The Dorset House Affair Page 7

  Box was conscious of a measured tread coming from a room immediately above the study. Someone was evidently carrying out an investigation there. He glanced up at the ceiling.

  ‘That’s Dr Walsh, the police surgeon,’ said Edwards. ‘He’s already examined this body, and places the time of death at somewhere between three and four o’clock yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘What do you think happened here, Mr Edwards?’

  ‘Well, the young woman was sitting at that writing-table, reading or writing, so that she had her back to the room. The murderer rushed in. She sprang to her feet and instinctively turned to face him, and he shot her in the chest.’

  ‘Is the bullet still in the body?’ asked Box.

  ‘No. It passed through her body, and is embedded in the wall behind her. There is some bleeding from the rear wound, but little, as you can see, on the chest. There’s her chair, fallen over to the right. Her dead body fell backwards on to the floor. That’s what happened here.’

  Box leaned forward across the body, and examined the writing-table.

  ‘There’s a little steel paper knife, here, Mr Edwards,’ he said, ‘lying on top of an opened envelope, but there’s no sign of a letter. And the envelope – it’s got no address written on it, and it’s never been through the post…. Ah! It’s one of her own envelopes: there’s a little pile of them, here, in this pigeon hole. So it may not have been a letter. It could have been a document of some sort, which she had filed away in that envelope. Whatever it was, it’s possible that she was reading it when the killer came in. Perhaps he recognized its contents, and took it away with him.’

  ‘There’s another possibility Mr Box,’ said Inspector Edwards.

  ‘The killer may have been known to this Miss Lénart, who admitted him to the house. Perhaps she was going to show him the contents of the document, and while she was doing so, he killed her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, perhaps … perhaps she was a professional blackmailer, and whoever the killer was, he’d pretended to come here to pay her what she demanded. But instead of that, he shot her dead. Things like that have happened before.’

  Arnold Box looked doubtful. It was a clever idea, but it was too early to theorize about this killing. There was another dead body upstairs to examine. Sergeant Knollys had joined them, and Edwards suggested that it was time to join the police surgeon upstairs. The two detectives followed him out of the room.

  The same cloying smell of approaching dissolution met them as they entered the master bedroom, which overlooked the square. Lying on a wide double bed with ornate velvet hangings was the body of a young man in his mid-twenties. He was wearing a dress shirt and waistcoat, but his evening jacket was arranged neatly on the back of a chair, under which were placed his patent leather dress shoes. The young man, like the young woman downstairs, had been shot in the chest at close range. An elderly doctor, who was standing beside the bed, looked up as the policemen entered the room.

  ‘This young man was shot dead at about midnight on Friday night,’ he said, without waiting for any of them to speak. ‘That’s a good eight hours after the unfortunate female downstairs. There’s nothing else I can do here, so if you don’t mind, I’ll get on with making the necessary arrangements. I need these bodies at the Middlesex Hospital mortuary within the hour if I’m to do a meaningful post-mortem.’

  Dr Walsh nodded to the police officers, and hurried from the room.

  Box approached the bed, and looked down at the young man’s body. His head was partly hidden by a counterpane, which someone – the doctor, perhaps, or PC Denny – had thrown over his face.

  ‘It looks to me,’ said Box, ‘that he was undressing prior to retiring to bed, when our murderer rushed into the room and shot him dead.’

  ‘That’s so,’ said Edwards. ‘There’s the weapon, lying over there near the fireplace. It’s a Webley Mark II .445 revolver, standard British Army issue. Two shots have been fired. The remaining four bullets are still in the cylinder.’

  Arnold Box leaned carefully over the bed, and gently removed the counterpane from the young man’s face. He was quite unable to restrain a cry of surprise. The body was that of Maurice Claygate, whose birthday celebration he had attended on the previous evening.

  ‘That’s why I asked for you particularly, Mr Box,’ said Inspector Edwards. ‘I knew you’d been on duty at Dorset House last night, and that you’d recognize him.’ He looked down at the body of the young man with scarcely concealed contempt.

  ‘He was to be married in just over a week,’ he said, ‘to a fine young lady from a very old northern family. But that didn’t stop him sneaking out here to Soho, to be with this foreign girl. Maurice and Sophie…. How touching!’

  ‘Aren’t you drawing conclusions a bit too early, Mr Edwards?’ asked Box.

  ‘What other conclusion can you draw, Mr Box? I’ve no time for a man who plights his troth to one woman in Mayfair, and secretly keeps another in Soho.’

  Box said nothing. Joe Edwards was entitled to his view of the matter. He wasn’t too keen on this dead philanderer himself. He turned to look once more at the body of the young man whom he had seen, apparently happy and carefree, on the previous evening. Maurice Claygate’s face revealed nothing of his feelings at the moment of death. Composed and tranquil, his eyes were closed. The wound in his chest had evidently bled a little, as a congealed stream of blood was visible leading away from where the bullet hole appeared neat and dark against the starched white of his shirt. As Box made to turn the body over, Inspector Edwards made a comment.

  ‘There’s no exit wound in the back, Mr Box. The bullet must have lodged in the backbone. We’ll know for certain once Dr Walsh has opened the body.’

  ‘If he was getting ready for bed,’ said Box, ‘then he was going to spend the night here, and return to Dorset House in the morning. He must have known this young woman, this Sophie Lénart. I— Wait! I’ve just remembered something. It was last night, while the fireworks were being set off. I was standing near to Maurice Claygate when a footman appeared with a folded note for him. What was it he said? I can’t remember….

  ‘He read the message, and I saw him smile. He excused himself to his friends, and said that a little assignation was in the offing – yes, those were his very words! In a moment he’d disappeared in the crowd. He said he wouldn’t be long, and that when he came back, they could all go on to the Cockade Club. But as you see, he never did.’

  ‘So I was right, you see. All that talk of going on to a club was a blind. Maurice Claygate knew this woman Sophie Lénart,’ said Inspector Edwards. ‘I wonder who she was? Perhaps they’ll know at Dorset House. In any case, I’ll go through the rates books this afternoon. They’ll tell me who she was.’

  ‘I don’t think they’ll have heard of this Sophie at Dorset House, Mr Edwards,’ said Box. ‘This Maurice Claygate was known to be a bit of a philanderer. He’d already compromised a young French lady, and then abandoned her for a new lady-love. It’s quite possible that this Sophie was another of his conquests. I wonder whether he put that note the footman gave him in his pocket? If so, it could still be there.’

  There was nothing in the pocket of the tail coat hanging over the back of the chair. Box bent over the dead man, and began a deft search of his clothes. A silver dress watch in his fob pocket had run down, its fingers pointing to seven o’clock. Here was a silk handkerchief, thrust deep into the left-hand trouser pocket. And here in the other one— What was this? A folded piece of note paper….

  ‘Here it is,’ said Box. ‘“Come straight away to Lexington Place. If you fail me, I will tell your papa all. Sophie”. Hardly blackmail, but it suggests that this wretched young man was entangled with Miss Lénart. But then again—’

  ‘Then again, Mr Box,’ said Edwards, ‘someone else may have written that note in order to lure him to his death. A murderous rival, perhaps. First the lady, then her lover. But it’s too early for us to dream up possible theories. The police hearses will be here any minute, and there’s a lot of routine work to be done. I expect you’re anxious to be getting on your way. If anything new turns up, Mr Box, I’ll come down to King James’s Rents and give you the details.’

  As soon as Inspector Edwards had gone, Box drew Knollys out on to the landing.

  ‘Listen, Jack,’ he said, ‘there’s something about this business that won’t hold water. Young Maurice Claygate receives a note from his lady-friend: “Come and see me, or I’ll tell your pa everything”, or words to that effect. I saw him receive that note, Jack, and he looked amused at it, which was very odd, to say the least.’

  ‘I expect his pa knew what a scamp he was,’ said Knollys, ‘so that the young lady’s threat would hold no terrors for him.’

  ‘Perhaps. Off he rushes, leaving his birthday guests to fend for themselves. He arrives here – and what does he do? He comes upstairs, and prepares for bed. Why didn’t he seek out his lady-friend to ask her what it was all about?’

  ‘Maybe he did, sir, and then when she’d told him what was the matter, he went upstairs—’

  ‘No, Jack, you’re not thinking straight. When Maurice Claygate arrived here Sophie Lénart had been dead for eight hours! If he’d discovered her body, he wouldn’t have then calmly prepared for a good night’s sleep. It’s all wrong. And there’s something else. The footman who handed Maurice Claygate the note was a small-time villain called Aristotle Stamfordis – Harry the Greek. What was he doing at Dorset House? It was none of my business last night. I was there to take safe possession of a secret document for Sir Charles Napier. But I intend to make it my business to find out what Stamfordis was doing there at the party last night.’

  ‘What do you want us to do now, sir?’ asked Knollys.

 
‘I’m going back to King James’s Rents. Mr Mackharness needs to be told about this development. Meanwhile, I want you to go to Callaghan’s Cab Yard in Old Compton Street, and have a look at the abandoned cab that PC Denny found. I can’t for the moment see what connection it could have with this business, but it deserves to be looked at.’

  As they emerged from the house into Lexington Place, they were descended upon by a knot of eager reporters, notebooks at the ready. A little band of curious onlookers were being kept away from two closed hearses that were lumbering towards the house over the cobbles.

  ‘Anything for us, Mr Box? … Is it true that Mr Maurice Claygate’s lying murdered in there? … Who’s the lady? What’s her name? … Were they stabbed or shot? Are the police going to make a statement?’ Box remained silent, but he knew that from his silence these eager questioners would weave sensational accounts of the Soho murders.

  Box shooed the reporters away as though they were a cloud of flies, and allowed Sergeant Knollys to beat a path through the crowd towards the opposite pavement.

  ‘Jack,’ said Box, ‘this double murder is going to be the sensation of the week in the evening papers, and all over the weekend. They’ll all be relishing the fact that a well-known scapegrace, one of the gilded youth of the metropolis, had been found murdered in a house belonging to a mysterious foreign woman. I’m going to take a brisk walk back to the Rents by way of Haymarket and Cockspur Street. You go, now, to Callaghan’s Cab Yard, and look into the business of that abandoned hansom.’

  Callaghan’s Cab Yard proved to be a vast, cobbled, open arena enclosed on all sides by high brick walls, and entered from Old Compton Street through a carriageway that could be closed at night by tall iron gates. A long range of stables occupied the far wall, and Knollys could see a number of grooms at work, together with a farrier, whose glowing brazier stood on an ash-strewn square of paving-stones.

  Ranged against the other walls of the yard were rows of hansom cabs, leaning at a drunken angle towards the ground, with their shafts rising into the air. From a distance they looked to Knollys like a flock of obedient long-necked geese waiting to be slaughtered. There was a strong smell of manure about the place, and an air of constant activity.

  Sergeant Knollys walked the length of the yard until he came to a brick shed built against the end wall. Thick black smoke poured from a chimney on its roof, and the breeze blew it down in an acrid cloud across the yard. A painted board above the door announced that the shed was the General Office.

  ‘Hey, you, what do you want?’ cried a very powerful, hectoring voice from inside the shed. In a moment, a tall, stout man emerged, clutching a handful of bills. His red face seemed fixed in a permanently belligerent frown, and his little staring eyes started from their sockets. The man wore a heavy fawn greatcoat and a brown bowler hat. His legs were clad in leather gaiters rising from stout brown boots.

  ‘I’m looking for Mr Callaghan,’ said Sergeant Knollys.

  ‘Well, you’ve found him, haven’t you? What do you want? I’ll have no damned loiterers hanging around my yard.’

  Sergeant Knollys sighed, and produced his warrant card. ‘Detective Sergeant Knollys of Scotland Yard,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to enquire about an abandoned cab that was brought in here earlier this afternoon. I’d like to have a look at it, if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘Police, hey?’ said Mr Callaghan. ‘I’ve no truck with the police, mister. They’ve nothing better to do than stop poor cabbies to look at their papers, or to move them on. “Move on”, they say. Where the deuce are they supposed to move? They might be waiting for a fare to come out of a particular address, but that doesn’t worry the police.’

  ‘This abandoned cab was brought in by a shopkeeper,’ said Knollys. ‘If you’ll show me where it is, I’ll have a look at it and be on my way.’

  Mr Callaghan waved a hand towards a section of wall beyond the stables, where three rather dirty cabs stood forlornly, their shafts in the air. One of them, Box noted, had a broken window.

  ‘I can’t remember every damned thing that happens in this yard,’ said Callaghan. ‘It was one of those three cabs you see over there. Have a look if you like, and then I’ll be obliged if you’ll take yourself off. Hey, Ernie! What are you doing, leaning against the wall like that? Find some work to do, or you’ll be out on your ear this instant!’

  As Mr Callaghan made to move away, Sergeant Knollys put a restraining hand on his arm. The man started in surprise.

  ‘Callaghan,’ said Sergeant Knollys, ‘I am investigating a double murder, and it’s possible that the hansom cab that was brought in here has a connection with that crime. You have refused to cooperate with me without good or sufficient reason, so I am taking you in for questioning—’

  ‘Gawd strewth, Officer,’ cried the bully, turning pale, ‘there’s no need for that. I’m only too willing to co-operate. You must have misunderstood me. Come over here, and let me show you the cab in question.’

  It was an ordinary hansom cab, though dusty and a little dilapidated. It was the cab with the broken window that Knollys had already noticed. Mr Callaghan was now all smiles.

  ‘What did you say your name was, Officer? I didn’t quite catch it when we first met. Sergeant Knollys? Well, Sergeant, let me tell you about these three cabs. You’ll see that they’ve no licence plates, because they’re no longer in commission. They’re what we call second-hand. I usually have a few like that for sale. They’re very handy for a small tradesman or market-man – anyone in trade with his own horse.’

  ‘And what would I have to pay for a cab like this?’

  ‘I usually take about fifteen pounds, though I’m prepared to bargain on that score. This is the cab that was brought in this morning by a Mr Robinson, who keeps a shop in Carlyle Passage, just off Beak Street. As a matter of fact, I recognized it, because I’d sold it only a fortnight ago to a Greek-looking man who came in here with ready money.’

  ‘A Greek-looking man?’

  ‘Yes, you know, looks like a foreigner but isn’t one. Greek-looking. I told him it would cost him fifteen pounds, and he paid up without haggling. I’d have kept it here in the yard until he came looking for it, but if you want it, you’re welcome to take it. As for the horse, I can find out where he came from, if you like, and return him to his owner. Anyone round here will tell you how helpful I am to the authorities.’

  ‘I don’t want to take the cab, Mr Callaghan,’ said Knollys, ‘but I do want to look inside it. Then I’ll take myself off, as you put it.’

  Knollys opened the front flaps of the cab, and peered inside. Like most hansoms, it was dark and rather cramped, with a characteristic smell of stale tobacco and musty upholstery. Knollys drew his hand across the seat, and when he brought it into the light, he saw that it was smeared with congealed blood.

  Arnold Box sat at his little round table in the living-room of his furnished lodgings at 14 Cardinal’s Court, and sifted through a selection of the Saturday morning’s papers. The table was littered with the remains of his breakfast, and he was sipping a final cup of strong tea while he smoked one of his thin cheroots. His landlady at number 14, Mrs Peach, was a motherly, obliging lady, and she’d sent out her boy Leonard into nearby Fleet Street to purchase the day’s papers from the stall outside the Daily Telegraph offices.

  The Morning Post treated the murders with its usual judicious sobriety. ‘The tragic demise of Mr Maurice Claygate under such unusual circumstances,’ it said, ‘will be a cause of concern for many, but particularly to his parents, Sir John and Lady Claygate, and to Miss Julia Maltravers, the young lady who was affianced to the unfortunate young man. Inspector Joseph Edwards, “C” Division, had ascertained that the young woman, who, like Mr Claygate, had been shot in the chest with a pistol, was a Miss Sophie Lénart, thought to be a frenchwoman. Inspector Edwards, after consulting the rate books and other public documents, ascertained that Miss Lénart was a young lady of modest means, who earned a living as a commercial interpreter. She came originally from Paris, but had lived in England for a number of years. She was fluent in all the commercial languages – English, French, German and Spanish.’