The Dartmoor Enigma (17 page)

“Did you fix things up with them?”

“Did I not, and that in spite of the family treating me as if I was something out of the ash-can, but I didn't care about that. It's the divorce I was after; they want it too. They've left it in my hands now, but I'll say for you that you paved the way.”

“How are you going to set about getting a divorce? Unless there is proof of misconduct it is not a very easy matter in this country.”

“Oh, don't let that worry you. I'm not going to employ a private sleuth to follow my husband about on his milk round; the poor goop hasn't got it in him to misbehave himself, and I'm not going to oblige him. No. I shall go to America for my divorce. There it's merely a matter of dollars in some of the states. I'll fix that up, never fear. But say, I'm darned grateful to you for having made it possible all in a couple of days, and if I can work anything for you, you've only to say the word. If it was America I'd see the head of your show and get you shoved up, but I guess at Scotland Yard things are not worked that way.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Smith, but all I am able to accept from you is a ticket to see you on the screen.”

“A ticket? You shall have a hundred tickets. You shall look in any time you're passing a picture-house where I'm starred. I wish I could do more to show you how grateful I am.”

“Could I ask you a few questions?”

“As many as you like, but I've only half an hour for answering them.”

“Were you in England three and a half years ago?”

“Now you're asking me something. Three and a half years ago? Why, yes, you've hit it. I was here from March till June.”

“Did you make any inquiries about your husband, Charles Dearborn, in those months?”

“Why, yes, sure. I was running round looking for him all the time. I employed two of these advertising sleuths in London and they couldn't do a thing, though they made me pay a bill for charges that made my blood run cold.”

“Can you remember their names?”

“Why, yes. There was a guy called Prosser and another called Jordan.”

Richardson knew the two names; neither was likely to be of any use to him. “Did you employ anyone else?”

“Not an inquiry agent, but I did go and consult a lawyer man and the snuffy old thing told me it wasn't a lawyer's job, and shot me off on those inquiry agents.”

Richardson may have shown his interest in his face, for she hastened to add, “It's no use your looking at me like that because I can't remember the name of that lawyer. All I know is that he had an office in Bold Street, Bristol.”

“And you talked to him about your husband—Charles Dearborn?”

“Why, what else should I talk to him about? When he told me in polite language to go to hell, I talked to him in a way he won't have forgotten, though it was three and a half years ago. By the way, you're interested in freckles, aren't you? Well, the office boy in Bold Street had more freckles on his face than my young brother-in-law, Albert—if he hasn't lost them like Albert has.”

Richardson rose. “Thank you very much. Your answers to my questions may turn out to be very useful.”

“My, but you're easily satisfied,” said Jane Smith.

W
HEN THE TWO
police officers met at Carter's for tea, Sergeant Jago could not help noticing a less harassed look on the features of his Chief Inspector.

“I see you got some useful information this afternoon,” he observed.

“I got something that may turn out to be useful if the bad luck that keeps following me about in this case doesn't step in to spoil it all. You remember that my idea has always been that the murdered man was a lawyer, and it was obvious that he was in hiding when he took that house in Winterton. How did he come by the name of Charles Dearborn? I'll tell you. This woman who calls herself Jane Smith on the films was very anxious to trace her own husband of the same name, and with that object, she told me this afternoon, she visited a solicitor in Bold Street, Bristol, but as ill-luck would have it, she's forgotten his name, so the law list won't be of any use to us. When she went to this man she would naturally have given her husband's name, and being an uncommon one, it may have stuck in the mind of the solicitor, so that it came to the surface of his memory when he was looking out for an alias. As you must know, one of the things criminals find most difficult is to invent names. There was that case of Podmore down in Southampton. That man gave the police more than a dozen names taken from firms and streets, all false as far as Southampton was concerned, but all existent in the Potteries in Staffordshire where Podmore was brought up.”

“Yes, I remember following that case,” said Jago.

“It was an education for a detective officer. It proved that even when a criminal has brains, the most difficult thing for him to do is to invent a good working alias.”

“I wish that woman had remembered the name of the solicitor she saw.”

“Yes, it's so like a woman. The essential thing we want from her she's forgotten, but she remembers that the office boy had freckles. I'm afraid there's nothing for us but to go down to Bristol by an early train to-morrow morning, go to the police and ask them what has become of a solicitor who three and a half years ago had an office in Bold Street.”

“But why not go down Bold Street and look for the office of a solicitor and commissioner for oaths?”

“Because if my theory is correct and the solicitor went into hiding in Winterton, the office will no longer exist. By an extraordinary stroke of good fortune we may even get on the track of the freckled office boy, who is now nearly four years older, and may be the youth who came down to Winterton and saw Lieutenant Cosway. His object may have been blackmail, but we needn't worry about that.”

Their first visit after arriving in Bristol was to the City Police Office, where Richardson asked for the senior detective officer. The two were conducted to a room marked “Detective Inspector,” where they found a man older than Richardson, busy writing at a table.

“I must introduce myself, Inspector,” said Richardson. “I am Chief Inspector Richardson from the Yard and this is Detective Sergeant Jago. We are now investigating a murder case in South Devon; the Chief Constable applied for our services.”

The Detective Inspector became alert and obliging; he did not receive visits from senior officers of Scotland Yard every day.

“Has your Devon case brought you so far afield as Bristol?”

“Yes, because we cannot afford to neglect any clue, however slight. The case down there is very baffling and mysterious.”

“How can we help you?”

“By giving us any information you may have about a solicitor's firm that was practising three and a half years ago in Bold Street. For all I know to the contrary the firm may still be there, but I have reason to believe it was closed three years ago.”

“You don't know the name?”

“No, that is our trouble. We found an informant who had called at the office three and a half years ago, but all she can remember was that it was in Bold Street.”

A light dawned in the Inspector's eye. “If you're thinking of one that was closed down about three years ago, it must be Sutcliffe's.”

“And where is Sutcliffe now?”

“In prison. They gave him four years' penal servitude for misappropriating his clients' money to a very big extent. I can't remember the exact sum he was charged with stealing, but it ran into many thousands. It was a very bad case. I was engaged on it myself.”

“Had he a partner?”

“No; he was single-handed. It was an unhappy business, because he was very popular in the town, and no one would have suspected him of dishonesty.”

“It is a very trifling point, but as you were engaged on the case, you may remember whether Mr. Sutcliffe had an office boy.”

“Yes, he had, and what helps me to remember that boy was that he had more freckles on his face than anyone I've ever seen.”

“Is he in or near Bristol now?”

“No, he disappeared after the Sutcliffe case and I don't know where he is. I'll tell you what I can do to help you, but I must get the Chief Constable's consent first,” said the Inspector; “I can have the file in the Sutcliffe case hunted up and lend it to you. The Chief Constable might not like it to go out of this office, but we could set apart one of the rooms for you to work in. You'll find in the file the news-cuttings of the trial. I think the Chief Constable is in his office at this moment, so if you'll come with me I'll introduce you.”

“Chief Inspector Richardson from the Yard is outside, sir,” said the Detective Inspector; “he would like to speak to you for a moment.”

“Certainly. Show him in.”

Richardson found a bluff, active man of about his own age sitting at an immaculate office table, engaged apparently in rapid calculations scribbled on his blotting-pad.

“Good morning, Chief Inspector. I know several of your colleagues at the Yard, but I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting you.”

Secretly the Chief Constable was surprised at the apparent youth of his visitor, and was wondering how he could have obtained his existing rank at so early an age.

“Sit down and tell me how I can help you.”

Richardson took the seat indicated and explained. “I have been sent down to investigate a murder case in South Devon at the request of the Chief Constable of the county, and the inquiries I have made so far have brought me to Bristol, sir.”

“Oh? It must be a matter of ancient history, this murder.”

“No, sir; it happened just over two weeks ago, but it leads back into ancient history. It concerns a solicitor named Sutcliffe.”

The Chief Constable's manner changed. He was now alert and watchful. “So that case has come up again. You know, of course, what became of Sutcliffe?”

“Only that he was tried and sentenced some years ago for misappropriating money.”

“I believe that we have the file of the case, because we had the task of making preliminary inquiries for the Director of Public Prosecutions in London. If my people can dig it out I think your best course will be to read it through and then come and see me again. I shall be particularly glad to hear your impressions of the case, because I knew Sutcliffe personally and I may have something to tell you that you will find interesting.” He touched a push concealed under the flap of the table and a constable clerk made his appearance. “Richards, you remember that case of the solicitor Sutcliffe who was sentenced at the Assizes? Can you lay your hands on the file?”

“I think so, sir. Let me see, it was about three years ago.”

“A little more than that, I think.”

“Well, sir, the file has not been taken over to the old file-room yet. I think I can find it quickly.”

“Good! As quickly as you can, then.”

The Chief Constable turned to Richardson. “I sometimes envy you people at the Yard. You're not tied eternally to an office desk as we are. I suppose your duties take you out of town quite a lot?”

“I've been lucky, sir, in having to go abroad two or three times.”

“Were you the man they sent over to Paris on that case of our press attaché?” asked the Chief Constable with sudden interest. “I read that case very carefully, but I confess that I never guessed the real explanation of the murder until the end. I envy you more than ever.”

A double rap on the door cut short this conversation. The constable clerk entered carrying a thick pile of papers. “The Sutcliffe case, sir,” he said proudly.

The file had been deep in dust, and the well-meant attempt to cleanse it with a duster had served only to rub in the accumulated dirt of forty months.

“I apologize for the state of the file,” pleaded the Chief Constable, “but I dare say that you've had to deal with files as filthy at the Yard.”

Richardson laughed. ‘Yes, sir; I'm thoroughly accustomed to them.”

“Then my clerk shall take them to a vacant room where you can have your sergeant to work with you.”

For the first time since he undertook the case, Richardson began to feel that he was starting on the right road. He collected Jago and the two were conducted to a little room near that of the Detective Inspector, who told them that they could work without fear of interruption.

“At last I've got something for us to work upon,” said Richardson.

Sergeant Jago looked at the date on the file and said, “I don't see how this is going to help us very much. This man must have been in prison for the past three years; he couldn't have been our Charles Dearborn.”

“I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that we shall find out the identity of our Charles Dearborn in this file.”

“There's a lot to go through here.”

“Of course there is; I've always heard Mr. Walker, who dealt with those big fraud cases in the city twenty years ago, say that there is no more complicated detective work than cases of fraud. What I propose to do here is to dictate to you from these papers a
précis
of the evidence and the summing-up by the Judge. That'll give us plenty to go upon when we are back at Winterton.”

They worked steadily through the file for the whole of the morning. The case had opened through a complaint received by the Bristol police, on the part of a lady client, that she had been induced by the accused to invest a sum of £2,000 in the Sulanka Gold Mining Company in British North Borneo, which company had no assets; and that the defendant Sutcliffe figured as the solicitor to the company; that the whole company was fraudulent, since a prospectus alleged that its property consisted of a mountain largely composed of metallic gold; and that no work had been carried out on the property in question.

When this complaint had been brought to the notice of Sutcliffe he had offered on behalf of his firm to make good the complainant's loss, but it had been found that the assets of his firm amounted only to less than £200, and therefore nothing could be done in that direction. The police consulted the Director of Public Prosecutions as to whether the investment of a client's funds in a fraudulent company, of which the solicitor was himself solicitor, amounted to a criminal offence.