The Charing Cross Mystery, J. S. Fletcher [portable ebook reader .txt] 📗

“Hannaford!⁠—dead!” he exclaimed. “Great Scott!⁠—why, he was as fit as a fiddle at noon yesterday, Hetherwick! He and his grand daughter called on me, and I took ’em to lunch⁠—I come from Sellithwaite, you know, so of course I knew them. Hannaford had to go as soon as we’d lunched⁠—some appointment⁠—so I showed the girl round a bit. Nice girl, that⁠—clever. Name of Rhona. Worth cultivating. And the old man’s dead! Bless me!”

“I don’t think there’s much doubt about foul play,” observed Hetherwick.

“Looks uncommonly like it,” said Kenthwaite. He went on with his double task. “Well,” he added, “sorry, but I can’t be of any use to Miss Hannaford today⁠—got to go down to a beastly Quarter Sessions case, my boy, and precious little time to catch my train. But tomorrow⁠—perhaps you can give ’m a hand this morning?”

“Yes,” answered Hetherwick. “I’m doing nothing. I’ll go round there after a while. I’m interested naturally. It’s a queer case.”

“Queer! Seems so, rather,” assented Kenthwaite. “Well⁠—give Miss Hannaford my sympathy and all that, and tell her that if there’s anything I can do when I get back⁠—you know what to say.”

“She said she’d relations here in London,” remarked Hetherwick.

“Cousins⁠—aunts⁠—something or other⁠—over Tooting way, I think,” agreed Kenthwaite. “Twenty past eight!⁠—Hetherwick, I’ll have to rush for it!”

He swallowed the last of his coffee, seized the bag and darted away; Hetherwick went back to his own chambers and breakfasted leisurely. And all the time he sat there he was pondering over the event of the previous midnight, and especially upon the sudden disappearance of the man with the stained fingers. To Hetherwick that disappearance seemed to argue guilt. He figured it in this way⁠—the man who ran away at Charing Cross had poisoned this other man in some clever and subtle fashion, by means of something which took a certain time to take effect, and, when that time arrived, did its work with amazing swiftness. Hetherwick, in his war service, had seen men die more times than he cared to remember. He had seen some men shot through the brain; he had seen others shot through the heart. But he had never seen any of these men⁠—some of them shot at his very side⁠—die with the extraordinary quickness with which Hannaford had died. And he came to a conclusion: if the man with the stained fingers had poisoned Hannaford, then he was somebody who had a rare and a profound knowledge of poisons.

He went round to Surrey Street at ten o’clock. Miss Hannaford, said the hotel proprietor, had gone with her aunt, a Mrs. Keeley, who had come early that morning, to see her grandfather’s dead body⁠—some police official had fetched them. But she had left a message for anyone who called⁠—that she would not be long away. And Hetherwick waited in the little dingy coffee-room; there were certain questions that he wanted to put to Rhona Hannaford, also he wanted to give her certain information.

“Very sad case this, sir,” observed the hotel proprietor, hovering about his breakfast-tables. “Cruel end for a fine healthy gentleman like Mr. Hannaford!”

“Very sad,” agreed Hetherwick. “You said last night⁠—or, rather, this morning⁠—that Mr. Hannaford was in good health and spirits when he went out early in the evening?”

“The best, sir! He was a cheery, affable gentleman⁠—fond of his joke. Joked and laughed with me as I opened the door for him⁠—never thinking, sir, as I should never see him again alive!”

“You don’t know where he was going?”

“I don’t, sir. And his granddaughter⁠—clever young lady, that, sir⁠—she don’t know, neither. She went to a theatre, along of her aunt, the lady that came early this morning. We wired the bad news to her first thing, and she came along at once. But him⁠—no, I don’t know where he went to spend his evening. Been in and out, and mostly out, ever since they were here, three days ago. House-hunting, so I understood.”

Rhona Hannaford presently returned, in company with a motherly-looking woman whom she introduced as her aunt, Mrs. Keeley. Then Hetherwick remembered that he had not introduced himself; rectifying that omission, he found that Kenthwaite had told Rhona who he was when he passed them the previous afternoon. He delivered Kenthwaite’s message and in his absence offered his own services.

“It’s very good of you,” said Rhona. “I don’t know that there’s anything to do. The police seem to be doing everything⁠—the inspector who was here last night was very kind just now, but, as he said, there’s nothing to be done until after the inquest.”

“Yes,” said Hetherwick. “And that is⁠—did he say when?”

“Tomorrow morning. He said I should have to go,” replied Rhona.

“So shall I,” observed Hetherwick. “They’ll only want formal evidence from you. I shall have to say more. I wish I could say more than I shall have to say.”

The two women glanced at him inquiringly.

“I mean,” he continued, “that I wish I had stopped the other man from leaving the train. I suppose you have not heard anything from the police about him⁠—that man?”

“Nothing. They had not found him or heard of him up to just now. But you can tell me something that I very much want to know. You saw this man with my grandfather for some little time, didn’t you?”

“From St. James’s Park to Charing Cross.”

“Did you overhear their conversation, or any of it?”

“A good deal⁠—at first. Afterwards, your grandfather began to whisper, and I heard nothing of that. But one reason I had for calling upon you this morning was that I might tell you what I did overhear, and another that I might ask you some questions arising out of what I heard. Mr. Hannaford was talking to this man, now missing, about some portrait or photograph. Evidently it was of a lady whom he, your grandfather, had known ten years ago; whom the other man had also known. Your grandfather said that when they got to his hotel he would show the portrait to the other man who, he asserted, would be sure to recognise