Читать книгу The Cartwright Gardens Murder - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 4

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Nobody offered any objection to Jennison’s departure. He had already given his name and address to the sergeant, and since his last statement to the police surgeon, nobody had taken any notice of him. He felt, somehow, that he was unimportant, a very minor pawn in the game: he slunk, rather than marched, out of the door and the building. All the same, once outside, he made up to the detective.

“May I go with you?” he asked, half afraid of his temerity. “I—I’d like to, if you don’t mind.”

Womersley, who seemed somewhat abstracted, half paused and stared at his interrogator—wonderingly. In the light of the neighbouring lamp, he sized up Jennison and smiled.

“Oh!” he said. “You’re the chap that saw, aren’t you? Just so!”

“I saw!” assented Jennison. “Everything!”

“Why do you want to go with me?” demanded Womersley. “Eh?”

“Because I did see,” answered Jennison. “Now I want to hear.”

Womersley laughed. The laugh was half satirical, but the other half was wholly indulgent, and he nodded his head and turned along the pavement.

“Well, I don’t know why you shouldn’t,” he said. “And, as it happens, I’m not quite sure where this Hunter Street is. I’m new to this quarter of the town—I only came here, on special business, yesterday. Now up crops this!”

“I know where Hunter Street is,” remarked Jennison, eager to be of use. “Two minutes’ walk—as a matter of fact, it’s close to Cartwright Gardens. I’ll take you straight there.” Then, when they had crossed the road and walked on a little, he said timidly, “I suppose you’re a detective, aren’t you?”

“That’s it!” answered Womersley. “Detective-Sergeant, Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard—now you’ve got it!”

“It must be very interesting work,” suggested Jennison.

“Sometimes!” said Womersley, with another laugh. “And sometimes—t’other thing. Dull!”

“I should have thought it could never have been that!” remarked Jennison.

“Dare say!” replied Womersley. “Fact, though! Horribly dull—at times. Prosaic!”

Jennison ruminated over this. He had a conception of detectives—formed entirely from his own imagination; he also had an idea of what a detective ought to look like. And Womersley wasn’t a bit like it—he was quite an ordinary young man in appearance; Jennison saw thousands and thousands of his type every day in the City. But there being no doubt that Womersley was a genuine detective, he proceeded to cultivate him.

“What now,” asked Jennison, in the accents of a disciple who finds himself admitted to the presence of a known master, “what, now, would you say is the particular gift or faculty that a detective ought to possess?”

Womersley laughed again. Then he threw two words over his shoulder.

“Common sense!” he said.

“Nothing beyond?” asked Jennison, in surprise.

“If you like,” laughed Womersley, “still more common sense—and still more common sense after that. I’m not defining common sense, you know. But—common sense all the time!—that’s the ticket. This Hunter Street? Well, the number’s 157a.”

The house was close by, and it was all in darkness. But there was a bell and a knocker at the front door, and repeated recourse to each prefaced the throwing up of a window-sash on the second floor and the protrusion of a head. A man’s voice sounded above them.

“What is it?—who’s there?”

“Is this Mr. Bradmore’s?” inquired Womersley. “Mr. Thomas Bradmore?”

“I’m Mr. Bradmore,” replied the man. “What do you want?”

Womersley glanced up and down the deserted street. Then he looked up.

“Sorry to rouse you, Mr. Bradmore,” he answered. “A man died very suddenly in Cartwright Gardens about an hour ago. We found your card on him. Can you come down and tell me if you know anything of him?”

The voice spoke one word.

“Wait!”

The window snapped with a click, and Womersley turned to Jennison.

“That settles that,” he murmured. “The dead man isn’t Bradmore. Next thing is—does Bradmore know who he is?”

Before Jennison had had time to speculate on the chances for and against this, the door opened, and Bradmore himself appeared, clad in an old dressing-gown and holding a lamp above his head. He was a tall, middle-aged man, somewhat worn and melancholy of aspect, whose dark, straggling hair and beard were already shot with gray, and who looked, somehow, as if he had known trouble and anxiety. He made a steady inspection of both men before speaking; Jennison he passed over quickly; at Womersley he looked longer.

“Police?” he asked.

“Scotland Yard man, Mr. Bradmore,” replied Womersley. He drew out the crumpled card which he had found on the dead man, and thrust it into the rays of the lamp. “That’s the card I spoke of, Mr. Bradmore. Yours, isn’t it?”

Bradmore nodded, and motioned his visitors to enter. He closed the door after them, and, leading them into a room on the right hand side of the passage, set his lamp on a centre table, pointed the two men to chairs, and himself took one facing the detective. And he immediately put a direct question to Womersley.

“What like was this man?”

“Good-looking, fresh-coloured man, Mr. Bradmore,” replied Womersley, promptly. “About thirty-five years old, I should say. Well dressed—dark blue serge suit. Plenty of money in his pockets. But no papers—at least, none giving any name or address, except, of course, your card. That was in the right-hand waistcoat pocket.”

“And you say he died suddenly in Cartwright Gardens?” asked Bradmore. “Of—-what?”

Womersley shook his head and pointed to Jennison, who was listening with all his ears.

“That’s a question for the doctor, Mr. Bradmore,” he answered. “This young man saw all there was to be seen. He saw the man come along the street, apparently in the best of health and spirits, suddenly throw up his hands and clutch at his throat, and then fall to the ground and die—at once!”

Bradmore gave Jennison a glance. But it was no more than a glance. His attention went back to the detective.

“What exact time was this?” he asked.

“According to our friend here,” answered Womersley, again indicating Jennison, “just about a quarter to twelve. But—do you know who the man is, Mr. Bradmore? That’s the important thing just now.”

Bradmore nodded, slowly.

“Yes!” he answered. “It’ll be Alfred Jakyn—Alfred Jakyn!”

“Yes?” said Womersley. “And—who is Alfred Jakyn? Was, of course, I should say. Who was he, exactly?”

Bradmore began to stroke his beard, looking reflectively at his questioner.

“Do you know Holborn—I mean, do you know it well?” he asked.

“No,” replied Womersley, “I don’t; my work, as a rule, is at the other end of the town.”

“I thought not,” said Bradmore, “or you’d have known the name of Jakyn. If you go along Holborn to-morrow morning, you’ll see, at the corner of Counsel’s Passage, a chemist’s shop—well known—with the name Daniel Jakyn over it. As a matter of fact, Daniel Jakyn’s dead, and I’m his successor: I took over the business, of which I’d been manager for several years, when he died, last spring. And Alfred Jakyn was his son—only son. Only child, in fact.”

“Just so,” said Womersley. “And what do you know about Alfred, Mr. Bradmore? I mean, of course, in relation to his sudden death?”

“I can soon tell you all I know about Alfred Jakyn,” replied Bradmore. “As I’ve said, he was his father’s only child. As a boy and a young man, he was a wild and extravagant fellow—he gave his father a lot of trouble, and caused him no end of expense. About ten years ago he disappeared, and, as far as I know—in fact, I’m certain about it—his father never heard a word of him from that time until the time of his own death. I never knew of any one who ever heard of him; I certainly never did—until yesterday evening. Then—about a quarter to eight—he walked into my shop——”

“You’re speaking of last evening—present night, as you may call it?” interrupted Womersley. “Same night as that in which he died?”

“Just so,” assented Bradmore. “Last evening—the evening that’s just over. He came in, greeted me as if he’d seen me only the day before, told me he’d landed at Liverpool yesterday morning, from America—New York, I think—and asked for news of his father. He didn’t know, until I told him, that his father was dead. Hearing that, he sat down in the parlour at the back of the shop to hear all I had to tell him.”

“You’d no doubt have a good deal to tell, Mr. Bradmore?” suggested Womersley.

“Well, yes!” replied Bradmore. “He seemed to know nothing. He looked prosperous, as far as you could judge from outward appearances, but I couldn’t make out where he’d been most of the time during the ten years’ absence, for in addition to not knowing anything about his father, he seemed to be remarkably ignorant about things in general—I mean things that have happened of late years.”

“Um!” murmured Womersley. “Maybe he’s been where news doesn’t run. However——”

“I told him all there was to tell about his family affairs,” continued Bradmore. “I told him, to begin with, that his father died intestate—left no will at all——”

“Much to leave?” asked Womersley.

“Yes, a great deal—he was a well-to-do man,” replied Bradmore. “Of course, as Alfred had turned up, it would all come to him. He recognised that. But I also told him that his relations were already taking action to have his death presumed, as he hadn’t been heard of for ten years, so that they could succeed to Daniel’s property——”

“There are relations, then?” interrupted Womersley.

“Yes. Daniel Jakyn had a sister-in-law, Mrs. Nicolas Jakyn, widow of his younger brother. She has two children, a son, Nicholas, and a daughter, with the odd name of Belyna. Mrs. Nicholas Jakyn and her children—they’re both grown up—live with Mrs. Nicholas’s brother, Dr. Cornelius Syphax, in Brunswick Square, close by here. If Alfred Jakyn had died during his absence abroad, the Nicholas Jakyn family, of course, came in for Daniel’s money. And they’re now—believing Alfred to be dead, abroad—in process of trying to get it. I took over the business under arrangement with them—sanctioned by the Courts, of course.”

“You told him all this, last evening?” asked Womersley.

“Of course. He laughed at it, and said that as he was very much alive, all that would come to an end. And,” continued Bradmore, “after talking things over a little more with me, he went away to call at Brunswick Square, to let Mrs. Nicholas Jakyn and her children know that he was living and had come home again. That was the last I saw of him.”

“Just so,” said Womersley. “Um!—well, a few questions, Mr. Bradmore. To start with—what time did he leave the shop in Holborn?”

“Just about half-past eight.”

“To go straight to Brunswick Square?”

“So I understood.”

“Why did you give him your card—the card with your private address on it?”

“Because he said that he’d likely want to see me after he’d seen his aunt and his cousins, and as I was going home I told him where I lived—gave him the card you’ve brought here just now.”

“I see! Did he tell you where he was staying in London?”

“He did. At the Euston Hotel.”

“Did he ask you anything else, Mr. Bradmore?—anything that we ought to know? Because, I may as well tell you that the police-surgeon who made a preliminary examination of the body is highly suspicious—he thinks there’s been foul play—and, naturally, we want to know all we can. Did Alfred Jakyn ask you about any people he’d known in the old days?—did he give you any idea that there was anybody he wanted to see again, or wanted to find?”

“Oh, well,” answered Bradmore, after reflecting a moment, “there was just one question he asked me, as he was leaving. That was if I knew anything of the whereabouts of a young woman named Millie Clover, who at one time had been employed at the shop in Holborn as a clerk. I didn’t—hadn’t heard of her for years.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing!” answered Bradmore, with decision. “I’ve told you everything.”

Womersley nodded, rose, and began to button his overcoat.

“Queer business, isn’t it?” he said, in matter-of-fact tones. “You say he seemed to be in first-class condition—as regards health?”

“I should say he was certainly in the very best of health and spirits,” assented Bradmore. “Alert, vigorous, cheerful—all that. Oh, yes!”

“And then he goes and dies in the most mysterious fashion, all in a minute!” said Womersley. “Well, as it is, they’ll want you at the inquest, you know, Mr. Bradmore—you’ll be hearing about it, in due course.”

“I imagine that we shall all hear a great deal about a good many things, in due course,” remarked Bradmore, as he led his visitors to the door. “I know what I think, from what you’ve told me!”

“And that’s—what?” asked Womersley.

“No, no! I’ll keep that to myself!” said Bradmore. “Maybe the coroner’s jury will eventually be led to the same conclusion—we shall see!”

He closed the door on them, and Womersley and Jennison turned again into the night. The detective produced and lighted a pipe.

“Well, that’s a beginning!” he said as they moved away. “Easy start, too!”

“What shall you do—now?” asked Jennison, eagerly. “What next?”

“Drop in at the police station for a minute or two, and then—bed!” answered Womersley. “Just that!”

“You can sleep—after this sort of thing?” exclaimed Jennison.

“Try me!” said Womersley. “Oh, yes, I can sleep! Well—good-night.”

Their ways parted there, and Jennison moved forward slowly, through Compton Street to Cartwright Gardens. Very soon he came to the spot, close to his own house, whereat the mysterious Alfred Jakyn had fallen and died. He stood staring at it, wondering, speculating; thinking how queer it all was. Suddenly he saw something that lay in the gutter, near the place from which the policemen had lifted the dead man’s body, something that gleamed white in the moonlight. Stooping and picking it up, he found it to be a scrap of paper, tightly twisted into what one called a cocked-hat. There was writing inside—plain enough that, when he had untwisted it. But Jennison’s eyesight was not over good, and in that light he could make nothing of what he saw to be there. And at that he let himself into the house and hurried up to his own room. The light still burned above the mantelpiece, and he got beneath it, smoothed out the crumpled bit of paper, and read what was written on it. The handwriting was a woman’s—pretty, well-formed writing, even if it looked hurried. And the words were just nine in number:

West corner of Endsleigh Gardens in half an hour.