Chapter XXIV
What did Mr. Bathurst whisper
Brigadier-General Sir Austin Mostyn Kemble, K.C.V.O., D.S.O., turned sharply in his revolving chair in his room at New Scotland yard and spoke somewhat peremptorily. The post of Commissioner of Police is never a sinecure and very seldom a bed of roses. At the present moment he was being subjected to a good deal of Press pin-pricking and generally hostile criticism relative to the failure of his department in the matter of the Seabourne mystery. It can readily be imagined, therefore, that a temper habitually none too good was at this particular time showing certain unmistakable signs of severe strain. Several of his subordinates needed no imagination to notice the fact. Three weeks had elapsed since Ronald Branston had so dramatically discovered Sheila Delaney’s body in his surgery and despite the widely circulate news in the columns of the Press that Scotland Yard were on the point of a solution that an arrest was imminent—the murder or murderers still remained at large. It had become apparent to the thoughtful that the Police Authorities were completely baffled. On the morning in question the “Daily Bugle,” ready as usual to criticise destructively, had published a most scathing article by a novelist possessed of the most valuable copyright on the “Supine and Decadent Condition of New Scotland Yard. Its Causes and Remedy.” The chief point of the article in question had been the oft-recurring statement that the “Seabourne Mystery” was the fifth unsolved murder since Sir Austin Kemble had assumed the ares of office. Incessant attention had been drawn to the fact that on three of these occasions Scotland Yard had been called in almost at once and that the old threadbare excuse that the scent had been allowed to get cold prior to expert advice being taken could no way be urged. In respect of the “Wokingham Wheelbarrow” murder, where the body of the murdered farm-labourer had been discovered lying across a wheel-barrow, in the instance of the crippled Polish money lender, whose body had been found in a hedge upon the outskirts of Leighton Buzzard battered to death in horrible fashion by his own crutch, and now in this last murder at Seabourne, it was pointed out relentlessly that Scotland Yard had been there “when the tapes went up.” But glaringly unavailingly. Its ineptitude was colossal! The article concluded with an impassioned appeal that the higher reaches of the Police and Detective professions should be radically re-organised and flung open as attractive propositions to the best brains of the country. Then and not until then could the country reasonably hope for better things!
“Well, Bannister?” snapped Sir Austin. “I presume you have had the pleasure of reading this clotted tripe served up by the ‘Bugle’ for its readers’ daily mastication? What about it? I’d like to blow their damned offices up.” He crumpled the offending newspaper in his muscular hands and flung it savagely into the waste-paper basket under his table.
“Those articles don’t worry me, sir,” replied Bannister. “That’s only paper talk.”
“That’s all very well, talk’s cheap, I know full well—”
“When I say to you that they don’t worry me, sir, I have no wish to seem or to sound offensive. I’m not, as it were, throwing the responsibility of failure upon you. I’m quite prepared to shoulder my share. What I meant was this. I’ve tackled a few hundred cases during my time here, sir, and I can honestly say that my failures have been few. And some of those I’m including in the category of failures were only comparative failures. I’m due for retirement, as you know, in a month or so, and I shall leave no stone unturned to hang this Seabourne murderer—take if from me. I wouldn’t have my last case a ‘stumer’ for a fortune. And I am not entirely without a ray of hope at the moment.” Bannister spoke quietly, confidently and determinedly. He was a man whom it was difficult to “rattle.”
Sir Austin moved uneasily in his chair but at the same time appeared to be a little mollified. “I’m well aware of that, Bannister, and I’m not disposed to blame you overmuch. That’s why I decided to run this little conference now. I spoke to Chief-Inspector Macmorran yesterday and told him that I intended to have a chat with you about it. I asked Mr. Bathurst to come along too, because I knew he had been interested on behalf of the Crown Prince of Clorania and was in close touch with the case. Also, I have heard something of his reputation. I remember the Hanover Galleries murder very well and I have had the pleasure of meeting Sir Charles Considine.” he smiled at Anthony and if the smile contained a tinge of condescension and just a hint of patronage, Anthony consoled himself with the comforting thought that a Brigadier-General is usually no respecter of persons.
“Now, Bannister,” said Sir Austin, “where exactly do you stand? What do you know? Let me hear it.”
Bannister took some sheets of notepaper from his coat pocket. “It’s a most mysterious and baffling case,” he began. “That’s not said in any sense of self-defence. I don’t suppose for one moment that the omniscient fiction-weaver whose effort illuminates the columns of the ‘Daily Bugle’ realises one-tenth of the difficulties that the Police have encountered. You know the main outline of the case, sir, so I won’t waste your time or my own with any unnecessary detail. Rather will I condense my report and give you the salient points as they impress me.” He looked at the Commissioner for approval. A quick nod from Sir Austin gave it to him. “First of all,” he continued, “we were faced with that remarkable attempt on the part of the murderer to confuse the identity of the murdered girl with that of another lady—Miss Daphne Carruthers. Why? Was it deliberate? You might venture half a dozen reasons and yet be wrong. For there is the
