Devious Murder (16 page)

Cromwell, meanwhile, was sitting by the hospital bed of Inspector Hassock. He had not yet paid him a visit and thought it high time he did so and he took him a bunch of grapes, in accordance with the usual ritual. Hassock was very touched by this generosity, apologised for making it necessary, and treated the grapes as though they satisfied an intense longing. The sister later told Cromwell that the local citizens in Hampstead and his many colleagues in the police had already sent in a vineyard of enough grapes to keep the hospital going for at least a month.

Hassock was particularly bright on this occasion. His wife
had actually been to visit him. She had been transported by police car from home and brought to his bedside in a wheelchair. There the nurses had been quite surprised when they met her. According to her husband, she had been a sickly creature and more or less on her last legs. The woman who was wheeled in seemed to be abounding in energy and healthy looks. She was more concerned with her husband's health than her own, which greatly surprised him. She finally told him how she had missed him, burst into tears, much to his distress, and then blew her nose and presented him with his favourite dish, which she hadn't produced for years, one of her own raised veal and ham pies.

Hassock told Cromwell that he'd be glad when he was allowed to go home again. He was anxious about his wife, who seemed to be fretting for his return, and he was afraid she would have a set-back. Cromwell was relieved to find that he seemed to have forgotten his proverbial bad luck.

‘What were you doing to get yourself so badly knocked about, Hassock?'

‘It was this way.…'

And Hassock told him the same old tale that he'd repeated so often to his visitors from the police and withheld conspiratorially from those of them who weren't in the force.

‘But what made you go into the empty house in the first place?'

Hassock frowned and his eyebrows met in the middle.

‘It's a funny thing, but when I came to myself after being unconscious I couldn't recollect what happened just before and after the time I went to
Mountjoy
. Now it's all come back. I remember getting up very early in the morning after the crime. After calling at the office I went along Bowring Road and inquired at all the houses if they'd seen or heard anything strange going on at
Mountjoy
the night before. The houses are large ones with big gardens and are
a considerable distance apart and I didn't think it was a very profitable idea, but one can only try, can't one?'

‘Yes. One can only try.'

‘It was a very wet night and there was hardly anybody about, but two residents said they were surprised to see the lights on in
Mountjoy
around nine o'clock. Both of them said they knew the place was empty and for sale and assumed there was somebody looking round the place with an eye to buying it. Another said they'd seen Mr. Kaltbad going in late in the afternoon but thought nothing about it, assuming that he might have been taking a last look round before leaving for Germany. Finally, a Mrs. Kinloch, who lives about three doors away from
Mountjoy
, said her husband, who had been to a meeting, told her that he had seen three taxis drawn up along the road, each at a considerable distance from the others, and he wondered why so many residents were out and about on such an awful night.'

‘
Three
, did you say?'

‘That's right. I asked her if she was sure. She got quite annoyed and asked me if I doubted her word.'

‘I said to myself, “there's something been going on at
Mountjoy
”, and made up my mind to call and look over the place again. You know the result. Something was still going on, wasn't it?'

‘Yes. Do you know, Hassock, you've probably given us a vital clue which will help us solve this case. I'll let you know how we get along with it.'

‘I'm very glad to hear it, sir. I thought I'd made a complete mess of it. It's worried me.'

‘Well, your worries will soon be over. You'll come out of this case with flying colours.'

‘It looks as if my luck has changed.…'

Cromwell reproved him sternly.

‘Never let me hear you mention good or bad luck again,
Hassock. Luck is what we make it, not what is thrust upon us. You've showed initiative and it has nothing to do with luck.'

Hassock seemed so overcome that he asked for some soda water to quench his thirst, just as someone in a higher grade might ask for champagne or a double brandy.

‘Can you remember anything else?'

‘Only that Jenkinson, the local drunk, who turned up and made a bit of a nuisance of himself just after we had found the body in the gateway at
Mountjoy
, arrived later at the police station. He was drunk and insisted that he'd seen a ghost running about in the bushes at Mountjoy. We locked him up for the night and turned him loose next morning, when he didn't remember a thing about the previous night and the ghost.'

‘Perhaps he saw something. It may have been the murderer and, if Jenkinson was prowling about intoxicated at the gateway of
Mountjoy
, he may have scared the murderer off before he could properly dispose of the body.'

The first of many surprises was awaiting Cromwell when he arrived back at Scotland Yard. Littlejohn rang through and asked him to join him.

‘I've a surprise waiting for you, Bob,' Littlejohn said to Cromwell when he reported. ‘Mrs. Charles Blunt is on her way to see us.'

At the crematorium Littlejohn had excused himself to the woman who accosted him, as he wanted to return with Alfred Blunt and his friends. He had taken her address, however, and arranged for an official car to pick her up and bring her to Scotland Yard later.

‘You don't mean to say Charles Blunt was married! Where did you pick her up?'

‘She was at the funeral at the crematorium. She spoke to me, told me who she was, and I arranged to meet her here.'

‘Did old man Blunt know her?'

‘Apparently not. Charles seems to have been more devious than we thought. He kept his true profession and the bulk of his life from his father. I wonder if he did the same with his wife.…'

Mrs. Blunt was announced before they could say more.

She was hardly the type one expected as the wife of Gentleman Charles. A neat little woman, around 40, buxom, with firm clean flesh, a healthy round face and dark brown hair. She was dressed in a black costume and carried a handbag and umbrella. She seemed to take matters as they came and was not in the least embarrassed by Scotland Yard and the men who were waiting for her.

There were introductions and then a pause. It was a bit difficult making the opening moves of such circumstances.

‘You live in Barnet, Mrs. Blunt. What is your Christian name, please?'

‘Cynthia.'

‘Are you a native of London?'

‘No. I was born in Tamworth, like Charles. We'd known each other since we were children.'

‘Didn't you know his father, then?'

‘Yes. I saw him at the funeral. He was changed, but I knew him. Charles said they had quarrelled before our marriage, so I never met him after Charles left home.'

Cromwell gave Littlejohn a queer look. More devious than ever!

‘You and Charles kept in touch, then, and married in the end?'

‘Yes. We were married at a registry office in London.'

‘Did you live together?'

‘Yes, at first. Then after Charles got a permanent job, I didn't see as much of him. He had to be away quite a lot.'

‘What was the nature of his job?'

‘He was a private investigator for a London firm.'

That caught Littlejohn and Cromwell unawares. They had difficulty not showing surprise.

‘A detective?'

‘Yes. Not like Scotland Yard, of course. He did divorce work and sometimes seeing to the safety of prominent people and valuables.'

She was wandering in strange territory. Both the detectives seemed to be holding their breath and wondering what was coming next. Cynthia, however, was completely at her ease and quite unaware of anything strange about the information.

‘He told you all about his duties?'

‘Some of it was very confidential, but he often told me other things. In fact, I helped him on some of his cases.'

‘In what way?'

She paused and then leaned forward and lowered her voice.

‘Now that he's dead it doesn't matter, so I can tell you. I've just been on a case now. It was a divorce, where a man who'd been married three times had a son by his first marriage who was carrying on with the third wife.'

‘Where was this?'

‘A place called
The Limes
at Tolham.'

Another surprise, and yet another to come!

‘In what way were you helping him?'

‘I got a job as a temporary maid at
The Limes
.'

‘Were you engaged through an agency?'

‘Yes. Mr. Binder got me the job. He runs an agency.'

It was like a dream! A fantastic confusion of characters and places which had already cropped up in the case.

‘And what information were you seeking at
The Limes
that would help your husband in his case?'

‘I was to report on the behaviour of Mrs. Havenith – that
was her name – and a Mister Leo, her stepson. When they usually went out together, who they went with, and what happened among the servants. I told him about the layout of the house, too, particularly the bedroom. In a case like that the bedrooms often play a big part, don't they?'

‘Who engaged your husband?'

‘Mrs. Havenith's husband, he said. He's an oil millionaire in America.'

‘And where was your husband stationed during the case?'

‘In a flat next door. I never went in it. If anyone had seen the pair of us together it would have aroused suspicions, wouldn't it? Charles said it was a very nice flat. Mr. Havenith paid for it, so he didn't mind.'

‘Was Mrs. Havenith the one who had the famous diamonds that were bought in auction earlier this year?'

‘That's the lady. The fuss she created about the diamonds. She loved wearing them, but she was careless about them. Leaving them lying around on her dressing-table, and Mrs. Morgan and Mr. Cairncross worried to death about putting them in the safe as soon as they could.'

‘Who were they?'

‘Mrs. Morgan was the housekeeper. Her husband was sort of butler there. She was very strict with the staff and thought the world of Mrs. Havenith, who might have been her own daughter the care she lavished on her. Mr. Cairncross was what they call the security officer. He looked after the valuables, jewellery and such, and saw that the house was safe from intruders, and he saw to it that the burglar alarms were in order. What you'd call a guard of the place. I didn't like him.'

‘Why?'

‘He always seemed to be creeping about and he was too free with some of the maids.'

‘Was there a safe in the house?'

‘Yes. Behind some dummy books in the library.'

‘Did you ever see it?'

‘Yes. Mollie, another of the maids, showed it to me once when we were dusting the library. Everybody seemed to know about it. It was a sort of curiosity. When I told Charles about it he laughed. He said what was the use of hiding the safe when everybody knew where it was?'

She spoke of her husband without emotion. No tears or lamentations about his death. He might still have been alive; or else their long absences from one another might have softened the loss.

‘How long were you at
The Limes
?'

‘About three weeks. Mrs. Havenith used to engage extra staff when she was in residence and entertaining guests. I left on the day before Charles died. We were all paid off then because Mrs. Havenith and Mr. Leo were going to her house in the country.'

‘Did Mrs. Havenith take the diamonds with her?'

‘No. She didn't need them in the country, but as she is going to France this week and taking them with her they were locked in the safe at
The Limes
. The rest of her special jewellery had been put in the bank.'

‘How did you know all this?'

‘I heard Mrs. Havenith telling Mrs. Morgan several days before she left for the Cotswolds.'

‘Did your husband know of these arrangements?'

‘Yes. I saw him a few days before his death. The diamonds weren't his concern, but he was interested in all that went on there.'

‘You met your husband from time to time while you were there: where did you meet?'

‘At the house in Barnet. I saw more of him while we were working together at Tolham. As a rule, he'd be away
for months on a case and I wouldn't see anything of him.'

‘Did you ever see him at Tolham?'

‘Not once. I never saw him in his flat or about the village. He was a careful man. He must have been a good detective.'

Littlejohn and Cromwell kept straight faces, although there was grim humour in some of Mrs. Blunt's information.

‘Had you ever worked with your husband before?'

‘No. That was the first time. It was Charles who suggested it. He asked if I'd like a job; it would be good for me, me being alone so much.'

‘How did you come to encounter Mr. Binder?'

‘The man who was caretaker of Charles's flat used to talk to him sometimes and had mentioned that they were taking on extra staff at
The Limes
. He was a friend of Mr. Cairncross, who used to gossip with him now and then, and told him things that happened next door. Charles must have asked him where the staff came from and the man must have told him about the agency. I applied there and asked if I could go to Tolham. Mr. Binder said there was a vacancy and I got the job. I was in service before I married Charles, so I didn't find it difficult. I had some old references and Charles and some of his friends must have spoken to Mr. Binder about me, because when I called on Mr. Binder he said he'd expected me. A Mr. Fairbrother had spoken to him about me. I never knew anybody of that name, but I didn't say anything. I thought Charles had arranged it.'