“Well,” said Bohun. “I can quite understand why the detective story writers don’t set about it in your way. They’d never get any readers.”
“You’re right,” said Hazlerigg. “It’s a damned dull process.”
III
But even as he spoke the process was beginning.
Hazlerigg’s orders to his assistants, given the night before, had been explicit.
To Mr. Hoffman he had said: “I want you to go through the accounts and the papers of the firm. First I want to find out if they are solvent. They look solvent, I agree, but you never know. And even if they’re solvent I want to know how their profits at the present day compare with their profits—let’s say, ten years ago. I don’t want you to confine yourself strictly or solely to the money side of it. It’s wider than that. I want a note of any bit of business which is reflected in their papers and records which seems in any way out of the ordinary; any references which aren’t self-explanatory; anything which doesn’t quite fit in.”
Mr. Hoffman nodded. He was a qualified accountant attached to the Fraud Squad. A man who hunted down facts with the passionless pleasure of a butterfly collector and pinned them to his board with the same cold precision. His last six months had been spent investigating the affairs of two Poles who specialised in treading that narrow path which runs between bankruptcy and favourable compositions with creditors. Mr. Hoffman had dropped both these over-ingenious gentlemen into his killing-jar the week before, and was therefore luckily available to help Hazlerigg.
“I’ve given instructions,” went on the chief inspector, “that you’re to be treated as one of the firm’s auditors. Any books or papers you want will be shown to you. Of course, if you find that anything is being kept from you—that’ll be helpful, too.”
Mr. Hoffman nodded again.
To other gentlemen Hazlerigg entrusted the detailed investigation into the lives and habits, the pasts and the presents of all the members of the firm who figured on Colley’s List Two.
Into the life’s history of William Hatchard Birley, a Bachelor of Laws of Oxford University, who lived in a large sunless house in St. George’s Square, Pimlico, and spent a surprising proportion of his income on patent medicines.
Into the daily round of Tristram Craine, possessor of the Military Cross, father of two children and the owner of a house at Epsom.
Into the doings of Robert Andrew Horniman of Harrow School and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, the passion of whose otherwise dull life was the sailing of small boats in dangerous waters.
Down into the questionable genesis of Eric Duxford, the colours of whose old school tie proved puzzling to the pundits of the Burlington Arcade, and whose expenditure seemed, contrary to Mr. Micawber’s well-known dictum, to exceed his income without diminishing his bank balance.
Into the vivid past of John Ambrey Cove, whose public school had grown reluctantly but definitely tired of him in 1935, and who had spent the succeeding three years, before he became articled to Horniman, Birley and Craine, in a series of half-hearted jobs in the United States of America, Canada and Japan; who had had a markedly successful war, moving from staff to staff, keeping a step ahead of Providence and the Postings Branch of the War Office.
Into the career of Eustace Cockerill, late a sergeant in the Royal Artillery, a member of the Corps of Commissionaires, who expended such tender care over the fuchsias in the garden of his house in Muswell Hill, and had, as appeared later, another and more surprising hobby.
Nor were the ladies forgotten. From Elizabeth Cornel, of Sevenoaks, that participator in women’s golf championships, via Anne Mildmay, daughter of a celebrated father, to Cissie Chittering who lived in Dulwich and spent her evenings in country dancing and decorative poker-work, and Florence Bellbas, who lived in Golder’s Green but apparently had no other hobbies.
To Sergeant Plumptree, in whose unspectacular methods he had great confidence, Hazlerigg allotted an important part of the routine.
“I want to find out more about Smallbone,” he said. “I want to know what sort of man he was. We’ve had one picture from the people who did his business for him in this office, and quite a different one from his landlady. I expect you noticed that. Which one was the truth? I want you to find out. Talk to his friends and family—”
“I don’t think he’s got any family, sir.”
“If you go back as far as the twelfth century,” said Hazlerigg gravely, “you will find that everyone in England is related to everybody else in England in at least one hundred and thirty-five different ways.”
“Indeed, sir,” said Sergeant Plumptree insubordinately.
He started his investigation by revisiting Wellingboro’ Road; but beyond another cup of strong tea he got little that was new from Mrs. Tasker. She suggested that Sergeant Plumptree might try at some of the museums. Mr. Smallbone had been quite an enthusiast for museums. Apparently, he’d often spend his whole day there.
This did not seem to be an outstandingly hopeful idea, but for want of anything better the sergeant started on a tour of the many large museums which lie in a compact belt along the southern edge of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. He paid particular attention to the china and pottery sections. None of their custodians could give him any help. It appeared that all museums are full of small, earnest, elderly men who spend timeless days drifting from exhibit to exhibit, along the marble aisles.
It was late in the afternoon, and Sergeant Plumptree was very tired indeed when he arrived, on his pilgrimage from west to east, at the last and greatest of all the museums: and here he had both an inspiration and a piece of luck. At the reading-room he exhibited his card and was soon in conversation with the senior librarian. Indexes and files were produced, and with a speed which any Horniman disciple might have envied, the name of Marcus Smallbone was unearthed.
“We make them register,” said the librarian, “when they first come here; a matter of routine. We can’t have just anyone at all wandering in and out. And we take a reference, one reference, at least. Some of the books are valuable, you know. Can’t be too careful.”
In the section of the card devoted to Mr. Smallbone’s references Sergeant Plumptree noted with quickening interest the names of Abel Horniman and the Reverend Eustace Evander, Vicar of St. Cuthbert’s-Within-the-Minories, E.C. The librarian obligingly departed in search of an up-to-date Crockford. Sergeant Plumptree had a momentary presentiment that the Reverend Eustace might have died or been promoted Bishop of Hawaii. However, all was well. He was apparently still at his post. Plumptree took a bus for the City.
Evensong at St. Cuthbert’s takes place early, to suit the convenience of the few City workers who can be induced to attend, and it was just finishing as the sergeant arrived.
The Reverend Eustace, a vast red man who had taken his college eight to the head of the river in ’08, sinking outright two of the four boats which stood in his way, and had been treating the powers of darkness in the same summary manner ever since, welcomed Sergeant Plumptree with a paralysing handshake and invited him round to a cup of cocoa.