He was proceeding on a system of his own, which might or might not prove fruitful. He had reviewed the subject of the new Property Act, and decided that if and when Miss Whittaker had become aware of its possible effect on her own expectations, she would at once consider taking legal advice.
Her first thought would no doubt be to consult a solicitor in Leahampton, and unless she already had the idea of foul play in her mind, there was nothing to deter her from doing so. Accordingly, Parker’s first move had been to run down to Leahampton and interview the three firms of solicitors there. All three were able to reply quite positively that they had never received such an inquiry from Miss Whittaker, or from anybody, during the year 1925. One solicitor, indeed—the senior partner of Hodgson & Hodgson, to whom Miss Dawson had entrusted her affairs after her quarrel with Mr. Probyn—looked a little oddly at Parker when he heard the question.
“I assure you, Inspector,” he said, “that if the point had been brought to my notice in such a way, I should certainly have remembered it, in the light of subsequent events.”
“The matter never crossed your mind, I suppose,” said Parker, “when the question arose of winding up the estate and proving Miss Whittaker’s claim to inherit?”
“I can’t say it did. Had there been any question of searching for next-of-kin it might—I don’t say it would—have occurred to me. But I had a very clear history of the family connections from Mr. Probyn, the death took place nearly two months before the Act came into force, and the formalities all went through more or less automatically. In fact, I never thought about the Act one way or another in that connection.”
Parker said he was not surprised to hear it, and favoured Mr. Hodgson with Mr. Towkington’s learned opinion on the subject, which interested Mr. Hodgson very much. And that was all he got at Leahampton, except that he fluttered Miss Climpson very much by calling upon her and hearing all about her interview with Vera Findlater. Miss Climpson walked to the station with him, in the hope that they might meet Miss Whittaker—“I am sure you would be interested to see her”—but they were unlucky. On the whole, thought Parker, it might be just as well. After all, though he would like to see Miss Whittaker, he was not particularly keen on her seeing him, especially in Miss Climpson’s company. “By the way,” he said to Miss Climpson, “you had better explain me in some way to Mrs. Budge, or she may be a bit inquisitive.”
“But I have,” replied Miss Climpson, with an engaging giggle, “when Mrs. Budge said there was a Mr. Parker to see me, of course I realised at once that she mustn’t know who you were, so I said, quite quickly, ‘Mr. Parker! Oh, that must be my nephew Adolphus.’ You don’t mind being Adolphus, do you? It’s funny, but that was the only name that came into my mind at the moment. I can’t think why, for I’ve never known an Adolphus.”
“Miss Climpson” said Parker, solemnly, “you are a marvellous woman, and I wouldn’t mind even if you’d called me Marmaduke.”
So here he was, working out his second line of inquiry. If Miss Whittaker did not go to a Leahampton solicitor, to whom would she go? There was Mr. Probyn, of course, but he did not think she would have selected him. She would not have known him at Crofton, of course—she had never actually lived with her great-aunts. She had met him the day he came down to Leahampton to see Miss Dawson. He had not then taken her into his confidence about the object of his visit, but she must have known from what her aunt said that it had to do with the making of a will. In the light of her new knowledge, she would guess that Mr. Probyn had then had the Act in his mind, and had not thought fit to trust her with the facts. If she asked him now, he would probably reply that Miss Dawson’s affairs were no longer in his hands, and refer her to Mr. Hodgson. And besides, if she asked the question and anything were to happen—Mr. Probyn might remember it. No, she would not have approached Mr. Probyn.
What then?
To the person who has anything to conceal—to the person who wants to lose his identity as one leaf among the leaves of a forest—to the person who asks no more than to pass by and be forgotten, there is one name above others which promises a haven of safety and oblivion. London. Where no one knows his neighbour. Where shops do not know their customers. Where physicians are suddenly called to unknown patients whom they never see again. Where you may lie dead in your house for months together unmissed and unnoticed till the gas-inspector comes to look at the meter. Where strangers are friendly and friends are casual. London, whose rather untidy and grubby bosom is the repository of so many odd secrets. Discreet, incurious and all-enfolding London.
Not that Parker put it that way to himself. He merely thought, “Ten to one she’d try London. They mostly think they’re safer there.”
Miss Whittaker knew London, of course. She had trained at the Royal Free. That meant she would know Bloomsbury better than any other district. For nobody knew better than Parker how rarely Londoners move out
