Depths of Deceit (17 page)

‘Perhaps he was, Jack, and I've already concocted a little plot to make Mr Crale eat out of our hands when the time comes. I want to pay another visit, first, to the late Mr Barnes's house and works at Carshalton. There are a few questions I want to ask the
impudent
widow, who's probably now in complete charge of the place.'

‘And after that, sir?'

‘After that, Sergeant, I'll give our Mr Crale my full attention. And then you and I will pay a call on the Subterranean Pipe Office of the London County Council, which, as you know, is in Spring Gardens, just five minutes' walk from King James's Rents. There's something they've got there that I very much want to see.'

15

The Ubiquitous Mr Crale

A
rnold Box stood in front of the solid, four-square granite house in Carshalton where the murdered cement
manufacturer
Abraham Barnes had lived and died. The name ‘Wellington House’ on the gateposts had been freshly gilded, and new, crisp lace curtains adorned every window. Evidently the predatory widow, Laura Barnes, had started to make her presence felt.

What, Box wondered, had happened to the thin, pale and tearful daughter, Hetty Barnes? The widow had told him that Hetty would have to manage on a competence elsewhere: it had been clear even then that Laura would not suffer her stepdaughter to remain at Wellington House.

He rang the bell, and in a moment the front door was opened by a smart, pretty girl of twenty or so, wearing the black dress and ribboned cap of a house parlour-maid. She curtsied, took Box’s card, and asked him to sit down in the hall. Missus, she told him, would be out in a moment.

There was a strong smell of paint everywhere, and the gloom that had pervaded the house on his last visit seemed to have been very effectively dissipated. He wondered whether the widow had married the shifty Mr Harper yet, and whether all this decoration was a celebration of their tasteless and rather sinister alliance.

The door of the drawing-room opened, and an elegant woman emerged to greet him. She wore a fashionable morning dress of
brown silk adorned with cream lace. ‘Inspector Box!’ she exclaimed, giving him her hand. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure! Come into the drawing-room.’

Box followed the lady of the house into the room where he had first encountered the family of Abraham Barnes. His mind was reeling! He had only just recognized the lady as the tearful, faded daughter, Hetty. What miracle had transformed her into this commanding and handsome lady? And where was the hard-bitten widow, Laura Barnes?

‘I can see that you’re rather nonplussed, Mr Box,’ said Hetty, smiling, and motioning him to sit down. Like the hallway, the drawing-room was in the process of being redecorated. Rolls of red flock wallpaper stood upright like ship’s funnels against one wall. ‘Let me very briefly explain what occurred here after your last visit.

‘My father’s will was produced and read on the 17 August, just two days after you came here. He left his widow Laura an annuity of a hundred and fifty pounds. Everything else, including this house, the cement works, and all his accrued savings, he left to
me
.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it, Miss Barnes,’ said Box, and the sincerity of his words was so obvious that Hetty knew they were rather more than a conventional reply. His kindness would encourage her to speak more frankly to him of family matters.

‘I was astounded,’ Hetty continued, ‘and somehow, realizing that poor Father had loved me best all along, brought me out of my shell. I don’t just
seem
a different woman – I
am
a different woman! I’ve decided to develop the works along the lines suggested by Mr Harper, and I think that, in a year’s time, the Royal Albert Cement Works will be transformed.’

‘And have you engaged a new manager to assist you, Miss Barnes?’ asked Box. ‘I should think you’d need an experienced person to help you manage a concern of this nature.’

The elegant lady suddenly treated Box to a smile of triumph, a
smile that was at one and the same time joyful and cruel. She pulled the bell hanging beside the fireplace, and almost
immediately
the pretty young maid appeared. She glanced rather apprehensively at Box, and then addressed her mistress.

‘You rang, ma’am?’

‘Mary,’ said the lady of the house, ‘tell the master to come here at once.’

The maid curtsied, and went out. Within the minute the door opened, and the handsome young works manager, Mr Harper, came in to the room.

‘Did you ring for me, my dear?’ he asked. Seeing Box, he
actually
blushed in confusion, rapidly turning his discomfiture into a kind of servile bow.

‘It was just to let you know, James, that Inspector Box has called to see me privately. I thought it right that you should know. Have the furnace-liners arrived yet? They were due here at ten.’

‘They’re here now, my dear. I’d better go and attend to them. Goodbye, Mr Box, Pleased to meet you again.’

As the young man left the room, Hetty held up her left hand for Box to see the thick gold band gleaming on her marriage-finger.

‘Yes, Mr Box,’ she said, ‘I am Mrs James Harper, now! We were married by special licence ten days ago. James and I will agree well together, and between us we’ll make our name resound in the building industry.’ She glanced briefly at her father’s portrait where it hung over the fireplace, surrounded with black mourning-crape.

‘Dear Father! He left everything
entailed
to me, you know. If James wants to make his fortune, he’ll have to make it from the future profits of the company. He knows that, too.’

Mrs Harper treated Box to a shrewd but not unpleasant smile. She was evidently enjoying her new status as the undoubted mistress of Wellington House and its occupants.

‘I always liked him, you know,’ she continued, ‘even though I pretended not to. That’s because Laura – well, never mind about
her. James has got a good business head on his shoulders, as well as being a very presentable man.’

‘And what happened to Mrs Laura Barnes, ma’am, if I may be so bold as to ask?’

‘Laura? Well, she’s fled across the river to live with her spinster sister in Somers Town. I hope she’ll be very happy there. But I don’t suppose you’ve come down here to ask after Laura, have you? It’ll be about poor Father’s murder. How can I help you?’

‘I want to ask you a question, ma’am, about some samples of mortar that your late father had sent to a man called Bonner to analyse. Mr Bonner returned these samples by post on the 23 July. Your father was supposed to forward them to a gentleman living in London, but never did so. I gather that Mr Barnes was an
efficient
business man. Can you account for his failure to forward those samples?’

‘Father was very busy all July, and he probably thought that these samples could wait until he was less pressed for time. What were they – some private matter? Yes, I thought so. Father would have let them wait until he had time to see to them. Matters concerning the business always had priority.’

‘Was Mr Barnes away from Carshalton at any time in July?’

‘Yes, he was. He went up to Birmingham to see our accountants on the 31 July – which was a Tuesday – and returned here on the third. After that, Inspector, I suppose he kept putting off this
business
of the samples until – well, until it was too late.’

Mrs Harper glanced briefly at her father’s portrait, and bit her lip. She seemed to be struggling with some emotion which Box thought might have been vexation. She’s making up her mind to tell me something, thought Box, and if I just stay quiet and say nothing, she’ll tell me what it is. Something to do with her late father, I’ll be bound.

‘I’ll leave you now, Inspector,’ said Mrs Harper, rising from her chair. ‘I’m going to send my maid, Mary, to talk to you. You guessed, I think, that she was my only confidant when this house
fell under the bane of that woman? Well, she remains so still, and very recently she told me something about my father which I think you should hear. It explains why he came down, fully clothed, into the conservatory on that fatal night – the night when he met his terrible death.’

At Box’s bidding, the maid Mary had positioned herself gingerly on the edge of an upright chair. Like any well-trained servant, she felt uncomfortable at sitting down in the reception rooms of her mistress’s house. She was nervous, Box noted, and a little
frightened.

‘Sir,’ Mary began, ‘I’m going to tell you what happened on the night of the fourteenth, when Mr Barnes was killed, but before that, I’m going to tell you about him and Mrs Barnes, and what took place on 8 August—’

‘When you say Mrs Barnes—’

‘Sir, if you interrupt me, I’ll get all flummoxed. Just let me tell you things in my own way, asking pardon, sir, for being so forward. The first Mrs Barnes was a nice lady, but the second one, Mrs Laura, was very flighty. I don’t think there was much to it, myself, but she had an eye for attractive men like Mr Harper. And there were others she’d make up to, if I cared to name names, which I don’t. There was no real harm in it, but Mr Barnes, he was ever so jealous! He used to lay traps for her, and later you’d hear him saying things like, “Who was that young man you were speaking to in the shrubbery? Why do you go into Carshalton every day? Who are you seeing?” Things like that.

‘And then one day – it was the 8 August, a Wednesday – a man called at the house while she was out, and asked to see Mr Barnes. He wouldn’t give his name. I showed him into the morning-room, and Mr Barnes came through from the works to see him. There’s a little pantry leading off the morning-room, and I went in there to dust some crockery. I wasn’t really listening, but I heard this man say that he was a private detective, and that he had evidence
to show that Mrs Barnes was seeing a man secretly in Carshalton. He used a funny word – candlestine, some word like that.’

‘Clandestine. It just means secret.’

‘That’s right: that’s the word he used. I shouldn’t have stayed, but I was ever so interested! The master was very upset. “I knew it!” he cried, and things like that. The detective then told him that he could prove what he’d said, by taking him to a place here in Hackbridge, where he’d find the couple, meaning this man and Mrs Laura Barnes, together in – in something or other. It was French, I think.’

‘In
flagrante
delicto.’

‘That’s right. Master and Mistress had separate bedrooms, you see, so I suppose it was possible. And then the detective said that he would meet Mr Barnes in the conservatory at three o’clock in the morning of the 15 August, and lead him to the house where Mrs Barnes and this man would be. I wondered, myself, who’d engaged this detective, because poor Mr Barnes obviously hadn’t. Anyway, the master never asked him. Had it been me—’

The maid stopped speaking, and looked a little confused.

‘Had it been you, Mary, what would you have done?’

‘Well, sir, I’d have waited until the morning of the fifteenth, and then I’d have peeped into the mistress’s room to see whether she was there or not. But he didn’t, when that day dawned.’

‘What happened after Mr Barnes and the detective had finished speaking?’

‘They left the morning-room, sir, and I slipped back to the kitchen. In a moment the hall bell rang, and I went to show the detective man out.’

‘Can you describe this detective to me, Mary?’ asked Box. ‘You’ve told me some very valuable things so far. What did this man look like?’

‘Well, he was about fifty, I’d say, with brown hair going bald. Nicely spoken, he was, with a quiet voice. He was wearing a dark overcoat and a black bowler hat. He was tall, and rather thin. He
looked more like a manservant than a detective, but that might have been a disguise, mightn’t it?’

‘Perhaps,’ Box replied. Secretly he thought to himself: no, he wasn’t a detective, and he wasn’t a manservant. He was a certain Mr Crale, secretary and sneak. He asked Mary to continue with her story.

‘I thought about that man, and what he’d said about Missus, for a long time, and then I made up my mind to watch what happened in the early hours of the fifteenth. I didn’t mean any harm, and I never thought there was going to be a murder—’

‘Of course you didn’t, Mary,’ Box reassured the now tearful maid. ‘Now, don’t start to cry. Just tell me what you saw.’

‘At about half past two – this was in the dark hours of the morning, on the fifteenth – I crept downstairs and went into the little flower-room off the conservatory. I hid myself in an alcove beside the big cupboard there, and left the door slightly open. Nothing happened for what seemed ages, and while I waited, the pitch dark seemed to grow lighter, and I could see the potted plants, and some pieces of furniture. They say, don’t they, that your eyes can get used to the dark?

‘Suddenly, I heard the French window creak open, and a man stepped quietly into the conservatory. It was him – the detective man. I watched him as he stood there, and I could hear his breathing. He sounded as though he’d been running. But—’

Mary suddenly turned pale, and began to tremble. Box placed a reassuring hand on hers. What ailed the girl? What had she seen?

‘Sir,’ said Mary, making an effort to regain her composure, ‘I suddenly felt that there was
someone
else
in the conservatory! There was a kind of stirring in the darkness at the far end, as though someone was concealed there. It was horrible! I think the detective man felt it, too, because he made a funny little frightened sound, and half made to bolt for it. But he held his ground, and a few moments later the master came in from the house. He was fully dressed, but he hadn’t put on an overcoat.

‘“Is that you?” he whispered, and his voice sounded cruel and gloating. Somehow, it didn’t seem like the master at all, but it was him, sure enough. “Yes, it’s me”, the detective said. “Follow me quietly, Mr Barnes”. The detective turned and almost ran out of the window into the dark garden, and then – and then a black shadow suddenly reared up out of the darkness, Mr Barnes cried out, and there was a terrible thud, followed by the sound of
something
heavy falling to the floor. I saw and heard nothing else, sir, because I fainted away with fright.’