The 12.30 from Croydon (21 page)

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Charles returned. ‘What I want, then, is a loan until probate is granted, or rather, until I actually receive the inheritance. You probably know better than I how long that would take. I imagine three months, but I’m not sure. I may say that there are no legal complications in the matter.’

‘Quite so, Mr Swinburn. Three or four months should meet the case. And the amount?’

‘Five thousand.’

Mr Spiller bowed again. ‘That should be easily managed,’ he repeated. ‘When did you want the accommodation?’

‘Now,’ Charles returned. ‘At least, if possible tomorrow morning. Would that give you time to make any further inquiries you may desire?’

Mr Spiller made a gesture as if sweeping the idea of inquiries from the discussion. ‘No further inquiries are needed for a loan to Mr Charles Swinburn,’ he said grandly, ‘but, sir,’ he smiled deprecatingly, ‘we require to be assured that you are Mr Swinburn. You will excuse the obvious precaution?’

‘Of course,’ Charles agreed. ‘I’m glad it’s only that. Let’s see. I would suggest the manager of the London branch of my bank, whom I know fairly well, but the bank is closed now. What about the manager of my hotel, or the officials at my club?’

‘Either would be satisfactory. Perhaps, however, I might make a suggestion. You want the money tomorrow morning?’

‘I should like it, but it’s not essential.’

‘There will be no difficulty whatever. Suppose tomorrow we go along to your bank, you and I, see your manager, obtain the formal identification, and I then and there write you the cheque and you can cash it in the bank?’

Charles hesitated. ‘I don’t like that idea, Mr Spiller,’ he said presently. ‘You may put it down to false pride if you like, but I’m not particularly anxious to blaze it abroad that I’m negotiating a loan. No, come and see my bank manager by all means, but let it be in connexion with an insurance or something of that kind. Then let us return here and you give me the money in cash. It doesn’t seem very polite, but I’d rather not have my dealings with your firm passing through my own bank.’

Mr Spiller appreciated the point and would be delighted to oblige. Many of his clients felt as Mr Swinburn did, and there was nothing in it to call for apology. What time would be convenient in the morning?

The appointment made, Charles drove to Messrs Jamieson & Truelove. About those pictures which he had deposited some days previously. No doubt Mr Truelove had heard that he, Charles, had come into some money since they had done their business? No? Well, it was so, and the result was that he wished now to redeem the pictures. Could they be packed for conveyance in his car and he would call for them on the following morning?

The remainder of Charles’s visit worked out according to plan. He drove from Messrs Jamieson & Truelove’s to his hotel, attended his dinner, where he made the speech of the evening, and next morning carried through his two pieces of business. After a satisfactory interview with his bank manager, to whom Mr Spiller was introduced as a manufacturer of electromotors with whom Charles wished to do business, Charles received notes for five thousand pounds, a four months’ loan at four per cent per month interest. Then he went on to the pawnbrokers, paid up his money and received his pictures. Finally he made another quick run north, arriving at a reasonable time at Cold Pickerby.

About this time Mrs Pollifex and Margot left The Moat. A small house at Hove which they had admired during a previous visit was still vacant, and they secured a lease on favourable terms. As soon as they were gone Peter and Elsie moved into The Moat. By a stroke of extraordinary luck Peter had received an offer for Otterton Farm, provided immediate possession could be given. Though the actual amount was small, he had jumped at it, and the sale had been put through.

Somewhat to Charles’s surprise, Elsie got rid of the two women servants she had had at the farm and took over Andrew’s staff. This consisted of Weatherup, who would now act as butler, and two women servants, a housemaid and a cook.

For Charles life looked like settling down and becoming once more normal. It was true that at intervals he was seized with dreadful fits of remorse, during which he would have given everything he possessed to undo the past. But these he was sure he could overcome, and that he would soon succeed in banishing all thoughts of his late uncle and of the dark period surrounding his death. Una was undoubtedly growing more friendly, and if she did not seem to be getting nearer the idea of matrimony, at least nothing occurred to upset Charles’s happy anticipations.

At the works the new machines had arrived and Macpherson and Charles were having the time of their lives in getting them erected on their new foundations. They had missed the Darlington job, but had got two or three more small ones, and so far no dismissals had taken place.

Charles fell back into his old routine of lunching at the club and settling the affairs of town, state, and world with his acquaintances. Everything, in fact, became as it had been before the crisis, except that now Charles had an easy mind about money. He was losing on the business, but not a great deal, and he could stand the loss almost indefinitely.

And then, just as things seemed to be settling down, he received some information which rudely shattered his dream of security and brought him for a time up against actual stark panic.

It was mid-October. All day the atmosphere had been heavy and the sky lowering and everyone was expecting a storm. It came while Charles was walking back to the works after lunch. The street, which had been fairly crowded, cleared as if by magic, and Charles, following the general example, turned into a shop. It was Mullins’, the booksellers, and there he found Peter.

‘Hallo, Peter,’ Charles greeted him. ‘Doing a bunk from the rain?’

Peter’s face was drawn into that same expression of worry which it had worn during the period following Andrew Crowther’s death. Charles was the more surprised, because latterly this had given way to Peter’s usual look of slightly resigned melancholy. Evidently something pretty serious was weighing on his cousin’s mind.

‘As a matter of fact, I came in for some books,’ said Peter, taking Charles’s remark seriously.

‘Didn’t think you were a reading man,’ Charles rallied him.

‘A man must read something,’ Peter returned, adding inconsequently, ‘They’re books about market gardening.’

‘Oh!’ Charles shook his head. ‘You’re looking worried, Peter. The garden not going well?’

Peter glowered at him. ‘Of course it’s going well. I wish to heaven you’d control your imagination, Charles. Things are bad enough without your constant sneering.’

Charles was surprised. He went closer and spoke more confidentially. ‘Look here, Peter, there’s something up. What is it?’

Peter looked round. They were alone in a corner of the shop. ‘Don’t you know?’ he asked in a low tone. ‘No? Well, we can’t talk here. I’ll go to your office when this infernal rain’s over.’

Charles, mystified, nodded, and Peter moved to the back of the shop to complete his purchase.

The storm had been sharp, but it was short. By the time Peter had finished, the worst was over, and in a couple of minutes the cousins walked on. Till they reached the works Charles asked no further questions, but as soon as Peter was smoking in the leather-covered arm-chair, he said: ‘Now, go ahead!’

‘Do you mean to say you’ve heard no whisper of anything, Charles?’ Peter began.

Charles made a gesture of impatience. ‘Nothing to put a face on me like that,’ he retorted. ‘What’s it all about, for heaven’s sake?’

Peter glanced round at the door, then leant forward and sunk his voice. ‘The inquiry about Mr Crowther is reopened!’

Charles’s heart missed a beat. For a moment he felt almost sick. This was utterly unexpected, and as terrifying as it was unexpected. It surely couldn’t mean that the authorities suspected – anything? And yet it must! Besides, there was Peter’s manner. Why should Peter speak to him in that way about it? Peter couldn’t suspect?… No, impossible. It couldn’t be that.

Charles hastily employed a trick he had learned at school: he sneezed. Then he blew his nose, slowly and carefully. It gave him two or three seconds. By that time he had pulled himself together.

‘Good Lord, Peter!’ he said, and he flattered himself that his manner was no more abnormal than the situation demanded. ‘How do you mean, the inquiry? Has the coroner started another stunt?’

‘No. It’s worse than that. It’s the police. And it’s worse than that, Charles.’ Again Peter sunk his voice. ‘They’ve got a man in from Scotland Yard.’

Then it was that for the first time for weeks absolute sheer panic gripped Charles. He could not indeed speak, in spite of all his efforts. Motionless and sweating, he sat looking at Peter.

But Peter was not looking at Charles. He was gazing vacantly down on the desk with an expression of extreme anxiety. Charles once again pulled himself together. Slowly he got to his feet and began to pace the room.

‘That’s astounding news, Peter,’ he said as soon as he could trust himself to speak. ‘Scotland Yard! How do you know?’

‘How do I know? Because the man’s been with me. Very nice and very polite and all that, and asking questions world without end.’

‘Good Lord!’ Charles exclaimed again. ‘Tell me.’

Peter shrugged. ‘That about covers it,’ he declared. ‘He came to The Moat last night, the Scotland Yard man, he and a sergeant. It was after dinner and he sent in an ordinary visiting card – “Mr Joseph French”. I asked Weatherup what he was like and Weatherup said he didn’t know; he thought they were business men of some kind. I went into the study, and then the first one gave me another card – “Detective-Inspector French, Scotland Yard”. I was surprised, as you can imagine; but I was more surprised when what he wanted came out. “I’ve been sent down, sir,” he said, “to make certain inquiries in connexion with the death of the late Mr Andrew Crowther.”’

‘“His suicide?” I said.

‘“Well, sir,” he answered, “that’s just the point. A question has arisen as to whether it really was or was not suicide, and that’s what I’ve been instructed to inquire into.”’

‘Good Lord!’ said Charles for the third time. He was rapidly recovering his normal frame of mind. This was a terribly regrettable affair, this inquiry. It would lead to worry and annoyance and anxiety. But that would be all. As he thought over the precautions he had taken, he
knew
that he was safe. But he must keep his head. Only his own self could give him away.

‘Then he began to ask questions till I scarcely knew whether I was standing on my head or my heels. All about my circumstances, all about the meals I had had with the old man shortly before he died. Every question under heaven you could think of, and a lot more besides. I’m sure he was there the best part of two hours.’

‘And what then?’

‘What then? Isn’t that enough?’

‘Well, I admit it’s a nuisance and all that, but what harm can it do? We have only to answer what he asks, and that’s the end of it.’

Peter shook his head gloomily. ‘Is it, Charles? I hope you’re right.’

Once again Charles was filled with panic. It couldn’t be that this inspector had indicated that he, Charles, was suspected? He must at all costs find this out.

‘How do you mean, is it?’ he asked with some appearance of exasperation. ‘What I say is so, isn’t it? Have you any reason to doubt it?’

Peter looked more worried than ever. He jerked about on his chair, glanced again at the door, and gave every indication of uneasiness. As Charles watched him his panic came on again in great waves. He
was
suspected, and Peter couldn’t find words to tell him! In spite of himself, Charles’s voice had an edge as he went on uncontrollably: ‘For heaven’s sake, man, get on and say what you have to say. What is it?’

Peter seemed slightly surprised at this outburst. ‘You’re feeling it too?’ he queried, then went on in a burst of confidence: ‘I’ll tell you, Charles, what I’ve never told to mortal, and what’s troubling me now. That evening I dined there; you know, the night before he died?’

‘Yes, of course; go on.’ Charles was sweating with a sudden relief. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him.

‘You remember the question of the pills?’ went on Peter. ‘Weatherup said at the inquest he had taken one after lunch. And so he had. I saw him take it myself. I leant forward to speak to him and saw him take it.’

‘His indigestion pills?’ said Charles with renewed misgivings. ‘What about them?’

‘It didn’t seem to occur to anyone that the poison might have been in a pill.’

Charles snorted. ‘How could it? Those pills are sold by the hundred thousand. Besides, they were analysed and they were all right.’

‘The rest were analysed, but not the one he took.’

Charles’s anxiety was welling up again. What was Peter after?

‘For heaven’s sake, Peter,’ he burst out, ‘let’s have it and be done with it. What are you getting at?’

Peter moved uneasily. ‘Well, don’t you see? Suppose someone had wanted to murder the old man. All one had to do was to put a poisoned pill in the bottle.’

‘Rot! How could he get the bottle? Or the pill, for that matter?’

‘I think it might have been done.’

‘Was that what the inspector suggested?’

‘No, of course he didn’t. What do you take him for? But he might have thought it.’

‘Hell!’ Charles cried testily. ‘
Might
have thought it! He
might
have thought the old man was bitten by a rattlesnake. I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, Peter.’

Again Peter hesitated. He seemed most unwilling to go on. Then at last he took the plunge. ‘Something very unfortunate happened that night,’ he explained. ‘A matter of absolutely no importance in itself, but now, since the old man’s death, no one knows how important it mayn’t become. I’ll tell you.’

Again he glanced at the door and still further lowered his voice. ‘After dinner, when the old man, Crosby and myself were sitting over our wine, Crosby went out to the hall to get some papers from his coat-pocket. He was out of the room for two or three minutes. The old man seized the opportunity to take his pill. It happened that absent-mindedly I picked up the bottle of pills to read the label. You know how one does those sort of things, without any real object. I didn’t want to know what they were, but I did it the way one sketches on one’s blotting-paper. You know?’