The Case of Naomi Clynes (25 page)

“I have a letter from the Commissioner to the Chief Constable—an open letter. Perhaps you will take it with you.”

Inspector Anstruther glanced at the clock. “He'll no be in his room before ten. While we're waiting you might tell me what kind of evidence you'll be looking for in the search.”

Richardson gave him a short résumé of the case.

“I see,” said Anstruther; “but all this you've told me has nothing to do with the false attestation. I mean the question of the cigarette found in the woman's room and that postage-stamp.”

“You may possibly find evidence showing that after obtaining possession of his nephew's property he converted it into his own use.”

“Ay; I've heard some whisper of that kind about him, but a' that will take time.”

“It will, but there's one thing that won't take time —to take his fingerprints when you get him down to Dale Street.”

“You think he won't object as an untried prisoner?”

“Men of that class very seldom do. They think that refusal may prejudice their case.”

“Ay, you're right about that.”

“We shall want to put a few questions to that butler of his, to know whether his master was away from home on the night of May 15th.”

“H'm! Butlers don't keep diaries as a rule, but we can try. I suppose you've got your evidence all cut and dried about the false attestation.”

“He swore that to his knowledge the boy was dead. We can produce that boy, besides witnesses from France who can identify Maze.”

“Very well. That's ten o'clock striking. I'll just run upstairs with this letter and get approval, then we'll start.”

“I hope you'll come yourself, Mr. Anstruther.”

“Indeed I will.”

Five minutes later Anstruther came down. “It's a' right. I'm to go with you and take a couple of my best men, with two men in reserve outside in case they're needed.” He became busy with his desk telephone.

One by one, four men made their appearance and stood to attention.

“Now listen,” said their inspector. “This is Inspector Richardson from the Yard. He's brought a warrant for us to execute for the arrest of John Maze, one of the city magistrates.”

The eyebrows were raised in blank astonishment. Anstruther continued, “We shall make the arrest at the house in Apsley Terrace and keep him in one of the rooms while we search the house. You, Sergeant Darley, will be in charge of him and ready to note down anything he says. The others will help in the search. Get your hats and we'll start.”

When they arrived at the house in the placid and dignified suburb, Anstruther went to the door with Richardson and the others kept out of sight. Anstruther rang the bell and they were admitted.

“What name shall I give?” asked the butler.

“Inspector Anstruther from Dale Street.”

“Very good, sir. If you will both take a seat I will ascertain whether Mr. Maze will see you.”

Anstruther made a little signal to his companion unseen by the butler, and they followed him into the library as soon as the door was open. John Maze looked up from the desk where he was writing letters, and changed colour.

“You can step outside until you are wanted,” said Anstruther to the butler, and he waited until the door was shut behind him. Maze had risen.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Maze, but I have here a warrant for your arrest, dated yesterday, from Bow Street. I will read it to you.”

Maze listened to the text of the warrant in silence, then he said, “A ridiculous mistake has been made, but for that, of course, I can't blame you. You are only doing your duty. Does this mean that I am to be taken to London?”

“Yes, sir,” said Richardson, “I shall be accompanying you.”

“I've seen your face before. Didn't you call here about a fortnight ago?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“We shall have to make a search of your house, Mr. Maze.”

“Search the house! Do you take me for a receiver of stolen property?”

“No, sir; it is in compliance with the rule when warrants for felony are executed.” He made a covert signal to Richardson who went out to call in the men.

They tramped into the hall and Anstruther called in Sergeant Darley. “Will you take this gentleman to a room upstairs: he is under arrest.”

“This way, please, sir,” said Darley, making Maze lead the way up the stairs. He glanced into two or three bedrooms and selected one in which the furniture was covered with dust sheets. There he told the prisoner to sit down.

Meanwhile, downstairs a systematic search was being made, while Richardson took the butler into the dining-room to ask him a question.

“Did Mr. Maze sleep here on the night of Tuesday, May 15th?”

“He very rarely spends the night away from home, sir. May 15th? That would be about a fortnight ago, wouldn't it? No, sir, he hasn't slept away from home for at least six weeks.”

“Can you remember whether he was out on that Tuesday?”

The butler seemed to see a ray of light. “I remember now, sir; he was out to lunch and dinner that Tuesday and he didn't get home until after I went to bed, but that's not uncommon with him when he dines out for a bridge party. He was awake when I brought him his tea next morning.”

Richardson sat down at the table and wrote this statement at full speed in his notebook. “Just put your name to that,” he said, after reading the statement over to the man. He returned to the library and found Anstruther giving final instructions to the searching officers.

“So what you've got to look for is cigarettes and any kind of poison, which means any small bottle of liquid or packet of powder. Next, you've got to collect private papers, letters and so forth. We shall have to cart them all down to Dale Street to be gone through. Now get to work.”

An idea occurred to Richardson. He called to the butler. “I suppose you've all kinds of cigarettes in the house?”

“No, sir, not all kinds. Mr. Maze is very particular about his cigarettes, especially those he carries on him and offers to his friends. I keep them under lock and key till he asks for them.”

“You might let me have one.”

“Certainly, sir.” He took a bunch of keys from his pocket and opened a drawer in the dining-room. It was crammed with cigarette boxes. Richardson opened one, and there, with a beating heart, he found the fellows to the cigarette he had picked up in Naomi Clynes' bed-sitting-room. He slipped the box into his pocket and told his colleague Anstruther that cigarettes might be struck out of the list of searches.

In three-quarters of an hour the dining-room table was loaded with small bottles and paper packets of chemicals gathered from almost every room in the house, but principally from the drawers in the library and Maze's dressing-room upstairs.

“It's going to be a job to get all this stuff analysed,” observed Anstruther.

“Where there are chemists' labels on the packets and the bottles the inquiry can be shortened. Chemists would be able to say off-hand what the stuff was. Hallo! What's this? Now we're getting warm. Look at this.” He held up an odd-shaped little phial with a French label on it. “Dumont, Pharmacien, Orleans. I think we shall find that we need not go any further than this bottle. If you agree, Mr. Anstruther, I should like to take it up with me to London and get the Home Office analyst to vet it.”

“Certainly, and what about all these papers?”

“Oh, I suppose that you can get them packed up and sent on to the Yard. We'll go through them there.”

The two inspectors went upstairs while their men went in search of taxis. “Now, Mr. Maze,” said Anstruther, “if you'll come downstairs…”

Richardson held Sergeant Darley back. “Did he say anything to you?”

“Nothing that was worth noting down. He seemed to want to know what was to be done with him and I told him that I didn't know.”

T
HREE TAXIS
had carried the party down to Dale Street. John Maze had been conducted to the Fingerprint Registry while Richardson waited below in the inspector's room. After a moment's demur the prisoner had submitted to having his prints taken. “All right,” he had said; “I suppose that it's the usual formality.” He was then lodged in a cell, while Anstruther rejoined his London colleague, who was waiting impatiently with a fingerprint form in his hand.

“Here you are, Mr. Richardson. Do you want a magnifier?”

Richardson scanned the prints without answering.

“Here! Look at this.” He was pointing to the print of the forefinger of the right hand, and the little print he had brought with him which he laid beside the other. Anstruther compared them, breathing hard. “Ay! I should say that this print taken from the woman's typewriter will hang him. The two prints are as like as two peas. I suppose that he doesn't know that you've got that print?”

“No, and he won't know it before his trial. But we've more evidence than that against him—all circumstantial. It's true that his butler has signed a statement to the effect that his master was not away from home on the night when Miss Clynes was murdered.”

“Apart from that is there enough, do you think, to satisfy the Director of Public Prosecutions?”

“That remains to be seen. Now will you give me the trains to Euston? I don't want to get in too late.”

They consulted a time-table, and chose a train that reached Euston between six and seven. There was time to eat a scratch lunch before driving to the station, and at the appointed hour Richardson called at Dale Street for his prisoner and they drove down to the station together. The arrangement had run so smoothly that none of the local reporters had got wind of the arrest.

Richardson had arranged with the guard that they should have the compartment to themselves. His prisoner was disposed to be conversational. He seemed quite to have recovered his spirits. “It is funny meeting you up here again, Inspector,” he said. “I suppose that you have a lot of running about to do?”

“Sometimes, Mr. Maze.”

“I suppose that I shall be allowed to consult my solicitor when we get to London?”

“Certainly. If you tell me his name and address I will see that a message is sent to him in time for him to be in court to-morrow morning.”

“Whittock is his name. He is the London agent of my solicitors in Liverpool, but I don't know his address.”

Richardson made a note of the name, and promised to look up his address in the Law List and have a message sent to him in the morning.

A few minutes later Maze closed his eyes and seemed to be disposing himself to sleep. Richardson found himself wondering whether he would be able to drop off to sleep so easily if he was under the shadow of the gallows. This man had extraordinary nerve. In reality, however, Maze was only feigning sleep and was anxiously surveying his position.

The hours passed slowly, but at last the train was in the far-flung suburbs of North London and Maze appeared to wake up with a start. At Euston the two men attracted no attention with their modest hand-bags. They entered a taxi and Richardson gave the order to drive to Bow Street. The formalities to be complied with were short. He handed over his prisoner and the warrant to the officer in charge, and Maze was taken downstairs to the cells. Richardson asked leave to use the inspector's telephone to head-quarters and rang up Mr. Morden, knowing that during busy times, he was apt to stay in his office to a late hour. A familiar voice answered him.

“Inspector Richardson speaking from Bow Street, sir. I've lodged that man from Liverpool in the cells here. Could I see you if I came along at once?”

“Yes,” was the answer. “I'll wait for you.”

“Well, Mr. Richardson, you haven't been long away.”

“No, sir, everything happened to go without a hitch. The Liverpool C.I.D. helped me very much; they made the arrest and their men did most of the searching. We took the prisoner's fingerprints at Dale Street and found that the print of the forefinger of the right hand was identical with that which was found on the spacing-bar of the typewriter.”

“Come, you're getting on.”

“Yes, sir, but I don't think we've yet got all we want. It's true I've brought back with me this bottle of fluid that has the label of a chemist in Orleans. It may prove to contain a poison or it may not.”

“Right! We'll have it analysed.”

“We brought back with us a sack full of papers, which will have to be examined.”

“I don't see how you are likely to find any evidence of the murder in them, but they may have a bearing on the false attestation.”

“Quite so, sir, but if you remember, the murderer took away quite a number of papers from Miss Clynes' room. He dropped some in the taxi, but her diary was missing, and probably other papers.”

“I don't think that kind of man would keep incriminating papers, but go through them carefully by all means.”

“I'm afraid that I must report one difficulty, sir. Maze's butler has made a statement that his master slept at home on May 15th, and so he will be a useful witness for the defence.”

“Alibis are the devil in a case like this. Did the man appear to be speaking the truth as far as his memory went?”

“Yes, sir, he did, but I think that with a little extra work the alibi may be broken down. The butler says that he found his master in bed next morning, and does not know at what hour he came back. The cabman who we think took him nearly to Euston that night, was paid off between 10.30 and 11 p.m., in time to catch the midnight train. That train would not have got to Liverpool in time for the butler to find him in bed next morning.”

“Well, then, perhaps the alibi is watertight.”

“I think not, sir. After the remand to-morrow morning I'm going to make a tour of the garages in the neighbourhood of Euston. If he took a car at 11 p.m. he could have got home by 4 a.m.; a good car would average fifty miles an hour at night with no traffic.”