“He put it all back,” said Mr. Craine sharply.
“If he ever took it,” said Mr. Birley. “It’s never been proved.”
“And never will be now,” said Mr. Craine.
“I expect you’re right,” said Bohun. “If Mr. Hoffman can’t spot the join, I don’t suppose anyone will ever do any better. Particularly as the money was put back almost at once: and all the interim trust accounts seem to have disappeared into the limbo.”
“Then what—” said Mr. Birley.
“But the fact that no one seems to know where it ultimately came from doesn’t alter the fact that at some time or other this money will have to be paid back.”
“How do you know that it was a loan,” said Mr. Birley. “He may—well, he may have been left the money.”
“I can’t think you intend the suggestion seriously,” said Bohun. “If the money had been left to him you’d certainly have known of it—but in any case, it doesn’t arise. It’s now quite certain that Abel Horniman was paying interest on the money down to the day of his death. The item appears in his bank book. Forty-eight pounds two and sixpence. Three and a half per cent per annum on ten thousand pounds, less tax. Rather a significant item.”
“Who was the money paid to?” said Mr. Craine.
One of the oddest points of this odd conversation was that both the partners seemed unconsciously to be treating Bohun as an equal.
“The money was drawn by Abel in cash,” said Bohun. “We’ve just found that out. I presume he paid the money for security reasons into a private account—at another bank. Then he could pay the interest by cheque—to—”
“To whom,” said Mr. Birley and Mr. Craine in a grammatical dead-heat.
“Well, that’s just it,” said Bohun smoothly. “To whoever he got the money from, I suppose.”
“The whole thing’s inexplicable,” said Mr. Craine. “Speaking quite frankly—since all the cards are on the table—Abel had no security he could borrow on. He had this business, of course. That produced a good income—but there was no equity in it. Certainly nothing he could pledge. His London house and his farm and estate were mortgaged to the hilt, and over.”
“Where he got it from,” said Bohun, “heaven knows. It’s even been suggested that he took a gun and robbed a bank. One thing seems certain—or anyway highly probable. Smallbone found out the truth about it. And the truth, if it had been exposed—as Smallbone would have revelled in exposing it, he was that sort of person—would have resulted in ruin for Abel Horniman and disaster for his firm. That, it seems plain, is why he was killed.”
He paused.
“Now that Abel is dead the first threat has lost its sting. The second one, of course, remains. That’s why I took the liberty just now of suggesting that the firm might find itself in need of some ready capital.”
V
“Major Fernough?” said Sergeant Plumptree. He wondered if he sounded as tired as he felt.
“Yes, this is Major Fernough speaking.”
“I’m sorry to trouble you. I am speaking on behalf of Horniman, Birley and—that’s right. Your solicitors. We are trying to trace a call made to the office on February 27th.”
“Was that a Saturday?”
“That’s right.”
“In the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Funny thing you should mention it,” said Major Fernough. “Wait a moment whilst I look at my diary. Yes. You’re quite right. I did ring the office that morning. Just after eleven o’clock. What about it?”
“Well—er—who did you speak to?” said Sergeant Plumptree cautiously.
“Don’t be silly,” said Major Fernough. “That’s the whole point. That’s what I complained about. I didn’t speak to anybody. There was no one there. I rang up three times. Damnably slack. If you say you’re going to have someone in the office on Saturday morning then you ought to have someone in the office.”
“Quite so, sir,” said Sergeant Plumptree, with heartfelt gratitude. “Thank you, sir. Thank you, indeed.”
VI
As soon as Mr. Birley reached his house in St. George’s Square that evening, he went upstairs to his bedroom. A glass-topped hospital table stood beside the bed, and above the bed was a large white cupboard.
Mr. Birley opened the cupboard and surveyed the solid array of bottles. He considered his latest symptoms with the earnest zest of a practised hypochondriac. Latterly he had been seeing dashes. Not dots or spots—these were common enough and could easily be dealt with by a dose of salts—but bar-shaped dashes sometimes flanking, sometimes superimposed upon the dots. The whole effect was not unlike a message in morse.
Mr. Birley weighed his symptoms against his powerful array of remedies, and finally selected a large green bottle and poured himself out a measured medicine glass of ruby-coloured liquid. He stirred it for a moment with a rod, then downed it in one. After this he inspected his tongue in the glass, felt his pulse, and closed his eyes again.
The dashes were still there, but fainter.
Mr. Birley repeated the dose twice and quite suddenly began to feel happier. (This was not actually surprising, since what he was drinking was, had he known it, very inferior port masquerading as a health tonic and sold in small bottles at a very superior price.)
Mr. Birley went downstairs to his study and sat at his desk. He thought with distaste of Henry Bohun and with active dislike of Mr. Craine. He thought of Bob Horniman and, with no very great charity, of the dead Abel Horniman. He thought of the future. Ahead of him stretched unbroken reefs of trouble. Endless shocks to his nervous system; endless assaults on his gastric fluids; endless nights when fear of insomnia would prove more potent than insomnia itself.
After all, he reflected, he had no need of his professional earnings. He had never spent half of them and the accumulation of years served only to excite the rapacity of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
And lastly, and by no means least, if anything unpleasant did happen—and that damned fellow Bohun had sounded very confident—might it not be better if it could be shown that he had taken steps before…
He pulled a sheet of paper towards him and started to write.
VII
After supper that night Bohun put on his working clothes, told Mrs. Magoli not to wait up for him, and started out.
He wanted to think, and he had found that walking at night through the streets of the City was one of the best ways of thinking. He was not due on his watchman’s job until ten o’clock, so there was no need to hurry.
It was a lovely night, with high, packed white clouds and the moon playing hide-and-seek between them. Bohun made his way steadily eastwards, only dimly conscious of the route he was taking but certain with the certainty of a born Londoner that he could not stray very far from his bearing.
There were two distinct and separate problems. He saw that now. It was confusion over this prime fact that had created to date so much unnecessary obscurity. The first was the problem of who had killed Mr. Smallbone, and why had they done it—with the pendant to it, of why it had been necessary to remove Miss Chittering. The other problem was how Abel Horniman had managed to lay his hands on ten thousand pounds.
The two problems were connected, of course. Here Bohun felt himself to be on secure ground. The chain of causation, in outline, was as he had laid it before Birley and Craine. Abel Horniman had raised ten thousand pounds by some method on the windy side of the law. Marcus Smallbone had found out about it. Marcus Smallbone was the sort of man who was known to be untiring in nosing out scandals, indefatigable in his zeal for proclaiming them to the world. Therefore somebody who did not wish the facts to be known had removed Mr. Smallbone with a homemade cheese cutter. And seeing exposure threatened from some indiscretion of Miss Chittering, had removed her, too.