Man with the Dark Beard (18 page)

“I am not very strong yet, you see,” he said. “But do sit down.”

The light fell full upon his face as the detective took the seat opposite him, while Harbord sat down farther away.

“This is all very informal and not perhaps strictly professional,” Stoddart began. “And I am sure you understand that you need answer no questions unless you feel inclined.”

“May be taken down and used in evidence against me? That is the correct formula, isn't it?” Wilton questioned in his tired voice. “Fire away, inspector. I have no secrets.”

“What I want to do,” the inspector went on, “is to help you, Mr. Wilton. You know that I am in charge of the inquiry into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Mrs. Wilton?”

“That means you are trying to hang me, doesn't it?” Wilton questioned in that new, weary tone of his.

“No, it does not,” the inspector contradicted abruptly. “It means that I want to hear your story of what happened on the night of your wife's death, or as much of it as you feel inclined to tell me. I think it is quite possible that I may be able to help you and you may be able to help me.”

Wilton shook his head.

“It's no good, inspector. I did not shoot my wife, and I do not know who did, though I don't expect you to believe me.”

The inspector looked him fairly and squarely in the face.

“Do you know, Mr. Wilton, it is precisely because I do believe you that I have asked you to see me this afternoon. I want you just to tell me the story of that day's happenings as simply and straightforwardly as you can, and perhaps to answer a few questions which I may put later. It is quite possible that I may find some clue just where you least expect it.”

A gleam of hope came into Wilton's eyes.

“You are very kind, inspector. I scarcely thought any living creature had faith in me, least of all you.”

“Ah, well! You see you do not know all your friends,” the inspector said enigmatically. “Now, Mr. Wilton, if you will just begin at the beginning –”

“There is really not much to tell,” Wilton said slowly. “I had not been well – not since before we were married, in fact. But I was beginning to feel better and I was anxious to bring my wife over here to see my brother and sister-in-law who had just come home. My brother had come home unexpectedly from Kenya on sick leave. I had a letter from him on the morning of my wife's death asking us to go over that same afternoon and spend the evening with them.”

The inspector made a rapid note in his book, remembering Alice Downes's story of the letter Mrs. Wilton had been anxious to get.

“Was that the only letter that came to the flat that morning, Mr. Wilton?”

“I am sure I don't know,” Wilton said, wrinkling his brows. “That did not come by post, at least not to Hawksview Mansions. It went to my old digs and my landlady sent it up by a special messenger. My wife had made that arrangement with her. I don't know why. But my correspondence is extremely limited, so it really didn't matter. Well, we arranged to accept the invitation, and my wife rang my sister-in-law up and told her we would come. But as the day wore on she began to complain of headache, and as it drew near five, the time she had appointed to start, it was so bad that she could not possibly go. I wanted to stay with her, but she utterly refused to allow me. She told me to take a taxi there and back, and said that being alone for a while would be the best thing for her. She was sitting in her own easy chair in the drawing-room when I left her, and said she should just have a cup of tea and then lie down until I came home.”

“And what time exactly was it when you left her?” the inspector questioned.

“About five minutes past five, I should say. That is as near as I can get,” Wilton answered. “I know she was rather angry with me for arguing with her and wanting to stay instead of getting off exactly at five. The maid had brought in tea, and my wife gave me a cup and hurried me away.”

“You know that the murder is supposed to have taken place, according to the medical evidence, between five and half-past?”

“I know,” Wilton assented, then with one of his curious twisted smiles he added: “Just at five minutes past five, isn't it, inspector?”

Stoddart ignored this sally. “You met no one on your way down? And you had no reason to think that Mrs. Wilton was expecting anybody?”

Wilton hesitated. “No – to the first question decidedly. With regard to the second, I had certainly no reason then to think that my wife was expecting a visitor, but I have wondered since whether a certain restlessness which I noticed all day, and which was distinctly not normal, did mean that she had some reason to expect some one or something. She was decidedly anxious to get me off to my brother's –it might be out of the way, or so I have fancied.”

The inspector nodded. “Small doubt that it was so, I should say. Now, Mr. Wilton, I am going to put to you one or two questions of a rather intimate nature. If you can see your way to answering them, it may help us materially. But at the same time –”

“Fire away, inspector,” Wilton said, leaning back in his chair and letting his shoulders droop as though he had not strength to hold them up. “If there is anything that I can do to help you, you may be sure I shall do it for my own sake as well as to track down the assassin who murdered my poor wife.”

The inspector turned over one leaf of his note-book.

“The first is this: have you any idea from what source Mrs. Wilton's income was derived?”

Wilton shook his head. “Not the least. She always spoke of it as if it had been inherited, but I have no idea from whom.”

The inspector made a rapid entry in his book. “Could you tell me roughly how much it was per annum?”

“No, indeed, I could not even roughly,” Wilton said at once. “She always spoke as though she had plenty for everything, but she never mentioned the actual amount. Still, you must remember we had not been married long, and I had been ill more or less all the time. I have no doubt that my wife would have told me all later on.”

“Probably,” the inspector assented. “What was your illness, Mr. Wilton? I understand it came on before you were married.”

Wilton met his gaze openly.

“Frankly, I can't quite make it out, inspector. It came on absolutely suddenly and was a low, wearing kind of sickness. If I were called upon to diagnose such a case I think I should be compelled to fall back upon our old friend, influenza. That name covers a multitude of diseases with us medicos, you know.”

*“What did your doctor say?” Stoddart questioned sharply.

Wilton laughed in a shamefaced fashion.

“I didn't have a doctor. Don't believe in them – for myself. But don't give me away, inspector.”

Stoddart did not look particularly surprised. He fidgeted about with his papers for a minute or two, without speaking, his dark brows drawn together in a puzzled frown. At last he said,

“I am going to suggest to you that you may have been drugged.”

“Drugged!” Wilton repeated in evident amazement. “What do you mean, inspector? Drugged by whom?”

“Ah, that I cannot tell,” the inspector answered, keeping his eyes fixed on the young man's face. “But suppose I say that the murderer of Mrs. Wilton may be responsible?”

Wilton's surprise evidently increased as he stared at the detective. “I should say it was impossible. It would be impossible for anyone to get into the flat without my knowledge or my wife's.”

The inspector made a rapid note in his book. 

“Well, my inquisition is nearly ended, Mr. Wilton, but I must ask you this: do you think or have you ever had occasion to think that there is any connexion between Mrs. Wilton's death and that of Dr. John Bastow?”

Wilton's eyes met the inspector's squarely, there was even a faint smile playing round his lips as he said:

“None at all, but the fact, which the ‘Daily Wire' kindly pointed out, that I was in the houses on both occasions.”

The inspector took no notice of the remark.

“You may remember the paper that was found in the doctor's blotter and the similar one that was found later on in the drawer of his desk with the same words upon it?”

“‘The Man with the Dark Beard'? I should rather think I do,” Wilton ejaculated. “I haven't been given much chance to forget. Why, how long was it before the ‘Daily Wire' gave up starring ‘Who is the Man with the Dark Beard' across its front page? And as good as hinting that he was poor old Sanford Morris.”

“And you think he was not?”

Wilton really laughed now.

“I am sure he was not. I saw a good deal of Sanford Morris when I was with Dr. Bastow, and he was not the stuff that murderers are made of.”

“Did you ever discuss the question with Mrs. Wilton?”

“Only once,” Wilton said with obvious unwillingness. “We did not agree and we decided to drop the subject.”

“I gather then that Mrs. Wilton thought Sanford Morris guilty?” the inspector said with a keen glance.

“She appeared to,” Wilton agreed reluctantly.

“Simply because he was a man with a dark beard?”

“I don't know of any other reason.”

The inspector waited a minute or two looking at his book, but not in reality seeing one word of his notes written therein. Basil Wilton's story was not giving him the help he had hoped for. When he spoke again his voice had altered indefinably:

“Have you any idea who wrote those words and put them where they were found?”

Wilton hesitated. “Well, really, I don't know anything about it. But of course one couldn't help suspecting that girl that bolted – the parlourmaid – Taylor. I do not mean of the actual murder, but I think she must have known or guessed something; why should she run away if she had nothing to conceal?”

“Why should she run away because she knew or guessed something – unless her knowledge was a guilty knowledge?” the inspector countered. “No, I don't think the paper was written by Mary Anne Taylor, Mr. Wilton. But, just one more question: you were unexpectedly late going home on the night of your wife's death, weren't you?”

“Yes, I was,” Wilton said frankly. “My brother and I had a lot to talk about and the time passed more quickly than I realized.”

“And then you did not go home in a taxi as Mrs. Wilton wished.”

“I did, part of the way. But it was a nice night, and I thought a walk would do me good.”

“I think that's all,” the inspector said as he rose. “Well, Mr. Wilton, thank you for being so open with me; it is quite likely that I may want to see you again within the next few days.”

“Well, you will know where to find me, that is one thing,” Wilton said with that twisted smile of his. “Your myrmidons are always at my heels, Inspector Stoddart.”

“You sent for me, sir?” Harbord closed the door behind him.

Inspector Stoddart was sitting before the desk in his private room at Scotland Yard. He was looking grave and preoccupied.”

“Yes. What do you make of this?” Harbord looked curiously at the scrap of paper he pushed forward.

“It is a cloak-room ticket for a bag deposited at St. Pancras waiting-room on June –”

“The day of Mrs. Wilton's death,” the inspector finished. “I found that ticket this morning, Harbord, in the pocket of a coat of Basil Wilton's in his room at his brother's house. That was one discovery and this” – opening a drawer and taking out a small oblong object – “was another.”

Harbord poked it gingerly with the tip of his finger.

“An automatic – where did this come from, sir?”

“Where we ought to have found it before,” the inspector said shortly. “At the top of Wilton's wardrobe in his room at the flat. The front and sides of the wardrobe stand up higher than the actual top, leaving a depression on which people can keep boxes and things. There were none here, though, which helped to put me off the scent. This morning I determined to make a further thorough and systematic search of Wilton's room. I was rewarded, as you see, after going over the floor and walls of the room with a microscope. I got on the steps and leaned over the front of the wardrobe, and found this,” touching the revolver. “Whoever put it there did his work thoroughly. There are several wedge-like pieces of wood as well as strips that go right across, used to keep the wardrobe together when it is up, to be taken out when it is moved from house to house or room to room. This automatic was jammed up in one corner and looked at first sight just like one of the ordinary bits of wood, for they were all covered with dust. It was not until I had observed that there were more wedges on one side than on the other that I found this.”

Harbord stared at it.

“Finger-marks?”

Stoddart shook his head. “Our man is a bit too clever for that. He either wore gloves or handled the thing with something soft. But I called round at Giles and Starmforth's, the gunsmiths, on my way here; two chambers of this revolver have been discharged, and the bullet that killed Mrs. Wilton fits.”

“Pretty strong evidence,” Harbord commented. “And the ticket, sir?”

“I want you to come along with me to St. Pancras and we will make some investigations. Curious how often murderers take the very evidence that convicts them and leave it in the cloak-room of one or other of the big London stations,” Stoddart added meditatively.

“Yes. Bags and cloak-rooms seem to hold a strange fascination for them,” Harbord agreed. “But in this case, anyhow, the bag will not contain the body of the victim, dismembered or otherwise.”

“Not Mrs. Wilton's body anyhow,” the inspector said with significant emphasis as he locked his case-book in his desk and got up. “Well, the sooner we get the bag open, the sooner we shall know what it contains.”

Harbord glanced curiously more than once at his superior as they made their way to St. Pancras.