Smallbone Deceased

He was watching Mr. Craine as he said this, and found more interest in his reactions than in the actual words of his reply.

One thing was quite evident. Mr. Craine was neither surprised nor shocked at the suggestion. On the contrary, he was plainly very interested in it.

“Yes,” he said at last. “Yes. If he had embezzled money I think this was the trust he would have gone to.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Tell me first.” Mr. Craine looked the chief inspector shrewdly in the eye. “Have you any reason for your question—any grounds for your supposition?”

“None at all,” said Hazlerigg. “The case was purely hypothetical.”

“On those grounds, then,” said Mr. Craine, “I’ll answer it. As a hypothesis only. The Stokes Trust would have been a suitable vehicle for fraud for several reasons. First, because the only other trustee was a layman. Secondly, because the funds were all here, and under our effective control. They had to be. As I explained, Abel was constantly buying and selling; so no question would be asked. Thirdly, the beneficiaries were all charities. The secretary of a charity is, on the whole, so glad to see his annual cheque that he doesn’t usually question its amount very closely. If he was told that all the investments in the trust were showing lower yields, or that some income was being put back for administrative reasons, he would probably accept the explanation without further question—far more readily, anyway, than a private beneficiary whose own pocket was being touched.”

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg. “I see. Thank you. You’ve been very frank. You’ll tell me at once if anything is wrong with the trust fund. In the meantime, perhaps you would ask Mr. Bohun to step along.”

II

Meanwhile, Detective-Sergeant Plumptree had made his way out to Belsize Park and was interrogating Mrs. Tasker.

Sergeant Plumptree was a pink-and-white young man, with the well-scoured look of one who has but recently emerged from his mother’s wash-tub. His methods were unorthodox and some of the results which he achieved surprised even himself.

“Young man,” said Mrs. Tasker, “pour yourself out a second cup of tea, do, and be guided by me. Never take in lodgers. Go to the poorhouse, go to prison, commit arson, larceny and what you like, but never take in lodgers.”

“What—” began Sergeant Plumptree.

“Take this Mr. Smallbone. A quiet man. An inoffensive man. A good payer. Never should I have thought that by his deeds he would have brought anxiety to my bosom and police into my house—the sugar’s behind the clock. Five years ago he came here to lodge. Put down six months’ rent on the table, the one we’re sitting at at this moment, and said to me, ‘Mrs. Tasker, I’m a rolling stone. I gather no moss. But somewhere I must have to lay my head.’ ‘The first floor front pair’s vacant,’ I said, ‘and use of the ring at the back for cooking.’ That’s all that passed between us, if I go to my Maker tonight.”

“Which—” said Sergeant Plumptree.

“It wasn’t as if he didn’t warn me straight out. ‘I’m a collector, Mrs. Tasker,’ he said. ‘Pots and pans there’ll be in my room a-plenty. And if it’s extra trouble for you to dust we’ll come to an understanding.’ And another thing he said: ‘I’ll come and go as I like.’ And so he did. ‘Expect me when you see me.’ That was the rule. Last year he was in Italy, at his house in Florence. The address is on his card. You can see it for yourself. Three months he was away, and one morning back he came, without a word, with a carpet-bag full of flower-pots.”

“How—” persevered Sergeant Plumptree.

“And then this February he goes away again. The twelfth of February. I’ve marked it in the rent-book—see, Friday the twelfth of February. I’m going down to Kent, he said. I didn’t catch the name. Stanton, I thought he said. It may have been Stancomb.”

“I thought—” said Sergeant Plumptree.

“I know what you’re going to say,” said Mrs. Tasker. “But wait. He went away on the Friday. I’m going down to Kent, he said. And if I find what I’m looking for, that’ll be the beginning of great things, Mrs. Tasker. Great things. I’ll be back tonight, he said.”

“And he never came back?”

“Certainly he did. That night, as he said. Then the next day he went out again. No luggage. Nothing. That was always his way. ‘Ah,’ I thought. ‘He’ll be off to Italy. He’s found what he’s looking for.’ And when one week went by and then another, I knew I was right.”

“You knew he—?”

“I knew he was in Italy, where he is now,” concluded Mrs. Tasker triumphantly. “Enjoying the hot weather.”

With a discretion beyond his years Sergeant Plumptree refrained from any comment on this interesting speculation.

III

“It’s the question of access which is worrying me,” said Hazlerigg, “and that’s the sort of thing where you can help.”

“Access to what?” asked Bohun.

“Access to that deed box in which we found the body,” said Hazlerigg. He added as an afterthought: “Access to this room, access to the office building, access to Lincoln’s Inn.”