After the Exhibition: A Jack Haldean 1920s Mystery (A Jack Haldean Mystery) (33 page)

Silence.

There was a sack trolley leant against the wall. Jack heaved the crate onto the trolley and, taking the weight on the handles, pushed it to the doors. Even though the crate was heavy, the trolley was surprisingly easy to control.

He took the picklocks, which Bill had provided, and, unlocking the doors, looked out onto the silent, moonlit yard.

This was the danger point. Leaving the crate and trolley, he slipped across the yard and unlocked the heavy gates but didn’t pull them back. In the distance, the puppy yipped again and he heard the faint sound of Gilbert Stroud’s voice.

He had to risk it. Keeping to the shadows, he got back to the despatch shed and, checking the coast was clear, pushed the sack trolley across the yard and out of the gates.

He pulled the gates to after himself and, again using the picklocks, locked them. The only sound was the rustle of the wind through the trees. About a hundred and fifty yards away was the black bulk of the chantry.

With its heavy load, the trolley was more difficult to pull over the uneven, gritty ground, and it was a relief when he reached the smoother ground of the chantry path. With some effort, he heaved the trolley up the slope and to the door of the chantry.

The door was closed but unlocked. He pushed the door open and, bringing the trolley into the chantry, closed the door behind him.

‘Bill?’ he called softly. ‘Bill?’

There was the click of a torch and a light shone out. Bill got up from a pew.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked quietly.

‘Fine,’ said Jack, catching his breath. ‘The watchman’s got another dog, which is a nuisance. Fortunately it’s only a puppy and Stroud ignored it, thank God.’

Bill struck a match and lit the oil lamp he’d brought with him. ‘That’s better. We can see what we’re doing now.’ He looked at the crate on the trolley. ‘Are you going to tackle this part of the process by yourself?’

‘I’d better. After all, the point of this demonstration is to show how it could be done alone, so I don’t want to cheat.’

Jack wheeled the crate into the middle of the chantry and, taking it from the trolley, laid it on the floor.

‘You remember what Mr Jones, the foreman, told us about the way the crates were despatched? I haven’t got a real corpse to play with, as re-creations should only go so far, but you’ll agree that it was perfectly feasible to bring a body here from Signora Bianchi’s cottage in the gardener’s wheelbarrow?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘Okey-doke. The body was then left in the wheelbarrow inside the chantry while our bright spark went and got a crate, yes?’ Bill looked dubious. ‘It’s possible,’ said Jack impatiently. ‘As I’ve just gone and got a crate, you’ve got to agree it’s possible.’

‘It’s certainly possible, yes.’

‘What happens now is that I open up the crate.’

He selected a claw-headed hammer from the metal toolbox they’d brought earlier and set to work. ‘A crowbar would get the lid off faster,’ he remarked, ‘but I don’t want to damage the crate. Obviously, dog or no dog, the watchman would notice if I started hammering in the despatch shed at the dead of night. It more or less has to be done up here, as there isn’t really anywhere else to work in private.’

It took Jack a little time to work round all the nails, but, once done, he levered off the lid to reveal a mass of sawdust.

‘When I first looked round here with Cadwallader, I found sawdust on the chantry floor,’ he said. ‘I was puzzled at the time as to where it came from.’

He delved into the crate and, grunting with the weight, pulled out a highly polished pew bench. He laid it on the floor and slapped his hands together to get rid of the sawdust.

‘Now, as I said, we haven’t got a body, but we want something to go in the crate.’ He looked round, and pointed to two brass candlesticks that stood about three foot high. ‘They should do for starters, and we can fill up with other bits and pieces so the weight is about right.’

‘I’m not very happy about taking the candlesticks,’ said Bill. ‘Or anything else, for that matter.’

‘We’re not stealing them,’ Jack reassured him. ‘They’ll be recovered. I just don’t want there to be any doubt that this will work.’ He hefted a candlestick across to the crate.

‘So what happens now?’ asked Bill.

‘Well, as a matter of fact, it’s all quite simple,’ said Jack, casting round the chantry in search of more items. ‘I’m going to put the candlesticks and various bits and pieces into the crate and hammer it shut again. You remember Sam Catton, that chap in the Guide Post pub who believed in ghosts? He said he heard knocking from the chantry on the night of the murder. That, I imagine, was the sound of the crate being boxed up. Then, when it’s all ship-shape and Bristol fashion, I’ll take the crate on the sack trolley down to the despatch shed and put it back with the other boxes.’

‘What about the address label?’

‘It’s easy enough to write an address label. There’s a stack of blank labels in the despatch shed. All I have to do is write on any name I fancy – say, my old friend, the Reverend Father Peter Crabb, for instance – and address it to Manchester London Road Station, to be left until called for. I’ll put the pew bench back in the packaging shed, where it’ll be repacked and despatched to its proper home. Then I tootle up to Manchester, and, as Father Peter, collect the crate, take it to a convenient house or shed that I’ve previously rented and pack the body into a trunk. These crates would make good kindling and would be easy to chop up and burn, together with any clothes I saw fit to remove from the victim. I then have the trunk collected and taken to the station, where it can be sent to London to be left until called for.’

Bill shook his head. ‘It’s all so easy and straightforward when you explain it.’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Jack, ‘but only if you can plan it beforehand and know the routine of the firm inside out …’ His voice died away. ‘Bill! There’s someone coming. Hide!’

The door swung open with an ominous creak and a beam of light swept across the chantry. Jack tried to hide but the beam of light caught him squarely. He flung an arm over his face to protect his eyes from the dazzling glare.

‘Mr Haldean!’ called an astonished voice from behind the light. It was Daniel Lythewell. Lythewell shone the light from the torch downwards and walked towards Jack. He was, Jack noticed with a stab of alarm, holding an automatic pistol in his hand.

Lythewell’s face changed as he saw the open crate on the floor. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ He snapped off the torch. The two men looked at each other in the soft glow of the oil lamp.

Jack said nothing.

Lythewell looked at the candlestick beside the crate. ‘I suspected robbery when I saw the light. I came armed.’ His voice was thin with anger. ‘I never suspected you of theft.’

‘This isn’t theft, Mr Lythewell,’ said Jack quietly. ‘This is a reconstruction of how a murderer disposed of a body.’ His hand moved to his pocket.

‘Keep your hands where I can see them,’ snarled Lythewell, gesturing with the gun.

‘I’m just reaching for a cigarette,’ said Jack mildly. ‘You don’t mind if I smoke in here, I suppose?’

Lythewell’s eyes narrowed. ‘Feel free.’ His eyes flicked to the crate. ‘You obviously don’t mind desecrating a sacred edifice.’

Jack lit a cigarette. ‘I would, as a matter of fact. But this isn’t a sacred edifice, is it? It’s a monument to a monstrous ego, the ego of a man who, by forgery and fraud, amassed a fortune and who wanted to pass a substantial part of that fortune on to his son. You knew about that fortune, didn’t you? It was a pretty open secret, after all. I think Josiah Lythewell probably wrote to Daniel Lythewell and told him how to read the secret of the chantry, how to discover the fortune hidden in here. But you didn’t know the secret, did you?’

Daniel Lythewell froze. ‘I beg your pardon? I am Daniel Lythewell.’

Jack shook his head. ‘No, you’re not. You were Daniel Lythewell’s valet. Your name is Arthur Croft.’

There was a hiss of indrawn breath followed by a spluttering protest.

Jack raised his hand for silence. ‘You were employed by Daniel Lythewell in New York. One of your fellow servants was the woman known to us as Joan McAllister. You had an affair with her, didn’t you? And many years later, she recognised you and called you
Art.
You travelled with Daniel Lythewell to England on the
SS Concordia.
Your name, occupation and employer are listed in the shipping records.’

‘This is absolute nonsense!’

‘Is it? When you arrived in England, you realised – realised very quickly – that John Askern had a guilty secret. He’d murdered Josiah Lythewell. Perhaps Daniel Lythewell realised it, too.’

Croft drew his breath in sharply. ‘It’s not true,’ he said unsteadily.

‘Yes, it is. John Askern confessed what he’d done in letters to his wife.’

‘The bloody fool!’

‘You could say that. He was lucky. His wife returned the letters unread. Mrs Daphne Askern’s got them. However, it’s an interesting fact that young John Askern, with no money and no influence, was suddenly made a full partner in the firm. I believe you kept silent about his guilty secret, just as he kept silent about yours.’

‘Silence? Guilty secrets?’ Arthur Croft laughed. ‘I’ve never heard such rubbish. Why should I need his silence?’

‘Because you murdered Daniel Lythewell.’

The automatic pistol came up. ‘I think you’d better prove that statement before you say another word. There wasn’t any fortune. You know damn well there wasn’t any fortune. There was no motive to kill Daniel Lythewell and all this rigmarole is a complete fairy tale.’

‘You want proof?’ Jack stepped forward and was stopped by a gesture from the gun. He put his hands wide. ‘I was going to show you something interesting, Mr Croft.’

‘My name’s Lythewell, damnit! Go on. Show me
something interesting.
’

Jack knelt down beside the inlaid chantry slab and, reaching out, tapped the metal. ‘This is aluminium.’

‘So what?’

‘Aluminium was once more precious than gold or silver. Old Josiah Lythewell
could
have made this slab of platinum but chose, instead, to use the more valuable aluminium. Then, in 1886, an American called Charles Hall and a French bloke called Héroult extracted aluminium from bauxite. The price of aluminium dropped through the floor. I think the knowledge that his fortune, his wonderful treasure, was worthless, added to Lythewell’s madness. So you see, Mr Croft, it was all for nothing.’

Arthur Croft licked very dry lips. ‘The bloody fool,’ he said again, his voice a croak.

‘Unfortunate, certainly.’

Jack picked up the hammer he had used to take the nails from the crate.

‘Put that hammer down!’ Croft said sharply.

‘Relax,’ said Jack with a smile, still kneeling on the floor. ‘I’ve got something else to show you.’

He swung the hammer and brought it down with a thunderous smash on the leg of the grieving man. A white leg bone showed through in the gleam from the oil lamp.

‘That’s Daniel Lythewell!’ yelled Jack.

He hurled himself to one side as Croft fired. He lay on the floor, hands scrabbling backwards as Croft, laughing, advanced. His eyes were wide and staring. He looked completely mad. ‘You can’t hide forever, Haldean. You’re right. That is Daniel Lythewell and I put him there. How much do you know, I wonder? Does my name mean anything to you?’

‘Croft,’ said Jack, desperate to keep him talking. ‘One of the men Lythewell used in his museum forgeries was called Croft.’

‘Well done,’ purred Croft. ‘Cornelius Croft was my father. He taught Josiah Lythewell everything he knew about electroplating. Josiah Lythewell used him, cheated him, and left him to rot in Dartmoor. My father died, a broken man, and the money that should have been mine was stolen by Lythewell for his precious son. That’s why I took employment with Josiah Lythewell’s son. I wanted to get to Josiah Lythewell. My only regret is that he was killed before I could do the job. When I heard that Josiah Lythewell had escaped me, his son was doomed.’

‘What about John Askern? He was supposed to be your friend.’

A flicker of regret crossed Croft’s face. ‘I was truly sorry to have to kill poor John. He remembered, you see? He remembered who we were and what we’d done before we became respectable. It was our shared secret, the thing we had in common. I felt lost without John, but he had to go. He was getting dangerous. He knew too much, just as you know too much.’

He raised the pistol to fire, then his eyes rolled backwards in his head and he fell in a crumpled heap to the floor.

‘Blimey, Bill,’ said Jack with a shaky laugh as he got to his feet. ‘Did you have to leave it so late? He’s not dead, is he?’

Bill put down the candlestick he had walloped Croft with and rolled the unconscious man over. ‘No, he’s still breathing,’ he said. ‘I realised, once you were cornered, that you wanted to draw a confession out of him and, quite honestly, Jack, I wanted to hear it.’ He looked at the statue of the grieving man with the white leg bone clearly visible and shuddered. ‘Daniel Lythewell’s body’s in there? That’s disgusting.’

‘Yes it is, the poor beggar,’ said Jack. ‘The tomb wasn’t so empty after all.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Betty Wingate blankly. ‘I just don’t see how Uncle Daniel can be guilty.’

She had been released from prison that morning and was now with Jack and Bill in the sun-filled private room of the Brown Cow, where they had invited her and a bewildered Colin Askern to join them for breakfast.

‘He’s guilty sure enough, Miss Wingate,’ said Bill. ‘He confessed what he’d done last night in the chantry before he tried to kill Haldean.’

Betty shuddered and looked at Jack. ‘You’re all right now though, aren’t you?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Jack, uncovering a dish of bacon and eggs and filling his plate. ‘My word, I’m hungry. Come and have something to eat, Askern.’

Colin Askern reluctantly came and stood by the table. ‘I don’t understand!’ he broke out, ignoring the dishes before him. ‘When I went to bed last night it all seemed so hopeless, and now …’ He shrugged. ‘You tell me Mr Lythewell’s guilty of everything, but I just don’t understand.’