Richardson's First Case (7 page)

Foster adopted his most father-bountiful manner. “I suppose it wouldn't be fair to ask you, Miss Summers, for an opinion on Mr. Sharp.” This with an arch smile.

“How do you mean—an opinion?”

“Well, whether he is the kind of man who might jump to conclusions on slender evidence, or whether he is careful not to form an opinion until he is sure.”

“If you mean did he mistake some other woman for his aunt, or did he make up the story of seeing her, I can say positively, certainly not. We had been out to tea, and on the way back in the bus he told me how he had dined with his aunt the night before and they had had an argument about money matters. He said, ‘This is the first time in my life that I've gone to sea without being on affectionate terms with Aunt Emily. If you don't mind going home alone, I'll jump off the bus at Marble Arch and go and make it up. I was a brute to her last night, worrying her just when she's being turned out of her flat.' And then just before he jumped off he turned round in great excitement and said, ‘There
is
Aunt Emily!'”

“You watched him, naturally, to see whether he overtook her?”

“Yes, but I soon lost sight of him in the crowd; people were crowding onto the bus, and they obscured my view.”

“When you last saw him which direction was he taking?”

“He was going towards Baker Street, shouldering his way through the crowd. When my bus started I looked out of the window for him, but I didn't see him. At the pace he was going I think he must have overtaken her.”

“And so when you read about Mrs. Catchpool's death in the paper you asked Mr. Kennedy to come round to the Yard and tell us?”

“No, I didn't ask him to do anything, but when I saw in the papers that she was supposed to have been murdered just after five, I told Mr. Kennedy that Mr. Sharp had seen her alive and pointed her out to me at a little after six.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Summers,” said Foster, rising and putting away his notebook. “I won't take up your time any longer.” As he reached the hall, Kennedy intercepted him.

“Oh, come, Mr. Foster, we can't let you run away like that. Come in and have a drink and make the acquaintance of my wife. No, it's no good shaking your head. You come from Scotland, so you can't be a teetotaller, and you can say ‘when' before I've poured out enough to cover a sixpence.”

Nan made a charming hostess; Guy Kennedy was stricken with deafness when the first “when” was given, and Inspector Foster took his place in the family circle as if he had known them all his life. He decided to improve the occasion. “I'm afraid that I've put Miss Summers through a terrible cross-examination.”

“She seems to have thrived on it. I've often wondered what the third degree felt like. I suppose when she fell asleep you shouted ‘boo' in her ear.”

“How can you, Guy!” Joan expostulated. “How could one fall asleep! Besides, I'd nothing to tell Mr. Foster except the fact that Mike owed money.”

“Owed money? Well, of course he did. All naval officers do that at times: their tastes are high, and their pay is so scandalously low.”

“You were a brother officer of Mr. Sharp, were you not, Mr. Kennedy?” cooed Inspector Foster.

“I was, and if he kept out of serious trouble it was due to my fatherly eye. He had a distressing habit of blurting out the truth to his seniors.”

“You didn't teach him to lie, Guy?” interposed Nan.

“To lie! What do you take me for? I taught him to handle the truth diplomatically.”

“And you knew poor Mrs. Catchpool?” asked Foster.

“Of course we did: she dined here last Monday. And, by the way, when is the funeral to be? We want to attend it.”

“I will let you know as soon as the date is settled. The inquest will open tomorrow, sir, but the proceedings will be only formal and the coroner will adjourn it. The funeral will take place, I suppose, on Saturday. She was going to leave her flat, was she not?”

“Not if she could help it, I can tell you that. Her husband wanted to turn her out after she'd had it for nearly twenty years. However,
de mortuis
…I'll say no more about him. He loved money, and he's gone to a place where money melts.”

“Guy!” protested his wife. “You see, Mr. Foster, her husband had had an offer for the entire house; he was getting rid of the other tenants, and he offered Mrs. Catchpool another flat in exchange, but she didn't like it as well as the old one, and that was all the trouble.”

“She might have gone to a solicitor,” said Guy; “but she wouldn't do that. I think she rather enjoyed fighting the old man.”

Inspector Foster rose to go.

“By the way, Mr. Foster, I suppose you haven't had time yet to see the old rascal who sold that picture that we saw in the shop?”

“I called at Elizabeth Buildings this afternoon noon, but the man was out. I'm going on there now.”

“Don't be hard on him,” pleaded Nan. “He is very poor and miserable. He wasn't always like that. I knew he was fond of liquor, but when I first began to get him work he took a pull on himself; it's only within the last three or four months that he's gone downhill. All we want is to get the picture back for Lady Turnham.”

“No, I won't be hard on him, but I must find out how he came to see that picture.”

They parted with mutual expressions of good will. Foster looked at his watch when he reached the street. Yes, there was still time for another visit to Elizabeth Buildings.

This time he was more fortunate. A feeble voice replied to his knock, and the door was opened by a scarecrow of a man wearing a dilapidated overcoat over his shirt; apparently he had just risen from the pallet bed in the corner. The room was littered with canvases, pots of paint, and oil and brushes; on the easel stood a canvas half cleaned: it was evident that this broken-down wreck was able still to obtain commissions and that he did sometimes fulfil his engagements, for Foster's eye was caught by a brown paper parcel of the shape and size of a canvas, lying near the door.

“I must introduce myself, Mr. Cronin. I am Detective Inspector Foster of the Metropolitan Police.” The old man shivered and sat down heavily on the bed. Foster took the only chair. “I have one or two questions to put to you. I think that you were entrusted by Mrs. Kennedy with a Dutch picture to clean. Here is a description of it, as far as it was possible to make out the subject under the layer of old varnish and dirt: it measured forty inches by twenty-three and represented what seemed to be a Dutch village in flames, with a windmill in the background; soldiers in armour are looting the houses and dragging off the women.”

“Yes, sir, I know the picture,” faltered the old man. “The subject belonged to the Spanish occupation of the Low Countries. It was a good picture.”

“And you admit that it was entrusted to you to clean?”

“Yes, sir, but I've been so busy these last few weeks—” he waved his hand at the canvases about the room—“that I haven't had time.”

“You mean that you have the picture here in this room?”

“Well, no sir, not exactly.”

“Then where is it?” There was no answer. “Where is it?” Foster had dropped his softer manner. “Come, out with it: you must know where it is.”

There was still no reply. Cronin was shivering, and tears dimmed his eyes. At last he spoke, scarcely above a whisper: “I haven't been feeling myself, sir, for some weeks past—not eating or sleeping well—and with all this work to do I've had to take stimulants. If you want to know the truth, sir—it's a habit that grows on me.”

“I can see that for myself, but since you won't tell me where the picture is I'll tell you. We found it this afternoon in the antique shop in High Street, Marylebone. I suggest to you that you sold it, but before you reply I must caution you that I shall take down in writing what you say, and it may be used against you in any proceedings that may be taken against you for larceny as a bailee.”

“I know I did wrong, sir, but surely Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't be so cruel as to have me up in court for a thing like that: it was a sudden temptation.”

“You admit having sold it, then?”

“Yes, sir, they told me that the old man who kept the shop had an eye for a good picture and would pay a fair price for it and that he asked no questions. He took it, but he didn't pay anything like a fair price. I meant, of course, to buy it back from him as soon as I'd got the money for my other work. There was no criminal intention.”

“That will be a matter for the court, not for me. Did you sell the old man any other pictures?”

“No, sir, that I can swear.”

“What was the date when you sold this one?”

“Well, sir, I don't keep a diary; it was some weeks ago.”

“Try to remember. Was it three months ago?”

“Oh, not as long as that, sir.”

“Two months? One month?”

“I should think it was between four and eight weeks ago, but I couldn't swear even to that.”

“Do you often go down High Street?”

Cronin was seized with another fit of shivering; Foster ascribed it to his recent potations, of which the room reeked. “I went down there once, sir, and saw the picture exposed in the window.”

“Tell me how lately you have been down to that shop. When was the last time?”

The old man began to cry; it was a pitiful sight. The idea crossed Foster's mind that possibly this wretched creature had been concerned in the tragedy, but looking at him now he felt sure that such a human wreck could not have killed a fly, let alone a tall, vigorous woman. The creature filled him with pitying disgust.

“Are you going to arrest me, sir?”

“Not this evening: it all depends upon whether the owner of the picture signs an information against you.”

“I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself. I owe a great deal to that lady. Indeed, I owe my livelihood to her; it was she who got me some of these commissions. She trusted me, and now she knows what I am. When I think of my ingratitude, I'd rather go to prison.”

“As I said, it's not come to that yet, but I may have to see you again. You mustn't change your address without letting me know at the Marylebone police station, and if you'll take the advice of a man who can speak with knowledge, you'll take a pull on yourself and not touch another drop of liquor.” Foster rose to go. He longed to breathe the comparatively pure air of the King's Cross Road. As he was going out, his eye rested on the parcel propped against the wall near the door. It caught the light from the naked kerosene lamp, and he saw that it was tied up with little lengths of string of unequal thickness knotted together—just the same kind of string as they had found on the floor of Catchpool's antique shop in Marylebone High Street. That set him thinking: it seemed certain now that he would have to see the artist again.

T
HE CORONER
had fallen in with the suggestion that he should open the inquest and adjourn it. Evidence of identity was all that he required, and one witness, the nephew, Herbert Reece, could provide that. He proved to be an excellent witness; the formalities of the law restrained his natural loquacity. Inspector Foster was favourably impressed by the conciseness of his replies and the tone of blended sorrow and respect with which he spoke of the two dead people. The press was present in force, but the coroner was not disposed to satisfy their thirst for a sensation; medical evidence was called to show that Mrs. Catchpool had died from shock consequent upon having been seized violently by the throat, and the coroner then adjourned the inquest with an intimation that the police were pursuing their inquiries.

As Inspector Foster was leaving the court, he was overtaken by Herbert Reece. “Excuse me, Mr. Foster, I want to ask your advice. I have been trying to get some sense into the head of the executor to my uncle's will; now that the first part of the inquest is concluded, surely he ought to read the will or tell me its contents. Besides, I have to arrange about the funerals and I want to do them in some style; surely the executor ought to advance money out of the estate for the funeral expenses. Is he entitled to put the brake on like this?”

“I'm afraid you've come to the wrong person, Mr. Reece, I'm not a lawyer.''

“No, of course you're not, but in a simple matter like this I don't want to run to the expense of a solicitor.”

“Well, sir, it's quite outside my province. If you think the police are in a position to help you, I should advise you to go down to the Yard and ask to see Mr. Beckett, the chief constable.”

“Thank you; that's a very good suggestion. I'll go at once.”

When Beckett read the name on the interview form, he had the visitor shown in, for he remembered that this was the man who could throw more light on the Catchpool case than anyone else. He received him with grim civility and invited him to sit down. “You are, I think, the nephew of Mr. and Mrs. Catchpool, on whom the inquest was held this morning. What can I do for you?”

“You can do a great deal for me, sir, if you will. I can't bear to think of my uncle and aunt being given pauper funerals. I'm the nearest relative, and it's my duty to have their funerals done in style, but I'm a poor man and I cannot get any sense out of my uncle's executor. Surely he ought to provide the money out of the estate.”

“If your uncle left a will, that was probably included. Have you seen him about it?”

“I've been to see him every day—not perhaps about the funeral expenses, but about advancing me something out of the estate. But not a bit of it: he won't budge. He's an old man, and I think he's barmy.”

“Did your uncle leave much property?”

“Oh, yes; he was fairly well-to-do! Apart from the moneylending business he had a lot of house property and a biggish deposit in the bank.”