Depths of Deceit (15 page)

14

Sir Charles Wayneflete's Story

I
n one of the airy classrooms at Glover's Lane Board School, a tall, redbrick building rising from a paved playground skirted with black railings, Sergeant Knollys found Ronald Evans, a friend and confidant of Gregory Walsh, the murdered analytical chemist. He had spoken earlier that morning to the dead man's former fiancée, Thelma Thompson, who had told him the name of the man who she thought was probably Gregory Walsh's closest friend.

‘Greg wasn't a very sociable man, Mr Knollys,' she had said, ‘and he met with little friendship from that dreadful fellow Craven in the laboratory. But there
was
another young man whom he saw quite often. They'd go for long walks together, and visit all kinds of museums and art galleries. Ronald Evans, his name was. He's an assistant usher at Glover's Lane Board School in Shoreditch.'

Evans proved to be a good-humoured, stolid young man of thirty or so, smartly dressed in a grey suit, and sporting one of the new round-ended stiff collars. He sat at a table raised upon a dais, where he was apparently making notes from a number of books laid open in front of him.

‘Gregory?' he said, putting down his pencil, and sitting back in his chair. ‘I still can't believe that he's dead, Sergeant Knollys. Who would want to kill a harmless fellow like Greg? He was just an
ordinary
man, you know, no different from me. Nobody important.'

Jack Knollys looked round the bright, spotless schoolroom. Gas lights with white enamel shades hung from the ceiling above the rows of desks and benches. The walls were adorned with charts and maps, including a massive representation of the British Empire. There was an illustrated table of the Kings and Queens of England, a glazed case containing a brilliant array of preserved butterflies, and shelves of well-used books. Beside Evans on the desk towered a pile of slates, each in its wooden frame.

Nobody important? To Knollys' way of thinking, men like Walsh, and this self-effacing board-schoolteacher, represented the future of the country. It was August, but in a week's time the summer recess would be over, and a crowd of boys, eager for knowledge, would flood back into this government school, where men like Evans would help to equip them for the better world that was coming in the next century.

‘I've called on you here, Mr Evans,' said Sergeant Knollys, ‘to ask you if Mr Walsh ever mentioned having been commissioned to perform some kind of task in the Mithraeum at Clerkenwell. Miss Thelma Thompson says that you were probably Mr Walsh's closest friend. Did he ever discuss what I'd call professional matters with you?'

‘Yes, Mr Knollys, he did, from time to time. As for the Mithraeum – now I come to think of it, I remember his being engaged by a man to do some work there. What was it? Yes, he was to secure samples of paint from the great figure of Mithras, and analyse them. What he was supposed to find – or not find – I can't say, and he never told me.'

‘And he was to take those samples on the morning of Tuesday, fourteenth August—'

‘What? No, not at all, Sergeant. That's what puzzled me about his death. What was he doing in the Mithraeum on the
fourteenth
? No, he'd been engaged to procure the samples on the twenty-sixth of July. I assumed that he'd done the work, given this man the results, and been paid for it.'

‘The twenty-sixth of
July
?
Are you quite sure of that, Mr Evans?'

‘Most assuredly, Mr Knollys,' said Evans, smiling. ‘You see, I was actually present when he was given the commission! Let me tell you how it was.

‘You know that Gregory lived with his father in Hayward's Court, over in Clerkenwell? Well, as you turn out of the court and in to St John Street, you'll find a quiet little public house called The Lord Nelson. One evening in July – I can't recall the exact day, but it would have been about the twentieth – Greg and I were sitting at a little table enjoying a glass of beer. I'd brought a
newspaper
with me, and I was holding it up, open, to read an article inside. You'll see why I mention that in a moment.

‘Suddenly, I heard someone speaking to Gregory, and realized that a man had joined us at the table. “Mr Walsh?” I heard this man say. “You were recommended to me as a skilful chemical analyst. I'd be most grateful if you would undertake a small commission for me. It's a matter of taking samples of paint from the great reredos in the Mithraeum at Clerkenwell, and analysing them to determine the age of the paint that had been used to colour the image. Could you undertake the work for me?”

‘At that moment, Sergeant Knollys,' said Evans, ‘I put the paper down, and the man suddenly realized that I was a friend of Gregory's. He seemed very embarrassed, and rather vexed. I think he felt that he was betraying a business confidence by speaking so openly in front of a third party. He nodded civilly to me, but made no attempt to include me in the conversation.'

‘This man—'

‘He was a tall, spare man of about fifty, with thinning brown hair. Rather prim in his manner, and very well spoken, but not a gentleman.' Evans laughed with evident good-humour, and added, ‘People in his walk of life, which is the same as mine, Mr Knollys, should never pretend to be what they're not!'

‘And what did Mr Gregory Walsh say to this man?'

‘He said that he'd be glad to accept the commission, and the man told him to meet him at the Mithraeum at seven o'clock on the morning of Thursday, twentieth-sixth July. He apologized for the unusual way of doing business – he meant approaching Greg in a pub, you know – and half-produced a five-pound note from a pocket, which raised my eyebrows a little, but Gregory said that all commissions were welcome, and that an advance was entirely unnecessary.'

Jack Knollys finished writing his transcript of Evans's account in his notebook, and looked once more at this unassuming schoolmaster. Why had he not told all this to the police? Almost immediately his own faculty of common sense told him the answer. The transaction in The Lord Nelson had seemed to Evans nothing more than a piece of professional business, which had been concluded long before poor Walsh had been murdered. In addition to that, the police had been chasing after practitioners of a non-existent cult of Mithras, and the papers had been full of that sensational development.

‘You have an excellent memory for conversations, Mr Evans,' said Knollys. ‘I don't suppose this man told Mr Walsh his name? I'm almost certain that I know who the man was, but the name would clinch the matter.'

‘The man seemed unwilling to give his name, Sergeant, but, of course, Gregory insisted. He'd no intention of doing work for a man who was afraid to give his name. So Gregory asked him, and the man told him that his name was Crale.'

Jack Knollys took his leave of the Shoreditch schoolmaster, and walked thoughtfully away from Glover's Lane. When Mr Box returned from Essex that afternoon, they would have much to tell each other. But wherever the guvnor's tale took them, it was time for them both to pay an official call on prim Mr Crale's previous employer, Sir Charles Wayneflete.

Box and Knollys called upon Sir Charles Wayneflete at his house
in Lowndes Square on the following morning. Neglected and forlorn, its peeling white stucco and crumbling stonework contrasted tellingly with the smart town houses on either side. In response to their ringing of the bell, a grim woman answered the door, and stood back to let them enter.

‘Sir Charles is expecting you, Mr Box,' she said, and there was something in her tone that told the inspector that she had expected him to ring the tradesman's bell at the kitchen door down the area steps. ‘I am Mrs Craddock, the housekeeper here. Please follow me.'

The woman preceded them to Sir Charles Wayneflete's study on the ground floor, announced them both, and withdrew.

Box's first impression was that he had entered a small
provincial
museum. The room was crammed with antique tables and bookcases, upon which had been arranged collections of coins in velvet-lined cases, busts of the Caesars, pieces of Renaissance sculpture, and dark old paintings in dull gold frames. A curious set of chess men, carved from some kind of green stone, stood on a small table.

As the inspector's eyes became more accustomed to the dim light of the room, he saw more and more souvenirs of a long life of exploration emerging from the shadows. Everything, he noted, had been carefully dusted, and although the carpet was threadbare and the upholstery of the modern chairs thin and frayed, the room was spotless. The grim custodian of all these antiquities who had admitted them to the house was evidently devoted to her master.

Two men were sitting in chairs on either side of the fireplace. One of them was smartly dressed in a morning suit with frock coat. The other was wearing an old tweed suit that had seen better days, and Box noted that he was wearing detachable paper cuffs to his shirt.

‘Inspector Box,' said the smart man, ‘I am Sir Charles Wayneflete. I received your note this morning. Sit down. And you, Sergeant Knollys. This gentleman is my friend Major Baverstock.
You may speak quite freely in front of him. Now, state your
business
, if you please.'

The voice was that of a man who had once assumed that all his commands would be obeyed; but now there was something
provisional
in his tones that suggested a failing authority. His frail, narrow face, with its fringe of old-fashioned whiskers, betrayed a man in poor health who at that very moment was experiencing acute fear. Was Sir Charles Wayneflete afraid of the police? It might be a good idea, thought Box, to startle this gentleman into talking by dispensing with any preliminaries.

‘Sir Charles,' he said, ‘I am the officer investigating the murders of Gregory Walsh and Abraham Barnes, the former in the Mithraeum at Clerkenwell, and the latter at his residence in Carshalton. In connection with these murders, I want you to tell me all that you know about Professor Roderick Ainsworth, and his impostures.'

That's done the trick, thought Box, as he saw the baronet flinch and turn very pale. If Jack and I just wait, he'll start to speak without prompting. He's looking at his old friend Major Baverstock, now, and the major's just given him the nod.

‘This is all in the strictest confidence, mind!' said Wayneflete.

‘Of course, sir,' said Box. ‘Please continue.'

‘I'd had my suspicions about Ainsworth's Mithraeum from the beginning,' said Sir Charles, ‘long before he lured that damned scoundrel Crale away from me. You know who Crale is, I expect?'

‘Yes, sir,' said Box. ‘I know all about Mr Crale and his doings.'

‘I wish I'd consulted you earlier,' Sir Charles continued. ‘Josh, there – Major Baverstock – wanted me to go to Scotland Yard with my suspicions, but I didn't. I was afraid, you see. Afraid of him. I'm helpless here, partly crippled by a stroke, and if he found out that I'd been giving voice to my suspicions, he'd come here and do for me—'

A note of panic came into the old baronet's voice, and he began to tremble.

‘Steady on, Charles,' said Major Baverstock. ‘Get a grip, there's a good fellow!'

You're old, my friend, thought Box, glancing at the major, but you're still a military man. Those are keen, resolute eyes peering out from beneath those bushy brows.

‘I'd known for years that much of Ainsworth's work lacked integrity,' Sir Charles continued, ‘and there had been rumours in certain circles that all was not quite right with the inventoried items of the Clerkenwell Treasure, which he discovered in '87. Nothing was said openly, you understand.'

‘You say there had been rumours, Sir Charles,' said Box. ‘What kind of rumours were they, and who spread them?'

Sir Charles Wayneflete frowned, and bit his lip. He looked both vexed and petulant. He glanced at Major Baverstock, as though seeking his opinion as to what he should reply to Box's question.

‘For goodness' sake, Charles,' said the major, ‘
tell
him
!
He's already promised you that everything you say is in the strictest confidence.'

‘Oh, very well,' said the old baronet. ‘You don't know what it's like, Box, crawling round the house, never getting out, having to rely on one domineering old woman for everything – I'm helpless! And I'm frightened, I tell you – frightened of what Ainsworth may take it into his head to do. Crale will have told him everything about me, and revealed to him all that I already know—'

‘Then why don't you tell
me
what you know, sir? I can use that knowledge for your protection. Now, what were these rumours about the Clerkenwell Treasure, and who spread them?'

‘I don't know whether you know or not, Box,' said Wayneflete, ‘but I am a Roman Catholic – all the Waynefletes are – and there are certain priests and others who know a great deal about that treasure. The Rector of St Etheldreda's knows all about it, and so does the superior of the Redemptorist Fathers out at Highgate. It was from one of their priests that I learnt about certain
irregularities
—'