Читать книгу The Bedford Row Mystery - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 8

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The detective, who was sitting at Simpson’s elbow and caught sight of the big letters as the managing clerk spread the newspaper on the desk, let out a sharp exclamation of astonishment.

“Hello!” he said. “What’s the meaning of that? Here’s a reward offered already! You’re forestalled, Mr. Marchmont. And ten thousand pounds! pretty stiff figure that, I’m thinking!”

Richard, who had been walking about the room, his hands in his pockets, full of conflicting and miserable thoughts, came up to the desk; all three men bent over the newspaper. And Liversedge, who seemed more interested and excited than either of his companions, read the advertisement aloud.

“HENRY MARCHMONT, DECEASED.—Whereas Mr. Henry Marchmont, Solicitor, of 93a Bedford Row, was found dead on the staircase of his office on Wednesday morning last under circumstances which leave no doubt that he was murdered, by shooting, about eight to eight-thirty o’clock of the previous evening, Tuesday, October 16th, 1923, and whereas the murderer is still at large, Now This is to Give Notice that the sum of £10,000 (Ten Thousand Pounds) will be paid by the undersigned to the person giving information which will lead to the arrest and conviction of the said murderer.

“Daniel Crench,

“Solicitor.

“985 Chancery Lane, W.C.2.”

The first sound that escaped any of the three men after Liversedge had brought his muttering to an end was a laugh, cynical and contemptuous, from the managing clerk.

“Crench!” he exclaimed, “Crench! I don’t suppose Daniel Crench has ten thousand pence to put his fingers on, let alone ten thousand pounds!”

“You know him?” asked Richard.

“Know him well enough!” replied Simpson. “He’s what they would have called a pettifogging attorney in the old days. He used to be a clerk at Galdyke & Norgate’s in the Lane—not an articled clerk, you know. They gave him his articles, though, in the end, and after a time he set up for himself. We’ve had to do with him now and then—a sharp, crafty man, not over-scrupulous. But—the idea of Dan Crench and ten thousand pounds is——” He wound up with a sneer and a snap of his fingers, and tossed the paper aside. But Liversedge shook his head and picked the paper up.

“Aye, just so, Mr. Simpson!” he said. “But don’t you see, the man’s only an agent! That’s obvious. Why should any solicitor or firm of solicitors offer this reward out of their own pockets? Crench, of course, is acting for somebody. But who?” He turned inquiringly to Richard. “Are there any relations who’d do this, Mr. Marchmont?”

“There are no relations who’d do it,” replied Richard. “My uncle had no very near relations beyond myself.”

“Just so—I’d gathered that from what you told me the other day,” said Liversedge. “Well, there’s some mystery, then, about this business!”

“If it’s genuine!” sneered Simpson.

“Genuine enough, I think you’ll find,” replied Liversedge. “This man Crench, I take it, whatever his beginnings and however crafty he may be, is, you say, a properly qualified solicitor. Very well!—he wouldn’t issue that notice if it weren’t genuine. What it means is this.—There’s somebody desperately anxious, for some reason of his own, to find out who killed Mr. Henry Marchmont; so anxious that he’s willing to fork out ten thousand pounds for the information necessary to effect an arrest and a conviction, which means he’s a very well-to-do man to whom ten thousand pounds is probably nothing, and he’s employed this Crench to issue that notice. Simple!”

“But why should anybody—an outsider, I mean—have such desperate anxiety as you suggest, Liversedge?” asked Richard. “What has my uncle’s death to do with——”

“You don’t know who or what Mr. Henry Marchmont’s death—or, to put it plainly, murder—has to do with, sir,” answered Liversedge. “And I don’t, and Mr. Simpson there doesn’t; nobody knows. I’ve always felt, from the very beginning, that there was far more about this affair than’s to be seen on the surface!—that advertisement is a sure proof that I’m right. But something’s got to be done about this. Of course, our people at the Yard will take notice of it; they’ll want to know what it means. But Crench isn’t obliged to tell them; there’s no law that I know of to prevent Crench or anybody else putting out a notice of this sort.” He paused, and after seeming to reflect awhile looked knowingly at Richard. “Mr. Marchmont,” he continued, “I wish you’d do something! As next-of-kin to your uncle, go down to Chancery Lane, see Crench, and ask him what this thing means?”

“A good move!” murmured Simpson, “excellent!”

“He won’t tell you, you know,” Liversedge went on, with a dry smile. “You’ll probably not get a word out of him! But—go!”

“What’s the use if I don’t get anything out of him?” asked Richard.

“A lot! You’ll see him. He’ll not be so guarded with you as he would with Simpson, or with me. Keep your eyes and ears open! But,” concluded the detective. “Go! You’re the principal, after all!”

Richard, too, was thinking, on not dissimilar lines. But he had an idea which, he thought, might not have occurred to Liversedge. Was this extraordinary offer related in any way to the Lansdale affair?—had it anything to do with the disappearance of Lansdale and his daughter?

“Very well!” he said suddenly. “I’ll go! Have you any advice to give me?—I’m not much accustomed to this sort of thing.”

“I don’t think you need any special advice, Mr. Marchmont,” replied Liversedge. “I should just announce myself, if I were you, as the late Mr. Henry Marchmont’s nephew, say I’d seen Crench’s advertisement, and had called to ask the meaning of it. And beyond that, I should do little more than keep my ears open—and my eyes, if need be!”

Richard went off to Chancery Lane without further delay. He had never visited any other solicitor’s office than his uncle’s, and he was surprised to find that Mr. Daniel Crench conducted his professional business in premises which presented a striking contrast to the roomy, rambling, handsomely appointed house in Bedford Row. Mr. Crench, as a matter of fact, practised law in two rooms at the very top of a large building in which there seemed to be a score or two of offices of all sizes and sorts. The door of entrance to his humble domain had a frosted sheet of glass in its upper panel whereon was painted Mr. Crench’s name in capitals and his profession in italics; within the door was a shabby, ill-furnished ante-room, containing bills and posters of property to sell, shelves of second-hand law books, bundles of papers and documents, and an ink-stained boy whose arms and legs had grown out of his sleeves and trousers, and who replied most amicably to the caller’s inquiry that Mr. Crench was engaged, but that a card might be presented to him if the business were urgent.

Whatever Mr. Crench’s engagement might be, it was evident that he considered Mr. Richard Marchmont’s affairs of paramount importance, for the boy had no sooner vanished within an inner room than he reappeared again and intimated that Mr. Crench would see Mr. Marchmont at once. He held the door open, and Richard walked into a room scarcely less shabby and badly-equipped than the one he had left. But he gave scant attention to the room; his eyes were all for its occupants. There were two men there. One, who sat at a desk in the centre of the room and made no show of rising as his visitor entered, Richard at once took to be Crench. He did not like his looks. He was a man of little under medium height, scarcely of middle age, shifty of eye, watchful of manner, not improved by a starveling beard and scrappy moustache; badly yet pretentiously dressed in an ill-fitting frock-coat, with which, from the fact that it hung on a peg above his desk, he evidently had the bad taste to wear a bowler hat. Upstart was written all over Crench in big letters; the more Richard looked at him, the more he felt a loathing of him.

And little as he liked the looks of the solicitor, he was not sure that he did not prefer them to the looks of the man who was with him. This individual was a tallish, well-built fellow, dressed smartly in a tweed suit of fashionable cut, who stood leaning against the mantelpiece, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips. He was a dark-complexioned, black-eyed man, who from his general appearance and air might have been an actor; from the fact that he wore a rather heavy, carefully cultivated moustache, Richard judged that he was not. There was an air of watchfulness about this man too, but whereas Crench’s eyes were sly, the other’s were undoubtedly sinister. Those eyes were kept steadily on Richard from the moment of his entrance, and he soon became aware of them, and grew uncomfortable under their persistent examination.

His reception was not at all ceremonious, nor on any lines that he had conceived. Crench grinned knowingly behind his thin moustache and nodded as familiarly as if he and his caller were at least old acquaintances, if not dear friends.

“Morning, Mr. Marchmont,” he said, in am almost offensively off-hand manner. “Thought you’d drop in—or that somebody on your behalf would! Advertisement in the first edition fetched you, eh, Mr. Marchmont? Merely a preliminary that, my dear sir!—it’ll be in all the big dailies to-morrow morning, and in the leading provincial papers too. Nothing like doing a thing thoroughly, Mr. Marchmont! And of course, you being in the relation you are to Mr. Henry Marchmont, deceased, you naturally want—eh?”

Richard glanced at the man lounging by the mantelpiece. Crench laughed.

“Oh, you can speak before Mr. Garner!” he said. “Mr. Garner and I are partners—not in law, but in other matters. We’ve no secrets! Besides, there is no secret in this affair—all open and above-board! Let any man or woman who can give the information asked for in my advertisement come forward and give it, and in due course, when the police have done their work, and a jury has done its work—why, then, there’s ten thousand of the best for the informant, spot cash! We won’t wait till the hangman’s done his bit!” he concluded, with a leer. “A verdict of guilty from the twelve good men and true will do. But you called, Mr. Marchmont——”

“I called to ask on whose behalf this offer is made?” replied Richard.

“Ah, just so, Mr. Marchmont!” said Crench, with a sly smile, “and that’s just what I’m not at liberty to tell you. Suffice it to say, sir, that my client—I admit it is a client—is deeply interested in the affair of your poor uncle’s murder—and will cheerfully, most cheerfully, pay ten thousand pounds for the information I have advertised for——”

“If he can get it!” said Garner, with a guttural laugh. “If he can get it!”

“To be sure!” agreed Crench significantly. “If he can get it!”

“What is his interest?” asked Richard. “It can’t be from any family tie, Mr. Crench——”

“There are more weighty matters than mere family ties, sir,” interrupted Crench, with a wink. “Blood, no doubt, is thicker than water, but business, yes, business is of more importance than blood!”

“Far more,” muttered the man at the mantelpiece.

“Your uncle’s death, Mr. Marchmont,” continued Crench, “occurring just when it did, was a catastrophe! Catastrophes have to be repaired. This can be repaired, perhaps—not sure, you know, Mr. Marchmont, not sure!—through my advertisement. Perhaps! But—the amount offered only represents my client’s anxiety.”

Richard reflected a little on this and on Crench’s previous answer. Then he decided to throw aside Liversedge’s advice and to ask a few questions.

“I suppose you read all that transpired at the inquest, Mr. Crench?” he suggested.

Crench leaned back in his chair, smiled, and tapped the edge of his desk with his fingernails. His reply came with a snap.

“Every syllable!”

“You are aware that the name of a Mr. Lansdale was brought up?”

“Fully! And fully aware, also, Mr. Marchmont—the police and the press having contrived to give a great deal of publicity to the affair, very foolishly in certain respects—that Mr. Lansdale has disappeared from the Hotel Cecil—and his daughter too. Oh, yes, we’re fully posted up—here!”

“Does this offer come from Mr. Lansdale?” asked Richard bluntly.

Crench laughed.

“I know you’re a cricketer, Mr. Marchmont!” he said. “I’ve seen you play more than once, both at Lord’s and the Oval. You’re used to quick decisions, quick answers from umpires! But you won’t get a sharp answer from me, sir, either in the affirmative or the negative. All I can say to you I have said—which is that I have a client who is deeply interested in the matter of your poor uncle’s death, and who will cheerfully pay ten thousand pounds—but you know the rest, Mr. Marchmont!”

Richard gave him a glance and contrived to include the other man in it.

“Am I right in believing that your client is chiefly anxious to prove that Mr. Lansdale is innocent?” he asked. “Is that it, Mr. Crench?”

But Crench only laughed again and shook his head, and Garner’s face was irresponsive.

“You can believe what you like, Mr. Marchmont,” replied Crench. “Nothing to do with me, sir. I’ve said my say—and what I’ve said to you I shall say to the police, whom I expect any minute; like you, they’ll want to know what my advertisement means. But you know, Mr. Marchmont, and they know, that it’s no affair of theirs or of yours—no offence, sir. If my client likes to spend his money in this way, who can object, Mr. Marchmont? It’s his money!”

“And he’s plenty of it!” muttered Garner. “His way of doing things!”

“His way of doing things—as my friend remarks, Mr. Marchmont,” said Crench. He gave Richard a sly look. “You weren’t thinking of doing as much yourself, in justice to your poor uncle, I suppose, sir?” he added. “Perhaps we anticipated you——”

Richard got himself out of the shabby office and went back to Bedford Row. Simpson sneered quietly at his account of the interview; it was Crench from top to bottom, he said; as for Garner, he knew nothing of him, had never heard of him. He went off to attend to some office business, and Liversedge turned to Richard.

“Mr. Marchmont,” he said, “as things are, there’s only one thing to be done! And you and I must do it!”