The Dusky Hour (23 page)

“Blackmailed?” the colonel repeated, sitting up abruptly. “Are you sure? Who by?”

“By Bennett,” Larson answered. “Very likely you knew, but I felt I had to mention it because – well, it's a possible motive, I suppose.” 

It was a moment or two before the colonel spoke. He was endeavouring to readjust his ideas. He looked round quickly at Bobby, whose face was impassive, giving no hint of the tumult of confused and contradictory ideas seething in his mind. Larson told himself that Colonel Warden looked hopelessly bewildered, and his attendant sergeant too stolid to be bewildered by anything. He waited gravely; a little amused, too. He had said what he felt it necessary to say, and now he waited the outcome, if any. The colonel drew a deep breath and said:

“That is a very serious statement, Mr. Larson. It may mean –”

Larson held up his hand.

“No, no,” he said quickly. “What it means or doesn't mean is your affair. Nothing to do with me. I should very much prefer not to be mixed up in the thing at all. Does a business man no good. Takes up a lot of valuable time as well. Bad enough that I may have to give evidence in this motor accident case at Winders Green. But I felt I had to ask if you knew. I gather you didn't.”

“I take it you are certain of your facts?” the colonel asked.

“What I do know is that Bennett was boasting about being able to squeeze Mr. Moffatt. And I have seen a bundle of notes to some considerable value said to have been paid over by Moffatt – naturally I was not a witness to the transaction. Also I know Bennett was threatening what he could do if Moffatt didn't ‘pay up and look pleasant.' I know Moffatt seemed to be having considerable difficulty in meeting ordinary calls on his pocket. Which explains, I suppose, why he was trying so hard to pump me for Stock Exchange tips. In passing, I never give them. I don't operate on the Stock Exchange, don't believe in speculation. Moffatt told me in so many words it was a matter of life and death to him to raise money.”

“But he is a rich man?”

“He was quite frank about that,” Larson explained. “He has a good income – but every penny mortgaged – and no capital at all. A curious, difficult position, I admit. There's a trust fund of £100,000 in old consols. It was established many years ago, apparently by his grandfather, or great-grandfather perhaps. The trustees have absolute power. They can withhold the income or any part of it at their discretion. When the trust was established some time in the last century, stringent precautions were thought necessary. Apparently the then heir was an irresponsible sort of person – poet and that sort of thing. The consequence is, no loan can be raised on the security of the trust fund. Moffatt might be told any moment that only his board and lodging would be paid, and the rest of the income allowed to accumulate for his heir. And what he gets from his estate is fully mortgaged, too. He was finding it more and more difficult to satisfy Bennett's demands – or so Bennett said – and Bennett was using a good many threats.”

“You are sure of all this?” the colonel asked.

“An old schoolfellow of mine turns up to see me every now and then with a hard-luck tale. Not a very satisfactory person, I'm afraid, but well – old school memories, you know. I generally give him a fiver to get rid of him. A month ago I was rather surprised to see him doing himself well in a West End restaurant. He saw me, and came across and insisted on repaying the last fiver I had lent him. He showed a thick wad of notes. I wondered what had happened, and he told me he was in partnership with a man who could get all the cash he wanted from a rich friend. I didn't say anything more. I thought it sounded fishy, but no business of mine. Two days ago he turned up to get the fiver back. I was curious, and after a bit of pressing it all came out. His friend had been drawing large sums from a Mr. Moffatt, and now his friend was dead and there wouldn't be any more money coming in. I asked if his friend's name was Bennett. He said yes, and went on directly to accuse Moffatt. So far as I know he had no actual grounds to go on. But I felt you ought to know.”

“Undoubtedly,” said the colonel. He drew a writing pad nearer. “This man's name and address?” he asked.

“Carter. Robert Carter. But I'm not sure he uses it now. He's passed under others, I fancy, though I don't know. Dodging creditors, I expect. I don't know his address – and I've often wished he didn't know mine.”

“It may be difficult to find him?”

“You might try the Rowton Houses or a Salvation Army shelter, places like that,” Mr. Larson suggested. “I'm afraid if he hears the police are asking for him he will probably vanish. I have my suspicions about some of his recent proceedings. Probably he'll turn up to see me again when he thinks another fiver is due, but that won't be just yet. I'll let you know when he does, of course.”

“What you are telling us is entirely what Carter told you?” the colonel asked. “Can it be trusted, do you think?”

Mr. Larson shrugged his shoulders.

“That's for you to say,” he answered. “I wouldn't trust Carter too far myself, but his story seemed to fit. And I don't quite see what object he could have in inventing a set of elaborate lies to tell me.”

“No,” agreed the colonel. “But a man in Mr. Moffatt's position – have you any idea what Bennett knew, or thought he knew, about him?”

“Not the faintest. I was very surprised myself. Possibly he had been trapped in some way. I've known it happen. I expect you've had cases. You know the sort of thing – woman, compromising position, indignant husband round the corner, and a scandal the victim daren't face. But I don't know. All I can tell you is that it was something that happened on one of the American liners.”

The colonel could not prevent himself from whistling softly. He turned and looked at Bobby, who, too, looked a little startled.

“Mr. Moffatt was asking your advice about investments?” the colonel asked after a pause.

Mr. Larson shrugged again those broad shoulders of his whereto his unusually small head for his height made so odd a contrast.

“One of the penalties of the, I suppose, rather unusual position I occupy in City affairs,” he explained. “It happens that often I am in possession of highly confidential information – if, for example, I am trying to arrange a merger of some kind. Obviously, if only for my own sake, I keep that information to myself or else the merger would soon be off – and my usefulness at an end, incidentally. But many people can't understand that. They seem to think I can use my knowledge in speculation, when, if I did, it would be cutting my own throat. I'm a company promotor and agent, not a speculator in stocks and shares.”

“You didn't give Mr. Moffatt any advice, then?”

“Well, I gave him the only possible advice in present circumstances. With the new Government rearmament programme, a child can see base metals must rise. Common sense, not speculation. Buy fifty or a hundred tons of tin to-day, hold a while, bound to sell at a profit. I don't mind passing that tip on,” he added, smiling, “and I don't mind adding that my own profit in base metals is – well, not five figures yet.”

The colonel looked dazed, admiring, envious. He nearly rushed to the phone to order someone – he didn't quite know who – to buy a hundred tons of tin. Then it occurred to him that possibly that would require more money than his available cash balance at the bank amounted to. But didn't one buy things on the Stock Exchange without having to pay for them? Only perhaps that didn't apply to base metals. Bobby, knowing well that his balance at the post office came to less than, not five, but three, figures, was spared this temptation. Dismissing his momentary dreams, and with a new note of respect in his voice, the colonel went on:

“I think I remember it being mentioned that you crossed to New York once in the same boat with Mr. Moffatt?”

“That is so. I didn't see much of him, but that is when our acquaintance began.”

“Do you remember a game of poker on that voyage?”

“I don't think so. Why? Anything special about it? I have played with Moffatt once or twice, but I'm not much of a card-player. Moffatt plays a remarkable handholds good cards, too, as a rule; but, then, he knows how to play them.”

The colonel pressed him further, but apparently any poker played on that voyage had passed entirely from Mr. Larson's memory. He offered, however, to look at his diary. He explained he had kept a diary for many years. It was a practice he had often found useful. Probably if he had played poker on that voyage there would be a note: “Poker,” and a further note – so much won or lost.

“Probably lost,” said Mr. Larson ruefully. “It generally is.”

With that the interview ended. The colonel conducted Mr. Larson to the door with all the respect due to a man who acknowledged that his dealings in base metals had not yet brought him a profit amounting to five figures. Bobby contented himself with looking out of the window. The colonel came back, sat down, and began to think. He leaned his head on his hands and sighed, for by now it was not only his ear that was aching. He said moodily:

“Every time we get anything, it turns out to be something else.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby, almost as dejectedly, “every time the rabbit comes out of the hat, it turns into a pigeon and flies out of the window.”

“Funny thing about Moffatt's money being tied up like that,” the colonel went on. “Explains why he's always grumbling about the rate of interest you get from old consols and yet never tries to change.”

“I'm beginning to think,” Bobby said slowly, and more to himself than to the colonel, “that the trust fund may prove to be the explanation of the whole affair.”

“Well, anyhow,” declared the colonel, “Larson seems to be cleared. Miss Moffatt is clearly wrong in thinking he had taken her father's pistol. If his car was searched in the way he says it was – and we can easily test that – his possession of a pistol couldn't possibly have been overlooked, and he had hardly had time to get rid of it. And he can't very well have been committing a murder in Battling Copse and witnessing a motor accident at Winders Green at the same moment.”

“No, sir; that much is plain,” agreed Bobby.

“One fact we are certain of,” the colonel went on, “is that Moffatt's pistol was used – and he's the one person in whose possession it would be in the ordinary way.”

“In a case like this,” said Bobby, “it's a comfort to have even one fact to be sure of.”

“He was in the library alone all afternoon by his own account,” the colonel continued. “Perfectly easy to slip out and back unseen. And this blackmail story. We know there was something, though apparently Larson didn't. Fatal for a man in his position if it got about he had been blacklisted by the steamship companies as a card-sharper.”

“I suppose so,” Bobby agreed.

“Might do a good deal to prevent that coming out,” declared the colonel. “I don't like it one bit, not one little bit. It's got to be followed up. Better get some lunch, and then we'll drive over and see what he has to say.”

Later, then, that afternoon, once more the chief constable's car drew up at Sevens. This time Mr. Moffatt was in, and Reeves accordingly ushered them into the library, where Mr. Moffatt was busy writing letters and looking, Bobby noticed, very much less calm and composed than usual.

“How do, colonel?” he said. “Come about that murder again? Ena was telling me you were here yesterday. Seemed to think you had been suspecting her. I told her not to be a little fool. Can you bring an action for criminal libel against a company?”

The colonel looked a little scared by this abrupt demand. True, he wasn't a company, but he was a colonel, and a chief constable as well, and had he laid himself open to an action for criminal libel?

“Because,” said Mr. Moffatt fiercely, as he got up and planted himself before the fire, like Horatius before the bridge, “I'm going to bring one against the Atlantic steamship companies. I am writing to Meadows to start at once – my lawyer, you know; Meadows & Scott, Old Jewry.” He stood there swelling with an indignation that very nearly choked him. He spluttered a little before he could get out what he wanted to say. Not difficult, Bobby thought, to see where Ena derived her temper from. “If it costs me the last penny I have in the world,” he said when at last he could control his voice, “I'll teach 'em to blacklist me.”

“Blacklist – you?” repeated the colonel.

“Just found out,” said Mr. Moffatt. He swallowed hard. He gave the impression that at any moment he would start smashing furniture and throwing things out of the window. “I was thinking of going across to America last year. They wrote me all cabins were booked up. I thought their letter rather curt, but just then I went down with influenza, and, of course, that put any trip to America out of the question. Then I heard the boat I had inquired about had been half empty that trip. I thought it a bit queer, but I thought there had just been some muddle or stupidity of some sort. But when I wrote the other day asking about sailings and so on, I got a letter back regretting that the information asked for couldn't be supplied. Well, I thought that was going a bit too far. I sent the letter on to Meadows and asked him to take it up. Well, Meadows had some difficulty in getting anything out of them, but he rang me up last week – the day of the murder, as it happens; the same afternoon, four o'clock it was, too; almost the same time – and told me there was some misunderstanding. I had apparently been confused with someone thought to be undesirable, and did I want him to go on with it? I didn't take it very seriously, though I did think Meadows sounded a bit worried. We were talking nearly ten minutes on the phone before finally I made him understand he was to take every possible step to find out what was at the bottom of it all, and to insist, too, on a written apology. I won't accept any apology now. I'll have damages.”