Murder in the Museum, A British Library Crime Classic (9 page)

“Do,” said his sister. “There's no time to be lost. Take a taxi, Henry.”

This was a new attitude with a vengeance. Sarah had always suggested that anything more expensive than a bus or a tube train would be ruinously extravagant. But Henry was rapidly learning that the Sarah he had known all his life was not necessarily the real Sarah, after all.

“Only one thing,” he said, as he struggled into his overcoat, and wound an old-fashioned muffler of the type known as a “comforter” around his neck. “Don't expect sudden results. We may not land our fish too quickly, you know. We're fishing in deep waters.”

How deep the waters were he little guessed.

Chapter XI

The Exhumation

“My dear Mr. Fairhurst,” said Shelley in some irritation, “you surely can't expect me to go further than that. I have told you that I feel tolerably sure that Mr. Baker is guilty—he would not have been arrested without thoroughly good grounds. Scotland Yard is not in the habit of arresting innocent men.”

Henry looked pained. “I was not, my dear Inspector,” he moaned, “suggesting that Scotland Yard was in the habit of doing anything so dreadful. But I was suggesting that mistakes occur, and that this was one of the mistakes.”

“If you think so, my dear sir,” returned Shelley, “my advice to you is: Go on and prove it! Other people have tried to do that, but not many of them have found themselves able to beat the Yard at its own game. If you think you can—well, good luck to you! But don't expect any help from us.”

“But I
do
expect some help from you,” Henry complained. “If I am going to set to work to find a murderer, Inspector, I have to possess all the necessary data. That is only reasonable, surely.”

Shelley grinned. “Daniel in the den of lions isn't in it, Mr. Fairhurst,” he said. “An amateur in the den of professionals. Very well; in view of the fact that you have been good enough to give us some exceedingly useful information, I will allow you to know just a little of what is being done by us—but on one condition.”

“And that is…?” Henry was all eagerness now. To tell the truth, this was more than he had dared to hope, even in his most optimistic moments.

“That is, my dear sir, that anything which you may learn in the course of this little agreement of ours shall be kept as the strictest of secrets; in other words, that no one—no one at all, mind you—shall hear anything which may be divulged to you here. This is all quite unofficial, of course, and I am only doing it because I think that there may just possibly be something in what you say, and you have already shown some evidence of wisdom in this business of criminology.”

“Inspector!” Henry's voice was quivering, his pince-nez trembling perilously on his absurd nose.

“First,” said Shelley, affecting not to notice the little man's emotion, “you will have what I imagine is a new experience for you, my dear sir.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?” Henry could not resist the direct question.

“You will have the opportunity of attending an exhumation.”

“Who is being exhumed?” exclaimed Henry in some surprise.

“Use your brains, my dear Mr. Fairhurst. Who do you think it could be?” Shelley could be almost rude when he desired, and his more brutal instincts occasionally seemed to come to the surface when dealing with the mild-mannered little Henry Fairhurst.

Henry thought deeply for a moment, his brow wrinkled in the effort of mental concentration. Then his face cleared up, and he looked at the detective and smiled gently.

“Of course, it is quite obvious,” he said.

“Quite,” said Shelley in return, still waiting for Henry's decision.

“Professor Wilkinson, of course.”

“Of course.”

So soon they were bowling along in a huge police car, bound for the cemetery outside London where Professor Wilkinson had been buried some months earlier. In the car with them were Sergeant Cunningham and an official from the Home Office, the permission of the Home Secretary having been obtained, as is necessary for all exhumations, which are granted only if the most urgent need is proved by the police authorities.

At the cemetery a mournful little group greeted them. There were two burly men armed with spades, and one of the cemetery officials, who frowned disapprovingly on the whole proceeding, as if he thought it an unnecessary insult to the concern under his charge that this deed should be done.

It was a pitch-black night, and in the light of two swinging lanterns, borne aloft by the men with the spades, they made their somewhat gruesome way into the cemetery grounds. Henry shivered faintly as he glanced around him. The flickering lights cast ghostly shadows all about, and the headstones of the graves stretched away into the dismal distance like rows of grim and ghastly spectres.

“Here we are,” said the cemetery official in business-like tones. “I think that this is the place you want, gentlemen. Wilkinson is the name, isn't it?”

Shelley nodded, and examined the headstone above the grave at which they had halted.

“That's it,” he said briefly. “Carry on.”

But before they had had time to start, another man approached.

“Sorry I'm late, Shelley,” he said as he drew near. “Couldn't get here earlier. Had a troublesome case to get through. I rushed it as well as I could, but it just couldn't be done any sooner.”

“I was wondering where you were, old man,” Shelley murmured. “Still, you're in good time. This is Dr. Maguire, gentlemen,” he explained. “Dr. Maguire is a pathologist, and will shortly be making a post-mortem examination of the late Professor Wilkinson. I thought it well that he should be here to make a more or less cursory examination of the body on its first exhumation, in case there were any symptoms obvious which would disappear in the time which must elapse before the full post-mortem is to be made.”

Now the two men with spades set to with a will, first removing the turf from over the grave, then digging down into the rich brown earth beneath. They had placed their lanterns on the ground, and the flickering light from these was now more ghastly than ever. Shining unsteadily upward in the gloom, the little slice of unsteady light made the surrounding darkness seem blacker than before.

Henry found himself peering myopically into the distance, vainly trying to pierce the veil of dreary gloom that shut them in, that made this little group of men almost a world on their own, cut off from the warm friendliness of the outside universe. Again he shuddered as he heard the sudden rattle of one of the spades against a large stone in the ground. He stood on his toes and peered over the shoulder of the Home Office official at the two men who were still digging steadily on.

There was still, however, nothing to be seen. The earth came steadily up, spadeful by spadeful, and there was now a considerable heap accumulated beside the open grave. And still the men dug on. And still Henry peered at the diggers, wondering if in their minds there was any trace of nausea at the gruesome task which was theirs to perform. He supposed not. Presumably grave-diggers grew accustomed to their unpleasant association with man's mortality. For a moment Henry tried to picture himself as a grave-digger, but his imagination boggled at the task.

Then there came a sharp hiss of indrawn breath from Shelley. The Scotland Yard man, outwardly calm, was filled with excitement. This might well be the final link in a chain of unmistakable evidence—a chain leading to the scaffold.

His suppressed whistle was the first sign that the men had reached the coffin. Soon they were lifting the great oak box to the surface, where they gently laid it on the grass beside the open grave. Now…now…Henry told himself that he was on the point of unthinkable revelations. But when it came to the crucial moment of unscrewing and removing the lid he found himself unable to look. He looked away into the dimness of the distance, and listened to the remarks of the others.

“Well, doctor?” he heard Shelley ask.

The doctor murmured something, the exact meaning of which Henry did not catch, and then he said: “Looks quite normal to me, I must say, Shelley. Certainly no arsenic or anything like that, though I imagine that you weren't really expecting anything of that kind.”

Shelley laughed gently. “As a matter of fact, doctor, I wasn't. I suppose, though, that you won't be able to say anything until after the p.-m.”

“No.” The doctor was quite emphatic on that point. “It looks an unpleasant sort of job, and it will probably be a pretty long one. Shall we say about midday tomorrow? After all, you've got your man under lock and key, haven't you?”

“Ye-es.” Shelley did not seem to be any too certain. “I certainly hope so. And in any case, if this is to be, as you say, a longish job, there's no point in my trying to hurry you over it. The only result of that would be to make you miss something important—and in a murder case we can't afford to run any risk of that.”

So back they went to Scotland Yard, where Shelley shook Henry warmly by the hand, and bade him a cheerful “Good night.”

“What about the result of the post-mortem?” asked Henry anxiously.

“What about it?” returned Shelley.

“Am I to be told what happens?”

“I am making no rash promises,” answered Shelley with a smile. “Still, if you call around sometime tomorrow afternoon, I will do my best to satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Fairhurst. I have little doubt of what the result will be. But we shall see.”

And with that Henry had to be content, though he felt that the complete absence of results made a strange anti-climax to an evening of the most outrageous excitement. But there was an even deeper depth of anti-climax to be reached, for when he reached Streatham again he had to concoct a purely fictitious account of his evening's employment to satisfy his sister's questionings. And Sarah had an awkward habit of asking almost unanswerable questions, and of sniffing unbelievingly when a reasonably good lie was concocted on the spur of the moment in reply to them.

Shelley was excited the next day when Dr. Maguire came around to Scotland Yard to report on the post-mortem examination of Professor Wilkinson.

“Well?” asked the detective as soon as the doctor entered the room. “What's the news, man?”

The doctor slowly and methodically removed his gloves and placed them on the table. Then he divested himself of his coat and folded it carefully, his deliberation almost driving Shelley insane.

“Not good news, I fear,” he said at length.

“What do you mean? Was he murdered? What was the poison?” It was not often that Shelley lost control of himself to this extent, but he had counted much on this exhumation, and he hoped that the evidence would be enough to make a conviction a fairly easy matter.

“Professor Wilkinson,” said Dr. Maguire slowly, choosing his words with care, “was suffering from long-established valvular disease of the heart. He died, quite simply, from heart failure. There was no evidence of any poison in the body at all.”

“He was not murdered?”

“He was not murdered.”

“He died a perfectly natural death?”

“He died a perfectly natural death.”

Shelley picked up a pencil that lay on the desk before him and toyed with it idly. His heart sank within him. Had he been building up his whole case on a false theory? Had he committed the unforgivable sin of making his theory before he had enough facts on which to build? Who could tell? At any rate, there was no doubt that he would have to think the whole affair out again from the beginning. There was no doubt at all about that.

“Are you dead certain about that, doctor?” he asked, hoping against hope that there might be somewhere a loophole which would let him through.

“Dead certain,” answered the doctor.

“Then what do we do next?”

“That,” said the doctor, “is a matter for you to decide.”

And as he left the room he saw Shelley lean his elbows on the desk, his chin propped on his clenched fists, his brow deeply furrowed with thought. Poor old Shelley, he thought. What a muddle! Where would it all lead?

Chapter XII

The Will Again

Mr. Fairhurst shook his head despondently.

“I'm afraid, my dear Miss Arnell, that there is little to be done,” he said.

Violet Arnell gazed mournfully at him, tears forming in her eyes.

“Now, don't be silly, Henry,” snapped his sister. “If all you can do is be a Job's comforter like that, then you're a bigger fool than I took you for, and that's a pity.”

“Well,” Henry argued, “if all that the police will tell me is that Wilkinson died a natural death, that Mr. Baker was on the spot (that is, at Pinner) at which he could easily have put a poisoned sweet in the packet in your father's pocket, and that he was undoubtedly outside the British Museum gates (if not inside them) on the night when Crocker was murdered, what can I do?”

“Do something, Henry,” snapped Sarah. She was clearly on tenterhooks, disliking the idea of seeing Violet Arnell in such a tearful, woebegone state.

“There's only one thing,” Henry added, after considerable deep thought, “that occurs to me.”

“And that is…?” Violet Arnell awaited his words with an eagerness which was exceedingly flattering to his vanity.

“That is—your father's will,” he announced, and then looked at her to see what effect this would have.

“But what use do you think that can be?” she asked in plaintive tones.

Henry did his best to look impressive. “I don't quite know,” he said slowly. “The point is, in a case like this, where all the clues more or less peter out, to investigate as fully as we can the few clues that we have.”

“But in what way is my father's will a clue?”

“I don't know,” said Henry again. “But it is one of the few things which we have, and we must do our best to see what we can make of it.”

Violet Arnell smiled. It was not a very triumphant smile—it was, as a matter of fact, a very milk-and-watery smile, but the fact of its managing to break through the hitherto uniform gloom of her countenance was something to be grateful for, and Henry felt quite a hero in consequence. He was, however, quite prepared to admit that the smile was due more to her imagination than to any prowess which he had yet achieved as a detective.

“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I have it here in my handbag. I have been carrying it around with me, as Inspector Shelley, after photographing it, told me to take great care of it, as it might be an important clue later on.”

Henry beamed. “There; what did I tell you?” he said. “An important clue. And I went straight for it, you see.”

“You might,” said Sarah with a supercilious sniff, “do something more than talk about it, Henry. Then we might think a little more of you as a detective.”

Violet produced the document from her handbag, and handed it to Henry. He read it aloud.

“This is the last will and testament of me, Julius Arnell, Professor Emeritus in the University of Portavon. I hereby give and bequeath all my property to my daughter, Violet Arnell, for her sole use during her lifetime. At her death it is to go, whether she has issue or not, to my nephew, Moses Moss, to belong to him and his heirs and assigns, absolutely.”

Henry looked up. “Is that the sort of will that you would have expected your father to make?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Written in blue ink,” murmured Henry, “and dated December 3, 1936.”

“What's that?” Violet Arnell looked at him in surprise.

“Written in blue ink, I said,” Henry repeated, “and dated December 3, 1936.”

An air of puzzled bewilderment came over her face. She frowned and gazed hard at the document, her eyes puckering up in surprise.

“But…but…I don't understand,” she said.

“What don't you understand?” asked Henry patiently.

“My father always wrote everything in blue ink in the past,” she said. “It was a little fad of his. But there was some trouble about a book that he wrote in the summer of 1936. The girl who typed it out from his written manuscript said that his bright blue ink—just this colour, you know—was trying to her eyes.” She paused.

“Go on,” said Henry.

“In the autumn of 1936, my father told me to throw away the blue ink, and get in a supply of the more usual blue-black. You know, the stuff that goes black when it's been dry for a few hours.”

“I know.” Henry was all excitement now. This was the real thing, he told himself. At last it began to look as if they were on the track of something big!

“And at the time that the will was written
there was no blue ink in the house!
”

They looked at each other in silence. Sarah sniffed, and said: “Well; what are you going to do about it? Some fishy work going on there, I'll be bound.”

“I don't quite understand it,” Henry admitted frankly. “It just doesn't seem to make sense. Why, if your father had no blue ink, did he go to the trouble of making his will in ink of that colour?”

“But…but…d-d-don't you see?” Violet Arnell stammered in her excitement.

“I'm afraid I don't. It's a very remarkable business, but I can't see what it means,” said Henry, a puzzled frown creasing his forehead.

“It means,” said Violet in impressive tones, “that my father did
not
write that will.”

“Oh, come, come, Miss Arnell,” Henry protested. “I don't think that you can exactly say that. After all, what grounds have you for saying—”

Violet interrupted him. “My father,” she said again, “did
not
write that will.”

“Mightn't there be a fountain-pen knocking about somewhere with some of the blue ink left in it?” was Henry's next suggestion. “After all, it was only a few months from the time that the blue ink was thrown away. And there might easily be some left in a fountain-pen.”

“My father never used a fountain-pen,” she explained. “He was a very old-fashioned man in some ways, and he had a rooted objection to fountain-pens—said they made everyone write alike. He used an old steel-nibbed pen. And, although I have a fountain-pen, I never used the blue ink. I disliked the colour.”

“Well, it is, of course, possible,” said Henry. “And now, Miss Arnell, we may as well investigate this will a little further. I presume that Inspector Shelley has tested it for finger-prints?”

“Yes.”

“Any found?”

“No.”

“Well, let's have a look at the paper.” Henry held it up to the light, and made a note on a pad that was before him.

“1937 Bond. Barnes and Co., Chiswick,” he said. “That doesn't tell us very much, does it? Might be worth enquiring of them if they could identify it, but it really doesn't seem likely.”

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” Violet Arnell was getting excited once more.

“What's worrying you now?” Henry grunted out the question. This business of detection, he told himself, was not all milk and honey, by any means.

“1937 Bond,” she said quietly.

“What about that?”

“The will is dated 1936, remember.”

“Oh, that's nothing.” Henry waved away the suggestion with an airy wave of his hand “Those figures don't mean anything. My note-paper is called ‘1718 Bond,' but that doesn't mean that it was made in the year 1718, or anywhere near it. Probably the figure is just a trade-mark, and that's all there is to it.”

“I'm not so sure. I think it's worth finding out, anyhow,” Violet Arnell objected.

Henry sighed. “Very well,” he agreed. “I suppose that there's no harm in ringing them up, and just asking them about it.”

He drew the telephone towards him, dialled a number, and then waited.

“That Barnes and Co.?” he asked. “I wonder if you can tell me at what date you commenced putting your ‘1937 Bond' paper on the market? When? Oh, yes, that settles my problem very well, thank you. Thank you very much. Good-bye.”

He turned to face the others, and his complexion was the colour of milk.

“Your idea was right, Miss Arnell,” he said quietly.

“It is a forgery,” she announced.

“Quite right. It is a forgery. That paper was originally intended to be called ‘Coronation Bond,' in celebration of the coronation of King George VI, but another firm took the name first. They therefore decided to call it ‘1937 Bond.'”

“And when was it first put on the market?” she asked.

“On February 10, 1937, two months after the will was supposed to have been written!”

“Again, Mr. Fairhurst?” Shelley almost laughed as the little man twisted awkwardly in the chair at Scotland Yard.

“Again, Inspector.” Henry found the subject very difficult to broach.

“Well, what's the meaning of this visit?”

“I have found something very important, sir. Something which may alter the whole complexion of this case.”

“Still think young Baker is not guilty?”

“I don't know what bearing this has on his guilt, but it is something that I think you should know. After that, you can do what you like about it.”

“Well, carry on,” announced Shelley cheerfully.

“The will of the late Professor Arnell is a forgery,” announced Henry in his grimmest tones.

“Sure?” Shelley snapped out the monosyllable.

“Certain.” And Henry told briefly of their investigations of an hour or two before. Then he had a revelation of the astounding efficiency of Scotland Yard.

“Where did you leave Miss Arnell?” Shelley asked.

“She went home to Pinner, and I said I would ring her up when you had told me what you thought about this business of the forgery.”

“What's her number?”

Henry told him, and Shelley drew the telephone towards him, and rapidly got through to the number required. After holding the receiver for a few minutes, obviously listening to the ringing at the other end, he quietly replaced it on its hook, and picked up another 'phone.

“Send me Sergeant Cunningham, a flying-squad car, and half a dozen plain-clothes men,” he said.

“I don't understand, Inspector,” Henry objected.

“You'll understand soon enough,” snapped Shelley. “No time to waste.”

Now Cunningham entered, and Shelley, in sharp, staccato tones, gave him his orders.

“You remember Miss Arnell's house at Pinner?” he said.

Cunningham nodded.

“Well, somewhere between there and Streatham,” his chief told him, “I think Miss Arnell has disappeared. See if you can get on her trail.”

“Disappeared?” Cunningham looked completely amazed.

Shelley looked at Henry again.

“Did she go by bus?” he asked.

Henry nodded. In this atmosphere of brisk efficiency it seemed unnecessary to say anything. And in any case Shelley had said that it was urgent, and he did not want to waste time.

“Follow the bus routes, and see if you can find any account of a young lady resembling Miss Arnell being picked up by a car,” Shelley went on. “If you can't trace her any other way, see if you can find a bus leaving Streatham at—what time would it be, Mr. Fairhurst?”

“Eight o'clock,” murmured Henry, completely mystified by all this bustle, and not understanding this turn of events at all.

“Eight o'clock. Right. Got that, Cunningham?” asked Shelley.

“Yes, sir,” Cunningham answered dutifully.

“Take the car I've ordered, and the half-dozen men. And hurry. She's in real danger. I'll never forgive myself if…if…” He paused, and Cunningham rapidly left the room.

“What do you think has happened to her, Inspector?” asked Henry.

“I don't know. Wish I did,” answered Shelley. “It's the vague things like this that cause the trouble.”

Now he picked up the 'phone again, and spoke rapidly.

“See if you can spot any traces of forgery in that photostat of the will of Professor Arnell, Mac,” he said. “There are some documents by the man in the file in Room 126. I'm pretty sure it's a forgery, but it's as well to get confirmatory evidence, if I can.”

“But what,” asked Henry, when the detective had replaced the telephone receiver on its hook once more, “is the meaning of it, Mr. Shelley?”

“There can be only one meaning of that will being forged, my dear sir,” answered Shelley. “You recall that it left the money to Miss Arnell. Well, it is just possible that Mr. Baker forged it. Though I don't think, if he did, he'd be so foolish as to leave the money to her for life only. No.”

“Then who did?”

“That's what I'd like to know.”

“Why did you think that Miss Arnell would be likely to have disappeared?” asked Henry.

“Because she is a very rich woman. And because her death means that Mr. Moses Moss has a lot of money. That's why!”

“And you think that Moses Moss is the murderer?”

“It looks very much like it,” Shelley admitted.

Suddenly Henry gazed at Shelley in horror. A chill ran down his spine, and his very blood ran cold in his veins.

“But that means, Inspector,” he said, “that means that there is a possibility that Moses Moss has got hold of Miss Arnell. That means that he may have kidnapped her, and taken her away somewhere.”

Shelley nodded glumly. “It not only means that, my dear Mr. Fairhurst,” he said quietly. “It means that Mr. Moses Moss may well be contemplating another murder.”