Crossword Mystery (24 page)

“Never heard of them till this came along.”

“You aren't prepared to go on without knowing who it is you're dealing with, are you?”

“I know it's someone capable of drawing up a scheme like this, and that's good enough for me. I don't care who it is – he's the man I want. First-class brains like his aren't so common as all that. Besides, there's an option they've got. Only a little while ago I had written the Suffby Cove idea off as a complete wash-out – dead as a bottle of whisky after a Scots ship's engineer has had a go at it. Then I got an offer to take an option, on the right to come in as a fifty-fifty partner, providing pound for pound on the capital already spent. It seemed like found money. I had no idea then that Winterton was changing his attitude.”

“Was he?” Mitchell asked sharply. “Have you any proof of that?”

“There's a note by him, that came with the Memo. It expresses willingness to negotiate, and names a figure – rather a high figure, but we should have been willing to pay if we had had to. Now, of course, that the poor fellow's gone, we shall have to start negotiating again, but I don't anticipate any difficulty – both Mrs. Archibald Winterton, the other brother's widow, you know, and the bank, who are joint executors, are quite ready to be reasonable.

“May I see the note you speak of?” Mitchell asked.

Shorton found it, and Mitchell took it to the light, and studied it with care. It consisted only of a few typewritten lines, not addressed to any one person by name, but expressing a general willingness to consider any offer made. The signature was written, and over it Mitchell pored so long that Shorton grew impatient.

“It's of no value now,” he pointed out. “Now the poor fellow's gone.”

“Have you any objection to my keeping it for a time?”

“The letter? Why? What for?”

“For examination,” Mitchell answered placidly. “The signature looks stiff to me – almost as if it had been traced. I should like expert opinion on it.”

“You mean it's forged?” Shorton cried. “But that's absurd; quite absurd. What would be the good? It's only an expression of willingness to consider offers, nothing binding about it. What would be the good of forging a thing like that?”

“First-class brains might see some good,” Mitchell retorted. “And I quite agree with you there are first-class brains in this affair somewhere – the question is, Where? How was the money for the option paid?”

“By solicitor's cheque.”

“Has it occurred to you that Mr. George Winterton's death has occurred somewhat opportunely for the success of this scheme of yours?”

“Why, no. Certainly not,” Shorton answered quickly; though for the first time looking a little disturbed. “There's his letter, for one thing, and, besides, he couldn't have reasonably held out against renewed offers. My difficulty before was raising capital, and I admit my scheme wasn't a patch on this. With such a magnificent idea to work on, and a promise of fresh capital, I didn't value Winterton's opposition a row of beans. If he had really turned stupid – and that's quite inconceivable – then we would have gone on without him, till he got tired of holding us up.”

“Yet I believe you had a somewhat violent interview with him on your last visit to Suffby Cove?”

“Oh, yes. I told him just what I thought of him. He had done the dirty, he and his brother; double-crossed me, Archibald did. But I saw no chance of raising fresh capital then – now, of course, it's there.” He made a gesture with his hand towards the papers on the table. “Before that I did feel pretty sick. I thought I had lost my time and money, too, just because the Wintertons were playing the dog in the manger – didn't want to exploit the possibilities of the place themselves, and didn't want anyone else to.”

“But now they're both dead...?” Mitchell mused.

“I don't deny I'm not sorry Archibald is out of the way,” Shorten admitted. “He might have turned obstinate. For him to go and get himself drowned seems almost – well, providential,” said Shorten reverently. “But, as I've just told you, George Winterton, poor fellow, was coming round, as that letter of his shows. He was never so set against it as his brother was, and, anyhow, with the fresh capital promised, we could have gone ahead all right. He would have come in sooner or later – sooner rather than later, too.”

“Then you don't admit that Mr. George Winterton's death helps your plans in any way?”

“Certainly not. Complicates matters a bit, that's all. But not in any way serious.”

“Except,” suggested Mitchell drily, “for Mr. Winterton himself.”

He went on to ask a series of further questions, some of them quite unimportant, but others leading up to the admission that, on the night of the murder, Shorton had been alone in the flat he and his wife occupied – his wife being away on a visit, and the daily maid they employed having left at five, as usual. He had spent the whole evening alone, busy with some work he had brought from the office, and had made his dinner off some sandwiches and some fruit he had brought in with him. The upshot was that no independent evidence existed to prove he had spent the night at the flat at all, though, also, there was nothing to show that he had not. He was beginning to grow perturbed – though not seriously so to all appearance – under so much questioning, but quite willingly signed the statement Bobby prepared. And, in answer to a casual question, he admitted that he was an excellent swimmer, referring with pride to his attempt on the Channel.

“Archibald Winterton was a good swimmer, too, I'm told,” Mitchell remarked. “It seems curious he should get drowned on such a fine morning.”

“Very curious,” Shorton admitted. “I could hardly believe it. I had been for a swim myself early that morning. I was staying at a little place just along the coast there at the time, trying to see if I could find another site to carry on with, as I had been double – crossed over the Suffby Cove plan. And I can't say I was altogether knocked up with grief and sorrow when I heard what had happened. As for the other poor fellow, that was different altogether.”

“Quite so,” murmured Mitchell, but, when he and Bobby were outside, he said musingly: “But I wonder if it was so different, after all? Just at present it seems as if the Winterton brothers have a way of dying just a little too conveniently for Mr. Shorton's business interests.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby dutifully. “And yet I think he is right in saying George Winterton would hardly have held out for long against a really good offer; and Shorton told us himself, at once, he had been in the vicinity when Archibald was drowned. He would hardly have said that if he had had anything to do with it.”

“He might have reckoned we were bound to find out,” Mitchell pointed out.

“It leaves so much unaccounted for – the motor-launch, and the attack on Jennings; the lost crossword; the telegram; the swilled summer-house floor,” Bobby urged.

“Oh, we haven't got the whole story yet by any means,” Mitchell agreed. “One thing that is certain, though, is that Shorton is right when he says there are first-class brains in the business somewhere. And I think it's just possible they belong to Mr. Shorton himself. But that's only a guess as yet, but one we can't neglect any more than we can your theories. Perhaps Messrs. Dreg & Sons will be able to tell us something more.”

But Messrs. Dreg & Sons had no information to give. They recognised, of course, that it was their duty, as themselves, in some sort, officers of the law, to give every assistance in their power, but none the less the fact remained that they had no knowledge of the identity of the person by whom they had been instructed in the matter of the proposed “Suffby Cove Sea Sports Development Co. Ltd.,” to give the project the full title provisionally bestowed upon it.

Nor would they admit that it was in any way irregular or unusual to act for a client of whose identity they were unaware. They pointed out that in many business transactions secrecy was essential. Very often a premature disclosure of a plan might mean its complete wreckage; and once it became known that such or such a person was interested, to guess the end in view became, in many cases, comparatively easy.

“Suppose, for example,” Mr. Dreg explained tolerantly, “that a firm of national, or even international, repute – well, for example, like the house of Rothschild – is backing some new enterprise, and that fact gets known. Half the City's on the track at once. Every speculator wants to take a hand. If it's a question of securing control of some company, everyone rushes to buy shares till the price is forced to a point where all chance of profit vanishes, or it grows so difficult to buy, and there is so much delay, that the whole thing is held up, and a promising scheme ruined. Or it may be a question of negotiating for the purchases of some property or some new patent. Let it be known that any firm of standing is interested, and speculators are after it immediately, hoping to make the firm interested pay through the nose. I've seen deals that promised big things ruined like that, and I daresay every City man would tell you the same.”

Messrs. Dreg also made it perfectly, though tactfully, clear that they did not believe for one moment that these inquiries Mitchell was making had any real or substantial connection with the unfortunate murder at Suffby Cove, of which they had read, they vaguely remembered, various confused and uninteresting details in the paper. They quite understood, they intimated politely, that the authorities were merely making use of the coincidence of a crime having been committed in that neighbourhood to camouflage their interest in the “Suffby Cove Sea Sports Development Co. Ltd.”

“A project, which in our considered opinion,” declared Mr. Dreg, with great emphasis, “is not only entirely legal, but one deserving the support of every patriotic and right-thinking citizen. In our view the Government would do wisely in giving it a certain amount of public recognition, by allowing, perhaps, a Minister of Cabinet rank to lay the foundation-stone of the proposed hotel, or something of that sort. It would be much appreciated, and would do much to help our efforts to stop the notorious scandal of the constant stream of British money that pours into Continental resorts and into the Irish sweepstakes. Surely British money should be kept at home. Surely we are all agreed there. Then look, too, how much will be done to relieve unemployment.”

“Patriotic, and philanthropic, and profitable, too,” murmured Mitchell. “That is your view?”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Dreg, much pleased. “It could not be better expressed.”

Mitchell made another effort to get hold of any detail that would in any way suggest the identity of Messrs. Dreg's client, but once more entirely failed. It seemed they really knew nothing. They could not even give the exact date of the first telephone message received, where it had come from, or, indeed, anything at all about it. It had apparently not been taken very seriously at first. In its first form it had merely been a request to know if Messrs. Dreg would be prepared to act in a certain matter for a Mr. John Smith, who had reasons for not wishing to appear in it personally. A cautious, non-committal reply had been made, and no more thought of the matter, or importance attached to it, till there had arrived a messenger, bringing a parcel containing a sum of five hundred pounds in one-pound notes, and full instructions.

“And I don't mind saying,” Mr. Dreg went on, “that it was when I read those instructions, and realised their extraordinary clearness, vision, insight; their breadth of view combined with a minute attention to detail; their grasp of the present, and their provision for future developments; their understanding both of finance and of psychology, combined with the novelty of the proposal itself, that I grew really interested. I was, in fact, greatly impressed. I never remember being so much impressed. You seem surprised that I am willing to act for a client of whom I know nothing. I say, I know this, that he is a most remarkable man, a man of unusual powers and profound experience, a man in short of the highest ability.”

“Do you think it could be Mr. Shorton himself?” Mitchell asked.

Mr. Dreg started, and looked slightly taken aback.

“Well, I had considered the possibility,” he admitted. “Of course, it's possible. I don't know that Mr. Shorton quite impresses me as being quite – well, big enough. But it's difficult to judge. You have to be associated with a man some time before you can form a real opinion of his powers. Yes, possibly it is Mr. Shorton. But that is purely guess-work. The only thing that isn't guess-work, but fact, is the enormous possibilities of the idea. Think of the national benefit to be derived from keeping in the country all this money that's going abroad – Ireland, France, anywhere. Consider the employment we shall provide. It's a scheme I'm proud to be associated with, and I think I am safe in saying that my clients, as an act of grace, but actuated by those public-spirited motives which lie,
pari passu
,'' said Mr. Dreg impressively, “with our more purely commercial aims, would be perfectly willing to pay to the revenue any reasonable tax on their turnover that might be mutually agreed on.”

“Worth their while, no doubt,” Mitchell commented drily, “to get, what would look like Government patronage, official approval – like the efforts of the greyhound-racing people to get an official board of control appointed. But at present all that is no business of ours at the Yard. Very interesting scheme, of course, and very kind of you to explain it to us so fully, but simply nothing to do with us at present – not a police matter at all. It may become so later on, for all I know, but not at present. Our business is at the moment to find out who murdered George Winterton.”

“Very sad affair,” commented Mr. Dreg; “but I can't see there's the very slightest connection. Certainly none that I know of, or can even imagine. Mr. Winterton's opposition to the scheme had been withdrawn, as shown by his letter, now in Mr. Shorton's hands, expressing willingness to negotiate – and I think one may make a safe guess that the opposition he had expressed merely meant he was holding out for the best possible terms. I have seen that so often.”