Fatal Venture (22 page)

All the same, French headed his list of suspects with Malthus’s and Mason’s names. Hardwick was at least correct in suggesting that the matter must be investigated.

Ten minutes later French had locked himself in Stott’s rooms. He was impressed with their size and luxury and for a few minutes moved about in sheer wonder that any individual could reserve such a place for himself alone. Then with a shrug he set to work.

A general inspection revealed nothing of interest and he presently settled down to go through the papers in the man’s office. The desk was locked, but the key was also on the deceased’s bunch.

There was a vast deal of stuff to be examined and it took French practically the whole day. Hour after hour he worked, taking out papers and books, glancing through them, putting them away again, and occasionally – far less often than he would have wished – making a note. He did not find much that he thought would be helpful, but there were some items.

First, he learnt the name of Stott’s solicitors, Messrs Granger, Hill and Granger of Chancery Lane. This was important, as there was no will or indication of where the deceased’s fortune was to go. Next he found a number of letters abusing Stott on various counts, mostly for sharp business practice which had caused loss to the writers. These he put aside for subsequent study, should this prove necessary.

There were a number of family letters, irrelevant in themselves to his quest, but containing enough general references to shed a good deal of light on relations between the members.

First, from the genealogical point of view, it was clear that the connections assumed in the smoking-room gossip were correct, but some dates were given of which the smoking room was unaware. John Stott was the uncle of Wyndham, and Margot, Wyndham’s daughter, was therefore John’s great-niece. Margot was born in 1910, making her now twenty-eight. In 1912 her mother died, and it was evident that as the girl grew up, she and her father had been devoted companions. Then in 1933, when Margot was twenty-three, Wyndham had married for the second time. Elmina Luff was a widow with a nineteen-year-old son, Percy. It was evident that Elmina was jealous of Wyndham’s affection for his daughter and that Margot resented having to give up to Elmina the first place with her father. Also it was evident that from the first Percy had been a thorn in the flesh to all concerned; except to his mother, who appeared to dote on him. French came on the carbon of a letter from John Stott to Wyndham, complaining of Percy having disgraced the family in a drunken row and threatening to allow Wyndham only the life use of his money, so that he couldn’t leave it to his wife or stepson. How this particular episode, which was recent, had ended, French could not discover, but he could find no instructions to John’s solicitor as to the altering of his will.

It was clear that not a single member of the family liked John and his feelings towards them were equally cold. In the case of Percy Luff, it looked indeed as if there was real hate between the two. All the members, therefore, went down on French’s list of suspects, with Percy’s name underlined as a first choice.

Curiously enough, there was less among the papers to indicate the deceased’s relations with the personnel of the
Hellénique
. There were three notes from Captain Hardwick, couched in increasingly stiff terms, about various semi-nautical matters in which Stott had apparently interfered. The Captain had summarily refused the freedom of the navigating bridge to Stott’s friends, and had turned down equally forcibly suggestions that officers should be allowed to dance with passengers when off duty, and that engineer officers should be excluded from the dining-saloon. From Bristow there was a rather sadly worded complaint that his agreed percentage of the ship’s profits was overdue, the answer to which French couldn’t find, and from the Chief Engineer an indignant refusal to dismiss his Fourth Officer, because that young man habitually abstained from saluting Stott when they met. Altogether relations between Stott and the staff seemed slightly strained, though there was no evidence of a feeling likely to lead to murder.

Lastly, there were private ledgers giving the man’s financial dealings, or some of them, as well as the profits of the cruise. French was astonished at the figures. He had known the deceased to be wealthy, but he had not realised to what extent. John Stott had been either a millionaire or a colourable imitation of one.

Particularly surprising were the figures of the
Hellénique
venture, which, apparently, Stott had kept to himself. Paying was scarcely the word for it: the profits were absolutely enormous. By the time it had been running for a year its entire original cost – purchase and alteration of the ship, gambling installation, flying boats and subsidiary services – had been paid off. For the past six months every penny earned, less the comparatively small cost of running, was profit. Stott, indeed, had been making a second fortune on the top of his first. More than ever important, French thought, became the matters of his will and heirs.

When that evening, with a sigh of relief, he replaced the last of the papers and relocked the suite, French’s tentative list of suspects had been opened. Already it bore ten names: Malthus, Mason, Wyndham Stott and Percy Luff, with Elmina and Margot as secondary figures. Captain Hardwick, Mackintosh, the Chief Engineer, Bristow and Morrison, and his further enquiries into the writers of aggrieved letters would probably add to the number.

Before turning in, he wrote to the Yard asking for a man to be sent to Stott’s solicitors, Messrs Granger, Hill and Granger of Chancery Lane, to try to obtain from them the terms of Stott’s will.

Next morning when he went on deck the ship was still cruising between Innishark and Slyne Head. A party was going ashore at Clifden to drive south through the Joyce’s Country, Galway and Lahinch, and he told himself that observation of that landing party might be helpful.

Accordingly, he took up an unobtrusive position above the ladder to the boats, from which he could watch the embarkation. It was some little distance down to the ladder, but still he could see all he wanted.

Sports coats, he noted with some embarrassment, were fairly common, and a good many had leather covered buttons. He noted eleven men who wore the latter. Ten of these caused him no quickening of the pulse, but the eleventh did. It was Percy Luff. Luff’s was the last boat for the shore and French, suddenly changing his mind, raced for the lift and joined it. He was just in time, and as luck would have it, was able to find a vacant seat opposite his quarry. As long as Luff sat still, he could not see what he wanted, but when presently the young man took a cigarette case from one side pocket and a lighter from the other, each sleeve became exposed in turn. None of the buttons was missing.

French experienced a sharp disappointment. In principle, he hated to find anyone guilty of murder; but when he became engrossed in a case he no longer considered personal implications – only the efficient carrying out of his work. It would have been gratifying on this second day of the enquiry to have identified the owner of the dropped button, though, of course, he couldn’t expect to have miracles arranged for him.

His thoughts reverted to the other ten leather buttoned jacket wearers. Now it would be necessary to go into the history of these and find out where, if at all, their lives had touched that of Stott. A long job and tedious, especially working under the confounded handicap of the
Hellénique’s
ownership.

He happened to glance again at Luff, and as he did so, he felt once more that little thrill of excitement with which he was so familiar. The man was looking at something ashore and had raised his arm to shade his eyes. His sleeve and its buttons were more clearly visible than before, and now French noticed that the end button was slightly smaller and slightly lighter in colour than the others. A new button or he was a Dutchman!

While continuing to chat with his neighbour, French’s thoughts were busy. If Luff had lost a button at the Hollow, where could he have obtained a new one? At Portrush? At Derry? At Sligo?

Possibly, but more probably at the ship’s own shop. As sports coats were so much worn on board, it would be almost certain to keep these buttons. If, on taking off his coat after the day at Portrush, Luff should have missed the button, so elegant a young man would surely have had another put on at the earliest opportunity.

Once ashore French drifted away from the party, and as soon as the others were out of sight, he returned on board. Presently he strolled to the shop and began to chat to the pretty attendant. She would, he thought, have been even prettier had her face been less white, her hair less golden and her lips less red, but this evidently was not her opinion, and she regrettably had the final say. She seemed a good sort of girl and he enjoyed talking to her.

“I’ve lost,” he said, when the time of day had been leisurely passed, “one of those leather-covered buttons off my sports coat, and I understand you’ve got the very thing. Can you give me one the same as Mr Luff got from you two or three days ago? Or is it asking you too much to remember that?”

It worked better than he could have hoped. “No,” she answered, opening a drawer, “I remember quite well. As a matter of fact, I’ve had a dozen of these buttons ever since the cruise started and Mr Luff was the first person who bought one.” She handed out a button. “This is what you want?”

“That’s it,” French returned; “exactly right. Funny how these things happen. You’ve not made a sale for a year and a half and now in – what, three days? – you get rid of two.”

“Three days, yes. It was on Tuesday evening that Mr Luff came round.”

“You’ll sell another inside the week,” French assured her solemnly. “Things always run in threes.”

“Go on,” she returned; “a man like you stuffing me up with nonsense of that kind.”

They chatted of superstitions and he gave her instances he had known of mishaps coming in threes, while she ridiculed his seriousness. Presently, clutching his button, he passed on.

So Percy Luff had bought the button on the evening of the Portrush call! This certainly was progress, and positive progress at that.

Negative progress French also made that day while the ship slowly passed the Aran Islands in the mouth of Galway Bay: namely, the discovery that neither Captain Hardwick nor the Chief Engineer had gone ashore at Portrush. While, therefore. Luff’s name remained underlined on his list of suspects, Hardwick’s and Mackintosh’s were deleted.

His thoughts reverted to the button. Someone had picked it up and he had at first assumed that this had been the man who had lost it. Now he was not so sure. If Luff had picked it up, why had he not replaced it on his sleeve instead of buying a new one? Was it damaged from being tramped into the ground? French thought this unlikely. Then had two people been present and had the other one retrieved it?

French did not know, but it occurred to him that it might be well to obtain another button from Luff’s coat, so that if the first should later be found, they might be compared.

Accordingly that evening after dinner, when the stewards had finished with the cabins and had vanished to their own place, he went in search of Luff. He found him seated at the tables and decided that the moment was propitious for his venture. Carrying a hat and light overcoat as if going for a stroll on deck, he went to Luff’s cabin, easily discoverable from the sailing list and plan of the ship, and, after a quick glance round, he entered. In ten seconds he had found the jacket and wrapped it in his overcoat, and in another thirty he was back in his own cabin. There Mrs French was waiting, and soon the corresponding button from the other sleeve lay on his table, together with a lot of the thread which had been used to sew it on. Five minutes later the new button French had bought was in its place, and he was starting back with the coat. He replaced it unseen and continued on his way to the deck.

Next morning there came a parcel from District Inspector Nugent, apparently sent from Dublin, containing a rather well-worn pair of men’s rubber-soled, tan shoes.

Another package from the police at Portrush contained photographs of the footprint and of the hole from which the button had been pulled. There were two of the latter, one showing the hole as it had been found, and the other the bottom portion with the broken sides removed. This latter formed a mould of half the button, and on comparing it with his trophy from Luff’s coat, French was satisfied that it had been made by a button of similar type.

The photograph of the footprint next claimed his attention. A glance showed it had been made by a man’s shoe, rubber-soled, of medium size. Probably it belonged to a man of medium height and build, though, of course, this was not certain. At first sight he could find nothing distinctive about the trace, which might separate that particular shoe from the thousands of others of identical pattern.

With rubber soles, however, wear was the thing to look for, and closer examination brought out an important fact. The inner side of the shoe was more deeply worn than the outside, as was the rear end of both sole and heel compared with the forward position.

French knew that this was unusual. Most people wear away their shoes on the outer sides and at the front. He remembered having read that examination of the boots of soldiers had showed that 98 percent were worn in this way, only 2 percent being as in Nugent’s photograph. Of course, the soldiers’ marching walk might have affected the result. However, the point was suggestive.

The next thing was obviously to examine the shoes of his men suspects. On this day the shore excursion was from Dingle to Tralee, Cahirsiveen and Valencia, and it happened that all the remaining suspects had taken it. French had stayed on the ship and, watching his chance, he slipped into each cabin in turn.

In each his procedure was the same. He quickly reversed the most worn shoe he could find, laid a two-inch rule across the instep, and with a powerful torch took a photograph of the sole. His luck held and he got back to his own cabin unseen.