Call Mr. Fortune · Case IV (1/3)

Case IV

The Efficient Assassin

There was a silence that might be felt. The judge put on the black cap. The prisoner gave a queer cackle of laughter. And Mr. Reginald Fortune, the surgeon whose evidence had convicted him, yawned and stole out of court. The Sunday School murder, one of the most popular crimes of our generation, had bored Mr. Fortune excessively, and now that the Sunday School Superintendent was safely on his way to the hangman Mr. Fortune desired to forget all about it at once.

He stood on the steps of the Shire Hall, lighting a cigar. A large young man, who had been struggling to get in, detached himself from the guardian policeman and ran at him. “Fortune! My God!” he said emotionally. “I thought I’d never get at you. I say, come somewhere where we can talk.”

Mr. Fortune looked down through his smoke with sleepy eyes. “One moment. One moment,” he murmured. “Oh, ah. You’re Charlecote⁠—Beaver Charlecote. Well, and what’s the best with you, Beaver?”

“It’s murder, old man,” Charlecote muttered.

“Everybody’s doing it.” Mr. Fortune frowned at him. “Who’s slain now?”

“It’s my father.”

“My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap!” Mr. Fortune was startled into sympathy.

“I say Fortune⁠—for God’s sake⁠—” Charlecote gasped.

“Quite. Quite,” said Mr. Fortune, linked arms with him, and marched him off.

When Reggie Fortune ambled through his four years at Oxford, Geoffrey Charlecote was one of the great men of his college, a cricket blue, socially magnificent, and even suspected of brains. The Charlecote family dated from the Victorian age. When the building of railways began, Geoffrey’s grandfather was a navvy. He became a contractor, made half a million, and died. Shares of his practical ability, his originality, his driving power, and his disdain for the ten commandments (he was a mean old sinner) were inherited in different proportions by his three descendants. Stephenson Charlecote, his son, had one child, Geoffrey, and was also the guardian of an orphan nephew, Herbert. Stephenson Charlecote was a capable man of business. In his hands the family wealth increased. His only ambition was that the family should get on in the world. So it was Eton and Oxford for Geoffrey, Harrow and Cambridge for his cousin Herbert. Herbert emerged elegant and ordinary. In spite of Eton and Oxford, Geoffrey disturbed his father by showing signs of originality. He was bored by the big house in Mayfair, he would not bother himself with society, he scoffed at going into Parliament. This freakish obstinacy roused the hereditary temper in Stephenson Charlecote, who was the more angry with his son because his nephew Herbert obeyed him in all things, and was successful in the most pompous drawing-rooms. The breaking-point came when Geoffrey discovered that he wanted to go abroad and be a sculptor. Stephenson Charlecote raged and decreed that he should not. And Geoffrey went.

All this Reggie Fortune, who never forgot anything when he wanted it, knew at the back of his mind. The rest Geoffrey told him as his car took them back to London.

“My God, Fortune, it’s ghastly! I found him lying dead in the street outside my place. I stepped in his blood. The old guv’nor!”

“Quite. Quite,” said Reggie Fortune. “Now begin at the beginning.”

“What is the beginning?”

“Well, you quarrelled, didn’t you?”

“He quarrelled. Oh, that sounds blackguardly. I dare say it was my fault. Yes, we had a big row. Damn it, man, what do you mean? Do you think I⁠⸺ Oh, I say, this is loathsome. I believe that’s what the police think. The old guv’nor!”

“Yes. But this don’t help him,” said Reggie Fortune placidly. “From the beginning, please.”

Geoffrey Charlecote stared at him, gulped, and became more coherent. “Well, after the row I went abroad. Paris, Rome, Munich. I kept up a little place in Chelsea, too. I never saw the old man, and we didn’t write. I suppose I’ve been a brute.”

“Hard stuff in the Charlecote family. What?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Fortune⁠—I swear I’m sorry.”

“Gut it out,” said Reggie Fortune.

“Well, in Munich I married.” He flushed. “You know, she’s an angel, Fortune.”

“Quite. German angel?”

“No. She’s Italian. She came to Munich singing. And we met, and in a month we were married. I tell you, Fortune, I’ve been a different man since. It’s as if she’d given me a soul, you know.”

“Did you tell your father that?”

“It was she made me write to my father again. Lucia⁠—she can’t bear being in a quarrel. She’s so gentle, any sort of bad feeling hurts her. So she brought me to try and make it up. I wrote to the old man and he answered⁠—just a short, civil, formal note. But Lucia was sure it would lead to something, and so we came back to England. Then I wrote to him again, and he came to see us in Chelsea. That was a week ago⁠—just a week ago today. He was pretty stiff and standoffish, but he took to Lucia. Everybody does, you know. Fortune, old man, she’s wonderful. I thought he seemed a good deal aged, but he was just as brisk and sharp as ever. He had us to dine with him on Monday. And then⁠—well, last night he called on us again, came about four, stayed a long time. And he was so jolly and genial. And afterwards I went out to post some letters, and there he was, lying not a dozen yards from our door. He’d been stabbed. He was in a pool of blood. Good God! It was awful.”

“Yes. Yes. Seems to be a quiet street where you live.”

“Vinton Place⁠—it’s a little cul-de-sac.”

“It was dark when he left? And you heard nothing? Yes. I wonder who his money goes to?”

“What the devil do you mean?” Geoffrey cried.

“Well, that’s quite a fair question,” said Reggie Fortune placidly. “If I’m actin’ for you, and if you like, I will, I look only to your interests. If I’m acting for Scotland Yard⁠—and if it’s a hard case, they’ll call me in⁠—I’m only concerned to get the truth out, whoever suffers.”

“And do you think I don’t want the truth?” Geoffrey cried. “What are you hinting at? Do you mean I murdered him?”

“Preserve absolute calm,” said Reggie Fortune.

“I’m not calm. What a beast I should be if I was calm. I want the thing cleared up, man. I want my father to have justice. Whether you act for me or act for the police it’s the same thing.”

“If you take it that way, I’ll act for the police, Beaver,” said Reggie placidly.

Geoffrey Charlecote stared at him. “That’s enough, thanks,” he said. “Stop the car. I won’t worry you any more, Mr. Fortune.”

“Mr. be blowed. Don’t be an ass. Beaver. It’s a bad business. Let’s make the best of it.”

“Will you stop the car?” Geoffrey said loudly, and stood up.

“Five miles from nowhere? Oh, go easy.” But Geoffrey turned and opened the door. So the car was stopped, and Geoffrey Charlecote left forlorn in his rage on the road.

Reggie Fortune lay back and sighed. “Poor beggar. I wonder. Poor beggar,” he said. And when he came back to Wimpole Street the first thing he did was to ring up the Hon. Stanley Lomas, the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. As a consequence you behold him sitting under the French prints in the study of Mr. Lomas.

“I thought you’d be on to this, don’t you know?” Lomas said. “It’s a pretty case. Wealthy old gentleman, impecunious heirs, sudden death. That’s natural enough. But impecunious heirs don’t stab much⁠—not in England.”

“Yes. You’re intelligent, Lomas. But you’re prejudiced. You always believe in the obvious.”

“The obvious is what happens.”

“Oh, Peter! If it did, we wouldn’t want a Criminal Investigation Department. Well, now, this is what I’ve got. Check it, please. Geoffrey quarrelled with the old man⁠—went away, commenced artist, and married an Italian girl⁠—at her wish tried to make it up with the old man⁠—old man was willing, called on Geoffrey twice, and after the second visit Geoffrey found him stabbed and dead just outside.”

“That’s all right,” Lomas nodded. “An odd thing is, just before the murder the old man remade his will in favour of Geoffrey. When they quarrelled, he had a will drawn up which left everything to the nephew Herbert. Under this last will Herbert gets twenty thousand, and all the rest goes to Geoffrey. It was only signed on the morning of the murder.”

“There’s a deuce of a lot of unknown quantities in this equation,” Reggie said. “Silly, futile things facts are. This set will do for anything you please. As soon as he knew the will was in his favour, Geoffrey does the old man in. Or when he heard there was a new will cutting him out, Herbert sees red and knifes the old man. By the way, Lomas, I suppose the old boy was stabbed?”

“What? Oh, damme, don’t be clever. He was stabbed all right. The divisional surgeon and his own doctor, Newton, they both went over the body. Stabbed in the throat. We’ve got the weapon, too. Sort of stiletto or dagger.”

Reggie cocked an eye at the head of the Criminal Investigation Department. “Sounds Italian,” he murmured.

“It is Italian.”

“And Geoffrey married an Italian wife.”

“An Italian singer⁠—a singer at cafés. That’s the kind she was. Yes, that’s the proposition.”

“Lomas, old thing, you ought to write melodramas. The diabolical Italian singer, she leapt out of the dark, she pulled a d⁠—dagger from her stocking, and she fell upon the dear, kind old gentleman and left him weltering in his gore. Then she put the dagger down, so the gifted detective could find it, and went back to dinner.”

“It is silly, isn’t it?” Lomas grinned. “But there it is, don’t you know?”

“I don’t know,” said Reggie Fortune. “I don’t know anything. I was born of poor common-sensible parents, and this is all crazy. I suppose he really was stabbed?”

“You will harp on that. Go and look at him in the morning. Hang it, man, the family doctor and the divisional surgeon they ought to know if there’s a hole in him or not.”

“But why⁠—why? Geoffrey⁠—the Italian wife⁠—they were on velvet anyway. The disappointed nephew⁠—well, I suppose he still had his allowance while the old man lived. Do you know anything about Nephew Herbert?”

“Man about town⁠—Society tame cat⁠—usual vices, what? Plays a bit high. He’s nothing in particular.”

“Don’t sound like a lurking stabber,” Reggie admitted.

“People don’t do these things. That’s the trouble. Queer case.”

“I suppose the old man hadn’t a lurid past?”

Lomas shook his head. “Most respectable old bird.”

Reggie stood up and gave himself a full glass of soda water. “The extraordinary efficiency of the assassin,” he said carefully. “Lomas, old dear, observe the extraordinary efficiency of the assassin. Mr. S. Charlecote comes out of his son’s house. A few yards from the door somebody kills him so quickly, so neatly, that he don’t make one sound. And then this extraordinarily efficient assassin leaves his dagger for you to find.”

“Who says he didn’t make a sound?”

“Yes. Geoffrey and his angel wife. Yes. Only them and no one else. That’s a flaw. Little essays in the obvious by S. Lomas. Well, it’s me for the corpse, then.”

And so in the morning he called at the mortuary. He was slightly surprised to find the divisional surgeon and Dr. Newton waiting for him. He returned thanks. “Is there anything to which you’d like to draw my attention, gentlemen?”

“It’s a plain case, to my mind,” said the divisional surgeon.

“I am always glad to have a specialist’s opinion,” said Dr. Newton. “Of course, this sort of thing is rather out of my line. I confess I can hardly approach it calmly.”

“Quite. Quite. Most distressin’. I suppose you knew him well, doctor?”

“An old patient, Mr. Fortune. I may say an old friend.”

“Ah, yes. You know the family, of course.”

“They were once such an affectionate family,” said Dr. Newton. “It’s really terrible.” He sighed. He was a florid, bearded man with a sentimental expression and manner. “Poor Charlecote! He never seemed to bear up after Geoffrey broke with him. But who would have thought that strange escapade would have ended like this?”

“So you think Geoffrey did the trick?”

“I beg your pardon!” Dr. Newton was horrified. “You put words into my mouth, Mr. Fortune. No, no. A most invidious suggestion.”

“Murder’s rather an invidious business,” said Reggie placidly. “Come, doctor, what do you think of Geoffrey?”

“I have never been able to conceal from myself, Mr. Fortune, that there is an odd strain in Geoffrey, as it were something abnormal or thrawn⁠—a certain violence of temperament.”

“In the blood, perhaps.”

“Perhaps. And yet there was nothing of it in his father. Or in his cousin Herbert.”

“Cousin Herbert. Yes. What about Cousin Herbert?”

Dr. Newton laughed. “Frankly, Mr. Fortune, you baffle me. Because there is nothing about Herbert. A very worthy young man, no doubt, but colourless, quite colourless.” Reggie nodded. “No.” Dr. Newton pursued his own train of thought. “In my own speculations on the affair⁠—this most deplorable affair⁠—I find myself continually confronted by an unknown quantity, a mysterious entity, Geoffrey’s Italian wife.”

“Ah, there you have it,” said the divisional surgeon heartily.

Reggie looked at them, nodded, and without more talk led the way to the body. It did not occupy him long. Two wounds had sufficed to make an end of Stephenson Charlecote. One in the throat, which had pierced the carotid artery; one in the chest, which had reached the heart.

Superintendent Bell, in attendance from Scotland Yard, produced the weapon found by the body⁠—a long, thin dagger or stiletto, obviously capable of causing the wounds, obviously Italian in origin.

Reggie finished his examination and turned to the two doctors, who were waiting on him reverently. “Anything in particular occur to you, gentlemen?”

“Quite straightforward, I think.” The divisional surgeon shrugged. “Technically speaking, a very neat bit of work.”

“I would go even further,” said Dr. Newton. “The crime seems to have been committed with remarkable skill and determination.”

“The extraordinary efficiency of the assassin,” Reggie murmured. “Yes. Touched the spot every time.”

“It would almost seem to suggest some experience in the use of this weapon,” said Dr. Newton.

“That is indicated.” Reggie nodded at him. “Yes. Deceased been in good health lately?”

“I have been treating him for some time for gastric trouble⁠—a persistent gastric catarrh. It was troublesome, but hardly serious.”

And upon that Reggie got rid of them and was left alone with Superintendent Bell. Superintendent Bell cocked an oldish but still bright eye. “And the next thing, sir?” said he.

“I am feeling depressed, Bell. Do you ever have feelings? I feel this is all wrong.”

“Well, sir, the evidence is thin, very thin.”

“Evidence? Oh, my aunt, we haven’t come to evidence yet. I’m uncomfortable. Everything seems wrong way up. Why did anybody kill the old man? He was making friends with Geoffrey again and anyway he had enough to live on. Herbert had an allowance and something of his own, too. Nobody else stood to gain by his death.”

“If you leave out the Italian girl, sir.”

“It keeps coming back to her,” Reggie said mournfully. “But why? Suppose he was nasty to her when he called. Would she run out and stab him in the street? I wonder. Did he know some horrid secret about her past? What is her past, Bell?”

“Pretty short, sir, anyway. She’s not more than eighteen. She was a café singer, all right. But we have nothing against her. In my experience they’re no worse than others.”

“And that’s that. Have you seen his papers?”

“Better come up to the house, sir. His solicitor will be there. But I understand there’s nothing in them. Very few private papers at all.”

“Well, well. I suppose he was murdered.”

Superintendent Bell stared. “Mr. Lomas said you were harping on that. Pretty clear, sir, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” said Reggie drearily. “But it’s all wrong, Bell, it’s all wrong.”