Richardson's First Case (23 page)

“Tell me what happened.”

“I hadn't a chance of telephoning to you, sir; it all happened so quick. Evidently he'd telephoned for a taxi from the house; anyway, at nine-thirty one drew up, and he came out and loaded it up with suitcases, all new. He didn't see me. I'd just time to get to the door and hear him direct the driver to the Croydon Aerodrome. I picked up another taxi and got there before he'd finished unloading. I was in time enough to tip the wink to the passport officer. I kept well out of sight when he came up, and I heard part of what was said. The passport officer, Mr. Miller, said, ‘This is not your photograph. Your name's not Cronin.' You see, sir, he hadn't dared to change the photograph on the passport, because of the embossed stamp; I suppose he'd trusted to their stamping it without any scrutiny. Mr. Miller brought him into the little office where I was standing and said, ‘This man has given the name of Cronin, and I believe it to be false; he has presented another man's passport to be stamped.' When Reece saw me he turned as white as a sheet I told him that I should arrest him for a passport offense and take him back to Marylebone police station, and I searched him. I found those things in his pocket. ‘Why,' I said, ‘this is the key of your uncle's shop in High Street. We've been looking for this.' For a moment I think he thought of denying it, but finally he owned up. ‘My uncle gave it to me,' he said. ‘I know what you're after: you're not going to charge me only with a passport offense, but you're all on the wrong tack.' Then I cautioned him, sir, that he was not obliged to say anything, but that anything he said would be taken down in writing and might be used against him at his trial. That seemed to let his tongue loose. He never stopped talking after that, and it was all I could do to get it down. Happily, Mr. Miller stayed with me, and he will be a useful witness if Reece tries to go back on his statement.”

Richardson pulled out a sheet of official foolscap closely written on four sides. His chief looked first at the end, “Oh, you got him to sign it.”

“Yes, sir, he was anxious to sign it. You'll see as you read it through that the whole sense of the statement is to show that the strangling of his aunt was an accident. All he intended was to stop her from screaming for the police, he says.”

Foster held up his hand while he read. When he had finished he heaved a sigh of relief. “You've done very well, Richardson; you've got everything we wanted. Now the case is watertight.” Richardson's face beamed with satisfaction. “I must go down now and charge him.”

“With wilful murder, sir?”

“Yes, with wilful murder. He may call it an accident, but the judge and jury won't. After that I shall go down to C.O.; you'd better come with me and wait outside in the passage in case you're wanted.”

A few minutes later Foster found himself standing before Morden and Beckett, to whom he recounted what had happened. “I have Reece's statement here, sir. There hasn't been time to get it typed out.” “Tell us shortly the gist of the statement,” said Morden.

“Well, sir, it's pretty much the same as the theory that we formed yesterday. Reece met his uncle near the shop, and they walked together into Baker Street. Reece was holding the old man's umbrella over him. As they turned into Baker Street, the uncle discovered that he had forgotten to bring the blue paper he required for his interview with Harris's father; he pulled out the shop key, gave it to the nephew and told him to get the paper and meet him at the door of the Harris house, but at that moment the uncle remembered that Reece had not paid over to him the cheque he had received for the sale of a shop in New Cross. Reece began to argue with him for a second commission: he had already had one in advance. There was a quarrel; the old man dashed into the road towards a policeman and was knocked over. Reece says that he saw the accident but did not know that his uncle was seriously hurt; that he went to the shop, still carrying his uncle's umbrella, got the blue paper, and then called at a shop in Baker Street and was told there that his uncle was probably dead and had been taken to Middlesex Hospital. On hearing this he went back to the shop. Though he doesn't say so, it was no doubt to abstract money or papers, and while he was searching for what he wanted his aunt came in.”

“With a key?”

“No, Mr. Morden, he had left the door unlocked, not expecting to be disturbed. When his aunt walked in and found him at the desk, she began to call for the police. He says he caught hold of her, not to hurt her, but to stop her screaming, and that he was horrified when she fell down on the floor. He ran out, leaving the wet umbrella behind him and locking the shop door. Then he walked about for some time and ran into his uncle's charwoman, Mrs. Hart; she told him about his uncle's accident, and he took her to the Middlesex Hospital to identify the body.”

“Well,” said Beckett, “it's a pretty full statement to have been given voluntarily and without pressure.”

“It is, sir, but that kind of talkative man never knows when to stop when once he begins, and in almost every particular it fits in with the independent evidence that we have.”

Beckett allowed his grim features to relax in a smile. “You haven't yet told Mr. Morden that I was wrong in my theory and you were right.”

Foster laughed. “No, sir, because I should have to tell him, too, that it was you who gave me the idea that led me to the right man. Of course, the assault on that poor lady must have been much more violent than he admits.”

“Well, that'll be a matter for the jury,” said Morden. “All you have to do is to get the papers shipshape and take them over to the director: he can't refuse the case now. By the way, who took the statement?”

“P.C. Richardson, sir; he's outside if you'd like to see him.”

“Bring him in.”

When the constable was before him, Morden asked him a few questions about how the statement was taken and whether it was read over to the prisoner verbatim and voluntarily signed. To all these questions Richardson could give replies.

“Well, Richardson,” said his chief, “I congratulate you upon an excellent bit of work.” Richardson blushed with pleasure. “I shall send up your name to the A.C.C., and I don't think that you will have to go into uniform again.”

THE END

S
IR
B
ASIL
H
OME
T
HOMSON
(1861-1939) was educated at Eton and New College Oxford. After spending a year farming in Iowa, he married in 1889 and worked for the Foreign Service. This included a stint working alongside the Prime Minister of Tonga (according to some accounts, he
was
the Prime Minister of Tonga) in the 1890s followed by a return to the Civil Service and a period as Governor of Dartmoor Prison. He was Assistant Commissioner to the Metropolitan Police from 1913 to 1919, after which he moved into Intelligence. He was knighted in 1919 and received other honours from Europe and Japan, but his public career came to an end when he was arrested for committing an act of indecency in Hyde Park in 1925 – an incident much debated and disputed.

His eight crime novels featuring series character Inspector Richardson were written in the 1930's and received great praise from Dorothy L. Sayers among others. He also wrote biographical and criminological works.

Richardson Scores Again

The Case of Naomi Clynes

The Case of the Dead Diplomat

The Dartmoor Enigma

Who Killed Stella Pomeroy?

The Milliner's Hat Mystery

A Murder is Arranged

In the hall he found the body of his maidservant, Helen Dunn, aged about fifty, lying on the floor near the telephone. She had bled profusely from a wound in the head and her body was cold.

Richardson's second case begins with a murder and robbery at a quiet house in Laburnum Road, and goes on to include an escaped parrot and a seemingly perfect crime which threatened a scandal to shock all England.

Follow with Detective-Sergeant Richardson the fantastic story of an antiquarian's nephew, a pseudo policeman, and a stolen car…search with him for a man wanted for murder…another who fainted at a political meeting…the Treasury note which, because of the name written on it, was a warrant of death. Packed with clues, excitement and humour, this mystery will be certain to thrill and satisfy even the most ardent devotee of detective fiction.

Richardson Scores Again
was first published in 1934. This new edition, the first in many decades, includes a new introduction by crime novelist Martin Edwards, author of acclaimed genre history
The Golden Age of Murder
.

“Sir Basil Thomson's tales are always good reading, and he has the knack of being accurate about Scotland Yard. His book is full of agreeable people, and his case is neatly put together.” Dorothy L. Sayers,
Sunday Times

“Few authors can claim such an intimate knowledge of Scotland Yard and criminals as Sir Basil Thomson, one-time Assistant Commissioner at the Yard. He provides subtle intrigue, clever deduction, and bright dialogue, and the whole combines to make easily the best mystery yarn that has come my way in recent weeks. No words are wasted in the fast-moving plot…This book must not be missed.”
Referee

D
IVISIONAL
D
ETECTIVE
-I
NSPECTOR
S
YMINGTON
was checking the expense sheets of his men in his little barely furnished room at the Hampstead Police Station when the telephone rang. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the instrument without speaking, and his clerk went to it, leaving him free to wrestle with columns of figures. Arithmetic, as all his staff knew, had never been his strong suit. He had a pathetic habit of doing his addition sums aloud, and he was thus engaged when phrases in the one-sided telephone conversation caught his ear and he broke away from his brain-torture to listen.

“Spell the name, please. M-a-c-D-o-u-g-a-l—MacDougal…Yes, Mr. MacDougal?…You think she was murdered?…Has any doctor seen her?…Oh, a window was open?…You think he got in and went out through the window? Well, stay where you are, and whatever you do, don't touch the body or anything else until an officer comes. Stop, don't go away…Have I got your address right?—23 Laburnum Road. Is that right? Very good, Mr. MacDougal—an officer will be at the house within ten minutes.”

Symington pushed back his papers and started to his feet. Burglary and murder were matters that he understood better than columns of figures. He listened with impatience to the level voice of his subordinate while he recounted the substance of the telephone message. “Are any of the men back?” he asked.

His clerk opened the door into the adjoining room and glanced in. “Only Porter, sir. He's writing his report on that house-breaking case in Claremont Terrace.”

Symington went to the peg for his hat. “I'll go myself. Make a note of the name and address for me: tell Porter to come along with me, and while we are gone, repeat the message to C.O.” By these initials he meant the Central Office at New Scotland Yard.

It was the practice in that grim building for telephone messages reporting serious crimes from a Division to be brought down by one of the operators upstairs to the Chief Constable's messenger, and if that functionary happened to be otherwise engaged, to hand it to one of the detective-sergeants to speed it on its way to the proper authority. It chanced that the only man in the sergeants' room that morning was Detective-Sergeant Richardson, a young Scotsman, whose rise from a uniform constable to a detective-sergeant had led to some grumbling from colleagues over whose head he had passed. It would have led to more if he had been less popular. But being, as he was, one of those young men who never pushed himself forward, nor attempted to take credit for his successes even when the credit was due, he disarmed hostile criticism.

“Here's something for you to get on with, Richardson,” said the telephone operator, planking the message down on his desk.

“Another daylight raid?”

“Not this time. It's a murder up in Hampstead. The D.D.I. is on the job. A report's following.”

Richardson read the message and sighed. A plain-sailing murder case in one of the divisions was unlikely to come his way. For weeks he had been condemned to interview indignant ladies who had written in to complain that their handbags had been snatched from them in broad daylight, in several cases only to find a little later that they had left them lying on the counter of the last shop they had visited; or to pacify imaginative persons of both sexes who were convinced that they were being shadowed by members of a criminal gang. The least humdrum job that had come his way during the last few weeks had been to squeeze himself into an office cupboard a size too small for him to listen to the threats of a blackmailer who imagined that he was alone with his victim.

He read the message—that at 11.13 a.m. James MacDougal of 23 Laburnum Road, Hampstead, had telephoned to the Hampstead Police Station to report that on reaching home at 11 a.m. he had found the front door locked and bolted; that he rang repeatedly without effect and then went round to the back, where he found a window open. In the kitchen the gas-oven was alight: it had burnt a hole through the saucepan over it; the table was laid for the maid's supper. On going up to the hall above he found the body of his maidservant, Helen Dunn, aged about fifty, lying on the floor near the telephone. She had bled profusely from a wound in the head and her body was cold. D.D. Inspector Symington and P.C. Porter (C.I.D.) have left for the scene of the crime.

Richardson carried the message to the Chief Constable's room.

“What is it?” growled Beckett, who was wading through a thick file of papers and jotting down notes as he read.