Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

‘Young Flaxman, eh? Then spit it out, Inspector, spit it out. May as well hear the worst.’

‘Mr Flaxman is a gentleman of limited means, sir, but considerable expectations, as I learnt from the late Mr Boultbee’s junior partner. It seems Mr Boultbee was one of the trustees of a considerable fund which will come to the two beneficiaries, the cousins Peter Flaxman and Vyvyan Andrews, only when they attain the age of thirty. Neither will, in fact, do that for some five years yet.’

‘Ha, the root of all evil.’

‘Yes, sir. So we are told. And at Mr Boultbee’s office I managed to gather that both gentlemen have applied since the Armistice for advances on their expectations, something which their trustees are permitted to make. However, it seems the three other trustees relied entirely on the advice of the late Mr Boultbee. And that advice has consistently been that no disbursements should be made.’

‘I hope, Inspector, that you brought no improper pressure on to Mr Boultbee’s junior partner. You seem to have acquired a good deal of information which I should have thought was confidential.’

Inspector Thompson looked steadily at the Commissioner

‘No, sir,’ he said, ‘there could, of course, be no question of that.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. So we appear to have arrived at a point where two of the people, and perhaps their ladies, who could have placed a poisoned lozenge into the cachou-box in which Mr Boultbee kept his supply of soda-mints were-’

‘Excuse me, sir,’ Inspector Thompson broke in, with not a little daring, ‘but it is as well perhaps to have things entirely clear. Mr Boultbee, so his partner happened to mention, lost several years ago the silver box he carried his lozenges in, and – his partner indicated that he had, what shall I say, a certain mean streak – he refused to replace it but used instead a battered little tobacconist’s tin that had once contained snuff. My informant indicated that people used to joke about that.’

‘Rather poor taste on his part, Inspector, if I may venture to say so.’

‘Perhaps it was, sir. However, it may be helpful to know about it if it comes down to trying to discover exactly what happened at that table when the lunch party set off for a stroll.’

‘No. No, wait, Inspector, you’ve forgotten something. Important, you know, to keep every thread in your hands.’

A little frown gave added force to the rebuke.

‘The French gentleman, sir? The Conte de Charvey. I have made enquiries about him. It seems he was a slight acquaintance of Mr Flaxman’s and had put him in the position of being unable to withhold an invitation to the match.’

‘Had he indeed? A trifle suspicious that, eh? French fellow wanting to watch cricket. Unless, of course, he’s one of those froggies who seem to think the game is one of the secrets of British power. As I suppose it is, come to think of it.’

‘Yes, sir. However, I also learn from the late Mr Boultbee’s partner that Mr Boultbee knew something to the Count’s disadvantage. I have had a word with Fraud, and apparently they’ve been keeping a sharp eye on him.’

‘Fraud, eh? Why haven’t they informed me that a character of this sort has come to our shores? Eh? Eh?’

‘I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir.’

‘No. I dare say not. But… But do you think the fellow may have needed to get rid of someone who had come to learn too much about some underhand business of his? That sort of thing?’

‘It always could be, sir. But one ought perhaps to bear in mind that the murderer would need to have known Mr Boultbee’s habit of taking one of those soda-mint lozenges shortly after his every meal. But while all of the other four persons under consideration might well have been aware of that, it’s scarcely likely that a stranger such as the Count would be.’

‘Yes. Yes, Inspector, I take your point. Good man, good man. Yet, let me remind you, we shouldn’t put our French bad hat altogether out of the picture.’

‘No, sir. No, of course not. I will bear him in mind throughout the investigation.’

‘Hah. Yes. Yes, Inspector, you speak blithely enough of throughout the investigation , but let me tell you once again: this is a matter which has got to be cleared up in the very shortest of times. All right, this PC Wilkins, Watson, whatever, whom you seem to have such faith in, would appear, thank goodness, to have eliminated the hundreds of extremely distinguished persons who might conceivably have committed this appalling crime. But nevertheless the yellow press will, if they get half a chance, hope to draw public attention to – well, to even the highest in the land. So action, Inspector, action.’

‘Yes, sir.’

When Inspector Thompson left the Commissioner’s office he had little hope that any amount of action would see the case concluded quickly enough to suit his chief. But, in the end, action proved to be what was needed. Directed more or less to go back to Lord’s, where by night and day a police watch had been kept, he made his way into the luncheon tent, everything there still preserved just as it had been when PC Williams had entered. Though convinced that it was only in the motives of the four people most likely to have committed the deed that the solution must lie, he nevertheless stood looking down at the stained white cloth of the table. A blank sheet.

Or was it?

Wasn’t there something there that somehow differed from Williams’ minutely accurate description?

For more than a few minutes he stood there puzzling. What was it that seemed somehow wrong?

Is it, he asked himself, the mere absence of that little tobacconist’s snuff tin from which the one deadly lozenge had, by chance surely, been plucked by that tight-fisted City solicitor? Nothing more than that? The tin itself, of course, had been sent to the fingerprint bureau at the Yard, and within an hour a report had come back to say that someone had scrupulously wiped the little shabby article clean of any possible clue as to who had flipped it open, taken out one lozenge – Wilfred Boultbee, so careful of other people’s money, was very likely to have kept count of his supply of the miraculous means of combating the intolerable pangs of indigestion – and added that one deadly other.

No help there.

And then… Then it came to him. What was missing from the scene as he looked at it now was an object PC Williams had described well, if with a touch of honest Welsh hyperbole. In the dead man’s hand, he had said, there had been a soiled white table-napkin clutched with demonic force. It had been, almost certainly, taken away with the body when it had gone for medical examination. But why had it been there on the table at all? It must have been left when the guests had risen from their places to go and stroll outside.

But – could this be what had happened? – had someone still had it, perhaps in their hand, after all the debris had been cleared away by the waiters? And had they then let it fall on the table in such a way that it covered up Wilfred Boultbee’s little battered old tobacconist’s tin? That could, if what Williams quoted me from his notebook had it right, have accounted for the unusual circumstance of the dead man forgetting to take a lozenge immediately after eating.

But which of them was it? Who had picked up that napkin, dropped it so as to hide the little tin, and then, of course, subtly urged Wilfred Boultbee out of the tent before he had gathered himself together enough to remember he had not taken a lozenge?

Well, if that is what happened, one thing is clear. It’s very unlikely to have been one of the women. I can hardly see either of them – I can hardly see any lady – taking that rigid man by the arm and laughingly leading him off. So it must come down to one of the two cousins, each with motive enough. Because, as I tried to make clear to the Commissioner, the French count, whatever he’s up to in England, could not possibly have known about Wilfred Boultbee’s poor digestion. So which of the two is it? Which?