Devious Murder Read online

  There was a pause. Cromwell evidently expected Littlejohn to start the ball rolling. After all, hadn’t Littlejohn found the body?

  ‘It must have all begun several months ago, when Charles Blunt decided to steal the Havenith diamonds. He must have learned of their existence from the newspapers, which made a fuss when the necklace was bought for a fabulous sum at the auction. He made a preliminary survey in his usual careful routine manner, discovered where they were kept, which wasn’t difficult, because Mrs. Havenith delighted in flashing them about and kept them in a safe at The Limes. Blunt established himself in a flat next door, which overlooked the house where the diamonds were kept.

  ‘Knowing Blunt, we can be sure he made a thorough job of reconnoitring and gathering information before he even thought of how he was going to get at the diamonds. He kept a quiet watch on the house and its occupants. He must have discovered details about the alarm system and the flaw in it. That he probably acquired by going over Cairncross’s flat, where he found the plan of the wiring, of which the local police also held a copy.

  ‘On the night of his death all was set and ready for the final stroke. Blunt knew the habits of Mrs. Havenith; how she took her friends out to theatre parties with supper afterwards. If it was to be a small intimate affair she didn’t wear her diamonds and went out in the Bentley. If it was to be a big event she wore the necklace and travelled in the Rolls. Blunt saw the small party leave in the Bentley. This was his chance. It was just bad luck that Mrs. Havenith suddenly changed her mind and returned without even joining her friends at the theatre.’

  Cromwell nodded his head in agreement.

  ‘Do you think he was in the place when they got home?’

  ‘I don’t know. The diamonds have been stolen and presumably it was Blunt who did it. He had a means of access to The Limes, and probably a copy of the key to the safe. You remember how carelessly she kept the key in her handbag wherever she went and how the handbag was left lying about. Blunt wouldn’t overlook such an opportunity. As regards the combination, unless it was a very unusual up-to-date lock, that wouldn’t give Blunt much trouble. But he must have had very little time in which to operate, between when Mrs. Havenith and Leo left in the car and when they suddenly returned unexpectedly. If his body was carried away and dumped at the gate of Mountjoy, then we can assume that he was on the premises, discovered, and probably killed in a scuffle.’

  ‘That would narrow the crime down to Mrs. Havenith, Leo, the Morgans or Cairncross, who might have come across Blunt as he made his usual rounds of the place.’

  ‘But why take the body and leave it at the gate of the very place where another murder was committed?’ said Cromwell.

  ‘Which leaves us with the answer that probably the crime was not committed at The Limes at all, but at Mountjoy. In which case Blunt must have travelled there by taxi. He apparently hadn’t a car of his own and wouldn’t have walked there in all that rain. Is there a cab rank at Tolham Station? We’d better find out and have all the taxi-men questioned.…’

  No sooner said than done; Cromwell gave the necessary instructions.

  ‘Why was he going to Mountjoy? Presumably he’d got the diamonds and was taking them to the fence, Kaltbad. It was a final meeting arranged in the empty house and someone must have followed him there.’

  ‘You mean Cairncross, or even Leo?’

  ‘We’d better not make up our minds until we’ve got some further information. Let’s wait for the result of the taxi inquiries.’

  ‘Yes, and while you’re at the funeral, Tom, I’d better go back to The Limes and have another talk with Cairncross. I can’t get the idea out of my mind that something amiss is going on there. Surely, if Blunt had committed the theft before his death, the diamonds would have been missed. I think the three of them played a charade with me when they pretended to discover the necklace was missing in my very presence. They must have been afraid that old man Havenith would play hell if he heard of the robbery and they arranged together to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. Then, when I arrived and insisted on seeing the diamonds, they pretended they were there and tried to bluff me that they didn’t know otherwise. I have a bone to pick with Cairncross. Meanwhile, I’ll put a man on his tail.’

  ‘You’d better do the same for Mrs. Havenith and Leo. Those three seem to be behaving very queerly.’

  Littlejohn picked up old Mr. Blunt at the old folk’s home. He thought that he and Alfred Blunt would be the only ones there, but a party of Alfred’s fellow inmates, half a dozen of them, thinking their friend would be alone, had decided to accompany him and share his grief. The undertaker picked them all up in taxis at the home and they joined the hearse and coffin at a small building labelled Chapel of Rest. There the undertaker, a liverish, portly, bald-headed man with flat feet introduced himself to Littlejohn and gave him his card in case he might need him in the future. C. H. Weekes, M.F.U. Funerals Reverently Conducted. He mistook Littlejohn for the superintendent of the home and even hinted that future favours on his part would be treated with special attention at the minimum of cost.

  The crematorium was very busy and worked to strict schedule. The chaplain of the home met them there and was obliged to finish his duties at a gallop for the time was running out. It was a sad little gathering and the group of old men surrounding Alfred Blunt protectively gave it a quaint dignity. None of them, not even Alfred, had any idea of the life led by the man for whom they were now asking forgiveness and a safe journey to heaven. Littlejohn himself had forgotten for the time being and joined in the good wishes. He was at the end of the little procession as they left the place. At the door a woman touched his arm.

  ‘Are you Chief Superintendent Littlejohn, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I knew you from your picture in the newspapers. Could I have a word with you?’

  It was an awkward encounter. The men of the little group were waiting for him. They’d invited him back to tea with them and the officers of the crematorium were urging their taxis to get away, as another funeral party was approaching and further delay would lead to confusion.

  ‘Is it about the late Charles Blunt?’

  ‘Yes. I was his wife.…’

  Cromwell, meanwhile, was sitting by the hospital bed of Inspector Hassock. He had not yet paid him a visit and thought it high time he did so and he took him a bunch of grapes, in accordance with the usual ritual. Hassock was very touched by this generosity, apologised for making it necessary, and treated the grapes as though they satisfied an intense longing. The sister later told Cromwell that the local citizens in Hampstead and his many colleagues in the police had already sent in a vineyard of enough grapes to keep the hospital going for at least a month.

  Hassock was particularly bright on this occasion. His wife had actually been to visit him. She had been transported by police car from home and brought to his bedside in a wheelchair. There the nurses had been quite surprised when they met her. According to her husband, she had been a sickly creature and more or less on her last legs. The woman who was wheeled in seemed to be abounding in energy and healthy looks. She was more concerned with her husband’s health than her own, which greatly surprised him. She finally told him how she had missed him, burst into tears, much to his distress, and then blew her nose and presented him with his favourite dish, which she hadn’t produced for years, one of her own raised veal and ham pies.

  Hassock told Cromwell that he’d be glad when he was allowed to go home again. He was anxious about his wife, who seemed to be fretting for his return, and he was afraid she would have a set-back. Cromwell was relieved to find that he seemed to have forgotten his proverbial bad luck.

  ‘What were you doing to get yourself so badly knocked about, Hassock?’

  ‘It was this way.…’

  And Hassock told him the same old tale that he’d repeated so often to his visitors from the police and withheld conspiratorially from those of them who weren’t in the force.

  ‘Bu
t what made you go into the empty house in the first place?’

  Hassock frowned and his eyebrows met in the middle.

  ‘It’s a funny thing, but when I came to myself after being unconscious I couldn’t recollect what happened just before and after the time I went to Mountjoy. Now it’s all come back. I remember getting up very early in the morning after the crime. After calling at the office I went along Bowring Road and inquired at all the houses if they’d seen or heard anything strange going on at Mountjoy the night before. The houses are large ones with big gardens and are a considerable distance apart and I didn’t think it was a very profitable idea, but one can only try, can’t one?’

  ‘Yes. One can only try.’

  ‘It was a very wet night and there was hardly anybody about, but two residents said they were surprised to see the lights on in Mountjoy around nine o’clock. Both of them said they knew the place was empty and for sale and assumed there was somebody looking round the place with an eye to buying it. Another said they’d seen Mr. Kaltbad going in late in the afternoon but thought nothing about it, assuming that he might have been taking a last look round before leaving for Germany. Finally, a Mrs. Kinloch, who lives about three doors away from Mountjoy, said her husband, who had been to a meeting, told her that he had seen three taxis drawn up along the road, each at a considerable distance from the others, and he wondered why so many residents were out and about on such an awful night.’

  ‘Three, did you say?’

  ‘That’s right. I asked her if she was sure. She got quite annoyed and asked me if I doubted her word.’

  ‘I said to myself, “there’s something been going on at Mountjoy”, and made up my mind to call and look over the place again. You know the result. Something was still going on, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know, Hassock, you’ve probably given us a vital clue which will help us solve this case. I’ll let you know how we get along with it.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it, sir. I thought I’d made a complete mess of it. It’s worried me.’

  ‘Well, your worries will soon be over. You’ll come out of this case with flying colours.’

  ‘It looks as if my luck has changed.…’

  Cromwell reproved him sternly.

  ‘Never let me hear you mention good or bad luck again, Hassock. Luck is what we make it, not what is thrust upon us. You’ve showed initiative and it has nothing to do with luck.’

  Hassock seemed so overcome that he asked for some soda water to quench his thirst, just as someone in a higher grade might ask for champagne or a double brandy.

  ‘Can you remember anything else?’

  ‘Only that Jenkinson, the local drunk, who turned up and made a bit of a nuisance of himself just after we had found the body in the gateway at Mountjoy, arrived later at the police station. He was drunk and insisted that he’d seen a ghost running about in the bushes at Mountjoy. We locked him up for the night and turned him loose next morning, when he didn’t remember a thing about the previous night and the ghost.’

  ‘Perhaps he saw something. It may have been the murderer and, if Jenkinson was prowling about intoxicated at the gateway of Mountjoy, he may have scared the murderer off before he could properly dispose of the body.’

  The first of many surprises was awaiting Cromwell when he arrived back at Scotland Yard. Littlejohn rang through and asked him to join him.

  ‘I’ve a surprise waiting for you, Bob,’ Littlejohn said to Cromwell when he reported. ‘Mrs. Charles Blunt is on her way to see us.’

  At the crematorium Littlejohn had excused himself to the woman who accosted him, as he wanted to return with Alfred Blunt and his friends. He had taken her address, however, and arranged for an official car to pick her up and bring her to Scotland Yard later.

  ‘You don’t mean to say Charles Blunt was married! Where did you pick her up?’

  ‘She was at the funeral at the crematorium. She spoke to me, told me who she was, and I arranged to meet her here.’

  ‘Did old man Blunt know her?’

  ‘Apparently not. Charles seems to have been more devious than we thought. He kept his true profession and the bulk of his life from his father. I wonder if he did the same with his wife.…’

  Mrs. Blunt was announced before they could say more.

  She was hardly the type one expected as the wife of Gentleman Charles. A neat little woman, around 40, buxom, with firm clean flesh, a healthy round face and dark brown hair. She was dressed in a black costume and carried a handbag and umbrella. She seemed to take matters as they came and was not in the least embarrassed by Scotland Yard and the men who were waiting for her.

  There were introductions and then a pause. It was a bit difficult making the opening moves of such circumstances.

  ‘You live in Barnet, Mrs. Blunt. What is your Christian name, please?’

  ‘Cynthia.’

  ‘Are you a native of London?’

  ‘No. I was born in Tamworth, like Charles. We’d known each other since we were children.’

  ‘Didn’t you know his father, then?’

  ‘Yes. I saw him at the funeral. He was changed, but I knew him. Charles said they had quarrelled before our marriage, so I never met him after Charles left home.’

  Cromwell gave Littlejohn a queer look. More devious than ever!

  ‘You and Charles kept in touch, then, and married in the end?’

  ‘Yes. We were married at a registry office in London.’

  ‘Did you live together?’

  ‘Yes, at first. Then after Charles got a permanent job, I didn’t see as much of him. He had to be away quite a lot.’

  ‘What was the nature of his job?’

  ‘He was a private investigator for a London firm.’

  That caught Littlejohn and Cromwell unawares. They had difficulty not showing surprise.

  ‘A detective?’

  ‘Yes. Not like Scotland Yard, of course. He did divorce work and sometimes seeing to the safety of prominent people and valuables.’

  She was wandering in strange territory. Both the detectives seemed to be holding their breath and wondering what was coming next. Cynthia, however, was completely at her ease and quite unaware of anything strange about the information.

  ‘He told you all about his duties?’

  ‘Some of it was very confidential, but he often told me other things. In fact, I helped him on some of his cases.’

  ‘In what way?’

  She paused and then leaned forward and lowered her voice.

  ‘Now that he’s dead it doesn’t matter, so I can tell you. I’ve just been on a case now. It was a divorce, where a man who’d been married three times had a son by his first marriage who was carrying on with the third wife.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  ‘A place called The Limes at Tolham.’

  Another surprise, and yet another to come!

  ‘In what way were you helping him?’

  ‘I got a job as a temporary maid at The Limes.’

  ‘Were you engaged through an agency?’

  ‘Yes. Mr. Binder got me the job. He runs an agency.’

  It was like a dream! A fantastic confusion of characters and places which had already cropped up in the case.

  ‘And what information were you seeking at The Limes that would help your husband in his case?’

  ‘I was to report on the behaviour of Mrs. Havenith – that was her name – and a Mister Leo, her stepson. When they usually went out together, who they went with, and what happened among the servants. I told him about the layout of the house, too, particularly the bedroom. In a case like that the bedrooms often play a big part, don’t they?’

  ‘Who engaged your husband?’

  ‘Mrs. Havenith’s husband, he said. He’s an oil millionaire in America.’

  ‘And where was your husband stationed during the case?’

  ‘In a flat next door. I never went in it. If anyone had seen the pair of us together it would have ar
oused suspicions, wouldn’t it? Charles said it was a very nice flat. Mr. Havenith paid for it, so he didn’t mind.’

  ‘Was Mrs. Havenith the one who had the famous diamonds that were bought in auction earlier this year?’

  ‘That’s the lady. The fuss she created about the diamonds. She loved wearing them, but she was careless about them. Leaving them lying around on her dressing-table, and Mrs. Morgan and Mr. Cairncross worried to death about putting them in the safe as soon as they could.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Mrs. Morgan was the housekeeper. Her husband was sort of butler there. She was very strict with the staff and thought the world of Mrs. Havenith, who might have been her own daughter the care she lavished on her. Mr. Cairncross was what they call the security officer. He looked after the valuables, jewellery and such, and saw that the house was safe from intruders, and he saw to it that the burglar alarms were in order. What you’d call a guard of the place. I didn’t like him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He always seemed to be creeping about and he was too free with some of the maids.’

  ‘Was there a safe in the house?’

  ‘Yes. Behind some dummy books in the library.’

  ‘Did you ever see it?’

  ‘Yes. Mollie, another of the maids, showed it to me once when we were dusting the library. Everybody seemed to know about it. It was a sort of curiosity. When I told Charles about it he laughed. He said what was the use of hiding the safe when everybody knew where it was?’

  She spoke of her husband without emotion. No tears or lamentations about his death. He might still have been alive; or else their long absences from one another might have softened the loss.

  ‘How long were you at The Limes?’

  ‘About three weeks. Mrs. Havenith used to engage extra staff when she was in residence and entertaining guests. I left on the day before Charles died. We were all paid off then because Mrs. Havenith and Mr. Leo were going to her house in the country.’

  ‘Did Mrs. Havenith take the diamonds with her?’

  ‘No. She didn’t need them in the country, but as she is going to France this week and taking them with her they were locked in the safe at The Limes. The rest of her special jewellery had been put in the bank.’