Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

“Is this Mister Gray’s secretary?” he asked Sally.

The stewardess shook her head.

“No, doctor. This is a passenger from tourist class. He claims to have worked for Mister Gray.”

“And your name is?” queried Fane swiftly, his sharp eyes on the young man’s handsome features.

“Oscar Elgee. I was Mister Gray’s manservant.” The young man spoke with a modulated voice that clearly betrayed his public school background. “Check with Frank Tilley, in premier class. He is Mister Gray’s personal secretary. He will tell you who I am.”

Fane smiled encouragingly at Sally Beech.

“Would you do that for me, Miss Beech, and also tell Mister Tilley that I would like to see him here when convenient?” When she hurried away, Fane turned back to the new arrival. “Now, Mister Elgee, how did you hear that there had been an… an accident?”

“I heard one of the stewardesses mentioning it to another back in the tourist class,” Elgee said. “If Mister Gray has been hurt…”

“Mister Gray is dead.”

Oscar Elgee stared at him for a moment.

“A heart attack?”

“Not exactly. Since you are here, you might formally identify your late employer. We need an identification for Doctor Ross’s record.”

He stood aside and allowed the young man to move forward to where the body had been laid out ready for Ross’s examination. Ross moved to allow the young man to examine the face. Elgee halted over the body and gazed down for a moment.

“ Terra es, terram ibis ,” he muttered. Then his face broke in anguish. “How could this have happened? Why is there blood on his face? What sort of accident happened here?”

“That’s exactly what we are attempting to find out,” Ross told him. “I take it that you formally identify this man as Henry Kinloch Gray?”

The young man nodded briefly, turning away. Fane halted him beyond the curtained area.

“How long did you work for him, Mister Elgee?”

“Two years.”

“What exactly was your job with him?”

“I was his manservant. Everything. Chauffeur, butler, cook, valet, handyman. His factotum. ”

“And he took you on his trips abroad?”

“Of course.”

“But I see he was a stickler for the social order, eh?” smiled Fane.

The young man flushed.

“I don’t understand.”

“You are travelling tourist class.”

“It would not be seemly for a manservant to travel first class.”

“Quite so. Yet, judging from your reactions to his death, you felt a deep attachment to your employer?”

The young man’s chin raised defiantly and a colour came to his cheeks.

“Mister Gray was an exemplary employer. A tough businessman, true. But he was a fair man. We never had a cross word. He was a good man to work for. A great man.”

“I see. And you looked after him? Took care of his domestic needs. If I recall the newspaper stories, Harry Gray was always described as an eligible bachelor.”

Fane saw a subtle change of expression on the young man’s face.

“If he had been married then he would hardly have needed my services, would he? I did everything for him. Even repairing his music centre or his refrigerator. No; he was not married.”

“Just so,” smiled Fane, glancing again at Elgee’s hands. “Repairing a music centre requires a delicate touch. Unusual for a handyman to be able to do that sort of thing.”

“My hobby is model making. Working models.” There was a boastful note in his voice.

“I see. Tell me, as you would be in the best position to know, did your employer have any enemies?”

The young man actually winced.

“A businessman like Harry Gray is surrounded by enemies.” He looked up and saw Sally Beech ushering a bespectacled man into the compartment. “Some enemies work with him and pretended to be his confidants,” he added with a sharp note. He paused and frowned as the thought seemed to occur to him. “Are you saying that his death was… was suspicious?”

Fane noticed, with approval, that Sally had motioned her new charge to sit down and did not come forward to interrupt him. He turned to the young man.

“That we will have to find out. Now, Mister Elgee, perhaps you would return to your seat? We will keep you informed of the situation.”

The young man turned and went out, hardly bothering to acknowledge the new arrival who, in turn, seemed to drop his eyes to avoid contact with the personable young man. There was obviously no love lost between the manservant and secretary.

Leaving Hector Ross to continue his examination with the aid of the aircraft’s emergency medical kit, Fane went up to where the newcomer had been seated. Sally Beech, waiting with her charge, gave him a nervous smile.

“This is Mister Francis Tilley. He was travelling with Mister Gray.”

Frank Tilley was a thin and very unattractive man in his mid-thirties. His skin was pale, and his jaw showed a permanent blue shadow which no amount of shaving would erase. He wore thick, horn rimmed spectacles which seemed totally unsuited to his features. His hair was thin and receding and there was a nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Fane motioned the stewardess to stand near the door to prevent any other person entering the premier class compartment, and turned to Tilley.

“He’s dead, eh?” Tilley’s voice was almost a falsetto. He giggled nervously. “Well, I suppose it had to happen sometime, even to the so-called great and the good.”

Fane frowned at the tone in the man’s voice.

“Are you saying that Mr Gray was ill?” he asked.

Tilley raised a hand and let it fall as if he were about to make a point and changed his mind. Fane automatically registered the shaky hand, the thick trembling fingers, stained with nicotine, and the raggedly cut nails.

“He was prone to asthma, that’s all. Purely a stress condition.”

“Then, why…?”

Tilley looked slightly embarrassed.

“I suppose that I was being flippant.”

“You do not seem unduly upset by the death of your colleague?”

Tilley sniffed disparagingly.

“Colleague? He was my boss. He never let anyone who worked for him forget that he was the boss, that he was the arbiter of their fate in the company. Whether the man was a doorman or his senior vice-president, Harry Kinloch Gray was a “hands on” chairman and his word was law. If he took a dislike to you, then you were out immediately, no matter how long you had worked with the company. He was the archetypical Victorian self-made businessman. Autocratic, mean and spiteful. He should have had no place in the modern business world.”

Fane sat back and listened to the bitterness in the man’s voice.

“Was he the sort of man who had several enemies then?”

Tilley actually smiled at the humour.

“He was the sort of man who did not have any friends.”

“How long have you worked for him?”

“I’ve spent ten years in the company. I was his personal secretary for the last five of those years.”

“Rather a long time to spend with someone you don’t like? You must have been doing something right for him not to take a dislike to you and sack you, if, as you say, that was his usual method of dealing with employees.”

Tilley shifted uneasily at Fane’s sarcasm.

“What has this to do with Mister Gray’s death?” he suddenly countered.

“Just seeking some background.”

“What happened?” Tilley went on. “I presume that he had some sort of heart attack?”

“Did he have a heart condition then?”

“Not so far as I know. He was overweight and ate like a pig. With all the stress he carried about with him, it wouldn’t surprise me to know that that was the cause.”