Death in the Stocks (8 page)

'I'm surprised that with such a memory you are able to tell me so exactly what you did that evening,' said Hannasyde gently.

'Oh, I learned that off by heart,' replied Kenneth, putting his pipe in his mouth, and restoring the pouch to his pocket.

Superintendent Hannasyde was not a man to show surprise readily, but this ingenuous explanation bereft him momentarily of speech. Giles's slow voice filled the gap: 'Don't try to be funny, I implore you. What do you mean?'

Charles Carrington, whose attention had been successfully switched from the meerschaum, watched Kenneth with an air of impersonal interest. 'Yes, what do you mean?' he inquired.

'Just what I said,' responded Kenneth, striking a match. Between puffs, he continued, 'After Giles had gone, last night, it dawned I me that I'd better make sure I didn't forget what I did on Saturday. So I wrote it all down, and learned it by heart in case I lost the book of words.'

The Superintendent, recovering, put rather a stern question: 'Do you remember anything at all of what you did, Mr Vereker, or are you merely favouring me with a recitation?'

'Of course I remember,' said Kenneth impatiently. 'You can't go on repeating a saga without remembering it. If you mean, Did I make it up? Certainly not! I should have thought out a much better story than that. Something really classy. As a matter of fact, my sister and I concocted a beauty, but we decided against using it, because of the mental strain. If you make a thing up you keep forgetting some of the ramifications, and then you're in the soup.'

'I'm glad you realise that,' said Hannasyde dryly. 'Will your memory go back as far as the third of June?'

'What's today? asked Kenneth, willing to oblige, but cautious.

'Today, Mr Vereker, is the nineteenth of June.'

'Then I shouldn't think it would. It all depends. Not if you're going to ask me what I had for breakfast that day, or whether I went out for a walk, or-'

'I am going to ask you whether you remember writing a letter to your half-brother, requesting him to give or lend you five hundred pounds.'

'Did I write that on the third?'

'You remember writing the letter, even though you may not remember the date?'

'You bet I do,' said Kenneth. 'I've been kicking myself for having done it ever since I heard about the murder. Didn't I tell you the swine would keep my letter, Giles?'

'Do you also remember a second letter which you wrote your half-brother - presumably on receipt of his refusal to send you any money?'

Kenneth frowned. 'No, I'm afraid I don't. Did I write a second time?'

The Superintendent opened his pocket-book and took out a single sheet of notepaper. 'Isn't that it, Mr Vereker?'

Kenneth leaned forward to read it, and burst out laughing. 'Oh lord, yes! Sorry! I'd forgotten that for the moment.'

'You were angry enough to write a letter telling your half-brother that it would give you great pleasure to wring his neck -'

'Bloody neck,' corrected Kenneth.

'Yes, his bloody neck is the term you used. You felt that strongly enough to write it, and then forgot all about it?'

'No, I forgot I'd written it,' said Kenneth. 'I didn't forget that I wanted to wring his neck. My memory's not as bad as that.'

'I see. Am I to understand that this violent desire persisted?'

Giles made a slight movement of protest, but Kenneth spoke before he could be stopped. 'More or less, whenever I happened to think about him. But it was only a beautiful dream. I couldn't have pulled it off. Arnold was too beefy for me to tackle single-handed.'

There was an infinitesimal pause. Then the Superintendent said: 'I see. I think you said you are engaged to be married?' Kenneth nodded. 'Have you been engaged long, Mr Vereker?'

'Three months, more or less.'

'When do you mean to be married, if I may ask?'

'I think you mayn't, Superintendent,' said Giles, shifting his shoulders against the mantelpiece.

'You must advise your client as you see fit, Mr Carrington, but it is a question that will be asked,' Hannasyde said.

'Let him ask me anything he likes,' said Kenneth. 'I don't mind. I haven't got any feeling against the police. I don't know when I'm going to be married. My betrothed has religious scruples.'

'Has what?' asked Hannasyde, startled.

Kenneth waved his pipe vaguely in the air. 'Religious scruples. Respect due to the dead. All against the funeral baked-meats coldly furnishing forth the marriage tables.

Romeo and Juliet,' he added.

'Hamlet,' said the Superintendent coldly. 'Shakespeare, anyway.'

'Do you mean that your fiancée wishes to postpone the wedding until you're out of mourning?'

'She can't. She knows perfectly well I'm not going into mourning.'

'Mr Vereker, had you arranged a date for your wedding before Saturday, or not?'

'Not.'

'I'm going to ask a very straightforward question, which your solicitor wont like.' said Hannasyde with a faint smile. 'Was the wedding day unsettled because of money troubles?'

'You needn't bother about my solicitor.' said Kenneth amiably. 'When a thing stands out a mile, you don't catch me queering my pitch by denying it. Money it was. The lady's not in favour of a two-pair back. By the way, that was something I wanted to ask you, Giles. What is a two-pair back?'

'I don't know,' said Giles.

'Well, it doesn't really matter,' said Kenneth, banishing the question. 'Now Arnold's dead the point doesn't arise.'

'No,' agreed Giles, with intent. 'Whatever a two-pair back may be it isn't anything like the Eaton Place house.'

Kenneth took his pipe out of his mouth. 'Let's get this straight!' he requested. 'Nothing would make me live in that high-class mansion, or any other remotely resembling it! That's final, and you may tell Violet so with my loving compliments.'

'All right. Where do you propose to live?'

'Where I'm living now. If Violet wants ropes of pearls, and a brocade bed, and a Rolls-Royce, she can have 'em, but there it ends. I utterly refuse to alter my habits.' He stood up, and pushed the lock of hair back from his forehead. 'You can also tell her,' he said, his eyes very bright all at once, 'that these hands' - he flung them out, the fingers spread wide - 'are worth more than all Arnold's filthy money, and when he's been forgotten for centuries people will still be talking about me!'

Charles Carrington blinked, and looked to see how Hannasyde received this sudden outburst. Hannasyde was watching Kenneth. He said nothing. Kenneth's brilliant, challenging eyes came to rest on his impassive face. 'That's what you don't yet grasp!' hr said. 'I might have killed Arnold because I loathed him, and his money-grubbing mind, and his vulgar tastes, but not for his two hundred and fifty thousand pounds!'

'Don't you want his two hundred and fifty thousand pounds?' asked Hannasyde conversationally.

'Don't ask me dam' silly questions,' snapped Kenneth, 'Of course I do! Who wouldn't?'

Hannasyde got up. 'No one of my acquaintance,' he answered. 'I've no more questions to ask you at the moment, dam' silly or otherwise.'

'Good,' said Kenneth. 'Then I'll depart. Don't forget to come round tonight Giles. And mind the wolf! According to Murgatroyd it's at the door. Good-bye, Uncle. Give my love to Aunt Janet.'

'I must be going too,' said Hannasyde, as the door shut behind Kenneth. 'I may act as I think fit with regard to this letter, Mr Carrington?'

Charles Carrington nodded. 'Use your discretion, Superintendent. I expect you've got a lot, hey?'

Hannasyde smiled. 'I hope so,' he said. He turned to Giles. 'I shall see you tomorrow at the Inquest, shan't I?'

Giles held out his hand. 'Yes, I shall be there.'

Hannasyde gripped the hand for a moment, a certain friendly warmth in his eyes. 'I'll let you know if anything interesting transpires.'

He went out, and Charles Carrington pushed back his chair from the desk. 'Well, well, well!' he said. 'Sheer waste of my time, of course, but not unamusing.'

'I've half a mind to ask Kenneth to look for another solicitor,' said Giles ruefully.

His father sat up, and resumed his search amongst the papers on his desk. 'Nonsense!' he said briskly. 'That boy is either an incorrigibly truthful young ass, or a brilliantly clever actor. He's got your Superintendent Hannasyde guessing, Giles. What's more, he's got you guessing as well. You don't know whether he did it or not.'

'No, I don't. I don't even know whether he'd be capable of doing it. He's a queer fish. Curiously coldblooded.'

'He's capable of it, all right. But whether he did it or not I can't make out. Where the devil are my spectacles?'

Chapter Eight

The Deputy-manager of the Shan Hills Mining Company, Mr Harold Fairfax, received Superintendent Hannasyde with anxious deference, and raised no objection at all to the Superintendent's request that he might be allowed to question certain members of the staff. Mr Fairfax was a spare little man of middle age, and seemed to be in a perpetual state of being worried. He could throw no light on the mystery of Arnold Vereker's death. 'You see,' he said unhappily, 'so many people disliked Mr Vereker. He was a hard man, oh, a very hard man! I - I believe he trusted me. I like to think he did. We never quarrelled. Sometimes he would be very short with me, but I have known him for a great many years, and I think I understood him. It is a dreadful thing, his murder; an appalling thing. And all, perhaps, because someone couldn't make allowances for his temper!'

Miss Miller, Arnold Vereker's secretary, was more helpful. She was a businesslike-looking woman, of an age hard to determine. She fixed her cold, competent eyes on the Superintendent, and answered his questions with a composure tinged with contempt. She told him the exact hour of Arnold Vereker's arrival at the office on Saturday morning; she recited a list of the engagements he had had, and described his callers. 'At five-and-twenty minutes past ten,' she said briskly, 'Mr Vereker sent for Mr Mesurier, who remained in his room for twenty-seven minutes.'

'You are very exact, Miss Miller,' said the Superintendent politely.

She smiled with tolerant superiority. 'Certainly. I pride myself on being efficient. Mr Mesurier was sent for immediately after the departure of Sir Henry Watson, whose appointment, as I have informed you, was at ten o'clock. Mr Cedric Johnson, of Messrs Johnson, Hayes & Heverside, had an appointment with Mr Vereker at eleven, and arrived seven minutes early. I informed Mr Vereker at once, through the medium of the house telephone, and Mr Mesurier then came out, and, I presume, returned to his own office.'

'Thank you,' said the Superintendent. 'Can you tell me if there was any unpleasantness during any of Mr Vereker's appointments that morning?'

'Yes; Mr Vereker's interview with Mr Mesurier was, I imagine, extremely unpleasant.'

'Why do you imagine that, Miss Miller?'

She raised her brows. 'The room which is my office communicates with the late Mr Vereker's. I could hardly fail to be aware of a quarrel taking place behind the intervening door.'

'Do you know what the quarrel was about?'

'If I did I should immediately have volunteered the information, which must necessarily be of importance. But it is not my custom either to listen at keyholes, or to waste my employer's time. During Mr Vereker's interview with Mr Mesurier, and his subsequent one with Mr Cedric Johnson, I occupied myself with Mr Vereker's correspondence, using the dictaphone and a typewriter. What was said, therefore, I did not hear, or wish to hear. From time to time both voices were raised to what I can only describe as shouting-pitch. More than that I am not prepared to say.'

He put one or two other questions to her, and then got rid of her, and asked to see Mr Rudolph Mesurier.

Mesurier came in five minutes later. He looked rather white, but greeted Hannasyde easily and cheerfully. 'Superintendent Hannasyde, isn't it? Good-morning. You're investigating the cause of Arnold Vereker's death, I understand. Rather an awful thing, isn't it? I mean, stabbed like that, in the back. Anything I can tell you that might help you, I shall be only too glad to - only I'm afraid I can't tell you much.' He laughed apologetically, and sat down on one side of the bare mahogany table, carefully hitching up his beautifully creased trousers. Just what is it you want to know?' he asked.

'Well, I want to know several things, Mr Mesurier,' answered the Superintendent. 'Can you remember where you were on Saturday evening between the hours of- let us say eleven o'clock and two o'clock?'

Mesurier wrinkled his brow. 'Let me see now: Saturday! Oh yes, of course! I was at home, Redclyffe Gardens, Earl's Court. I have digs there.'

'Are you sure that you were in home then, Mr Mesurier?'

'Well, really - !' Mesurier laughed again, a little nervously. 'I was certainly under that impression! I had a bit of a head that night, and I went to bed early.'

Hannasyde looked at him for a few moments. Mesurier stared back into his eyes, and moistened his lips. 'Where do you garage your car?' asked Hannasyde.

'What an odd question! Just round the corner. I have a lock-up garage, you know, in a mews.'

'Are you always careful to keep that garage locked, Mr Mesurier?'

Mesurier replied a shade too quickly. 'Oh, I'm afraid I'm rather casual sometimes! Of course I do usually see that it's locked, but occasionally, when I've been in a hurry - you know how it is!'

'Did you use your car at all on Saturday?'

'No, I don't think I - Oh yes, I did, though!'

'At what time?'

'Well, I don't really remember. In the afternoon.'

'And when did you return it to the garage?'

Mesurier uncrossed his legs, and then crossed them again. 'It must have been sometime during the early part of the evening. I'm afraid I'm a bit hazy about times. And of course, not knowing that it would be important - the time I garaged the car, I mean -'

'Are you sure, Mr Mesurier, that when you say the early part of the evening, you don't mean the early part of the morning?'

'I - I don't understand you. I've already told you I went to bed early. I don't quite follow what you're driving at. I mean, if you think I had anything to do with Arnold Vereker's death it's too utterly absurd.'

'The proprietor of the hour lock-up garages in the mews,' said Hannasyde, consulting his notes, 'states that you took your car out at approximately five o'clock.'

'I daresay he's quite right. I certainly shan't dispute it. I told you it was during the afternoon. What I don't understand is why you should be so interested in my movements. Frightfully thorough of you, and all that, but I must say I find it rather amusing that you should actually take the trouble to question them at the garage!'

'The proprietor further states,' continued Hannasyde unemotionally, 'that at one-forty-five a.m., on Sunday, he was awakened by the sound of one of the garages being opened. Apparently the garage you rent is immediately beneath his bedroom. He declares that he recognised the engine-note of the car being driven into the garage.'

'Of course that's perfectly preposterous!' Mesurier said. 'In any case, it wasn't my car. Unless, of course, someone else had her out. If I forgot to lock the garage they might easily have done so, you know.'

'Who?' asked Hannasyde.

'Who?' Mesurier looked quickly across at him, and away again. 'I'm sure I don't know! Anybody!'

'Whoever took your car out on Saturday evening must have had a key to the garage, Mr Mesurier. The proprietor states that when you had left the mews in the car shortly after five he himself shut the doors. When he went to bed at ten-thirty they were still locked.'

'I daresay he was mistaken. Not that I'm saying anyone did take my car out. It's much more likely that the car he heard at one-forty-five was someone else's. I mean, he was probably half-asleep, and anyway he could not recognise the engine-note as positively as that.'

'You will agree, then, that it is highly improbable that anyone should have taken your car out of the garage on Saturday night?'

'Well, I - it looks like it, certainly, but I don't know that no one did. I mean… Look here, I don't in the least see why you should bother so much about my car when I've told you -'

'I'm bothering about it, Mr Mesurier, because your car was seen by a Constable on patrol-duty, at a point known as Dimbury Corner, ten miles from Hanborough, on the London Road, at twenty-six minutes to one on Sunday morning,' said Hannasyde.

Again Mesurier moistened his lips, but for a moment or two he did not speak. The ticking of a solid-looking clock on the mantelpiece became Budding audible. Mesurier glanced at it, as though the measured sound got on his nerves, and said: 'He must be mistaken, that's all I can say.

'Is the number of your car AMG240?' asked Hannasyde.

'Yes. Yes, it is.'

'Then I don't think he was mistaken,' said Hannasyde.

'He must have been. He misread the number. Probably ANG, or - or AHG. In any case, I wasn't on the Hanborough Road at that hour.' He put up a hand to his head, and smoothed his sleek black hair. 'If that's all the case you've got against me I mean, this Constable's memory against my word, I don't think much of it. Not that I wish to be offensive, you know. You detectives have to try everything, of course, but—'

'Quite so, Mr Mesurier.' The Superintendent's even voice effectually silenced Mesurier. 'You are only being asked to account for your movements on Saturday night. If you were in your lodgings all evening you can no doubt produce a witness to corroborate the truth of that statement?'

'No, I don't think I can,' Mesurier said with an uneasy smile. 'My landlady and her husband always go out on Saturday evening, so they wouldn't know whether I was in or out.' He became aware of a piece of cotton on his sleeve, and picked it off, and began to fidget with it.

'That is unfortunate,' said Hannasyde, and once more consulted his notes. He said abruptly: 'You had an interview with Arnold Vereker at ten-thirty on Saturday morning. Is that correct?'

'Well, I wouldn't swear to the exact time, but I did see him on Saturday.'

'Was the interview an unpleasant one, Mr Mesurier?'

'Unpleasant? I don't quite -'

'Did a quarrel take place between you and Mr Vereker on that occasion?'

'Oh lord, no!' Mesurier cried. 'Vereker was a bit peeved that morning, but we did not quarrel. I mean, why should we?'

Hannasyde laid his notes down. 'I think,' he said, 'that we shall get along faster if I tell you at once, Mr Mesurier, that I am in possession of a certain letter concerning you which Mr Vereker wrote to the firm's solicitor on Saturday. You may read it, if you choose.'

Mesurier held out his hand for the letter, and said: 'This - this isn't Vereker's writing.'

'No, it is mine,' said Hannasyde. 'That is a copy of the original.'

Mesurier, a tinge of colour in his cheeks, read the letter, and put it down on the table. 'I don't know what you expect me to say. It's an absolute misstatement—'

'Mr Mesurier, please understand me! The particular point raised in that letter does not concern me. I am not investigating the accounts of this company, but the murder of its chairman. The information contained in the letter tells me that your interview with Arnold Vereker on Saturday morning cannot have been a pleasant one. In addition, I have already ascertained that both your voices were heard raised in anger. Now -'

'That bloody cat, Rose Miller!' exclaimed Mesurier, flushing. 'Of course, if you're going to believe what she says . ! She's always had her knife into me. It's a complete lie to say that we quarrelled. Vereker went for me, and I shan't attempt to deny that he was in a bad temper. In fact, he actually accused me of embezzling. Utterly ridiculous, I need hardly say. As a matter of fact I got into a bit of a mess - I borrowed a little from the firm, just to tide me over. Of course I know I oughtn't to have done it, but when you're hard pressed you do silly things. But to say I stole the money is - is positively laughable! I mean, if I'd wanted to do that I shouldn't be paying it back, which even Vereker admits I am doing.  He simply had a down on me -'