Arthur Morrison - British Mystery Classics - Arthur Morrison Edition (Illustrated)

“You think it’s Goujon, don’t you?”

“Think? Well, rather! Look here! As soon as we got here on Saturday, we found this piece of paper and pin on the floor. We showed it to the housemaid, and then she remembered—she was too much upset to think of it before—that when she was in the room the paper was lying on the dead man’s chest—pinned there, evidently. It must have dropped off when they removed the body. It’s a case of half-mad revenge on Goujon’s part, plainly. See it; you read French, don’t you?”

The paper was a plain, large half-sheet of note-paper, on which a sentence in French was scrawled in red ink in a large, clumsy hand, thus:

puni par un vengeur de la tortue .

“ Puni par un vengeur de la tortue ,” Hewitt repeated musingly. “‘Punished by an avenger of the tortoise,’ That seems odd.”

“Well, rather odd. But you understand the reference, of course. Have they told you about Rameau’s treatment of Goujon’s pet tortoise?”

“I think it was mentioned among his other pranks. But this is an extreme revenge for a thing of that sort, and a queer way of announcing it.”

“Oh, he’s mad—mad with Rameau’s continual ragging and baiting,” Nettings answered. “Anyway, this is a plain indication—plain as though he’d left his own signature. Besides, it’s in his own language—French. And there’s his chopper, too.”

“Speaking of signatures,” Hewitt remarked, “perhaps you have already compared this with other specimens of Goujon’s writing?”

“I did think of it, but they don’t seem to have a specimen to hand, and, anyway, it doesn’t seem very important. There’s ‘avenger of the tortoise’ plain enough, in the man’s own language, and that tells everything. Besides, handwritings are easily disguised.”

“Have you got Goujon?”

“Well, no; we haven’t. There seems to be some little difficulty about that. But I expect to have him by this time to-morrow. Here comes Mr. Styles, the landlord.”

Mr. Styles was a thin, querulous, and withered-looking little man, who twitched his eyebrows as he spoke, and spoke in short, jerky phrases.

“No news, eh, inspector, eh? eh? Found out nothing else, eh? Terrible thing for my property—terrible! Who’s your friend?”

Nettings introduced Hewitt.

“Shocking thing this, eh, Mr. Hewitt? Terrible! Comes of having anything to do with these blood-thirsty foreigners, eh? New buildings and all—character ruined. No one come to live here now, eh? Tenants—noisy niggers—murdered by my own servants—terrible! You formed any opinion, eh?”

“I dare say I might if I went into the case.”

“Yes, yes—same opinion as inspector’s, eh? I mean an opinion of your own?” The old man scrutinized Hewitt’s face sharply.

“If you’d like me to look into the matter—” Hewitt began.

“Eh? Oh, look into it! Well, I can’t commission you, you know—matter for the police. Mischief’s done. Police doing very well, I think—must be Goujon. But look about the place, certainly, if you like. If you see anything likely to serve my interests, tell me, and—and—perhaps I’ll employ you, eh, eh? Good-afternoon.”

The landlord vanished, and the inspector laughed. “Likes to see what he’s buying, does Mr. Styles,” he said.

Hewitt’s first impulse was to walk out of the place at once. But his interest in the case had been roused, and he determined, at any rate, to examine the rooms, and this he did very minutely. By the side of the lobby was a bath-room, and in this was fitted a tip-up wash-basin, which Hewitt inspected with particular attention. Then he called the housekeeper, and made inquiries about Rameau’s clothes and linen. The housekeeper could give no idea of how many overcoats or how much linen he had had. He had all a negro’s love of display, and was continually buying new clothes, which, indeed, were lying, hanging, littering, and choking up the bedroom in all directions. The housekeeper, however, on Hewitt’s inquiring after such a garment in particular, did remember one heavy black ulster, which Rameau had very rarely worn—only in the coldest weather.

“After the body was discovered,” Hewitt asked the housekeeper, “was any stranger observed about the place—whether carrying anything or not?”

“No, sir,” the housekeeper replied. “There’s been particular inquiries about that. Of course, after we knew what was wrong and the body was gone, nobody was seen, or he’d have been stopped. But the hall-porter says he’s certain no stranger came or went for half an hour or more before that—the time about when the housemaid saw the body and fainted.”

At this moment a clerk from the landlord’s office arrived and handed Nettings a paper. “Here you are,” said Nettings to Hewitt; “they’ve found a specimen of Goujon’s handwriting at last, if you’d like to see it. I don’t want it; I’m not a graphologist, and the case is clear enough for me anyway.”

Hewitt took the paper. “This” he said, “is a different sort of handwriting from that on the paper. The red-ink note about the avenger of the tortoise is in a crude, large, clumsy, untaught style of writing. This is small, neat, and well formed—except that it is a trifle shaky, probably because of the hand injury.”

“That’s nothing,” contended Nettings. “Handwriting clues are worse than useless, as a rule. It’s so easy to disguise and imitate writing; and besides, if Goujon is such a good penman as you seem to say, why, he could all the easier alter his style. Say now yourself, can any fiddling question of handwriting get over this thing about ‘avenging the tortoise’—practically a written confession—to say nothing of the chopper, and what he said to the housemaid as he left?”

“Well,” said Hewitt, “perhaps not; but we’ll see. Meantime”—turning to the landlord’s clerk—“possibly you will be good enough to tell me one or two things. First, what was Goujon’s character?”

“Excellent, as far as we know. We never had a complaint about him except for little matters of carelessness—leaving coal-scuttles on the staircases for people to fall over, losing shovels, and so on. He was certainly a bit careless, but, as far as we could see, quite a decent little fellow. One would never have thought him capable of committing murder for the sake of a tortoise, though he was rather fond of the animal.”

“The tortoise is dead now, I understand?”

“Yes.”

“Have you a lift in this building?”

“Only for coals and heavy parcels. Goujon used to work it, sometimes going up and down in it himself with coals, and so on; it goes into the basement.”

“And are the coals kept under this building?”

“No. The store for the whole row is under the next two houses—the basements communicate.”

“Do you know Rameau’s other name?”

“César Rameau he signed in our agreement.”

“Did he ever mention his relations?”

“No. That is to say, he did say something one day when he was very drunk; but, of course, it was all rot. Some one told him not to make such a row—he was a beastly tenant—and he said he was the best man in the place, and his brother was Prime Minister, and all sorts of things. Mere drunken rant! I never heard of his saying anything sensible about relations. We know nothing of his connections; he came here on a banker’s reference.”