of ancient houses set on the ridge of a low hill, from the crown of which two objects — the high roof of the old Moot Hall and the square tower of the parish church — stood out prominently against the glow of the December sunset. Within five minutes he was in the heart of the town — a market-place which looked, at first glance and in that uncertain light, as if nothing had altered in it since the Middle Ages. Gabled and timbered houses, diamond-paned windows, queer chimney-stacks, a pavement of cobble-stones, a pillared and canopied market cross, the old church at one end, the Moot Hall at the other — these things seemed to make up the whole of Lyncaster, save for a few narrow and equally ancient streets which opened out of the square at various unexpected angles. It needed but one sharp, shrewd glance on the part of the stranger to see that he was now in the midst of one of those antique English boroughs which are becoming rarer with every generation, and wherein life apparently still takes its tone and colour from the past.
But the man from London wasted no time in looking round. His quick eyes had at once fallen on two words painted on a projecting lamp, and thrown into prominence by the flare of a gas-jet. Those two words were Police Station — he made for the door beneath them, as a business-like man makes for the object which demands his immediate attention. The door was half open; within, in a barely furnished office, hung about with official-looking papers and bills, a sleepy-looking young constable was writing at a stand-up desk. He lifted his face — the face of a rustic promoted from the plough — and opened his mouth as if to signify that his ears were also open.
“Superintendent Sutton in?” asked the stranger. “Then tell him, if you please, that Detective-Sergeant Milgrave, from New Scotland Yard, is here.”
The constable, awed to silence by this announcement, took one hasty glance at the London detective, and lumbered into an inner room. He muttered his news to some person who sat within, then turned and beckoned. Milgrave walked sharply forward, to be met by a big, burly man, who held out a stout fist, and showed unmistakable pleasure and relief at his visitor’s coming.
“I’m right glad to see you, sir,” he said, pulling forward an elbow-chair to the edge of a blazing fire. “We’re not much used to this sort of thing in these parts, you know, and we want a Londoner to take a look in at this affair. I suppose,” he went on, motioning Milgrave to seat himself— “I suppose you’ll have heard the facts of the case — read ’em in the newspapers, of course?”
“No!” answered Milgrave. He set down his suit-case, unbuttoned his overcoat, and took a seat. “No! I know nothing, except that there’s been a murder here, and that I’m sent down, at your request, to help to investigate it. I saw headlines in the papers, certainly, but I didn’t read what was underneath them. I don’t know anything. That’s my way, superintendent — I like my facts at first hand. And so you’ll perhaps tell me all about it, at once.”
“You wouldn’t like to take something, first?” asked the superintendent, with rural solicitude. “It’s a long journey, and—”
“No, thank you — business first,” responded Milgrave. “Let me know what’s been done, and what’s to be done, first of all. I’ll see to myself when I’m posted up. Tell me all you can.”
The superintendent, a bluff, hearty-looking individual, who obviously felt great interest in the personality of this man from the Criminal Investigation Department, drew his own chair to the fire, and shook his head as he dropped into it.
“It’s a queer do — as we say in these parts,” he remarked. “I never heard of a queerer, and I’ve been thirty and odd years in the force, Mr. Milgrave. Well, I’m a poor hand at telling a tale, but I’ll put it to you in as good order as I can. Now, then, to be what we may term systematic about it, this is Thursday, December 10, 1914, isn’t it? Very well, on the night of day before yesterday — Tuesday, December 8 — our young mayor, Mr. Guy Hannington, came into the Moot Hall by the front entrance, out of the market-place, and went up to the mayor’s parlour. That was at half-past eight o’clock. The person — the only person — who saw him come in was the caretaker, Learoyd, a pensioned policeman. Learoyd and his wife live in the ground floor rooms of the Moot Hall — you can’t enter at all from the front without passing their door and window, as I shall show you presently. Learoyd was standing at his door when his worship came in at the entry, and he asked him if there was aught he could do. His worship said no; he was only going up to the mayor’s parlour to look at some papers. He went up, and Learoyd and his wife sat down to their supper.
“A good hour passed; Learoyd remarked to his missis that his worship was stopping upstairs a longish time. Then he went out into the entry and smoked his pipe a bit, expecting the mayor to come down. But he didn’t come, and didn’t come, and it got to ten o’clock, which is Learoyd’s time for locking all up. So, after a while, Learoyd got uneasy, and he went upstairs and listened at the door. He heard naught — no moving about, nothing. So at last he knocked — and got no answer. Then he opened the door. And he saw at once that something was wrong, for there was the poor young gentleman lying across the hearthrug, between his desk and the fireplace, arms stretched out, and as still as could be!”
“Dead?” asked Milgrave.
“Dead as a door-nail, sir!” replied the superintendent. “There was no doubt of that. Learoyd just took one look at him — he was lying on his back, and the light was full on — and then he hurried down for his wife, and sent her for Dr. Winford, who lives in the market-place, and for me — I live just round the corner. Dr. Winford and me got there together. The doctor just looked him over and said he’d been dead quite an hour. And as to how he’d come by his death, he’d been stabbed!”
“Stabbed, eh?” remarked Milgrave. “Stabbed!”
“Stabbed through the heart,” said the superintendent. “And,” he continued, with a significant shake of the head, “from the back. Dr. Winford, he says that the mayor had been writing, or was writing, at his desk when the murderer drove a knife, or something of that sort, clean through his heart from behind. He says — the doctor — that he’d leap up, throw out his arms, twist round, and fall where he was found, on his back. He says, too, that death would be practically instantaneous.”
“Learoyd never heard anything — no sound of a fall, or a cry?” asked Milgrave.
“Nothing! But you’ve got to remember that our Moot Hall is one of the very oldest buildings in England,” answered the superintendent. “You’ll see for yourself that the walls and floors are of a tremendous thickness — eight to twelve feet thick in places. No, Learoyd had heard nothing. And there were no signs of any struggle. Everything was in its place. His worship had begun a letter — written the date, and ‘My dear sir.’ That and an agenda-paper for the next council meeting were on his blotting-paper; his pen was on the floor. There wasn’t a sign that anybody but himself had been in the room. And Learoyd had never seen or heard anybody go up there after the Mayor.”
“Still, somebody could have gone up?” suggested Milgrave.
“Might have gone up while Learoyd and his wife were at their supper,” assented the superintendent. “But it’s unlikely — at least, at first sight — for, as you’ll see, there’s a big glass panel in their door, through which you can see the staircase, and Learoyd sat facing it while he was at table. We can’t hear of anybody who saw a soul enter or leave between half-past eight and ten o’clock. Still, there must have been somebody — the murderer — because there’s no other entrance.”
“No back entrance?” observed Milgrave.
“Not at that hour. The back entrance is closed at six, when the clerks go away,” replied the superintendent. “No; whoever did it must have slipped in very quietly, just when Learoyd happened to have his back turned, and have got out again in the same fashion.”
“Suspect anyone?” asked Milgrave.
“Why,” answered the superintendent, with a deprecating laugh, as if the suggestion was not worthy of mention, “there is some talk in the town about an Italian chap, a sort of showman, who got into trouble here some few months since. Mr. Hannington was the magistrate who sent him to prison, and the fellow was understood to make a threat against him. Of course, we’re trying to trace the man, but—”
“Just tell me about the mayor,” interrupted Milgrave. “We’ll leave the Italian. Who was the mayor? How long had he been mayor? Was he popular, or disliked? Had he any enemies in the town, or elsewhere? Give me any details of that sort.”
“I should say a more popular young fellow never stepped,” answered the superintendent, heartily. “Most popular, sir. Everybody liked him. Never heard a word against him from any quarter. His family’s the principal family in the town; they’ve lived at the Manor Court since old Henry the Eighth’s days. They’re bankers — the principal bank belongs to them. This young Mr. Guy — his father died just as he was leaving Cambridge, so he became head of the family and chief proprietor of the bank at a very early age, only a couple of years ago. He soon showed that he was a very keen business man, and he began to take a strong interest in the borough affairs as soon as he settled down here. And this year he was elected mayor — been mayor just a month when he was murdered.”
“Just a month!” soliloquised Milgrave. “Um — a keen business man — took a strong interest in municipal matters, eh? Was anybody against his election as mayor?”
“Not a soul, sir — unanimously elected,” replied the superintendent. “Of course, both his father and his grandfather had been Mayors of Lyncaster in their time — ay, and their grandfathers before them. Our charter’s a very old one, Mr. Milgrave — time of Edward the Third. We’re an old community.”
“So I observed from a mere glance round,” said Milgrave. “Well, this is a queer business, superintendent. You haven’t a clue of any sort?”
“Not the ghost of one,” replied the superintendent. “I don’t believe in that Italian notion myself. This is a very small town. It’s almost impossible that a foreigner could come in, or go out, without being observed. Besides, supposing this Italian did come back, how could he know that the mayor was to be found in his parlour at that particular hour? No, sir. And yet I can’t think who — who could want to kill this poor young gentleman.”
“Was Mr. Hannington married?” asked Milgrave.
“No; single — lived with his mother and two sisters,” answered the superintendent. “A fine way they’re in about him, too, poor things!”
“Do they know whether he had any enemies — anybody who had any reason for wanting to get rid of him?” suggested the detective. “On the very face of it, you know, there must have been some motive for the murder. I conclude, of course, that it wasn’t robbery. Well, it may have been revenge. It may have been jealousy. Had Mr. Hannington any love affair?”
“Now, that’s been speculated on,” answered the superintendent; “but, according to his mother, he hadn’t, and what’s more, never had had.”
“So far as she’s aware, that is,” observed Milgrave. He rose from his chair and buttoned his overcoat.
“Well,” he went on, “let’s have a look round your Moot Hall, particularly the mayor’s parlour.”
The superintendent took his visitor out into the market-place, and across to the ancient building in which the affairs of the town had been conducted for so many centuries. Darkness had now fallen over Lyncaster, but Milgrave could make out the lines and general appearance of the Moot Hall by the light of the gas-lamps which flared from various stalls set up on the cobble stones. That it was a place of great antiquity he saw at once. Without making any pretence to any deep knowledge of architecture, he knew that this old building had probably been looking down on Lyncaster market-place in, at any rate, the later Tudor days. But he was not just then so much interested in its antiquity as in its relation to the crime which he was charged to investigate, and he proceeded to look over the place in systematic and business-like fashion.
CHAPTER II.
THE MOOT HALL formed the centre of a group of ancient buildings which almost completely enclosed one side of the market-place. It was entered by an archway which led into a vaulted hall. On one side of this hall lay the rooms in which the caretaker and his wife lived. A glass-panelled door and a small window looked out of the living-room into the hall, and commanded a clear view of the wide stone staircase by which access was gained to the upper apartments. These apartments were few in numbers. On the first floor was the council-chamber, a committee-room, the town clerk’s private office, and the mayor’s parlour; on the second some smaller rooms, used chiefly as storehouses for the municipal archives. Above that was a vast attic, or lumber-room, in the high roof. All these various apartments and places were contained in the front of the building; through a door in the lobby of the first floor, entrance was obtained to a newer wing, in which the corporation offices were located. And, according to fixed rule, that door was locked and bolted by Learoyd at six o’clock every evening. It was, therefore, impossible for any person to enter the old, the front, part of the Moot Hall from the back after that hour.
“And Learoyd’s positive,” said the superintendent, “dead positive, that on that night he locked up just as usual, and hung the key in his parlour. So nobody could have got to the mayor in that way.”
