Freeman Crofts – Inspector French’s Greatest Case (страница 11)

‘To see him in the office on the following morning. I can show you the letter.’ He touched a bell and gave the necessary instructions. ‘There it is,’ he continued, handing over the paper which the clerk brought in.

It was an octavo sheet of memorandum paper with the firm’s name printed on the top, and bore the following typewritten letter:

‘20th November.

‘H. A. SCHOOFS, ESQ.

‘I should be obliged if you would please ask Mr Vanderkemp to come over and see me here at 10.00 a.m. on Wednesday, 26th inst., as I wish him to undertake negotiations for a fresh purchase. He may have to go to Stockholm at short notice.’

The note was signed ‘R. A. Duke,’ with the attendant flourish with which French had grown familiar.

He sat staring at the sheet of paper, trying to fit this new discovery into the scheme of things. But it seemed to him an insoluble puzzle. Was Mr Duke not really the innocent, kindly old gentleman he had fancied, but rather a member, if not the author, of some deep-seated conspiracy? If he had written this note, why had he not mentioned the fact when Vanderkemp was being discussed? Why had he shown surprise when he received Schoofs’ letter saying that the traveller had crossed to London? What was at the bottom of the whole affair?

An idea struck him, and he examined the letter more closely.

‘Are you sure this is really Mr Duke’s signature?’ he asked slowly.

Mr Schoofs looked at him curiously.

‘Why, yes,’ he answered. ‘At least, it never occurred to me to doubt it.’

‘You might let me see some of his other letters.’

In a few seconds half a dozen were produced, and French began whistling below his breath as he sat comparing the signatures, using a lens which he took from his pocket. After he had examined each systematically, he laid them down on the table and sat back in his chair.

‘That was stupid of me,’ he announced. ‘I should have learnt all I wanted without asking for these other letters. That signature is forged. See here, look at it for yourself.’

He passed the lens to Schoofs, who in his turn examined the name.

‘You see, the lines of that writing are not smooth; they are a mass of tiny shakes and quivers. That means that they have not been written quickly and boldly; they have been slowly drawn or traced over pencil. Compare one of these other notes and you will see that while at a distance the signatures look identical, in reality they are quite different. No, Mr Duke never wrote that. I am afraid Mr Vanderkemp has been the victim of some trick.’

Schoofs was visibly excited. He hung on the other’s words and nodded emphatically at his conclusions. Then he swore comprehensively in Dutch. ‘Good heavens, Inspector!’ he cried. ‘You see the significance of all that?’

French glanced at him keenly.

‘In what way?’ he demanded.

‘Why, here we have a murder and a robbery, and then we have this, occurring at the very same time … Well, does it not look suggestive?’

‘You mean the two things are connected?’

‘Well, what do you think?’ Mr Schoofs replied with some impatience.

‘It certainly does look like it,’ French admitted slowly. Already his active brain was building up a theory, but he wanted to get the other’s views. ‘You are suggesting, I take it, that Vanderkemp may have been concerned in the crime?’

Schoofs shook his head decidedly.

‘I am suggesting nothing of the kind,’ he retorted. ‘That’s not my job. The thing merely struck me as peculiar.’

‘No, no,’ French answered smoothly, ‘I have not expressed myself clearly. Neither of us are making any accusation. We are simply consulting together in a private, and, I hope, a friendly way, each anxious only to find out the truth. Any suggestion may be helpful. If I make the suggestion that Mr Vanderkemp is the guilty man in order to enable us to discuss the possibility, it does not follow that either of us believe it to be true, still less that I should act on it.’

‘I am aware of that, but I don’t make any such suggestion.’

‘Then I do,’ French declared, ‘simply as a basis for discussion. Let us suppose then, purely for argument’s sake, that Mr Vanderkemp decides to make some of the firm’s wealth his own. He is present when the stones are being put into the safe, and in some way when Mr Duke’s back is turned, he takes an impression of the key. He crosses to London, either finds Gething in the office or is interrupted by him, murders the old man, takes the diamonds, and clears out. What do you think of that?’

‘What about the letter?’

‘Well, that surely fits in? Mr Vanderkemp must leave this office in some way which won’t arouse your suspicion or cause you to ask questions of the London office. What better way than by forging the letter?’

Mr Schoofs swore for the second time. ‘If he has done that,’ he cried hotly, ‘let him hang! I’ll do everything I can, Inspector, to help you to find out, and that not only on general grounds, but for old Gething’s sake, for whom I had a sincere regard.’

‘I thought you would feel that way, sir. Now to return to details. I suppose you haven’t the envelope that letter came in?’

‘Never saw it,’ Mr Schoofs replied. ‘The clerk who opened it would destroy it.’

‘Better have the clerk in, and we’ll ask the question.’

Mr Schoofs made a sudden gesture.

‘By jove!’ he cried. ‘It was Vanderkemp himself. He acts as head clerk when he is here.’

‘Then we don’t get any evidence there. Either the letter came through the post, in which case he destroyed the envelope in the usual way, or else he brought the letter to the office and slipped it in among the others.’

French picked up the letter again. Experience had taught him that typescript could be extremely characteristic, and he wondered if this in question could be made to yield up any of its secrets.

It certainly had peculiarities. The lens revealed a dent in the curve of the n, where the type had evidently struck something hard, and the tail of the g was slightly defective.

French next examined the genuine letters, and was interested to find their type showed the same irregularities. It was therefore certain that the forged letter had been typed in the London office.

He sat thinking deeply, unconsciously whistling his little tune through his closed teeth. There was another peculiarity about the forged note. The letters were a trifle indented, showing that the typewriter keys had been struck with rather more than the usual force. He turned the sheet over, and he saw that so much was this the case that the stops were punched almost through. Picking up the genuine letters, he looked for the same peculiarity, but the touch in these cases was much lighter and even the full stop barely showed through. This seemed to justify a further deduction—that the writer of the forged note was unskilled, probably an amateur, while that of the others was an expert. French felt he could safely assume that the forged note had been typed by some unauthorised person, using the machine in the London office.

But, so far as he could see, these deductions threw no light on the guilt or innocence of Vanderkemp. The letter might have come from some other person in London, or Vanderkemp might have typed it himself during one of his visits to the metropolis. More data was wanted before a conclusion could be reached.

Though from what he had seen of Schoofs, the inspector thought it unlikely that he was mixed up in what he was beginning to believe was a far-reaching conspiracy, he did not mention his discoveries to him, but continued trying to pump him for further information about the missing traveller. Vanderkemp, it seemed, was a tall man, or would have been if he held himself erect, but he had stooped shoulders and a slouching way of walking which detracted from his height. He was inclining to stoutness, and had dark hair and a sallow complexion. His chin was clean shaven, but he wore a heavy dark moustache. Glasses covered his shortsighted eyes.

French obtained some samples of his handwriting, but no photograph of him was available. In fact, Mr Schoofs did not seem able to supply any further information, nor did an interrogation of the typist and office boy, both of whom spoke a little English, produce any better results.

‘Where did Mr Vanderkemp live?’ French asked, when he thought he had exhausted the resources of the office.

It appeared that the traveller was unmarried, and Mr Schoofs did not know if he had any living relatives other than Harrington. He boarded with Mevrouw Bondix, in the Kinkerstraat, and thither the two men betook themselves, French begging the other’s company in case he should be needed as interpreter. Mevrouw Bondix was a garrulous little old lady who had but little English, and upon whom Schoofs’ questions acted as a push button does on an electric bell. She overwhelmed them with a flood of conversation of which French could understand not one word, and from which even the manager was hard put to it to extract the meaning. But the gist of the matter was that Vanderkemp had left her house at half-past eight on the night before the murder, with the expressed intention of taking the 9.00 train for London. Since then she had neither seen him nor heard from him.