Murder for money, p.14
Murder for Money, page 14
part #4 of Inspector John Crow Series
Gunther looked at Crow again, with an arithmetical eye, summing him up. He was suddenly more wary, more aware.
‘This does not finish the interview?’ he said softly.
Crow’s reply was harshly phrased.
‘I’m afraid not. I should have said, a moment ago, guesswork based upon facts in my possession, concerning Erich Schulman . . . and Wilhelm Grunfeld.’
The room remained silent for almost a minute. Gunther sat staring at Crow and his face was completely impassive save for a muscle in his cheek that jerked spasmodically, twice. But there was something else about his face, something almost indefinable: it was as though carved in stone it had weathered years of attack, but suddenly, at last, the first signs of erosion were appearing, a crumbling, a crack in the stone. Gunther’s features did not change, Crow could have sworn to that, yet something happened to them. When he spoke at last, the word came out as though fogged with sleep.
‘Dance?’
The security agent stirred in his chair and said impassively, ‘I tried to explain. He insisted. Eventually, I decided you’d better see him, listen to his questions.’
A cynical smile twitched at Gunther’s mouth.
‘And answer them?’
Dance made no reply but sat very still. Gunther’s eyes cleared, indecision vanished, and he leaned back, folded his arms and said, ‘All right, Inspector, I don’t know what you want but I’ll listen, at least.’
Crow hesitated, suddenly uncertain of his ground.
Gunther had been disturbed by Grunfeld’s name, but was now in control and at ease. Crow decided to face the citadel with a frontal attack.
‘There are certain similarities between you and a Gestapo officer called Wilhelm Grunfeld who was sentenced to death in 1951 and has never been located.’
‘My name is Conrad Gunther,’ the businessman said softly.
‘You adopted the son of Wilhelm Grunfeld.’
‘There was nothing illegal in that.’
‘There are other coincidences—’
‘As you say. Coincidences.’
Crow glared at Gunther. He was getting nowhere. He decided to start again.
‘Did you ever meet Rutland?’
‘No.’
‘What was your reaction when he tried to blackmail you?’
Gunther laughed; it contained a note of genuine amusement that Crow did not like.
‘Blackmail? Me? I have received no threats from this man Rutland. I had no knowledge of his existence until you came to speak to me here today. Scathe magazine wanted to interview me, yes; Rutland worked for them, you tell me. But blackmail — really, Inspector!’
The contempt in his voice goaded Crow, and on the verge of losing his temper he said, ‘So you deny any complicity in the deaths of Charles Rutland and Erich Schulman, as your friend Dance has denied complicity?’
Gunther glanced swiftly at Dance and something seemed to pass between them. It could have been a question, but the answer from Dance was certainly a negative, and when Gunther turned back to Crow his confidence remained.
‘I deny it completely, Inspector — indeed, I’m not even sure I know what you’re talking about. Er . . . do you?’
Crow caught himself; he recognized the deliberation behind the remark and knew that Gunther wanted him to lose his temper. The realization made him hold back, turned his anger to icy determination. He suddenly wanted Gunther, and intended getting him.
‘Perhaps it would help you realize my position, Herr Gunther . . . or whatever your true name is, if I told you what I do know.’
Gunther appreciated the mildness of Crow’s tone; Crow felt he almost experienced a certain pleasure. Perhaps Gunther liked an adversary; he had met enough in his lifetime to want to sharpen himself on another.
‘I think that would be as well, Inspector. Then I shall be able to point to the errors in your . . . deductions.’
‘Then I will start with Charles Rutland’s visit to West Berlin.’ Crow said smoothly. ‘He wanted an article on you for Scathe; it would have been muck-raking, of course, for that was Scathe’s way, but while researching into your background, Rutland unearthed certain interesting coincidences concerning you and Wilhelm Grunfeld. He failed to obtain his interview, but in the course of his attempts he made the acquaintance of Erich Schulman, one of your secretaries.’
‘I agree with this, I have said so,’ Gunther said brusquely, nodding.
‘Disappointed though he may have been, Rutland discovered Schulman could be useful. As one of your secretaries he knew your organization and was able to help fill in some background material on you. He convinced Schulman there was money to be made in blackmailing you, so Schulman left your employ and came to England—’
‘He gave no notice,’ Gunther said sharply, staring at the me, ‘but took leave, from which he did not return. According to this he is missing—’
‘He’s been lying at the bottom of Lockyer’s Tarn,’ Crow said.
Gunther looked again at Dance, frowned, and turned back to Crow.
‘How did this happen?’
Crow smiled grimly.
‘I can provide some guesswork to go with a number of facts. Rutland discovered you were really Grunfeld and decided to blackmail you. He enlisted Schulman—’
‘Schulman was a minor cog and could know nothing damaging to me,’ Gunther said, shaking his head. He raised no argument about his connection with the name Grunfeld, however, and Crow realized he felt safe in Dance’s presence, even to make such semi-admissions. Dance would never allow Crow to speak of them outside this room.
‘He intended blackmailing you with Schulman’s help,’ Crow repeated doggedly. ‘They decided it was necessary to get Schulman to a safe place: Yorkshire was thought suitable. Schulman went there, stayed at a pub called the Three Bells under an assumed name and was contacted there by Rutland.’
‘If he used an assumed name—’
‘He registered under the name of Romanoff, but we know Romanoff and Schulman are one. The corpse has been identified.’
Gunther seemed about to speak, then thought better of it. He glanced swiftly at the file, frowned and then grimaced.
‘Please go on, Inspector.’ he said courteously. ‘Once contacted, Schulman moved into a bungalow Rutland had rented for the purpose. He lay low there while Rutland went back to Germany to finalize his blackmail plans — but things went wrong. You had reacted swiftly—’
‘Reacted?’
‘You sent a man to Yorkshire to deal with Schulman.’
Gunther was silent for a moment. Again he glanced at Dance and the security agent shook his head. Grimly, Gunther asked Crow to go on.
‘Schulman was careless. He was contacted by your man and a meeting-place arranged. Schulman wanted somewhere open and quiet, and an old tramp suggested such a place when he asked him for a lonely spot. Schulman told Rutland, probably over the phone, that he had spoken to this tramp. It was the last time Rutland spoke to Schulman.’
‘And what exactly happened?’ Gunther asked in a quiet voice.
‘Your man stole a car from Leeds, drove to meet Schulman, killed him, put him in the stolen car and pushed the car into Lockyer’s Tarn.’
‘Very dramatic.’
Crow ignored Gunther’s ironic tone.
‘Rutland came back, not knowing what had happened to Schulman and needing him to prove his story about you. There was only one lead he had — the tramp, who had casually mentioned a place to Schulman. There was some difficulty in tracing the tramp, but Rutland found him, learned about the tarn. And the blackmail was on again — for murder. And this time a recent murder, not one thirty years old.’
Gunther did not like the last remark. His eyes were ice-cold, his mouth a thin, angry line. Perhaps he believed the argument Dance had mentioned, that a man could live down his past. In Crow’s book Wilhelm Grunfeld could never live down such a past, for he was still living it, under a different guise, for a different overlord. The motivations remained the same — self-interest.
‘This story is preposterous.’
‘No. Most of it can be proved. When you realized Rutland was going to continue with his threats, you agreed, probably through an intermediary, to meet him. Rutland was excited by the prospect: he saw himself in money. Blood money. He visited a woman that night — she testifies to his strange, excited mood. He left her. returned to the bungalow, waited for the messenger. But someone else got there first — the common-law husband of the woman Rutland had been sleeping with. This man beat Rutland badly, left him unconscious. It was easy for your man, Gunther, easy for him to step through the open doorway, pick up a poker and finish the job. And the threats were over Schulman was dead, Rutland was dead, your secret was safe.’
‘But it wasn’t, was it?’ Gunther said. An angry gleam lit his eyes and his mouth twisted viciously. ‘How can you say it was safe when you are here now?’
‘I—’
‘Dance, you should be able to save me from fools such as this man!’ Gunther said, ignoring Crow.
Dance stared at him, then lifted one shoulder.
‘I had to be sure. And you have made no answer to the charges Chief Inspector Crow makes.’
Gunther stared at him in open disbelief. He snorted, almost laughed, but his anger was too strong to permit of amusement.
‘You don’t think he can prove my involvement? Damn him, he has a few facts, and a fertile imagination supplies the rest. You can’t honestly believe I would ever place myself in the situation—’
‘I have no doubt you will wish to deny—’ Crow began.
Gunther turned on him swiftly, like a spitting cat.
‘Deny what? This rubbish you raise? I need to deny nothing. The theory is full of holes. In the first place Erich Schulman was a minor employee of mine. No information could have come into his possession which this man Rutland could have used. He knew nothing. Secondly, if ever this situation had arisen I would not have acted — I would have asked others to intervene.’
Both Crow and Dance knew who he meant, and Dance stirred in his chair. It was the answer he had hoped to hear: Gunther, faced with the problem, would have relied on his department. He looked at Crow enquiringly. Crow was not convinced, Gunther had so much to lose, and yet logic suggested that Gunther would not have needed to act on his own.
‘Schulman—’
‘Schulman, Schulman,’ Gunther snapped testily, ‘who is this man Schulman? You are pathetic in your attempts, Inspector. You follow a series of non sequiturs. Rutland seeks an interview with me, Schulman meets him, Schulman dies, Rutland dies, Schulman was employed by me . . . so you think I killed them both? Why? I tell you they never approached me with threats. And who were they? A minor journalist attached to a spiteful, muck-raking rag, and a petty clerk under the shadow of death — they were both better away from society. Neither deserved to live. Why bother yourself about them?’
It was an argument familiar to Crow; he had heard it during the Second World War. Gunther, for all his protests and recent activities, was still Wilhelm Grunfeld. Dance knew it too, but his face remained impassive at Gunther’s outburst. Crow bit back a retort, nevertheless, for there was something else . . .
‘You said Schulman was under the shadow of death?’
‘An expression,’ Gunther said disgustedly, waving a hand and standing up, the file tucked under his arm.
‘But what did you mean by it?’ Crow insisted. Gunther’s eyes narrowed, and the hint of a smile, bitter and vicious, touched his lips. He took the file in his left hand, tapped it against his right.
‘You mean you have not researched into Erich Schulman the way you have researched into Conrad Gunther?’
Crow remained silent and the smile on Gunther’s face broadened, became even more unpleasant.
‘You lack the thoroughness of my race, Inspector Crow. This name Schulman registered under in Yorkshire . . . Romanoff? He, or perhaps Rutland, had a macabre sense of humour. The reason is here on my file. Is it not on yours?’
Contemptuously, he tossed the file towards John Crow.
‘Did you not know Erich Schulman was a sick man?’
* * *
It took Crow almost two days to get clear of London. First of all he spent several hours with Dance and two civil servants who emphasized the necessity for all rumours and whispers about Gunther to be killed. Painstakingly they went over the names of all personnel at Leeds and York who had been connected with the investigation into Rutland’s death and examined the extent to which they might have become apprised of the connection between Gunther and Grunfeld. There were at least six people, and telephone orders were given for them to be checked by Dance’s department. Crow was given the distinct impression that his activities had seriously jeopardized proceedings of moment, and that a mere murder investigation should not have been allowed to interfere with business of the kind Gunther was indulging in.
Doggedly, Crow stuck to his guns. He received no reward for his persistence in the matter. Commander Gray reported, not without some satisfaction, that there was bound to be trouble about it, and thought that Gunther would probably call off the conference in London and return to Germany.
Crow’s own investigations further held him in London. He used Scotland Yard to make enquiries into the details he found in Gunther’s file on Erich Schulman, but in the end he discovered he was still lacking vital corroborative evidence.
Then he remembered the Chief Constable, and he returned to Yorkshire.
* * *
‘I don’t like it,’ the Chief Constable grumbled. ‘I don’t see why it had to be here. I don’t like getting involved on a personal basis — far better to get him down to the station, or see him at his home and question him there.’
‘I don’t want it so official,’ Crow replied. ‘Not until I’m sure. This way is better.’
‘That may be so but this is my club and I don’t like . . .’ The Chief Constable’s voice died away in a grumbling. Crow knew that one of the reasons he was upset was that he had not been told very much about why Crow wanted to meet Harry Field here at the club, or what lay behind the investigation. There would be time enough to tell him later, if Crow learned what he hoped to learn.
They sat in the lounge of the club, a short flight of stairs above the main entrance hall, and with a view of the magnificent marble staircase that the wool merchants of Bradford had built out of their nineteenth-century profits in an attempt to match the Victorian elegance of the London clubs they had seen during their business visits south. Crow thought they would have been better employed creating something for themselves rather than aping the faded idiom of a dead era, but this was obviously what they wanted.
‘Here he is now,’ the Chief Constable said, and heaved himself out of his chair with a grunt to extend a welcoming hand towards Harry Field. The man came up the steps into the lounge, smiling; he was tall, about fifty years old, with a shock of white hair, and grey eyes that seemed faded, looking out as they did from a face tanned with sun other than that enjoyed on the Yorkshire moors. His handgrip was firm, and though he blinked when he took in the details of Crow’s appearance, he did not allow his glance to linger.
‘Are you gentlemen drinking?’
‘We waited for you,’ the Chief Constable said, and Field raised a hand to the waiter standing near the door. He ordered three whiskies, settled back in his chair and smiled around.
‘Not often I get the chance to meet two bigwigs from the police force. Mind, in the wool business we don’t get much truck with the law — there’s a bit of rustling on the moors but nothing serious. Nothing to involve Scotland Yard, anyway. You’re investigating the Rutland murder, aren’t you, Inspector? And I hear they dredged someone out of Lockyer’s Tarn, too.’
‘That’s right.’ Crow nodded, paused and said, ‘At the moment we’re trying to check out all the details . . . you’ll have heard, perhaps, that the body in the tarn was found in a car.’
Field pulled a face.
‘So I heard. Aileen Selby’s car too, by damn. Hell of a shock for her, I expect. Not the sort of thing you want to be involved in when you’re making preparations for your daughter’s wedding. She’s out there in Crete now — did you tell her about the Volvo before she went?’
‘Yes. She knows all about it.’
‘Ah, well,’ Field said cheerfully, ‘I’m sure she won’t allow it to interfere with her plans for Ingrid. Aileen Selby is a very able, very determined woman.’
‘You know her quite well,’ Crow said quietly.
Field looked at him, glanced towards the Chief Constable and then laughed outright.
‘All right, you know about it, I expect. It wagged a few tongues at the time — Harry Field, crusty bachelor, prepared to forgo his trips to Austria and après-ski and all that sort of stuff, to take the marital vows — and at his age too. Yes, I know, it was the talk of the Exchange but I didn’t give a damn. And I don’t mind saying I’d marry her now — if she’d have me.’ He broke off as the waiter approached and handed the drinks to the three men. When he had gone, Field grinned. ‘But the thing is, she won’t, will she?’
He did not seem disturbed by the fact of his rejection. Crow suspected that he might even have been a little relieved: prepared to marry Mrs Selby he might have been, but it may well have also raised doubts in his mind about the loss of his bachelorhood.
‘You’ve known her a long time, haven’t you?’ Crow asked.
‘Longer than I care to mention,’ Field said, and sipped his whisky. ‘I first met her when we were both little more than kids — she’d just moved to Sydney, I recall, and was living in the next block. Went to school with her — she was called Aileen Fellowes then. Scrawny kid, but she really blossomed later. But I left Sydney at the end of the war and came across here. Biggest surprise of my life when she turned up here in Bradford one day — a widow! And she’d been married to Selby and living nearby and I never knew! It’s a small world, I said, and gave her a hug.’
He shook his head ruefully.
‘And now her daughter’s marrying Chris Santer. Time goes, don’t it? Ingrid, she looks very much like her mother did, all those years ago. Makes you think . . .’
