As if by Magic (12 page)

‘I'll use the strong arm of the Law,' said Rackham with a grin. ‘An official warrant card works wonders.'

Jack poured out two glasses of whisky, gave one to Rackham and put the tobacco jar on the table between them. ‘So what did you find out about Culverton?' he asked, sitting down in an armchair. ‘Could his valet suggest where he might have gone in his carefully de-labelled clothes?'

Rackham sighed in irritation. ‘That valet could give two short planks a run for their money. You know you said he might be a bit dim? Absolutely, he was. I asked him why Culverton had taken the tabs off his evening clothes and he told me he'd never thought to enquire. He knew about them, right enough. He'd call at the office, collect the used linen and valet the suits, but he never wondered why the tabs had been removed. He showed me Culverton's dressing room at the Mulciber. It was as lavishly furnished as the one at the office but the evening wear in the wardrobe had all its tabs intact.'

Jack nodded. ‘That bears out my theory in a way. He changed at the Mulciber when he was going to a respectable function. Could Gilchrist Lloyd shed any light on the mystery?'

‘No. He knew Culverton frequently changed at the office but he didn't know anything about his evening clothes. I'll tell you something, though. He wasn't remotely surprised that Culverton could have had a private life, as I delicately put it.'

‘I wonder if that's an angle you could try? If Culverton was a bit of a philanderer then he might have caused some trouble with the female servants or office staff.'

‘Mr Lloyd didn't say anything,' said Rackham doubtfully. ‘I think you might be right about a dodgy club. Culverton was a well-known man and his picture got into the papers often enough to worry him if he was trying to keep his identity a secret.' He frowned. ‘Mrs Culverton knows something, I'm sure of it. She was very much on her guard.'

‘Do you really think she might be guilty? I know you floated the possibility earlier.'

‘And you didn't like it one bit.' Rackham smiled. ‘Well, relax, Jack. She didn't do it. On Wednesday the 31st, the day she left Culverton, she went to see Anne Lassiter. Both old Mr Lassiter and Mrs Lassiter bear that out. Mrs Culverton stayed at Eden Street for a while, then she and Mrs Lassiter went to her flat in Kensington. Anne Lassiter stayed with her until after midnight.'

‘So she's got an alibi, has she?' asked Jack, reaching for the tobacco jar.

‘Yes. What's more, old Mr Lassiter spoke to Anne after she got back. Apparently he's a bit of a night owl and, although he phrased this quite carefully, he was obviously agog to find out exactly what was going on between Mrs Culverton and her husband.' Jack stuck a match and lit his pipe, frowning over the smoke. ‘What's the matter? I thought you'd be pleased that Mrs Culverton's out of it.'

‘Well, I am,' agreed Jack. ‘It's just that I thought your reasoning was pretty good. You know, about it being a brutal crime an' all so therefore we wouldn't suspect a woman. By the way, how come Mrs Culverton and Anne Lassiter are such friends? I mean, there's no reason why they shouldn't be, but Mrs Culverton's a good deal older than Anne Lassiter.'

‘I wondered that, too,' said Rackham. ‘Apparently they nursed together in the war and always kept in touch. Mrs Culverton was very good to Anne after Thomas, her husband, died. Mrs Lassiter told me that she always thought of her as an older sister. Be that as it may, I'm sure Mrs Culverton knows something. What I find frustrating is that she won't even hint at why she left Culverton. She just states she did and that's that.'

‘Perhaps I'm right about his philandering tendencies. Wouldn't that be enough reason?'

Rackham frowned. ‘It
might.
I'm not sure that's the top and bottom of it, though. However,' he added with a shrug, ‘her alibi's borne out by Mrs Lassiter and I can't believe Mrs Lassiter would be involved in murder. She didn't strike me as the type.'

‘No,' said Jack with certainty. ‘Me neither.'

‘Nigel Lassiter, on the other hand, struck me as the sort who'd murder his own grandmother if she got in the way.'

‘You really didn't like him, did you?' said Jack with a grin.

‘He rubbed me up the wrong way, the arrogant devil. I don't think he'd have condescended to speak to me at all if it wasn't for Dr Maguire.'

‘Is that the same bloke who had dinner with Culverton the night he was killed? What was he doing there?'

‘He's a friend of Nigel's and informally engaged to Anne Lassiter.'

‘Is he, by Jove?'

‘That's right. I'm not sure about Maguire. He's a bit smooth. Having said that, he's a Harley Street psychiatrist, so I suppose he has to be fairly smooth. He was ready enough to answer my questions, though. Interestingly, he'd been Culverton's doctor when he was in general practice. He couldn't tell me a lot about Culverton but he kept Nigel on this side of politeness – just.'

‘I don't suppose Nigel is a possibility, is he?' Jack asked hopefully. ‘For bumping off Culverton, I mean.'

Rackham laughed. ‘Unfortunately, no. That's a big no. I don't suppose he gives tuppence about Culverton, as such, but it's given him a real headache as regards his aeroplane. Apart from that, he's got an alibi. He came home after the dinner at the Mulciber and talked to his father about something called stringers, whatever they are.'

‘They're part of the innards of a wing,' said Jack.

‘Well, he's got problems with them. Apparently that's what the dinner in the Mulciber was about. Culverton agreed to fund the extra work Nigel needed to put in on them. And that, even more than his alibi, is why he's such a big no. Nigel Lassiter's obsessed with his seaplane and was depending on Culverton's support to finance it. Maguire's one of Nigel's investors too, but very small beer compared to Culverton. He only has five thousand or so invested in it.'

‘
Only
five thousand?' Jack's eyebrows shot up. ‘Good God, Bill, when did you join the plutocracy? Five thousand isn't chicken feed, you know.'

Rackham grinned. ‘You haven't heard the rest of it yet. I confirmed how much Dr Maguire had at stake with old Mr Lassiter. He's a nice old boy, isn't he? I asked him about the costs of the seaplane as I wanted to know just how heavily Culverton was involved. Apparently he brassed up about eighty thousand.'

‘Eighty thousand?
No wonder Mr Lloyd wanted to talk to Mrs Culverton about the future of the firm. Culverton put in eighty thousand? That's unbelievable. I always thought air travel was too expensive.'

‘Mr Lassiter thought Culverton had used his wife's money. She was a very rich woman before she married. I don't know if she's very rich now. Apparently her father was one of the original investors in Wisemann and Levy's, the New York store. He never touched the income and it built up for years at compound interest. He was worth well over two hundred thousand.'

‘What?' Jack shook his head disbelievingly. ‘But she was a nurse. By golly, I wish she'd nursed me.'

‘She's too old for you,' said Rackham with a laugh.

‘I could age very convincingly,' muttered Jack.

‘Anyway,' continued Rackham, ‘Mr Lassiter told me all this to fill in the background. There's no two ways about it, Culverton's death has left Lassiter's in a real hole. You said you met David Lassiter?'

‘Yes. I liked him. I got the impression he's the one who really controls the firm.'

‘So did I. He bore out everything his father said. He thinks Culverton's death has more or less kicked the seaplane into touch. They're finding things difficult anyway and he can't see why Peggy Culverton should invest in the seaplane as no one's going to offer her a directorship in any state airline, whatever she does. He's a very worried man.'

‘Poor beggar.' Jack put down his pipe. ‘To get back to our own concerns for the moment, I don't suppose either Nigel Lassiter or Dr Maguire can suggest where Culverton went after they left him at the Mulciber?'

‘They haven't a clue, or so they say. The only thing which did strike me as not quite right was Dr Maguire's expression when I asked him what he did for the rest of the evening. He said he went on to the Continental. That's a restaurant off Northumberland Avenue with a well-frequented bar and dancing and so on. Now, there's nothing wrong with the Continental, as far as I know, but he looked me straight in the eye as he said it. It made me wonder if he really did go there. He didn't like the question, I could tell. It's something and nothing but you never know. If he's not telling the truth, it might just lead us to this club of Culverton's.'

‘That'd be a handy short-cut. I bet you're right about his expression, Bill. That sort of impression is difficult to put into words but fairly unmistakable. What time did they leave?'

‘About nine. I checked that at the Mulciber and it's right. The porter remembered it as he had a cable for Mr Culverton.'

‘A cable?' asked Jack with sharpened interest.

‘Yes. Culverton came into the lobby with Maguire and Nigel Lassiter just as the porter was about to send one of the staff to look for him. Culverton said goodbye to the two men, and the porter, who hadn't wanted to interrupt, gave him the cable after they'd gone. I'll get a copy of it, but I think it must have been from Paris. Culverton read it and obviously wasn't very pleased. He wrote a note to Lloyd, as we know. Lloyd showed me the note. Culverton ordered the porter to post it in the Late Fee box so it would arrive next morning. Then he went back into the club and had a drink at the bar. He left the Mulciber about quarter to ten or thereabouts. He didn't have a taxi so the porter couldn't tell me where he was going.'

Jack frowned. ‘You say the cable arrived at the Mulciber? But . . .' He broke off and drank his whisky perplexedly. ‘That doesn't make sense. Culverton wrote
Paris
in his appointment diary, didn't he? But he wrote it in the space for Wednesday, not Thursday, when he should have flown out.'

‘Maybe he got the wrong day,' said Rackham, puzzled by his friend's intensity. ‘It's an easy enough mistake.'

‘So when did he write it? We assumed he knew he was going to Paris before he left the office but he didn't.'

Rackham stared. ‘That's a thought,' he said slowly. ‘Maybe he had to go back to the office to pick up some papers.'

Jack got up and stood beside the mantelpiece. ‘So why post the letter to Lloyd?'

‘He could have only worked out he needed the papers or whatever after he'd sent the letter.'

‘That's true,' agreed Jack. ‘Damn! That might be it. Could you ask Lloyd if there's any way of telling if Culverton came back to the office that night? Any papers which should be there that aren't?'

‘I'll ask him, certainly,' agreed Rackham, ‘but what's the point? If he added
Paris
to his diary he must have gone back to the office.' He stared sightlessly into the fireplace. ‘This is a beggar of a case, Jack. Culverton left the Mulciber about quarter to ten and was killed before midnight. If he went back to the office there's not much time for him to have gone anywhere else. It's odd, isn't it?'

‘It's damned odd,' agreed Jack. ‘I wonder where the dickens he got to?'

The next morning Jack and George went to Scotland Yard where, armed with his birth certificate, George made an official complaint about his missing legacy. That was followed by a visit to Butler and Furness, the gentlemen's outfitters. Next on the agenda was lunch at Eden Street. It made a pleasant change, thought Jack, as he rang the bell at number 19, to see his friend in clothes that actually fitted. He was about to say as much when he noticed how apprehensive George seemed. ‘What's the matter?' he asked.

George adjusted the lapels of his new jacket. ‘Nothing, really,' he said with a sigh. ‘It's just that coming here still feels odd, and it's even odder to think this is my family's house. I'm looking forward to meeting my Uncle Nigel, though. Everyone seemed a bit iffy about him yesterday but if he's anything like my grandfather and Uncle David, he should be all right.'

Jack, too, was looking forward to meeting Uncle Nigel, but, with Bill Rackham's comments firmly in mind, he lacked George's optimism.

Corby, the butler, opened the door and, ushering them into the hall, took their hats and coats.

‘I'm afraid we're a bit early,' said George, glancing at the clock.

‘It doesn't matter, sir. Mr Lassiter gave instructions you were to be shown into the library. He's going over some papers with Mr Nigel and Mr David.'

As Corby led the way along the hall they heard the muffled sound of raised voices which grew louder as they approached the library. Jack swapped glances with Lassiter. There was obviously a heated argument going on. Corby hesitated with his hand on the handle, then opened the door, stepped into the room and coughed. ‘Mr Lassiter and Major Haldean, sir.'

Everyone was abruptly silent but the room was crackling with tension. Jack recognized David Lassiter from the previous evening, a tall, grey-haired man with kindly, worried eyes. He looked up as they entered and nodded a greeting. He was standing with his arms braced on a table strewn with papers. Across the table from him stood George's grandfather and another man, who was, presumably, Nigel Lassiter. Nigel Lassiter's body was rigid, his arms were folded and his face flushed.

Jack saw old Mr Lassiter's rather harried expression lighten in relief. ‘George! And Major Haldean. It's a pleasure to see you both. As you're going to be part of the firm, George, I said you might as well be shown in here but I think we're about finished.' He turned to David and Nigel. ‘That's right, isn't it?' There was a definite command in the question.