Читать книгу Murder in Four Degrees: Being Entry Number Two in the Case-book of Ronald Camberwell - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 3
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I entered into partnership with ex-Inspector William Chaney (late Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard) in November, 1920, some little time after he and I had successfully concluded our (non-official) investigation of the Wrides Park Murder. Our business, under the style of Camberwell and Chaney, was to be that of private enquiry agents. We took offices in Conduit Street, a few doors out of New Bond Street; we had two very good rooms, with a smaller one for our clerk, a sharp-witted London lad named Chippendale, who, before he entered our service, had been a sort of glorified office boy to a solicitor, and had picked up a lot of extremely useful knowledge, especially of the seamy side of the Law. Over these offices there was a small suite of rooms which I took for myself, and fitted up as a bachelor flat: I, therefore, may be said to have lived over the shop, and, like a medical man, to have been available by night as well as by day: Chaney, being a married man, lived elsewhere. But though I was always on the spot, I don’t ever remember being called up before regular hours until, early in February, 1921, I was rung up on the telephone one morning at half-past six by somebody who announced himself as Mr. Watson Paley, private secretary to Lord Cheverdale, and who wanted to know if I could see him on most urgent business if he called on me at a quarter to eight? I replied that I was at his service at any moment from that in which I spoke, he answered that the time he had named would do, and that he would be there to the minute. He didn’t mention his business, but I thought it best that my partner should be there to hear it, and as Chaney was on the telephone, I summoned him. He came in at half-past seven, and a quarter of an hour later I opened our door to Mr. Watson Paley.
Looking back at things, I realized that I took a curious, not easily explainable dislike to this man from the moment I set eyes on him. So—as he very soon told me—did Chaney. What sort of man did we see?—to give us these impressions? Mr. Paley was a slightly built, medium-sized man of apparently thirty to thirty-five years of age, very correctly and scrupulously attired, even at that early hour of the morning. His black morning coat and vest, his striped trousers, looked as if they had come home from Savile Row the day before; his linen was irreproachable; his neck and foot-wear exactly what they ought to have been; his silk hat and umbrella were—just so: his immaculately gloved hands were as small as his feet. A sort of bandbox gentleman, as far as clothes and accessories went, and while everything, from the points of view of tailors, haberdashers, and bootmakers was perfection, there was something oppressive in it—yet one couldn’t say what. However, I liked Mr. Paley’s face less than his clothes, and his manner less than his face. He was a man of pale complexion and his eyes resembled those of a sheep; he had a sharp, rather long nose, a thin beard and moustache, of an indefinite light brown, and there was something about his lips which seemed to indicate that if he did not openly sneer at everybody, he at any rate felt himself vastly superior to the general run of people. Somehow, in some queer way, he gave me a chill.
But Mr. Paley came in the guise of possible employer or client, or as the representative of one, and I hope I was duly polite to him. He took the chair which I offered, deliberately drew off his gloves, and assumed the attitude of a tutor who is about to instruct a class of neophytes in some subject of which they know nothing.
‘I told you my name over the ’phone, Mr. Camberwell,’ he began, in calm, level tones. ‘Mr. Watson Paley, private secretary to Lord Cheverdale. You know all about Lord Cheverdale, of course?’
‘I know Lord Cheverdale by name,’ I replied. ‘Nothing more.’
‘I know all about Lord Cheverdale,’ said Chaney.
Paley turned to my partner.
‘Then you know—Mr. Chaney, I presume?—that Lord Cheverdale, when he is in town, lives at Cheverdale Lodge, Regent’s Park?’ he said.
‘I know,’ answered Chaney.
‘You also know, no doubt, that Lord Cheverdale is proprietor of the Morning Sentinel?’
‘I know that, too.’
‘And you are perhaps aware that the Morning Sentinel, since Lord Cheverdale founded it, a few years ago, has been edited by Mr. Thomas Hannington?’
‘I’m aware of that, also.’
Paley drew his gloves through his fingers, looking from Chaney to me, and from me to Chaney, with a curious expression in his pale eyes.
‘Well,’ he said in his calm, level tones. ‘Mr. Hannington was found dead in the grounds of Cheverdale Lodge, late last night. Perhaps I should say very early this morning. The exact time is not quite certain. About midnight.’
‘Dead?’ exclaimed Chaney.
‘As a matter of fact, murdered,’ replied Paley. ‘I don’t think there is the least doubt about that! Beaten to death by repeated blows on the head—by some blunt weapon.’
There was a moment’s silence. Chaney and I looked at each other. Paley continued to draw his gloves between his fingers. Then I spoke.
‘Why have you come to us, Mr. Paley?’
He looked from one to the other of us with a slight smile in which there was more than a little of the cynical.
‘For this reason,’ he answered. ‘Lord Cheverdale is one of those men who insist on doing things, everything, after a fashion of their own. The police were called in, of course, as soon as Hannington’s dead body was found, and they have been there, at Cheverdale Lodge, ever since. Probably,’ he went on with a marked sneer, ‘you know more about the police methods than I do. Lord Cheverdale, however, while leaving everything to the police, insists on an absolutely independent investigation. He wishes you—having heard of you—to undertake this. You will be given every facility, at Cheverdale Lodge, and at the Morning Sentinel office. And as regards expense—well, you know, of course, that Lord Cheverdale is one of the wealthiest men in England! You are to spare no expense—literally! There is a mystery in this matter which Lord Cheverdale insists on being solved. May I go back and tell Lord Cheverdale that you will undertake the solution?’
‘You may go back and tell Lord Cheverdale that we will do our best, Mr. Paley,’ I said. ‘We will go up to Cheverdale Lodge at once: at least, as soon as we have swallowed a cup of tea. But tell me—is there any clue? do you know of anything——’
Paley rose and slowly drew on his gloves as he turned to the door.
‘There is no clue!’ he answered. ‘No clue whatever!’
