The Garston Murder Case, page 1
The Garston Murder Case
H. C. Bailey
CHAPTER I
MR. CLUNK
A spring wind was blowing down the Strand. Mr. Joshua Clunk came out of a tea shop, stopped to look at the world with benign approval, and wound his way across the jam of buses. He went on up Bow Street, a small, plump man, with the tripping step of a happy child in a hurry, not otherwise childlike. He was a harmony of gray: gray clothes which were almost black, gray moustache, and little whiskers which were almost white. His face had the colour and gloss of yellowing ivory, but from wrinkled hollows his large eyes gave a pale gray gleam. Mr. Clunk did not conceal that he liked himself. He tripped on to the murmured twitter of a hymn:
“But the seeds of good we sow,
Both in shade and shine will grow
And will keep our hearts aglow
While the days are going by!”
Near the police station two men passed him, and to the elder, a square man of some age, he lifted a hand of greeting and called gaily: “Beautiful weather!” c But it was not well taken. The square man, who was Superintendent Bell of the Criminal Investigation Department, passed on with a nod and a grunt. “Who is your dear old friend, sir?” the younger, larger man asked.
“Smug little cat, ain’t he?” Bell growled. “Don’t you know him, Underwood? You will. He’s Clunk & Clunk, Joshua Clunk.”
“What, the crooks’ solicitor?”
“That’s the fellow. I’d say he’s given us more trouble than any man that’s never gone to jail.”
“I suppose so,” Sergeant Underwood nodded. “Sails pretty near the wind too, don’t he?”
“And then some,” said Bell. “Nasty little bag of tricks.”
“I’ve never seen him before. Looks like a churchwarden or a deacon or something.”
“Most likely is,” Bell grunted. “He would be.”
If you will allow for professional prejudice, this description of Mr. Clunk was accurate enough. His father left the firm of Clunk & Clunk with a small respectable practice in people who would not pay their bills. Joshua had larger ambitions. Under his rule Clunk & Clunk took up crime. It was discovered by the small fry of the criminal profession that no lawyer could make so much of their hopeless cases as Josh Clunk. Though he failed to get them off, he would at least have a game with the police and give them a run for their money— even when money was lacking they had the run, if the case would make a show in the papers. So he attracted the more successful practitioners, the engineers of large-scale crime and its financiers, and the amateurs of talent, the respectable citizens adventuring into ample theft and fraud, learned that Joshua Clunk was the man for them.
In these days of his maturity, he did not himself take a case in the police court unless it was big enough to fill the papers. The name of Clunk & Clunk commanded respect enough for the young men from his office who had learned a portion of his bland persistence, his cynical feeling for the popular, his lack of scruple. He worked unseen. Other solicitors might sniff at his name and counsel predict that old Clunk would end in the dock himself. All who knew anything knew there were manifold dangers in fighting Clunk & Clunk. Only the rash were confident his labours would not find out an awkward gap in the strongest case, his cunning, his intimacy with the world of crime, play tricks with it for which the law had not provided. It was commonly said that he knew more of what was going on underground than any man in London and not uncommonly believed that he was up to the neck in most of it.
But he was neither a deacon not a churchwarden. No religious denomination could satisfy the ample spirit of Mr. Clunk. His place of worship was established by his own money and called a Gospel Hall. There three times on Sundays and once in the week Mrs. Clunk played the harmonium and Mr. Clunk preached the Larger Hope, when business allowed.
The offices of Clunk and Clunk filled an old house in Covent Garden. Mr. Clunk climbed the stairs humming:
“There are lonely hearts to cherish
While the days are going by;
There are weary souls who perish
While the days are going by.”
His room was a dark and silent chamber at the back, in red rep and mahogany and Brussels carpet. A gilt clock in a glass house held the middle of the white marble mantelpiece and on either side in a glass case a stuffed canary perched on artificial vegetation.
Mr. Clunk moved each of them with affectionate care a quarter of an inch, contemplated the result, sat down at his table, and rang the bell and asked his clerk for the Walker papers.
“Yes, sir. There’s a young gentleman asking to see you. That Mr. Wisberry.”
Mr. Clunk took the card and read, “Mr. Antony Wisberry, St. Jude’s College, Cambridge,” and smiled. “Dear me, yes. I’ll see him at once, Jenks.” He tapped his false teeth.
A large, fair youth was brought him. “My dear boy, my dear Tony! It is nice of you to come,” Mr. Clunk gushed. “I am so glad to see you again.”
“How are you, sir?” said Tony with less enthusiasm.
“Now sit down and tell me all your news. Have you been able to decide on anything yet?”
“I’ve got that job in the Rimington laboratories. Start in September.”
“My dear boy, I am so glad!” Mr. Clunk rubbed his hands. “That is nice! Just when you finish at college, you step right into a good situation. With that firm you’re provided for for life.”
“I don’t know about life. The job’s all right, and I’ll have a chance of doing research work. That’s what I want.”
“Ah, yes. You always were a worker, Tony. No joy like work, is there? But I do like to see a young man established with a settled income. It gives him a foundation, it helps him to be a good Christian, Tony. Your dear mother was so anxious you should settle to something at once. She will be happy, very happy.”
Tony squirmed and looked away from Mr. Clunk’s shiny face. “Well, I didn’t come to talk about that,” he said gruffly. “This vac. I’ve been going through the papers and things from the old house. Good lot o’ stuff.”
Mr. Clunk nodded. “I suppose so. There would be. Naturally.”
“There was a pile of my father’s things—notebooks and so on.”
“Ah, yes. Your dear mother kept everything, no doubt. Very interesting for you.” But not, Mr. Clunk’s manner suggested, for him.
“It was interesting,” said Tony with emphasis. “Do you know what my father was working at before he died?”
Mr. Clunk blinked in mild surprise. “Certainly— of course—but you must have been told often. He was a lecturer in the Technical Institute at Birmingham— lecturer in chemistry.”
“I know that. I mean what research he was doing himself.”
Mr. Clunk’s large eyes opened wider. “Really, I couldn’t say. I never heard anything about it. I shouldn’t have understood if I had. I’m not scientific, you see.”
“Well, he’d worked out a process for making hard steel with vanadium.”
“Dear me!” said Mr. Clunk. “Is that important— a new discovery?”
“It’s important enough. It isn’t new now. But he’d worked it out more than twenty years ago.”
“Of course. Yes, that would be so. It is twenty-one years this spring since your dear mother was left a widow.” Mr. Clunk sighed sympathetically. “You were such a small baby, Tony.”
Tony was not attracted to that phase of himself. “Don’t you see,” he said sharply, “it’s the date that matters. He’d worked out a vanadium process by 1908, when nobody else had got one.”
“I suppose it would have been valuable then?” said Mr. Clunk sadly.
“Valuable! Pots of money in it.”
“But not now?”
“Now—oh, there’s other ways now. Everybody’s doing it.”
“How unfortunate!” Mr. Clunk tapped his teeth. “Dear me, yes, how unfortunate he died then,” and he shook his head and looked at Tony with bland sympathy.
“Yes, it was. Look here, the process which he’d worked out is the one that Garstons have been using for their high-speed steel. They’ve improved it now. But they used his way for years.”
“Garstons?” Mr. Clunk repeated. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about the steel trade, Tony. Is it a large firm?”
“Garston & Garston. They do about everything you can do with iron and steel. Huge concern. Lord Croyland is the head of it.”
“Dear me, yes. Lord Croyland. He was Sir Henry Garston. Oh, a very wealthy man, I’m told.”
“He would be,” said Tony with contempt. “Millions out of the war, I suppose. And pretty thrivin’ before. Well, that’s how it is—Garstons had their vanadium steel on the market first about 1910, and the process they used was just the same as my father had worked out before he died in 1908, and they went on manufacturin’ by that process till a few years ago. What do you think about that, Mr. Clunk?”
Mr. Clunk laughed vaguely. “My dear boy, really, I don’t think, so to speak. I’m not qualified to give an opinion. Are you quite sure of your facts?”
“Yes, that’s a fair question,” Tony frowned. “It isn’t my line, of course. I’m electro-chemistry. But there’s no doubt. I’ve shown his notes to other fellows, and they said at once it was the Garston process.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Clunk. “That is curious. But I should suppose the explanation might be that the Garston firm worked out the invention with their own chemists. They’re always experimenting, aren’t they, these big firms? You’re going to do it yourself, Tony, for Rimingtons.”
“Of course they might have got on to a process. Everybody was trying for hard steel. And there’s more than one kind. But it’s a jolly queer thing they should happen to hit on just the one my father had found just after his death.”
“I see your point.” Mr. Clunk looked at his hands. “Naturally you would think so.” He opened a drawer and took out a bottle of sweets. “Will you have a fruit drop?” Tony waved them away. “I like them myself.” Mr. Clunk giggled. “Just a boy still, you see.” He sucked. “I think I’ve heard that when inventions are in the air, as you might say, a lot of people have the same ideas. It was like that with steam engines, wasn’t it?—and electric light and motor cars.”
“I know,” Tony growled. “Of course you can say that.” He stopped. He stared with concentrated attention at Mr. Clunk. “Have you any idea how my father died?”
“My dear boy,” said Mr. Clunk quickly, “I never knew your father.”
Tony grunted. “That was pretty queer too, wasn’t it, the way he died—if he did die?”
“Really, I don’t think there can be any doubt about that now,” said Mr. Clunk, in a tone of consolation.
Tony frowned. “Look here—do you mind tellin’ me just what you heard about it at the time?”
“Not in the least. It’s very natural you should be interested.” Mr. Clunk settled into his chair more comfortably. “L’m afraid I have practically nothing to tell you. You must have heard all there is to hear from your dear mother.”
“She told me about it, of course, as soon as I was old enough to understand. All she said was that my father had gone away when I was a baby and disappeared. She couldn’t think what had happened to him but he must have had an accident and been killed. I never bothered about it—it was pretty remote, you know—and she’d given up worrying. But now I’ve gone over his papers, it looks to me a very queer business.”
“Did you find anything which bears on it?” said Mr. Clunk with interest. “Anything personal, I mean? Anything about his intentions?”
“No, I didn’t,” Tony snapped. “That’s a bit odd too. Nothing but the notes of his work.”
“What a pity,” said Mr. Clunk. “You see, I can really give you no information about him. Now let me begin at the beginning. My acquaintance was with your mother and her family. We were neighbours in Highbury. Her father was one of my father’s clients. The first I heard of Mr. Antony Wisberry was the news of your mother’s engagement to him. She met him on a holiday at Llandudno, I think. He was already teaching in Birmingham. My recollection is that I was not present at their wedding. She went to live in Birmingham and for some time I lost sight of her. We met again in the settlement of affairs when her father and mother died. She was an only child. I remember thinking that she seemed happy in her marriage. She went back to Birmingham and I heard of your birth. When I saw her next, she came to this office in great distress to tell me that her husband had disappeared and ask for my advice. Her statement was that he had been in the habit of going away from time to time, giving her no explanation except that it was on business; on this occasion he had gone as usual and failed to return and she did not know where to look for him. The police of course were informed and failed to trace him; I made a number of inquiries myself and could get no information of any use. It seemed to me that your father had confided very little about himself to anyone. Well, as you know, he was never seen again and after a number of years the Court of Chancery allowed us to presume his death. That is the whole story, Tony.”
“And what do you suppose happened to him?” Tony said sharply.
“My dear boy, I can only tell you, as your dear mother told you, that he must have met with an accident.”
“Or foul play.”
Mr. Clunk shook his head, Mr. Clunk smiled the pitying smile of mature wisdom. “Ah, Tony, Tony, don’t get that into your mind. Whenever there’s an unexplained disappearance, some of the bereaved always want to think there’s been foul play. Believe me, it isn’t true, not once in a thousand times. But once people get the idea, it runs away with them and makes their lives miserable with suspicions and brooding and bad blood. I’ve seen it so often, my dear boy. Don’t you go that way. Take it like a reasonable fellow. It was a sad business for your poor mother, but she learned to forget it and was happy. You can’t hope to find out after twenty years what actually happened to him. But you have no ground whatever for supposing foul play, no evidence of any enemies, no motive for crime.”
“Isn’t there?” Tony snapped. “He had this process which was worth a hatful of money—and Garstons began to work it as soon as he was out of the way.”
Mr. Clunk groaned faintly. “I was afraid you were thinking of it on those lines. Dear me, how many foolish people have said things like that to me in this room! I can only tell you, it doesn’t happen. Think, my dear boy. Great firms don’t murder inventors. It isn’t worth their while. They prefer to swindle ’em. That is quite easy and legal.”
Tony was for a moment impressed. Then his jaw hardened and he attacked again. “What do you want me to believe, then? That he died by accident somehow?”
Mr. Clunk sat up. “Tony, my friend,” he said, with a sharp, contemptuous authority. “you can take it I gave the case some thought. I had a regard for your mother. I suppose you’ve heard that I know something about crime. Well, I tell you the only reasonable explanation of your father’s disappearance that I could ever see was accident.”
“And that isn’t reasonable, is it?” said Tony. “Suppose he was run over—killed on the railway—drowned somehow—his body would be found, his baggage would be left about—”
“Dear me, no. Not necessarily,” Mr. Clunk interrupted. “Suppose he fell overboard from a steamer at night crossing the Channel or the North Sea. It would be easily possible no one would notice the accident. And as for his baggage—my dear boy, baggage without an owner vanishes quickly and completely. When you know the world a little better, you’ll see there is nothing strange in his disappearance.”
The stubborn look of Tony’s face—he had a considerable jaw—became less agreeable. “Lots of people you know vanish, what?” he said. “You get used to explainin’ how it happened. All right. Don’t mind me. Now, when you came to gather up what he left, how much was it?”
“My dear Tony,” said Mr. Clunk patiently, “I sent you not only my accounts as your mother’s executor, but a full statement of her affairs. If you care to look at it, you will find that the estate left to you consists of what she inherited from her own family with the addition of what your father left. She never spent any of her capital. She always lived within her income. If I may say so, you should be grateful for her care of your interests.”
Tony flushed. “Thanks very much. I am thinking about her. I don’t know how she did it.”
“My boy,” said Mr. Clunk with emotion, “there was nothing which that dear woman would not have done for you.”
“Yes, I knew my mother. Look here. My father left something under a thousand. Forty pounds a year as it was invested. She had only about two hundred a year of her own. We haven’t been living on an income of two fifty. There was a good deal more came from somewhere.”
“Oh, certainly,” Mr. Clunk smiled. “Your education was a heavy expense, of course. From time to time, I was able to find temporary use for her capital at a high rate of interest which eased the burden. You owe me nothing, Tony. There is no obligation whatever. It was merely a matter of opportunities which offered in business. I was very glad to serve her.”
Tony frowned. “That’s the explanation of that, is it? Thanks. After my father’s death there was money coming which doubled her income or so out of opportunities in your business. But the capital stayed the same. Well, I’m much obliged to you, aren’t I?” He stood up.
“Not at all,” Mr. Clunk rose also, “not in the least. It was the smallest service. And I had a great respect for your mother. You needn’t bear me a grudge. I’ve really done nothing for you. Must you go now? Well, I’ve been so glad to see you. If there should be anything that I can help you to clear up, believe me, it will be the greatest pleasure. I’m always here, Tony, always here.”
Tony looked at him with frank dislike. “All right,” he said. “I’ll remember you. Good-bye.”
