The Studio Crime (5 page)

“Gloves?”

“I didn't notice. He seemed to be a man of between forty and fifty. He had a greyish dark moustache, and, I think, a slight cast in his eye—his left eye. And a gold tooth, the upper row, I fancy.”

“Did he speak to you, Sir Marion?”

“Yes. As far as I remember, his words were: ‘To Golders Green, please, how may I go?'”

“And?”

“I told him to take a No. 2 bus. The buses were running slowly, because of the fog, but there wasn't much disorganization. He bowed and smiled and walked on towards Wellington Road.”

“H'm,” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “And what time was this, Sir Marion?”

There was a pause, while Steen considered this point.

“I should say,” he replied at length, “within a minute or two of ten past eight. The clock in Newtree's lobby pointed to the half-hour as I came in, and I should allow twenty minutes to walk from the point at which I met him to here.”

“Can you tell me the exact point in Greentree Road where you met this man, Sir Marion?”

“Yes. It was just this side of Shipman's Mews.”

“Thank you, Sir Marion. Your description tallies exactly with Dr. Merewether's, except for one point. You are more observant than the doctor. He didn't notice the cast in the eye.”

Sir Marion smiled thoughtfully.

“I wouldn't swear to it myself, Inspector. It was just an impression—something oblique about the glance of the eye.”

“Thank you, Sir Marion,” said the Inspector smilingly, and bowed the great financier out.

“This looks as if it might be an interesting case,” said Christmas, as Hembrow shut the door behind Sir Marion. At his own request and Hembrow's indulgence, he was acting in the capacity of an unofficial assistant to the Inspector, who was a friend of his. The two had been friends since three or four years before, when Hembrow had been sent to investigate a daring and well-planned robbery from the safes at the Christmas Stores. Christmas, who had then had a lazy, dilettante interest in criminal investigation, had in fact helped the Inspector a good deal, and Hembrow had never forgotten that had it not been for one or two inspirations of John's all his patient and thorough investigations might have ended lamentably in a blind alley. John's arbitrary, amateur and sweeping methods of deduction had amused Hembrow at first, but in the end he had found himself in debt to them; and the friendship had persisted and been cemented a year later during the course of the extraordinary affair known as the Museum murder, which had opened with the discovery in the early hours of the morning of a well-known journalist lying dead under a table in the British Museum reading-room. Hembrow's unravelling of this affair had been a masterpiece of skilfully-collected and co-ordinated evidence, which had gained him much kudos with his superiors. But it had been Christmas who had first detected the forged post-mark which had formed the nucleus of the whole intricate web; and Hembrow had accordingly come to have a certain respect for the abilities of his amateur assistant, although he was never tired of reminding him that to jump to the right conclusion was a very different thing from proving its rightness.

“Seems to be quite straightforward at present,” he said now, with a smile. “But one never knows. I think I'll take a statement from the servant next... He's got something to hide, I fancy.”

Old Greenaway came into the room looking pale and harassed, and at the Inspector's invitation sat down submissively with an air of abandoning himself to fate.

“Now, Mr. Greenaway,” said Hembrow briskly, “will you tell us what you know of this affair, please?”

The old man hesitated, with a strained, puzzled look on his face. It was plain he did not know where to begin. Finally, moistening his lips, he stammered:

“Well, sir, I was in Mr. Newtree's pantry getting a tray of glasses together when I heard a noise—hammering and banging on the landing, sir. So I went up to see what was wrong.”

“Did you know that Mr. Newtree and his guests had gone up to see Mr. Frew?”

“Yes, sir. And when I heard the hammering I guessed they was trying to break into the flat, sir. And at once I thought of the Oriental gentleman...”

Hembrow said impassively:

“Oh. The Oriental gentleman. What Oriental gentleman?”

“The Oriental gentleman as came this evening to see Mr. Frew, sir.”

“Did you see this gendeman?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the old servant, with more assurance than he had yet shown, speaking, in fact, quite eagerly. “I'd just been in to Mr. Newtree's studio with some logs, sir, and was going out with the scuttle when I met him in the hall doorway, sir.”

“What doorway?”

“The front door of the building, sir. I was going to the outhouse with the scuttle to fetch some more coal.”

“What time was this?”

“I couldn't say to the minute, sir, but round about half-past seven. And at five minutes to eight by the kitchen clock I heard footsteps coming down which I took to be the same gentleman leaving, sir.”

“You didn't see him leaving?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, Mr. Greenaway, please describe in as much detail as possible the man you met in the front doorway.”

“It was a short, dark gentleman, sir,” began Greenaway eagerly, “just an inch or so shorter than what I am. He looked like a Turkish gentleman to me. He had a queer red hat like Turks wear in pictures, and a black overcoat done up to the neck. He was a stoutish gentleman, sir, with a little greyish-black moustache, and a gold filling in one of his front teeth, sir.”

“Did he speak to you?”

“No, sir.”

“How did you notice the gold filling, then?”

“He smiled at me, sir, and bowed, and stood back, like, in the doorway.”

“Any other peculiarities? I mean did you notice a mole, say, or a scar, or a squint, or anything of that kind?”

Greenaway paused, then:

“No, sir,” he said rather regretfully, as if he would dearly have loved to embroider his description. “But I thought at the time he looked—well, sinister-like, sir, for all he smiled so friendly.”

Hembrow caught John's eye and gave a fleeting smile. He was used to this sort of wisdom after the event.

“Mr. Frew have any other visitors this evening, so far as you know?

“There was the young woman, sir,” said Greenaway, with an indescribable note of hostility in his voice. “But she didn't stay long.”

“Young woman? Did you see her?”

“Yes, sir. It was Miss Shirley, the model who poses for Mr. Frew, and sometimes for Mr. Newtree, sir. She came soon after the Oriental gentleman. I met her in the hall as I came back with the coal. And again when she came down after a few moments...”

“Did she speak to you? Come, Mr. Greenaway, you must remember that! What did she say?”

Greenaway looked unhappy. Two faint patches of red appeared in his thin cheeks, and he fidgeted restlessly in his chair.

“I—nothing important, sir.”

“That's for me to judge. Come, come. Don't waste my time.”

The old man cleared his throat and mumbled unwillingly:

“Well, we aren't too friendly, sir, her and me, owing to the way she's treated my boy. She said as she came down the stairs: ‘ Hullo, Daddy! How's your blue-eyed boy? Give him my love, but not my address.'”

“And you replied?

“I didn't say anything, sir,” Greenaway answered with some dignity, “not wishing to start her being loud and abusive outside Mr. Newtree's door, sir.”

“Very discreet of you, Greenaway. Does Mr. Frew usually do his painting in the evening by artificial light?”

“I couldn't say, sir.”

“I was only thinking Miss Shirley couldn't have been coming for a sitting so late in the evening.”

Greenaway looked stiffly into space.

“I couldn't say, sir. But I was glad when she broke off with my boy. She—she's not a good girl, sir.” He added: “And Mr. Newtree says she's not a good model, either. He only had her the twice when his usual model had the flu. And he said—well, he expressed himself strongly, sir.”

“Oh?” murmured Hembrow encouragingly.

“He said,” went on Greenaway, obviously glad to relieve his feelings and express his opinion of Miss Shirley thus vicariously, “he said: ‘A whole damn wasted morning! If that damn girl's a professional model I'll eat all the Chinese white.'”

Hembrow laughed and was silent for a moment, playing with his pencil. Then with an abstracted frown he asked casually:

“And now, Mr. Greenaway, do you mind telling me when your son last threatened to murder his employer?”

Christmas gave a start of surprise, and glanced up in time to see all expression fade from Greenaway's face. For a second the old man stared blankly, open-lipped, dark-eyed, at his interrogator. Only for a second. Then a look of fear and agony swept over his face, and he pushed his chair back and impulsively half-rose to his feet, opening and shutting his white lips and fascinatedly staring at Hembrow's face as a bird is said to stare hypnotized at a snake. His throat moved convulsively as though he were trying to swallow something.

“Sir—sir” he stammered piteously at last, and looked wildly round as though for some way of escape.

“Come, come,” said Hembrow gently. “Don't be so alarmed, Mr. Greenaway. I may tell you for your comfort that the people who threaten murder are not often the ones that commit it. Your son did threaten to murder his employer, then?”

“Oh, sir!” cried Greenaway pitifully, with a contorted face. “He wouldn't hurt a soul, my son wouldn't! Why, the very sight of blood turns him queer, always has, if it's only a cut finger! Oh, sir! You're not going to take poor Ernest? It'd break his mother's heart to hear such a thing had even been thought of him! Why?”

“Sit down, Mr. Greenaway,” said the Inspector quietly, “and answer my questions properly. It's the best thing you can do for your son.”

The old man subsided limply into a chair.

“You know, sir,” he said in a broken voice, looking helplessly from Hembrow to Christmas, “how wild young men talk when they're crossed in love. It used to fret me to hear him, but there, I thought, all smoke and no fire... that's always been the way with my boy.”

“Your son and Miss Shirley were friends, then, at one time?”

“They were keeping comp'ny, sir, until about two months ago. We were expecting as my boy was going to settle down at last, though we could have wished it'd been with a different girl. We never liked the girl, Pandora as she called herself, my wife and me didn't. We saw as she was the flashy kind as never makes a good wife, sir. Still, we didn't do nothing to stop the affair, and 'twouldn't have been no good if we had, sir, Ernie being head over ears in love. Ernie was always one to go to extremes—not,” added the old man fearfully, “in what he does, but in what he feels, sir. Then two months ago she gave him the chuck, and he was fairly heart-broken, threatening suicide and that. And then when he found—when he guessed—when she kept coming to Mr. Frew's studio, sir, he took it into his head as there was something wrong, and he got desperate with jealousy and that, sir. I kept advising him to leave and take another place and forget the girl, sir. But he didn't seem as if he could keep away from where she was... and... and... Oh, sir! If everybody as ever threatened to do a murder were to do it, sir, the world'd be full of corpses, pretty near!”

Hembrow smiled as he dismissed him, and his smile seemed to put a little heart into the old servant. He lingered in the doorway a moment, looking wistfully at Hembrow as if he would give ten years of his life to be able to read his thoughts. Then he went slowly out with a bent head.

Ernest Greenaway was the last on the Inspector's list. He looked pale and sullen and sank heavily down into the chair like a lifeless thing, and remained looking stonily at the carpet. Christmas looked keenly at him, noting the slack lips, the narrow forehead, the coxcombry of his clothes. Here was an emotional young weakling, degenerate both in physique and character from old Greenaway's simple, sturdy, self-respecting type.

“You are Ernest Greenaway?” asked Hembrow briskly.

“Yes.”

“You were valet to Mr. Frew?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Since last January.”

“Ten months. Did you come to Mr. Frew through an agency or on a personal recommendation?”

“My father got me the job.” 

“Mr. Frew had not been here long when you entered his service?”

“A week or two.”

“Were you in the deceased's confidence at all?”

An ugly look came into the young man's face. His chin came a little forward and the corners of his slack mouth drew down. He continued to look obstinately at the floor.

“No, I wasn't.”

“Did he treat you well? Give you a fairly easy time?”

“Yes.”

“Did he entertain here much?”

“No. Not at all.”

“No callers at all?”

“Oh, callers!” muttered the young man. “Yes. Queer birds, some of them.”

“Queer birds!” echoed Hembrow meditatively. “Now what do you mean by queer birds?”

The young man shrugged his slight shoulders, then replied with a sort of self-conscious rudeness:

“Oh, greasy old Ikes and second-hand dealers. The place is full of their junk.”

“Mr. Frew was a connoisseur?”

“Thought he was, I suppose,” muttered the young man. “Some of the things in his collection are of great value, no doubt?”

Greenaway hesitated, with a spiteful look on his weak face, as if his instinct was to depreciate the value of anything connected with his late master. Then he shrugged indifferently.

“I dare say.”

“Are they catalogued?”

“Couldn't say, I'm sure.”