The Lake District Murder (British Library Crime Classics) (6 page)

The result astounded him. Clayton’s account, a current account, showed a credit balance of something over £2,000! His pass-book gave no clue as to the source of this unexpected affluence. Amounts, varying from £50 to £100, had been paid in at odd intervals during the last seven years, but in every case they had been paid in in ordinary £1 treasury notes. Burton was certain that the money had not come from the profits in the garage—in the first place he felt certain that Clayton’s share in the profits would not amount to £300 a year. If it did, it meant that the concern was showing a clear profit of some £600 a year, a possibility which the manager flatly refused to accept. In the second place, Burton knew that the garage account was in the hands of the Westminster bank. Clayton’s account at his own bank was purely a
personal
account.

A further examination of the books showed that Clayton had first opened his account at the Keswick branch some eight years previously with a balance, transferred from Manchester, of £40 odd. For the first year only small amounts had been paid in and then, suddenly, the £50 and £100 entries began to appear. This fact seemed significant to the Inspector.

How, and from whom, had Clayton obtained the money?

“Do you happen to know the manager of the Westminster?” Meredith asked of Burton. “If so it would be doing me a favour if you could get his permission for me to run my eye over the garage account.”

Burton knew him well, as they were members of the same golf club, and after a short phone conversation, the Inspector, puzzled and excited, left for the Westminster. Goreleston proved to be a little more reticent over his client’s affairs than Burton, but after Meredith had briefly outlined the facts of Clayton’s death, he seemed willing to do all he could to help. But this time Meredith drew a blank. The garage showed a fluctuating profit of about £6 a week. In the summer months the amounts paid in by the proprietors of the Derwent rose to as much as £12 to £14 a week, then gradually declined to as little as £2 or £3 a week in January and February.

“I suppose you couldn’t tell me how the partners draw their money out?” asked Meredith.

“Nothing simpler,” replied Goreleston. “Once a month Clayton presented a cheque for £16 and it was paid out to him in £1 notes. There was an arrangement, as a matter of fact, that not more than £16 could be drawn out by either of the partners in any one month. Both Mr. Clayton and Mr. Higgins of course, had an equal right to examine the dual-account whenever they wanted to. To tell you the truth, I don’t ever remember seeing Mr. Higgins in the bank. He certainly never drew a cheque on his own signature, though there was nothing to prevent him from doing so, provided he kept to the conditions I’ve just mentioned. I suppose the monthly withdrawal of £16 was divided equally between the partners.”

“I see.” Meredith rose and extended his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Goreleston. You may rest assured that I shall make no mention of this interview and I trust you’ll be equally reticent over what I’ve told you.”

Wasting no time, Meredith hurried off through the wintry streets to his office, where he had soon put through a call to Messrs. Harben, Wilshin and Harben, the Penrith solicitors. Mr. Harben, the senior partner of the firm, flatly refused to divulge the nature of Clayton’s will.

“After all, Inspector, it will be public property in a few days. I really can’t see why I should disclose the terms of the will before it is formally declared!”

To this Meredith had no reply. He realized that he was treading on delicate ground and even if he had strong suspicions that Clayton had been murdered, a solicitor was the last person in whom to confide these suspicions. Rather nettled, he rang off and put himself to thinking about that astonishing nest-egg of £2,000. The first thought that entered his mind was theft. Was it possible that Clayton was a professional thief, whose activities spreading over some seven years had been attended with singular good fortune? But the record of local burglaries was disappointingly small. Besides, the amounts seemed to have been paid in fairly regularly about four times a year, and in every case in notes. Meredith could not conceive a clever thief being such a fool as to pay in the proceeds of his thefts in notes. Notes are numbered and often, when suspicion is aroused, easily traceable. Clayton would have to work in conjunction with a receiver and if any of the notes could have been traced back to a receiver the fat would have been properly in the fire.

Blackmail was a more feasible explanation. But if so, who was the victim? Surely not Higgins? That, at any rate, would supply a motive for the murder. Driven to desperation by Clayton’s continual threats of exposure Higgins might have decided that the only way to regain peace of mind was to get rid of his partner. But once again Meredith found himself up against that alibi. Thoroughly disheartened, he at length abandoned all attempts to solve the problem of Clayton’s bank-balance and decided to concentrate on the major problem of his death. Rather nervously he took up the phone and got through to Superintendent Thompson at Carlisle.

“This is Meredith speaking, sir. I want to have a word with you about this Clayton affair.”

At the breezy command of “Fire ahead” Meredith outlined the progress of his investigations, laying particular stress on his theory that Clayton had been drugged before being placed in the car. To his intense relief the Superintendent anticipated his request.

“And now I suppose you want permission for an autopsy? Is that it, Inspector?”

“That’s about it, sir. Any chance?”

“Hang on a minute and I’ll have a word with the Chief. Luckily he’s in his office. Don’t promise, mind you, but I’ll do my best.”

“Thanks.”

Meredith waited apprehensively for the Chief’s decision. So much he felt depended on the autopsy. He was quite certain that he could not persuade a coroner’s jury to bring in a verdict of murder by putting forward his present suspicions; but once prove that Clayton had been drugged and the result of the inquest was a foregone conclusion. Not that Meredith was hankering after a sensational verdict. It was merely that he now felt certain that Clayton had not taken his own life.

The Superintendent’s voice drew him sharply out of his reverie.

“You there, Meredith? I’ve seen the Chief. He was a bit dubious at first. Thought that the reasons you’d put forward for the
post mortem
were a trifle too thin. But I’m glad to say that I got him round in the end, so you can go ahead with a clear conscience.”

“That’s really good news, sir. I’ll get Dr. Burney on the job straightaway and send through my report early to-morrow.”

“Good. By the way the inquest is fixed for Wednesday next at 2.30. The body’s at the mortuary isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we’ll arrange for the Coroner to sit in the court-room. You’d better subpoena all the witnesses you think necessary. I shall probably be over myself if I can spare the time.”

Immensely pleased with the result of his phone call Meredith had soon fixed up with Dr. Burney, in conjunction with Dr. White, to perform the necessary
post mortem
. In less than an hour the two doctors were at their gruesome job in the little mortuary adjoining the station. When the Inspector returned from a hastily snatched meal he found the doctors waiting for him.

“Well, gentlemen?”

Dr. Burney smiled.

“You seem anxious, Inspector!”

Meredith laughed.

“I am. A negative report would make me look a tidy fool after airing my suspicions so strongly at H.Q.”

“Well you won’t lose your beauty sleep on that account. We’ve no reason to alter our opinion as to the cause of death. That’s asphyxia all right. On the other hand we found about thirty grains of trional in the stomach and intestines. You know what that is I suppose?”

“A drug?” asked Meredith on tenterhooks.

Burney nodded. Dr. White, a short podgy little man, cut in wheezily.

“A powerful drug too. Thirty grains of the stuff would send a man off to sleep in a brace of shakes.”

Burney grinned at the older man’s expression.

“I know exactly what you’re going to ask, Inspector. What
is
a ‘brace of shakes’? Say, in this case anything from twenty minutes to half an hour. That so, White?”

“Twenty minutes in my opinion. Can’t be certain of course. People react differently to drugs. But that’s about it!”

As the doctors were shuffling themselves into their overcoats, Meredith observed:

“No need to tell you, gentlemen, what this means?”

Burney winked.

“It wasn’t suicide—if that’s what you’re after. By the way, when’s the inquest? Is it fixed yet?”

Meredith told them and the doctors drove off together in Burney’s car to write up an official report of their findings.

Left alone the Inspector allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation, then tired out after his day’s work he trudged off through the frost-rimed streets to spend the tail-end of the evening helping his seventeen-year-old son, Tony, to assemble a new five-valve wireless set. Tony was apprenticed to a local photographer, but like Meredith, he had a mechanical turn of mind. A fact which did a lot to further the happy relationship existing between father and son. Meredith was inordinately proud of his only child, a feeling which he secretly believed to be reciprocated, and if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Meredith, Tony would have long ago been destined for the Force.

CHAPTER V

MOTIVE?

T
UESDAY
morning ushered in a spell of fine, frosty weather. For the first time since the Inspector had started to investigate the Clayton case, he could look up over the roofs of Keswick and see the snow-capped ridge of the Skiddaw range etched in detail against a hard, blue sky. His spirits responded to the invigorating nip in the early morning air and it was in an optimistic mood that he set off after breakfast to his office.

He felt more than pleased with the result of the overnight
post mortem
, and shortly after nine he was in touch with the Superintendent at Carlisle. He seemed as pleased as Meredith that the autopsy had produced a positive result.

“A feather in your cap, Inspector. There’s absolutely no doubt now that Clayton was murdered. I mean there was no point in drugging himself before taking that dose of carbon monoxide, was there?”

Meredith agreed.

“So you may as well,” went on the Superintendent, “go ahead with your investigations over there. I’ll have to talk matters over with the Chief and see what he thinks about the future of the case. He may decide to apply to Scotland Yard for the loan of a C.I.D. man. If so I’ll do my damnedest to see that you work in conjunction with him. You may possibly have to come over here yourself this evening for a conference. I’ll let you know later.”

“Very good, sir.”

After he had dealt with the letters lying ready on his desk, Meredith sent for Railton.

“About this Mrs. Swinley you mentioned, Railton. Do you happen to know where she lives? You do? What time does she start her duties out at the garage cottage?”

“Ten, I think, sir. I expect she leaves about a quarter to.”

Meredith glanced up at the clock.

“Good. If you get out the combination I shall be ready to start in five minutes. We ought to just catch her before she starts out.”

When Meredith arrived at Rosemary Cottage, a stone’s throw from the Portinscale post office, Mrs. Swinley was just putting on her hat. The sight of the Inspector sent her into a rare flutter, for she had already been considerably upset by Clayton’s tragic death. She invited him into the prim, cheerful little parlour, however, and in an agitated voice asked if there was anything she could do.

“Well, it’s like this, Mrs. Swinley—I understand from the constable that you look after the domestic affairs for Mr. Clayton and Mr. Higgins along at the Derwent garage.”

“That’s right, sir, and a shocking thing it is, too, about poor Mr. Clayton. He always seemed a bright young lad to me. Can’t understand what made him do it. Really I can’t!”

“That’s what everybody is saying,” agreed Meredith. “Now the point I want to get at is this—when you leave the cottage after lunch do you lay the evening meal?”

“Never!” exclaimed Mrs. Swinley. “Food gets that dry if it’s left on the table, as I daresay you know, Inspector.”

“Exactly. And you never put the kettle on, either?”

“No. I just bank up the fire, fill the kettle and leave it standing ready in the hearth.”

“What
are
your duties exactly?”

Mrs. Swinley took a big breath and Meredith prepared himself for a voluble recital. It seemed that it was less a matter of what Mrs. Swinley
did
than what she did
not
do. But the gist of it was that Mrs. Swinley shopped, cooked, cleaned, darned, mended, washed, and ironed and all for a matter of ten shillings a week.

The Inspector tactfully let this spate of information run dry before slyly leading the conversation round to Mrs. Swinley’s opinion of the relationship existing between the partners. It did not take Meredith long to see that she was quite out of sympathy with Higgins. According to her it was Clayton who did all the work, whilst Higgins seized the slightest opportunity to slink off to the Hare and Hounds. She didn’t think the gentlemen got on very well together, though she had never actually heard them having a violent quarrel. They often seemed to argue over business matters and she believed that Mr. Clayton had been thinking about breaking up the partnership.

At this, Meredith pricked up his ears. Did it mean that Higgins had been prevaricating when he said he knew nothing of his partner’s intention to clear off to Canada?

“What makes you think he wanted to back out of the business, Mrs. Swinley?”

“It was something I overheard, sir. About three days before the tragedy it would be. I was in my scullery and the young men was having their dinner. And the door not being properly closed I couldn’t help but hear what they was a-talking about. First I heard Mr. Clayton say, ‘It’s all very well for you, but I tell you I’ve got to get out of the concern.’ Then I heard Mr. ‘Iggins reply something about it being the worse for him if he did! Rather nasty like. Then Mr. ‘Iggins went on to say as how Mr. Clayton was doing well for himself and what was the sense of clearing out in a hurry. He said something, too, in a low sort of voice, about Mr. Clayton knowing well enough what it meant if he did back out. Then the garridge bell rang and Mr. ‘Iggins cleared off.”