Smallbone Deceased Read online

  'Thank you,' said Bohun. 'I'm liking it very much.'

  'Dry as dust I expect.'

  'Oh, I don't know,' said Bohun. 'We found a trustee in one of the deed boxes today.'

  'Lor!' said Mrs Magoli, who clearly had no idea what a trustee was. 'What will you lawyers get up to next? Now what could you fancy for your afters?'

  Bohun inspected the table in the middle of the room which Mrs Magoli had spread with a fair cloth and covered with a number of dishes, backed by a promising looking wicker-covered flask.

  'Ham,' he said. 'How on earth do you get ham? I didn't think there was that much ham in London. Pasta schuta. Bread. Butter. Green olives. To add anything else would be sacrilege and profanation—unless you've got a little bit of Carmagnola cheese.

  'I thought that's what you'd be after,' said Mrs Magoli. 'Got some this morning. Shocking price, I don't like to tell you what it cost.'

  'Then don't,' said Bohun.

  'You'll be the ruin of me,' said Mrs Magoli complacently.

  'Then we will go down together into bankruptcy,' said Bohun, 'fortified by the blamelessness of our lives and strengthened by the inspiration of your cooking.'

  When Mrs Magoli had cleared away the last of the dinner, Bohun took a book from the shelves and started to read. He read steadily, reeling in the lines of print with a nice unfettered action. Page after page was turned, until the little clock on the mantelpiece tinkled out eleven: whereupon Bohun closed the book, marking the place with a slip of white paper on which he scribbled a note. Then he got to his feet and looked out of the window, stooping his height a little to get a view of the skyline over the gable opposite.

  The sky was clear, and the night warm for mid-April.

  Bohun went back into his bedroom and returned carrying an old raincoat, turned out the fire and the light and went quietly downstairs. A few minutes later he was in Holborn, boarding a late bus, going east.

  It was half a dozen fare-stages beyond Aldgate Pump before he alighted. Thereafter he turned south, towards the river, following his nose.

  The public houses were long since closed and the only lights which showed were from one or two little all-night cafes. Bohun seemed to know where he was going. He left even these rare lights behind him as he turned down a side street. He was in the factory and warehouses area now, and the street along which he was walking was lined with heavy double doors, steel-roller covered vanways alternating with hoardings.

  After a hundred yards he turned down an alleyway which came to a dead end in an ugly square yellow-brick building.

  Lights were showing in one or two of the windows and Bohun knocked. The front door was unlocked and he went in without waiting for an answer.

  The room into which he turned was some sort of office. A gas-fire burned in the grate, and at a table a small bald middle-aged man was seated drinking cocoa.

  'Good evening, 'Enery,' said the bald man. His voice declared that he had been born and bred within striking distance of Bow bells. 'I thought I reckernised your fairy plates. 'Elp yerself to a cupper.'

  'Thanks,' said Henry. 'Anything doing tonight?'

  'Not tonight, son. You mighter used the blower and saved yerself a journey.'

  'That's all right,' said Henry. T like the exercise. When's the next job coming along?'

  T can fitcher in next week, most probable. Peters need a pair for their new place.'

  'Peter's—isn't that whisky?'

  'Wines and sperrits.'

  'That's apt to be a bit rough, isn't it?' said Bohun. 'I'm not looking for trouble, you know. A quiet life is all I want.'

  'Quiet,' said the little man. 'It'll be quiet as a fewer bed. Peters are all right. Very scientific. All the fixings.'

  'All right,' said Bohun. 'I'll try anything once. Give me a ring nearer the time. How have you been keeping? How are the pigeons?. . . .'

  It was an hour and more before Bohun finally set out again into the night. The last bus had long gone to its garage and the streets were empty. He faced the prospect of the walk with equanimity. Walking in the country bored him, but London he loved, and most of all he loved it at night. The shuttered warehouses, the silent streets of offices. The grave, cloaked policeman, the occasional hunting cat. The death of one day's life.

  His long legs carried him steadily westward.

  Three o'clock was striking from Lincoln's Inn Chapel when he turned once more into Malvern Rents.

  As he turned his key in the door he stopped in some surprise. Ten yards down, opposite the entrance of the narrow passage, he noticed the rear light of a car. This in itself was unusual at that time of night, but it was not all. Looking up from where he stood he saw that there was a light in his room.

  'Curiouser and curiouser,' said Bohun. He shut the shop door quietly and went upstairs.

  The thickset man who got up as he came in, said: 'I'm sorry to disturb you at such an unorthodox hour, Mr Bohun. Your landlady gave me permission to make myself at home till you came back.'

  He might have been a farmer, with his red face, his heavy build and his hardworn tweed suit. He might have been a soldier in mufti. The hand which he held out to Bohun had the plumping muscles behind the fingers which meant that the owner used his hands as well as his head. The only remarkable thing about this generally unremarkable person was his eyes, which were grey, with the cold grey of the North Sea.

  'My name's Hazlerigg,' went on the newcomer. 'I'm from Scotland Yard.'

  Bohun had recognised the police car and managed not to look too shaken. The next remark, however, did surprise him.

  'I believe you knew Bobby Pollock,' said Hazlerigg.

  'Lord, yes,' said Bohun. 'Won't you sit down. Bobby and I were second loots in the Rum Runners. We were in Africa and Italy together. I heard—didn't he get killed?'

  'Yes,' said Hazlerigg. 'I had the pleasure of hanging both the responsible parties,' he added.

  'I'm glad,' said Bohun. 'Bobby was a first-rater. I believe he broke every regulation known to officialdom to get into the army.'

  'Yes,' said Hazlerigg. 'He told me a lot about you too.' 'Well, I expect you know the worst. About my disability, you mean.'

  'I should hesitate to describe para-insomnia as a disability,' said Hazlerigg, 'although I know the army regarded it as such.'

  'I don't think that anyone really knows very much about it,' said Bohun, 'or that's the impression I've got from talking to a number of different doctors.'

  'It's true, then, that you never sleep more than two hours a night.'

  'Two hours is a good night,' said Bohun. 'Ninety minutes is about the average.'

  'And you don't suffer any ill effects—excuse me. It's bad taste, I know, asking questions like that, only I was interested when Pollock told me.'

  'It doesn't make me feel tired, if that's what you mean,' said Bohun. 'It isn't straightforward insomnia, you know— not as the term is usually understood. The only detail on which the medical profession are at all agreed is that some day I may drop down dead in the street. But what day—or what street—they can't say.'

  'I can't do better,' said Hazlerigg, 'than quote Sergeant Pollock. He said some nice things about you as an infantry officer, then he added, "Of course, he was God's gift to the staff. Imagine a G.S.O. who could work indefinitely for twenty-two hours a day!" I gather that an officious M.O. tumbled to it in the end and the net result was that you were boarded out.'

  'Once they knew about the para-insomnia I don't think they had any option.'

  'I should have thought the most difficult thing was filling in the spare time.'

  'Oh, I do a good deal of reading,' said Bohun. It's useful, too, when I'm taking an exam. And I do a good deal of walking about the streets. And sometimes I get a job.'

  'A job?'

  'As night watchman. I combined most of my reading for my Law Finals with a night watchman's job for the Apex Shipping Company. Believe it or not, I was actually reading the sections in Kenny on "Robbery with Violence" when I w
as knocked out by Syd Seligman, the strong-arm man for one of the—'

  T know Syd,' said Inspector Hazlerigg. 'I helped to send him down for a seven last month. Well, now. . . .'

  'The preliminaries are now concluded,' thought Bohun. 'Seconds out of the ring. Time!'

  'I've got a proposal to put to you. I don't know if you'll think it's a good one or not. . . .' Shortly he laid before Bohun the idea which he had already put to the Assistant Commissioner and the facts on which it was based.

  'We might as well face it at once,' he went on. 'Almost the only person who could and would have killed Smallbone is your late senior partner, Abel Horniman. If you're inclined to look anywhere else for a likely candidate just ask yourself how anyone else could have got the body into the room unobserved, and opened the box—of which only Abel had the key. For Abel himself, the box was the obvious place to put a body. He knew he was dying. He only needed a few weeks' grace—a few months at the most. But for anyone else, the idea was madness.'

  'Yes,' said Bohun. 'Of course. When you put it like that it seems obvious enough. . . . But why?'

  'That's where you come in,' said Hazlerigg. 'Again, we'll start with the obvious solution. You'd be surprised how often it's the right one. Abel Horniman and Marcus Smallbone were fellow trustees. I don't understand all the ins and outs of it, but I realise this much. They had joint control of a very large sum of money. It might be more accurate to say that Horniman had control of it. He was the professional. One would expect Smallbone to do what he was told—sign on the dotted line and so on.'

  T don't think,' said Bohun slowly, 'that Smallbone was quite that sort of man.'

  'I don't expect he was,' said Hazlerigg. 'That's why he's dead, you know. It's so obvious that it must be so. Some swindle was going on. I don't mean that it was an easy swindle or an obvious swindle. Nothing that an outsider could spot. But Smallbone wasn't an outsider. The thing had to be put up to him—to a limited extent. And he just happened to spot the rabbit in the conjurer's hat.'

  'So the conjurer popped him into his disappearing cabinet.'

  'Yes. Think of Horniman's position. Think of the temptation. On the one hand, disgrace, the breaking down of a life's work—probably jail. On the other hand—he could "die respectit", as the Scots say. Once he was dead it wouldn't matter. It was so easy. Into the box with the body, lose the key, sit tight. Even if it went wrong, what matter. The hangman would have to get the deuce of a move on if he wanted to race the angina. How many people, I wonder, would commit murder if they knew they were going to die anyway. And Smallbone was such an unimportant, such an insignificant creature. How dared he imperil the great Horniman tradition, cast doubts on the Horniman legend, besmear the great Horniman name. No, no. Into the box with him.'

  'I see,' said Bohun. 'How are you going to prove all this?'

  'That's it,' said Hazlerigg. 'We shall have to find out what's wrong with this trust.'

  'Well,' said Bohun, 'I expect I could help you if you're keen on the idea. But surely an accountant or an auditor could do it better than me. It'll just be routine.'

  'I wonder.' Hazlerigg suddenly got up. He strolled across to the window. The first light of dawn was coming up. The roofs opposite showed blacker against the faintest greying of the dark.

  'It may not be as simple as all that,' he said. 'Anyway, I'd like your help if I may have it.' 'Of course,' said Bohun.

  'And then again, we've always got to face the possibility that it may not have been Abel Horniman. That is going to open up quite a wide field of speculation.'

  'List Two,' said Bohun.

  'Ah! You've seen the testament according to Colley. I'm afraid his classification may not be as exhaustive as it seems—'

  'You mean, someone who came after? . . .' 'On the contrary—someone who was there, but has now left.'

  'Oh, yes. Yes, I suppose that's possible,' said Bohun slowly. T hadn't thought of it. I had no predecessor. My typist, Mrs Porter, came when I did; I mean, she didn't replace anyone. The Common Law clerk, Mr Prince, took the place of another old boy who'd been umpteen years with the firm. But he—the other one, I mean—left months ago. Just after Christmas. I believe they had some trouble over finding a replacement. You don't get Common Law clerks easily. Then there's the cashier—we had a cashier, before, a Mr Clark—he's well in the running, I suppose. He only left three weeks ago.'

  'Colley mentions him in his report,' said Hazlerigg. 'But he's out for another reason. He couldn't have done it, he was a last war casualty. He only had one hand.'

  'And why does that mean he couldn't have killed Smallbone?' said Bohun quietly.

  T quite forgot,' said Hazlerigg. 'You don't know how he was killed.'

  T don't,' said Bohun steadily, 'and I suggest,' he added, 'that if you're going to trust me you don't set traps for me.'

  Hazlerigg had the grace to blush. 'Just second nature,' he said, and added: 'No. It would have been quite impossible. Smallbone was strangled with picture wire. Definitely a two-handed job.'

  Chapter Five

  THURSDAY

  Time is of the Essence

  How matter presses on me! What stubborn things are facts

  —HAZLITT: Table Talk.

  Hazlerigg found Gissel, the police photographer and fingerprint man at work in Bob Horniman's office.

  'I've done jobs in junk-shops, in Lost Property Offices, in warehouses and in the mistresses' common-room at a girl's public school,' said Gissel, 'but never before in my life have I see one room with quite so much stuff in it.'

  'Then thank your lucky stars that you're in a Horniman office,' said Hazlerigg, looking round at the rows of black boxes, the neat files and the orderly assemblage of folders. 'This is child's play to what you'd find in the office of an ordinary uninhibited solicitor, really it is.'

  'It's all these books,' said Gissel. 'In open shelves, too. Anyone might have touched them or brushed against them. They don't look as if they've ever been read.' He picked one down and blew a cloud of black dust off the top. 'Queen's Bench, 1860. Who in Hades would be interested where the Queen put her bottom in I860?'

  Hazlerigg said thoughtfully: 'We shan't be able to let young Horniman come back here until we've finished, and that looks as if it may take a bit of time. I think I'd better use this room myself for working in. You've done the desk, I take it?'

  First came the senior partner, Mr Birley. In an interview of limited usefulness the most that could be said was that both sides managed to keep their tempers.

  It irritated Mr Birley to see a stranger behind one of his partners' desks: it irritated him to have to sit himself in the client's chair: it irritated him unspeakably to have to answer questions instead of asking them.

  After fifteen unhelpful minutes Hazlerigg dismissed him and asked for a word with the second partner.

  The tubby Mr Craine was more obliging.

  'Ichabod Stokes,' he said, 'was a Presbyterian fishmonger. He was one of Abel's oldest clients.' Seeing a slight look of surprise on the inspector's face, he added: 'I don't say that he was the sort of client we should have taken on nowadays, but when Abel was starting, way back before the turn of the century, well, he was like every other young solicitor—to him a client was a client. And I don't think either of them regretted their association. Ichabod, you know, was one of those men who really understand money. He started with one fish-shop in Commercial Road

  , and when he died he owned almost a quarter of the East Coast fishing fleet.'

  'When was that?' Hazlerigg was making an occasional note in his amateur shorthand: notes which would later be expanded into the journal of the case.

  'Ichabod died—now let me see—at Munich time, Autumn, 1938. He left a will appointing Abel Horniman and Marcus Smallbone executors and trustees. Why Smallbone? God knows. He and Smallbone had a common passion for collecting pottery, and had met at one or two sales, and struck up some sort of acquaintanceship. And I believe they used to write long letters to each other about cerami
cs and what-have-you, though between you and me,' said Mr Craine, with that cheerful vulgarity which is often a characteristic of tubby extroverts, 'I don't think Stokes really knew the difference between the Portland Vase and a pisspot—or that was the impression I got when I had to put his collection on the market after his death. However, that's by the way. The whole estate, as I said, was left to his trustees on trust for a dozen charities. There was no disputing the will—they were very sound and sensible charities; mostly to do with fish. The Herring-fleet Homes and the

  Destitute Drifters and so on. He nominated them himself, got us to make certain that they were charities, and had 'em listed, by name, in his will—and if every testator took those simple precautions,' concluded Mr Craine with feeling—for he, like others of his profession, had suffered from the decision in re Diplock—'the lawyer's lot would be a very much happier and a very much easier one.'

  'So now,' said Hazlerigg, 'all you have to do is to divide the income among these charities?'

  'In theory, that is so. In fact, there's more to it than that. Of course, when Ichabod died his estate consisted of a lot of different things. There was real property—he bought a number of farms cheap at the time of the 1931 slump—and there were the assets and the goodwill of his various businesses, which had to be valued and paid out. However, you can take it that by now everything has been realised and invested in securities. In round figures, Ichabod added up to nearly a million pounds. When the death duties had been paid we salvaged just over half a million—and we worked like niggers to keep that much.' Mr Craine spoke with genuine feeling. This was one aspect of his work which genuinely appealed to him. Sometimes, indeed, he went so far as to visualise himself as an archangel, a rotund St Michael, armed with the sword of Dymond and defended by the shield of Green, protecting the helpless from the assault of the massed powers of Darkness, those arch-fiends, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.

  'Half a million,' said Hazlerigg. 'And all invested. It will just be a matter of checking the stocks and shares, I take it.'

  'There again,' said Mr Craine, 'in theory, yes. In fact, no. I don't know how much you understand about these things, but a lot depends in any particular trust on the investment clause. It's much easier, in a way, if you are limited to trustee securities. That's dull, but fairly straightforward. In this case, we had wider powers. Not absolutely discretionary, but almost so. That meant that we had to keep the fund in the best possible state of investment compatible with security—stop me if I'm confusing you.'