Death of an Author, page 16
“That’s much better than most people can do in the way of descriptions,” said Warner encouragingly. “Did he have any luggage with him?”
“Just a suitcase,—he lugged it out himself and walked off with it. He gave me his card,—here you are—and said he’d be back within three weeks and he’d expect the car to be ready for him. I said that’d be all O.K., and off he went. It’s not more than a couple o’ hundred yards to the quay-side from here you know.”
“How did he walk? Any sign of a limp?”
“No, I don’t think so. Look here! You’re not going to tell me that chap isn’t the owner of the blooming ’bus, are you? I reckon I’ve got to be paid for the job, anyway. A new wing I got, the other was crumpled to blazes and all…”
“No need to worry as far as I know,” replied Warner. “The description you’ve given me fits the real owner all right. Now let me have a look at the Vauxhall.”
“Don’t go spoiling my good paint work,” begged Lecky. “She’s over here. Oh, by the way, I took out all the oddments and locked ’em up. You never can tell in a place like this.”
“What were the oddments?”
“Oh, rugs, an old coat, maps and an A.A. book. They’re in that cupboard in the corner.”
Following Lecky across the garage to the corner indicated, Warner had a look at the “oddments.” The first thing he examined was a map of Herefordshire, showing Ross and its surroundings. There were other maps covering the whole of the south of England, as well as a continental timetable. The coat was an old Aquascutum, with Ashe’s name inside the pocket and a very crumpled old bill which proved to be a receipt for a meal in a Paris restaurant two years ago. There were two big heavy rugs, both of them dark coloured and showing signs of wear. Warner then proceeded to examine the inside of the Vauxhall; since he didn’t expect to find any evidence in it, he was not disappointed at drawing a blank. One thing was certain, the car was Ashe’s car, it contained his belongings, and according to Lecky, it had been left at the garage on Monday morning, the 16th.
“Well, what about it?” demanded the garage proprietor.
“It seems a nice car and you’re making a good job of it,” said Warner. “I think I’ll take these maps and the A.A. book with me. I’ll give you a receipt for them. If Mr. Ashe turns up unexpectedly for them, you can say the maps have got mislaid. No one with any sense leaves things loose in a car,—and when he turns up you can get on to the phone to the police station here just as fast as you like, and let them know he’s on the premises. You needn’t fill her up ready for him you know.”
“Then there’s another point,” went on Warner, leading the way back to the small office. “I’ve told you that I want to see Mr. Ashe to ask him for information; don’t go getting wild ideas into your head because I’ve taken charge of his maps, and don’t go talking to anyone else about the subject. If Mr. Ashe comes back here and finds you’ve been spreading stories about him being wanted by the police, it’ll be bad for your business to say nothing of risks of the defamation of character variety.”
“All right. I’m not such a mug as I look,” replied Lecky cheerfully. “I don’t want to get wrong with the police, and I don’t want a sock on the jaw from Mr. Ashe, but you might tell me,—speaking as one chap to another,—if you really think he will come back and claim his car?”
“Yes, I think he will,” said Warner. “I’ve no reason to suppose he won’t. I don’t imagine that he left a perfectly good car here as a present for you, do you?”
“I dunno. I’m always a bit suspicious when the police want a chat with anyone. He gave his car a nasty biff, and I reckon it wasn’t the gate post he hit. Some of them have got no consciences, you know, the way they’ll bust another chap’s outfit up and never stop to see if they’ve done him in or not.”
“That’s true enough,” said Warner, seeing the direction of the other’s thoughts. “Well, thanks for your assistance; when Mr. Ashe comes in for his Vauxhall, just let the Superintendent know on the q.t.”
“Right, I’ll see to it,” replied Lecky.
Although Warner spent several hours more in Southampton, he did not succeed in learning anything further about the big fellow in a good grey Burberry, but he collected a lot of information about the vessels which had left Southampton on Monday, the 16th, and he interviewed the local police to enlist their assistance.
Going back to London by train, he considered the evidence he had acquired.
There had been no attempt at secrecy about the disposal of the Vauxhall, and that seemed quite reasonable. If Ashe had killed Lestrange, the former probably argued that there would not be any evidence to connect him with the murder. In that case he would doubtless return to England in good time, once he was satisfied that he was in no danger,—and claim his car. Warner could quite see the strength of Ashe’s position. So far as it was possible to tell, no one had seen the Vauxhall approach Temple Grove, and no one could identify the corpse in Kirkham Barns. The chief hope of connecting Ashe with the murder was to get him identified as James Merstham by one of his old acquaintances. The prosecution could then go on the assumption that Lestrange was Edward Merstham,—but it was far from being a clear case. The whole of the evidence was circumstantial—and a lot of it rested on pure guess work—and would have to remain at that.
“I wonder if it was the other way round,” pondered Warner. “So far as the evidence goes, it can be twisted to point to two different conclusions, and can’t I hear counsel for the defence airing Bond’s ideas and trying to prove that Vivian Lestrange was simply the figment of Eleanor Clarke’s imagination. Meanwhile, it’s a case of wait and see, until Michael Ashe satisfies himself that it’s safe to appear in public, or to write another book… It’ll be too bad if we’re to lose Ashe and Lestrange simultaneously, considering there’s hardly a writer to compare with either of them on their own ground.”
Chapter XIII
Warner had only just reached his office the day after his visit to Southampton when Andrew Marriott called him up on the telephone.
“You seemed to have got a bee in your bonnet about Michael Ashe last time you were here,” he said. “I thought you might be interested to know that I’ve just heard from him. His letter came from Genoa.”
“Glory!” exclaimed Warner to himself, but to Marriott he said, “I’m delighted to hear it. I’ve been worrying over him a bit. Look here, may I come round and see his letter?”
“Certainly,” replied Marriott, “but I’m afraid you won’t be much enlightened; it’s only about a slip in some proofs which he has just noticed.”
“It’s the fact that he has written at all which matters,” said Warner. “Have you got the envelope which the letter came in?”
“Certainly I have.”
“Then please take care of it,” said Warner. “I’ll be round within a few minutes.”
When Warner was shown into Marriott’s office the publisher looked at him with an air of amusement.
“Good morning, Chief Inspector,” he said, “I was quite glad to get this letter from Ashe. You seemed to have got hold of an idea that he had disappeared for good. If that were his intention, he certainly would not have been writing to me about proof sheets. Here is his letter,—though as I told you, it is hardly likely to be of interest to you.”
Warner took the sheet and studied it.
“Dear Marriott,” ran the note. “I happened to be glancing through my spare proof of Before the Mast, and noticed another error which had escaped my notice before. On page 257, line 10, the word ‘navigating’ should be altered to ‘navigation.’ If this correction is too late for the first edition, you might see that later impressions are rectified. Yours, Michael Ashe.”
There was neither address nor date on the letter, and it was scribbled on a piece of manuscript paper; the envelope showed the date of posting clearly. The stamp was an Italian one, and the cancelling imprint of “Genova 4-5-34” was perfectly clear.
“Now, I ask you,” said Marriott plaintively, “would Ashe have written to me if he’d been intending to do a bolt? It’s true that he hasn’t put any address on his letter—that’s typical of him—but the post mark’s as clear as daylight.”
“Yes,” agreed Warner. “It certainly is. Now are you quite certain this letter is from Ashe? It is no forgery?”
Marriott sighed. “Do you think that writing would be easy to forge? I don’t. In fact I’m prepared to swear that it isn’t a forgery. Moreover, it refers to the proof sheets of his last book. Two proof copies are sent to the author, one of which, having been previously examined by a reader, is corrected again by the author and returned to us. The spare copy is kept by the author. No one but Ashe could have referred to the pagination of the proof copy because no one else has a copy of the proofs,—unless of course, you wish to extend your researches to the printers. The paper and envelope are similar to several which I have received from Ashe lately. In short, that is a letter from Ashe, and from no one else.”
Warner examined the envelope again.
“Does he usually type his envelopes and not his letters?” he enquired, and Marriott replied.
“Sometimes both, sometimes neither. I’m afraid I’m not in the habit of keeping his envelopes, but I have several of his letters, if you care to see them.”
Marriott opened a cabinet which stood in the corner of his room, and produced a file of letters. Warner, watching him, promptly said, “May I see one of the typed ones, too, please?”
Again the publisher agreed, and Warner put together two specimens, one a holograph, and one a typescript, saying, “I must ask you to let me have charge of these. Of course their contents will be treated as confidential, and they will be returned to you later.”
Once again Marriott sighed. “Very well,” he said, “I quite realise my protests will be quite futile, so I won’t waste time formulating them, but I think you would be safe in taking my word for it that that letter is not a forgery.”
“I’m quite sure it isn’t,” said Warner quietly. Something in the seriousness of his voice made the publisher turn and look at him in some concern.
“I have tried not to bother you with questions,” he said, “but you must admit that I have a very real interest in this problem you’re working at. Can you give me no idea of the course you are pursuing? Lestrange, for example?”
“I can answer that question quite straightforwardly,” replied Warner. “Our researches into Vivian Lestrange’s identity have not got us anywhere. Apart from surmise, I don’t know anything more about him than I did when I first read the report of his disappearance. Bond, I might tell you, still treasures his theory that Eleanor Clarke is pulling the leg of the law, and although I don’t agree with him, I have no proof either way. We have received a lot of anonymous letters—some rather original, but we’re still groping.”
“And it seems that your groping leads you in this direction?” said Marriott, rather tartly, pointing to the sheaf of letters in Warner’s hand.
“It seems so,” agreed the Chief Inspector, and then added “Say, if I put it like this. We know a crime has been committed, and the evidence leads us to suspect that Lestrange and Ashe are connected with that crime. What parts they played in it, I can’t tell you, but I want to find them. It’s to your interest that I should do so, moreover, for I think that you won’t receive any more manuscripts from either of them till this case is cleared up.”
“The two best sellers we’ve ever had!” groaned Marriott. “It’s simply maddening!”
Leaving the sorrowful publisher shaking his head over the perverseness of fate, Warner hastened back to Scotland Yard in a fever to discover whether his powers of observation had played him false. Running up the steps to his room he unlocked a drawer, and produced the typescript letter sent by “A product of the penal system,” and compared the typing with that of Ashe’s letters and of the envelope with the Genoa post mark. Warner had made no mistake,—the typing, with its little irregularities due to a worn machine, was identical. Sitting back, the letters spread out before him, Warner lighted a cigarette and drew in a deep, comfortable breath of smoke as he leaned back in his chair and thought, sorting out his ideas into order.
His first impulse was to go to Genoa himself, and then he dismissed the idea as futile. He did not speak Italian, and he had never seen Michael Ashe. The Italian police, with the description he could send them, could do as much without him as they could if he were with them. Their system of registration of aliens was very thorough, as Warner knew, but even as he made arrangements for an interpreter and a clear line on the continental telephone system, Warner thought that the chances of catching his quarry were small. Genoa, of all places, with its network of communications by sea and land. That letter had been posted three days ago, and by now Ashe might be anywhere in Europe, in Africa, or even into Asia, or the Levant. He might have doubled back to England again, or have shipped on some cargo vessel bound for South America. If Staunton’s story of Ashe’s past adventures were true, the writer might have another personality all ready to hand, and a man who had sailed before the mast in a small trading ship in the Malay Archipelago would not be at loss in any port in the world.
Nevertheless, the net was spread. Under Warner’s directions, by cable, wireless, and long distance telephone, a description of Michael Ashe found its way over the civilised world to police authorities and harbour authorities, to ships at sea and shipping agents in ports.
“One day telleth another and one night certifieth another,” said Warner, remembering in a flash the analogy used in that anonymous letter. “I’ve made it as hot as I can for him, and that’s that.”
Resting from his labours over a cup of tea, Warner was told that a Mr. Vargon was asking for him, and he welcomed the diversion caused by the lawyer’s unexpected visit.
“I’m jolly glad to see you, sir!” Warner exclaimed, when his visitor was shown in. “I’ve been having a hectic time of it the last few hours, but you’ve come at the right moment, when I’ve time for a breather. Tea? It’s strong enough to poison you, I’m afraid, but they like their tea with a kick in it here.”
“Good Gad! Not for me, I thank you,” growled Vargon in his deep voice. “Too much respect for the only inside I’m likely to possess. I happened to have business in town, and I thought I’d look you up to tell you about a few enquiries I’ve been making about the Mersthams,—unless you’ve blown that theory sky-high by now.”
“Not a bit,” replied Warner. “In fact I’m counting on it as our main hope of arriving at a reasonable solution of the glorious muddle we seem to be wallowing in. You’d like to hear about proceedings since I saw you, so here goes.”
The old lawyer listened with close attention to Warner’s exposition, and read the famous Penal Product letter, his hooked eyebrows making an ever-acuter angle above his prominent nose, his jaw jutting out and his ears actually twitching in the intensity of his interest. When he had finally examined the letters from Michael Ashe, he handed back the papers to Warner saying,
“Well, you call it a glorious muddle. I should have thought you’d got evidence enough to call it a clear case.”
“Meaning that Ashe killed Lestrange? It looks like it, but whether I’ve caught an attack of scepticism from Bond I don’t know, but I’m still on the look-out for a leg-pull. One thing is perfectly certain,—the typewriter—a Corona portable—which Ashe used for his letters was also used by our ‘Penal Product’ correspondent.”
“That’s fool proof, isn’t it?”
“The identity of the machine is indisputable, but more than one person could have worked the oracle. Take Marriott, the publisher. He could have cooked these earlier letters from Ashe, sent off the later ones equally easily and generally have manipulated the leg-pull. Not that I take that suspicion seriously, it’s merely a habit to look at every side of a problem.”
“How would you connect up Marriott and Kirkham Barns?”
“I can’t,—for the present, and as I have told you, I’m counting on Kirkham to see us out of the wood. Let us reconsider this Merstham theory. We have two men, Ashe and Lestrange, who fit the descriptions of James and Edward Merstham. The probability is that Ashe is James and Lestrange is Edward. If Staunton is to be believed,—and he seemed very confident—Ashe was seafaring while Edward Merstham was in Parkhurst Gaol, so that settles which of them is which in their new characters. One thing has puzzled me considerably. Assuming that Ashe was James Merstham, why on earth did he ever go near his brother Edward? My first idea was that Ashe recognised something in the Lestrange books which told him that the author was brother Edward. Now the one person on earth whom Ashe should have avoided was his brother. Edward had every reason for seeking James, but not vice versa.”
“Yes, there you’re quite right,—unless James felt that he’d never be safe while Edward was still alive.”
“Let sleeping dogs lie is a good motto,—but I have another theory on the subject. Ashe undoubtedly did a little sleuthing after Eleanor Clarke,—and perhaps that was his undoing. Imagine Ashe, having followed the trail to Temple Grove, forcing his way in, either by a ruse or by brute strength, in order to find out for himself the truth of the Lestrange story and then finding himself face to face with brother Edward. What a surprise for both of them!”
“Gad! Yes! You’re right there!” barked Vargon. “It was a case of he who hesitates is lost. From what you’ve told me of him, Ashe isn’t the type of man to indulge in second thoughts when he sees his own security threatened. He shot first and thought afterwards,—and his thinking must have been pretty comprehensive. The main puzzle is, what did he do about the housekeeper? It’s the fact that he got her out of the way that makes me think the shooting wasn’t so unpremeditated as you suggest. Your first idea that Ashe had tumbled to Lestrange’s identity through the medium of his books is more convincing. He got rid of the housekeeper first and settled brother Edward next. That’s vastly more probable to my thinking.”
