Death Has Deep Roots Read online

  Copyright & Information

  Death Has Deep Roots

  First published in 1951

  © Estate of Michael Gilbert; House of Stratus 1951-2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Michael Gilbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  0755105206 9780755105205 Print

  0755131827 9780755131822 Kindle

  075513219X 9780755132195 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Born in Lincolnshire, England, Michael Francis Gilbert graduated in law from the University of London in 1937, shortly after which he first spent some time teaching at a prep-school which was followed by six years serving with the Royal Horse Artillery. During World War II he was captured following service in North Africa and Italy, and his prisoner-of-war experiences later leading to the writing of the acclaimed novel ‘Death in Captivity’ in 1952.

  After the war, Gilbert worked as a solicitor in London, but his writing continued throughout his legal career and in addition to novels he wrote stage plays and scripts for radio and television. He is, however, best remembered for his novels, which have been described as witty and meticulously-plotted espionage and police procedural thrillers, but which exemplify realism.

  HRF Keating stated that ‘Smallbone Deceased’ was amongst the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. “The plot,” wrote Keating, “is in every way as good as those of Agatha Christie at her best: as neatly dovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and as full of cunningly-suggested red herrings.” It featured Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, who went on to appear in later novels and short stories, and another series was built around Patrick Petrella, a London based police constable (later promoted) who was fluent in four languages and had a love for both poetry and fine wine. Other memorable characters around which Gilbert built stories included Calder and Behrens. They are elderly but quite amiable agents, who are nonetheless ruthless and prepared to take on tasks too much at the dirty end of the business for their younger colleagues. They are brought out of retirement periodically upon receiving a bank statement containing a code.

  Much of Michael Gilbert’s writing was done on the train as he travelled from home to his office in London: “I always take a latish train to work,” he explained in 1980, “and, of course, I go first class. I have no trouble in writing because I prepare a thorough synopsis beforehand.”. After retirement from the law, however, he nevertheless continued and also reviewed for ‘The Daily Telegraph’, as well as editing ‘The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes’.

  Gilbert was appointed CBE in 1980. Generally regarded as ‘one of the elder statesmen of the British crime writing fraternity, he was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers’ Association and in 1988 he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, before receiving the Lifetime ‘Anthony’ Achievement award at the 1990 Boucheron in London.

  Michael Gilbert died in 2006, aged ninety three, and was survived by his wife and their two sons and five daughters.

  Part One

  Chapter One

  By nine o’clock the queue was long enough to engage the attention of two policemen. At ten it contained enough people to fill the Central Criminal Court three times over. Two more policemen arrived and latecomers, who had now no choice of a seat, were directed to the front of the building where they might have the pleasure of watching the legal celebrities as they arrived.

  “There’s something about a woman, I mean – a murderess,” said Baby Masterton to Avis – they were standing about tenth in the queue. “You know what I mean. Just to see her standing all alone in the dock.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Avis.

  “It’s such a long time since we’ve had a real woman – not awful old bags like Mrs. Wilbraham or that Carter creature who chopped up her grandson – but a girl. French too.”

  “I didn’t think she was particularly pretty, dear.”

  “Not pretty, no. But smart. French girls know about clothes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, you know, if she did do it – I mean, pretty cold-blooded. Even if they don’t hang her they’ll sentence her to death. There’s something about a girl being sentenced to death. You know what I mean.”

  “Yes,” said Avis truthfully. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  Mr. Ruby, who was twentieth in the queue – he had attended so many of these functions that he was able to gauge to a nicety the moment of his arrival and had even managed to get a proper breakfast, which was more than most of the queue had done – turned to the untidy young man next to him and said, “Your first murder trial, I expect.”

  “Well, yes,” said the young man. “As a matter of fact, it is. I don’t get much opportunity for this sort of thing you know – live in Doncaster. But being up in London for a few days – I say, though, how did you know—?”

  “Your camera,” said Mr. Ruby with a dry smile. “If you try to take that inside the court you’ll find yourself in the dock, not the public gallery.”

  “My goodness,” said the young man, hurriedly slipping the camera strap off his shoulder. “How very lucky I happened to speak to you – what had I better do with it?”

  “I should put it in your pocket, or hand it to the attendant at the door. He’ll look after it for you.”

  “Well, thank you,” said the young man. “It’s really very kind of you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said Mr. Ruby. “I go to a lot of these criminal trials. In fact, I should describe myself as rather a student of the forensic science. Now this one should be particularly interesting. There’s no doubt, I think, that the girl’s guilty – but with Claudian Summers prosecuting and Poynter for the defence – they’re both Silks, of course – I think we shall see some great cut and thrust.”

  “Yes, yes, I suppose we shall,” agreed the young man. Indeed his eyes were already alight, as one who waits to hear a geste or a tale of ancient chivalry. “Both K.C.’s you say?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Ruby. “You’d hardly expect anything less than a leader in a capital case. But Poynter’s a magician with a jury. If the prisoner is guilty – and I say, from reading the proceedings at the police court I can hardly see how she can be anything else – then she couldn’t have a better counsel than Poynter. I’ve seen every man and woman in the jury in tears – all twelve of ’em – before he’d finished with them.”

  “Well, I never.”

  “And with Claudian Summers for the Crown, she’s going to need all the defending she can get—oh, here comes a photographer.” Mr. Ruby straightened his bow tie and smoothed his thinning hair.

  The press, having time on their hands before the arrival of the principals, had turned their attention to the queue and were getting some human stuff for the c
enter pages. The man and woman at the head of the queue had already revealed, for the benefit of the five and a half million registered readers of the Daily Telephone, that their names were Edna and Egbert Engleheart, that they came from East Finchley and that they had already been waiting five hours and forty-five minutes, when, on a signal that the judge was arriving, the pressmen vanished as suddenly as they had come.

  “They’re opening the door,” said Mr. Ruby. “Come on, we shall get a good seat.”

  This was optimistic if taken as describing the seat itself which was as hard as teak and as narrow as a legal distinction; but they certainly had a good view of the court. The box-shaped room, looking oddly fore-shortened as seen from above; the benches at the back for the legal hangers-on (“My God,” said Baby. “Young Fanshawe pretending to be a law student or something.” “If anyone takes him for a lawyer,” said Avis, “they’ll mistake me for the Queen of Sheba.” “Well, I wouldn’t go as far as that,” said Baby)—in the middle the dock, enormous and, as yet, empty. Then the cross-benches, steadily filling with wigged and gowned counsel and dark-coated solicitors.

  “Lord bless me,” said Mr. Ruby, suddenly leaning forward and gripping his companion by the arm, “what’s happening?”

  The young man was pardonably startled. It crossed his mind that someone might be attempting a last-minute rescue of the prisoner. Mr. Ruby, after several shots, got his pince-nez from their case and focused them on the foremost cross-bench.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes. It is! I thought I couldn’t be mistaken.”

  “What is it? What’s happening?”

  “It’s Macrea.”

  “My God, so it is,” said a middle-aged man on the right. “There’s no mistaking him, is there? I thought Summers was leading for the Crown.”

  “He is – he is,” said Mr. Ruby impatiently. “He’s just come in – that’s him talking to the usher—” He indicated a thin, slight figure, standing by the door. “Macrea must have been brought in for the defence – or else – where’s Poynter? He can’t have refused the case at the last moment.”

  In the midst of this speculation the prisoner suddenly appeared in the dock. One moment it was empty, the next moment she was sitting there, with the wardresses on chairs behind her.

  “I see what you mean,” said Baby to Avis. “But you must admit she’s got a certain sort of chic. Does she speak English?”

  “Oh yes, quite well. They had an interpreter at the police court but they didn’t have to use him. She’s got a funny sort of accent.”

  “I expect it’s a French accent.”

  At this point the clerk to the court got up from his desk in front of the judge’s rostrum and was observed to go across and have a confabulation with Mr. Summers; who took off his wig, scratched his fine grey hair with a long forefinger, and then replaced his wig slightly askew.

  “This really is extraordinary – quite inexplicable,” said Mr. Ruby. He was sidling backward and forward along the limits of his narrow perch like an agitated parrot. “There’s Mackling – he’s a company counsel, you know—” he indicated a tubby little man in the tiewig of a junior, who was talking to Macrea, whilst Macrea was shaking his head backward and forward in an emphatic manner—“and what on earth—”

  “Pray silence,” said the clerk suddenly, in a very loud voice. “Everybody will stand.”

  Mr. Justice Arbuthnot appeared from the door in the rear of the rostrum, bowed slightly to the leaders, who bowed back, and took his seat. He was a healthy-looking, middle-aged person with kindly grey eyes and a very long protruding nose. In plain clothes he looked like a farmer or a sporting squire. He was a good lawyer for all that, and an excellent and impartial judge.

  “I understand that there is an application,” he said.

  “If your lordship pleases—” said Mr. Macrea.

  “Very well, Mr. Macrea.”

  “Your lordship has, I believe, been informed of the circumstances. The prisoner decided very recently – in fact at midday on Saturday – that is, the day before yesterday – for private reasons, to change her legal advisers.”

  The pressmen scribbled busily and wondered what was up.

  “I myself,” went on Macrea, “was only instructed yesterday morning. In the circumstances, therefore, we have taken the somewhat unusual course of asking that this case be postponed to the end of your lordship’s list.”

  “The accused is, of course, perfectly entitled to change her legal advisers at any time,” said the judge. “I ought, I think, to be enlightened on one point. Was her reason for requiring this change that she was dissatisfied with the way in which her case was being conducted?”

  “In a general way, no. That is to say, neither she nor anyone else imputed anything in the nature of negligence or impropriety to the very eminent firm and persons concerned with her defence. It was simply that she disagreed with their view of the correct policy to be adopted.”

  “I quite understand, Mr. Macrea. I won’t press you any further. Your application is granted.”

  “I am much obliged.”

  “You are certain that in the circumstances you would not rather ask for an adjournment to the next session. If I take this case at the end of the list – let me see – it is a short list – it may not give you more than eight days at the most to prepare your case.”

  “That should be quite sufficient, my lord,” said Macrea. “I should have made it plain that we are not greatly at variance over matters of fact in this case – which has, indeed, been very carefully prepared by our eminent predecessors. It is just a certain shift in emphasis—”

  “I quite understand, Mr. Macrea.”

  “How excruciatingly polite they are,” said Baby. “What does it all mean?”

  “In that case—” suggested the judge.

  There was an immediate general post in the front benches, and out of the turmoil Mr. Madding rose to his feet. He cast a speculative eye over the packed gallery, inextricably wedged on their comfortless seats, and announced with barely concealed satisfaction that the matter before the court arose out of an application under Section one hundred and ninety – four Subsection two of the Companies Act 1948.

  Chapter Two

  The trouble, as Macrea had indicated, had started two days before, at eleven o’clock on the Saturday morning.

  Noel Anthony Pontarlier Rumbold, the junior partner in his father’s firm of Markby, Wragg and Rumbold, Solicitors, of Coleman Street, was at his desk in his office, conscientiously filling in a corrective affidavit for the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. Markby, Wragg and Rumbold was the sort of small firm in which all the partners could, and quite often did, fill in inland revenue affidavits all by themselves.

  Since it was Saturday morning, the office was comparatively empty.

  Mr. Rumbold, senior, was in Scotland. He was engaged, like some persistent middle – aged admirer, in courting a golf handicap whose figure increased remorselessly with the years. Mr. Wragg was at Golder’s Green arranging, without enthusiasm, for the cremation of a client who had at long last died, leaving behind her a codicil in which she had thoughtfully revoked the charging clause in her will.

  The telephone rang and Nap picked up the receiver.

  “It’s Chalibut and Spence, sir,” said the desk sergeant. “They hadn’t got any reference and they wouldn’t say what it was about, so I thought I ought to put them through to you.”

  “All right, sergeant,” said Nap. “It may be an agency job. Put them through, will you. Hello. Yes. Mr. Rumbold, junior, here.”

  “I’m afraid this is going to be rather difficult to explain, over the telephone,” said a thin voice. “This is Mr. Spence speaking. The matter’s rather urgent. I wondered if I could possibly come round and have a word about it.”

  “By all means,” said Nap. “Let me have a look at my book. I’m not doing anything much on Monday morning.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t wait until Monday morning,” said the thin voice. />
  “Oh, I see.” Nap was uncomfortably conscious that he had arranged to catch the 12:15 from Waterloo.

  “I could be with you in ten minutes. Our office is in Old Broad Street. I wouldn’t have troubled you unless it had been urgent.”

  “That’s all right,” said Nap. “Will it take long?”

  “Yes,” said the thin voice. “Yes. I expect it will.”

  “Hell,” said Nap. His wife, though the sweetest of women, had old-fashioned ideas about mealtimes.

  Ten minutes later Mr. Spence arrived. He seated himself carefully, took a large number of papers out of his briefcase and started to talk. Once or twice Nap tried to interrupt the flow, rather in the spirit of an amateur plumber trying to deal with a burst main. He soon gave up. Mr. Spence intended to get it all off his chest.

  “Yes—but—I say,” said Nap at the end. “You know we’re not—we don’t specialise in criminal work.”

  “Neither do we,” said Mr. Spence wearily. “We took this matter up as a kindness to this client, and – between you and me – without any very great hopes of getting our costs back. Now it seems to have rebounded on our own heads.”

  “She wants to change—”

  “She was very definite about it. She wishes to instruct new solicitors and to brief new counsel.”

  “But why pick on us?”

  “I was coming to that,” said Mr. Spence. He selected a fresh sheet of paper from the pile. “It would appear that Major Thoseby was acquainted with you and often spoke of you and your firm.”

  “Eric Thoseby,” said Nap. “Good heavens!”

  How a name can unlock a door, thought Nap; a whole series of doors, so that the hearer looks, for a startled moment, backward down the corridor of the past. A tunnelled and a distorted view but, at the end of the corridor, clear and sharp and unexpected.