Read A Murder is Arranged Online
Authors: Basil Thomson
A Murder is Arranged (2 page)
Books in the Richardson series have been out of print and hard to find for decades, and their reappearance at affordable prices is as welcome as it is overdue. Now that Dean Street Press have republished all eight recorded entries in the Richardson case-book, twenty-first century readers are likely to find his company just as agreeable as Sayers did.
Martin Edwards
www.martinedwardsbooks.com
I
T WAS
the duty of Chief Constable Richardson's clerk to run through the morning papers and call his chief's attention to any case in which the help of New Scotland Yard (C.I.D. Central) might be invoked. The clerk, a patrol named Walter Goodwin, brought in a number of newspaper cuttings one morning in December.
“Anything special?” asked Richardson.
“Not in the metropolitan area, sir, but there's a case at Marplesdon in Surrey that I think you ought to read.” Richardson took up the cutting from a popular paper and read:
“
MYSTERIOUS SHOOTING CASE NEAR MARPLESDON, SURREY.
“In the early hours of yesterday morning the body of a young woman in evening dress was found lying in Crooked Lane, which traverses Marplesdon Common. She has been identified as Miss Margaret Gask, one of the guests at Scudamore Hall where Mr Forge is entertaining a house party for Christmas. She had been shot through the head. None of the other guests was able to explain why she should have been in Crooked Lane during the night. Apparently she had said good night and retired to her room just before midnight. Her bed had not been slept in.”
“This is just the sort of case in which the chief constable of Surrey may ask for help from Central,” said Richardson. “Who have we got available?”
His clerk reflected. “I believe that Detective Inspector Dallas has about cleared up that case in Chelsea. His report is coming in to you, sir.”
“Very well; we must sit tight until we have an application from the Surrey chief constable.”
“Very good, sir.”
“You might tell Mr Dallas that probably he will be wanted and he must not undertake any fresh case until he has seen me.”
“Very good, sir.”
When his clerk had left the room Richardson began to run through the telephone messages received since the previous evening, marking most of them “F.P.”, signifying “former papers to be attached.” They would then go to the C.I.D. Registry and return to him a little later with bulky files tied up in bundles. He had scarcely finished his task when Constable Goodwin returned, holding one of the flimsies from the telephone room at the top of the building.
“What have you got there?” asked Richardson.
“A message from the chief constable of Surrey, sir.”
Richardson read it. It was the request for help that he had expected for the shooting case at Marplesdon.
“Ask Inspector Dallas to come round.”
Two minutes later a man of about thirty-five announced himself with a single sharp rap on the door.
“You wanted to see me, sir.”
“Yes, Mr Dallas. I have here a telephone message from the C.C. of Surrey asking for our help in a murder case at Marplesdon. He is sending over Chief Inspector Vernon to explain the circumstances. You have nothing pressing on hand at the moment?”
“No sir.”
âWell then, you'd better take on this case. Look out for Chief Inspector Vernon and go with him. You needn't trouble the chief inspector to come and see me unless he particularly wishes to. The case may turn out to be simpler than it appears in the newspaper report.”
Next morning Richardson found at the top of the papers on his writing table a report with a green label marked “pressing” attached to it. He knew the handwriting as that of Detective Inspector Dallas.
“In accordance with instructions I met Chief Inspector Vernon on his arrival and we proceeded together to Scudamore Hall, owned by Mr Forge. It is a large house finished only a few weeks ago. On our way Mr Vernon gave me an account of the crime as far as he knew it. The body of the woman in evening dress had been discovered by a labourer named Henry Farnell on his way to work in the morning of December twentieth, Crooked Lane being on the direct line he would take from his cottage to his place of work. He informed the police and the body was carried into the schoolhouse at Marplesdon to await the inquest. It had been identified by Mr Forge as that of a young lady, Margaret Gask, a member of his house party at Scudamore Hall. She had been shot through the head, probably by a revolver bullet which had gone through the skull from left to right, but in spite of an exhaustive search no trace of the bullet could be discovered.
“Mr Forge, the owner of the Hall, was a war profiteer and had contrived to stick to his fortune. Nothing is known against him. I gathered that Mr Forge has a habit of picking up chance acquaintances in hotel bars. It was thus that he had first made the acquaintance of the murdered woman, Margaret Gask, in a Paris hotel. He speaks no French and when he was in difficulties in the reception room at the Hotel Terminus she volunteered her help, being quite qualified to act as an interpreter, though her intervention was not really necessary, since most of the staff speak English intelligibly. During his stay in Paris she acted as guide and he invited her to come over to England as a member of his house party at Scudamore Hall for Christmas. After a slight demur she consented. She had been his guest for only four days when her body was discovered shot through the head in the road known as Crooked Lane.
“On questioning the guests and staff at Scudamore Hall, Chief Inspector Vernon ascertained that the last person to see the deceased woman alive was a young man named Gerald Huskisson, of no occupation and known to be in financial straits. He also had met the woman in Paris and though he was believed to be in love with her he had had a serious quarrel with herâa fact that was known to other guests at the Hall.
“Mr Vernon also informed me that he had made a search of the premises and had discovered in a shed at a small distance from the ordinary garage an Austin Twelve car bearing the number P.J.C.4291. The chief inspector recognised the number as that of a car which was wanted in connection with serious injuries to a woman who had been knocked down by it near Kingston. The driver had accelerated without stopping to succour the injured woman. Mr Vernon took the usual steps to discover the owner and found that it belonged to a Mr Oborn, a guest at the Hall. When questioned at Police Headquarters he denied all knowledge of the accident and said that a dent on the fender had been caused by bad steering when entering the shed. The number of the car had been supplied by two witnesses who saw the accident.
“Arriving at Scudamore Hall the door was opened by a man dressed like a butler. I recognised this man as Alfred Curtis, alias Thomas Wilson, with Criminal Record Office number 2753. He has had five or six previous convictions, always for the same kind of offenceâgetting himself engaged as an indoor servant with a forged character and robbing members of the house party. He seemed much disconcerted at seeing me and without disclosing his identity I put discreet questions to Mr Forge about the butler's movements on the night of the murder. It had been a very foggy night and some of the invited guests had telephoned to say that they might arrive very late, owing to the fog. The butler had therefore had to sit up until past 3 A.M. to receive them. Thus he had a watertight alibi if Dr Treherne, who made the post-mortem, was correct in believing that the woman had been shot not later than midnight.
“The coroner intends to hold the inquest in the school-house at Marplesdon this afternoon at 2 P.M. and both Chief Inspector Vernon and I will be present. We think that it would be unwise to question any of the witnesses until they have given their evidence.
“A
LBERT
D
ALLAS
,
Detective Inspector.
”
Richardson finished reading the report and rang for his messenger.
“Ask Inspector Dallas to come, if he is in the building.”
When Dallas presented himself Richardson said, “I've been reading your report. What impression did you form of the people you saw at Scudamore Hall?”
“Well, sir, besides that ex-convict mentioned in my report I saw only Mr Forge, the owner of the house. He was greatly upset by the occurrence and kept saying, âThis has been a lesson to me not to pick up chance acquaintances in a Paris hotel.'”
“Had he any explanation to offer as to why that young woman should have gone out at or after midnight in evening dress?”
“He thought she had gone out to keep a rendezvous with someone; he did not think it could be another member of the house party because the maid who waited on the murdered woman told him that a valuable mink coat was missing from her room and she must have been wearing it on such a cold night, yet her body was found with no wrap of any kind over her evening dress: the murderer had apparently stolen the coat.”
“H'm! Then that fur coat may be a clue to her murderer.”
“Yes sir, if it can be found, but Mr Vernon tells me that according to the maid it bore no distinguishing mark by which it could be identified; it had not even the name of the maker; the maid is positive about that because she had examined it carefully.”
“Had Mr Forge nothing to tell you about the woman's friends or relations in France or in this country?”
“Nothing at all, sir. Mr Vernon has already written to the police judiciaire in Paris asking for full enquiry to be made about her, telling them the date when she was staying at the Hotel Terminus St Lazare. A search of her papers produced nothing of interest to the police.”
“You say in your report that no trace of the bullet could be found in Crooked Lane. Were there any signs of a car having passed through?”
“Yes sir. I have been with Mr Vernon to the spot in Crooked Lane where the body was found and in spite of the ground being lightly frozen I could distinctly trace the wheel tracks of a light car which had broken through the frozen crust of mud. There is a gateway into a field a few yards from the spot and I could trace tracks of the car in the manoeuvre of turning in that gateway. There were no tracks nearer the house, but on the other side of the gate there were double tracks: the car must have returned in the direction from which it came. Since writing my report I have made enquiries at one or two cottages at the end of the lane. One woman said that she had heard a car passing in the direction of Crooked Lane and had seen through her window the glare of headlights as it returned.”
“You say that one of the guests at Scudamore Hall had left his car in a shed and not in the proper garage. Have you enquired the reason for this?”
“No sir, not yet. I was waiting until after the inquest. That car is the one that I mentioned in my report as being suspected of having knocked down and gravely injured a woman.”
“I see. Well, you will attend the inquest this afternoon and let me hear the result as soon as possible.”
“Very good, sir.”
T
HE BREAKFAST TABLE
at Scudamore Hall was set with only three places when the gong rang and the host, Walter Forge, struck a serio-comic attitude on entering the room and finding only Huskisson and Oborn present.
“Good Lord!” he said. “Is this what we're reduced toâthree hungry men and no ladies? I hope that you have appetites; I'm as hungry as a hawk. What have we here?” he went on, going to the side table where four or five dishes were sputtering over spirit lamps. “The rule of the house is that everybody helps himself. Come along, you two, and make your choice.”
When they had taken their seats Forge tried to lighten the gloom of his two guests by forced gaiety.
“This inquest this afternoon is the devil. I've never attended one before and I hear that the coroner is a grim bloke with a mouth set like a steel trap. I dunno what sort of figure I shall cut in a witness box. Have they summoned both of you?”
“Only me,” said Huskisson; “I suppose because I was the last person in the house party to see her aliveâpoor girl.”Â
“And I because she was staying in my house, I suppose. You've not had a summons?” he asked, turning to Oborn.
“No, thank God! And that's why I'm going to attack these sausages with an unimpaired appetite.”
“Your turn will come when you're had before the beak for knocking down that woman,” said Huskisson sourly.
“I never knocked her down,” said Oborn in his pleasant voice. He was an upstanding and rather good-looking man in the early forties; well dressed, well groomed and easy mannered.
“Funny,” said Huskisson, “that two people who saw the accident have come forward to give the number of your car.”
“Both of them women. Have you ever met a woman yet who could remember the register number of a car? The fact that they both gave the same number is the proof that they concocted the story.”
“I'm afraid that argument won't go down with the beaks and I'm told that the Kingston Bench gives short shrift to motorists.”
Mr Forge's forced gaiety evaporated. “This is going to be the worst Christmas I've spent and I'd hoped that it was going to be the liveliest. I had counted so much on poor Margaret to keep things going.”
Huskisson rose, leaving half his bacon and sausages uneaten. “I've just remembered that I've a telegram to answer if you'll excuse me,” he said as he left the room.
He was a tall, thin, rather cadaverous-looking young man with lantern jaws.
“Our young friend seems to be taking this business very much to heart,” said Oborn.
“He is; don't forget that he was fond of Margaret and I was beginning to think that she was fond of him, although they quarrelled.”
“That won't sound very pretty when he's called into the box this afternoon,” said Oborn. He changed his tone to an imitation of a coroner. “âYou quarrelled with this lady on the evening before her death and you were the last person to see her alive. What was the quarrel about?' No, I don't wonder that he hasn't much appetite for breakfast.”
