A few moments’ quick work, with the keys, and the lock turned. She pulled the little door open.
Inside was a bundle of papers. Miss Murchison ran them over – at first quickly – then again, with a puzzled face. Receipts for securities – Share certificates – Megatherium Trust – surely the names of those investments were familiar – where had she…?
Suddenly Miss Murchison sat down, feeling quite faint, the bundle of papers in her hand.
She realised now what had happened to Mrs. Wrayburn’s money, which Norman Urquhart had been handling under that confiding Deed of Trust, and why the matter of the will was so important. Her head whirled. She picked up a sheet of paper from the desk and began jotting down in hurried shorthand the particulars of the various transactions of which these documents were the evidence.
Somebody bumped at the door.
“Are you in here, miss?”
“Just a moment, Mrs. Hodges. I think I must have dropped it on the floor in here.”
She gave the big chair a sharp push, effectually closing the door.
She must hurry. Anyway she had got down enough to convince Lord Peter that Mr. Urquhart’s affairs needed looking into. She put the papers back into the cupboard, in the exact place from which she had taken them. The will was there, too, she noticed, laid on one side by itself. She peered in. There was something else, tucked away at the back. She thrust her hand in and pulled the mysterious object out. It was a white paper packet, labelled with the name of a foreign chemist. The end had been opened and tucked in again. She pulled the paper apart, and saw that the packet contained about two ounces of a fine white powder.
Next to hidden treasure and mysterious documents, nothing is more full of sensational suggestion than a packet of anonymous white powder. Miss Murchison caught up another sheet of clean paper, tipped a thimbleful of the powder into it, replaced the packet at the back of the cupboard and re-locked the door with the skeleton key. With trembling fingers she pushed the panel back into place, takmg care to shut it completely, so as to show no betraying dark line.
She rolled the chair away from the door and cried out gaily:
“I’ve got it, Mrs. Hodges!”
“There, now!” said Mrs. Hodges, appearing in the doorway.
“Just fancy!” said Miss Murchison. “I was looking through my patterns when Mr. Urquhart rang, and this one must have stuck to my frock and dropped on the floor in here.”
She held up a small piece of silk triumphantly. She had torn it from the lining of her bag in the course of the afternoon – a proof, if any were needed, of her devotion to her work, for the bag was a good one.
“Dearie me,” said Mrs. Hodges. “What a good thing you found it, wasn’t it, miss?”
“I nearly didn’t,” said Miss Murchison, “it was right in this dark corner. Well, I must fly to get there before the shop shuts. Good-night, Mrs. Hodges.”
But long before the accommodating Messrs. Bourne & Hollingsworth had closed their doors, Miss Murchison was ringing the second floor bell at 110a, Piccadilly.
She found a council in progress. There was the Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot, looking amiable, Chief-Inspector Parker, looking worried, Lord Peter, looking somnolent, and Bunter, who, having introduced her, retired to a position on the fringe of the assembly and hovered there looking correct.
“Have you brought us news, Miss Murchison? If so, you have come at the exact right moment to find the eagles gathered together. Mr. Arbuthnot, Chief Inspector Parker, Miss Murchison. Now let’s all sit down and be happy together. Have you had tea? or will you absorb a spot of something?”
Miss Murchison declined refreshment.
“H’m!” said Wimsey. “The patient refuses food. Her eyes glitter wildly. The expression is anxious. The lips are parted. The fingers fumble with the clasp of the bag. The symptoms point to an acute attack of communicativeness. Tell us the worst, Miss Murchison.”
Miss Murchison needed no urging. She told her adventures, and had the pleasure of holding her audience enthralled from the first word to the last. When she finally produced the screw of paper containing the white powder, the sentiments of the company expressed themselves in a round of applause, in which Bunter joined discreetly.
“Are you convinced, Charles?” asked Wimsey.
“I admit that I am heavily shaken,” said Parker. “Of course, the powder must be analysed -”
“It shall, embodied caution,” said Wimsey. “Bunter, make ready the rack and thumbscrew. Bunter has been taking lessons in Marsh’s test, and performs it to admiration. You know all about it too, Charles, don’t you?”
“Enough for a rough test.”
’Carry on then, my children. In the meanwhile, let us sum up our findings.”
Bunter went out and Parker, who had been making entries in a note-book, cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said, “the matter stands, I take it, like this. You say that Miss Vane is innocent, and you undertake to prove this by bringing a convincing accusation against Norman Urquhart. So far, your evidence against him is almost entirely concerned with motive, bolstered up by proofs of intent to mislead enquiry. You say that your investigations have brought the case against Urquhart to a point at which the police can, and ought to, take it up, and I am inclined to agree with you. I warn you, however, that you still have to establish evidence as to means and opportunity.”
“I know that. Tell us a new one.”
“All right, as long as you know it. Very well. Now Philip Boyes and Norman Urquhart are the only surviving relations of Mrs. Wrayburn, or Cremorna Garden, who is rich, and has money to leave. A number of years ago, Mrs. Wrayburn put all her affairs into the hands of Urquhart’s father, the only member of the family with whom she remained on friendly terms. On his father’s death, Norman Urquhart took over those affairs himself, and in 1920, Mrs. Wrayburn executed a Deed of Trust, giving him sole authority to handle her property. She also made a will, dividing her property unequally between her two great-nephews. Philip Boyes got all the real estate and £50,000 while Norman Urquhart took whatever was left and was also sole executor. Norman Urquhart when questioned about this Will, deliberately told you an untruth, saying that the bulk of the money was left to him, and even went so far as to produce a document purporting to be a draft of such a will. The pretended date of this draft is subsequent to that of the Will discovered by Miss Climpson, but there is no doubt that the draft itself was drawn out by Urquhart, certainly within the last three years and probably within the last few days. Moreover, the fact that the actual Will, though lying in a place accessible to Urquhart, was not destroyed by him, suggests that it was not, in fact, superseded by any subsequent testamentary disposition. By the way Wimsey, why didn’t he simply take the will and destroy it? As the sole surviving heir, he would then inherit without dispute.”
“Perhaps it didn’t occur to him. Or there might even be other relatives surviving. How about that uncle in Australia?”
“True. At any rate he didn’t destroy it. In 1925 Mrs. Wrayburn became completely paralysed and imbecile, so that there was no possibility of her ever enquiring into the dispostion of her estate or making another will.
“About this time, as we know from Mr. Arbuthnot, Urquhart took the dangerous step of plunging into speculation. He made mistakes, lost money, plunged more deeply to recover himself, and was involved to a large extent in the great crash of Megatherium Trust, Ltd. He certainly lost far more than he could possibly afford, and we now find, from Miss Murchison’s discoveries – of which I must say that I should hate to have to take official notice – that he had been consistently abusing his position as Trustee and employing Mrs. Wrayburn’s money for his private speculations. He deposited her holdings as security for large loans, and embarked the money thus raised in Megatherium and other wild-cat schemes.