“I’m from the Indescribable, you know. Expect Mrs. Davis has told you. I’d better show you my cardcase so that you can see it’s correct. They send me to fool round, you know, when this sort of thing happens. Have to be careful, I suppose.” (“This Brinkman,” he had said to Angela, “must take me for a bit of a chump; if possible, worse than I am.”)
“I don’t quite see—” began Brinkman.
“Oh, the old thing, suicide, you know. Mark you, they don’t absolutely bar it. I’ve known ’em pay up when a fellow was obviously potty. But their rules are against it. What I say is, If a man has the pluck to do himself in he ought to get away with the stakes, Well, all this must be a great nuisance to you, Mr. Brickman—”
“Brinkman.”
“Sorry, always was a fool about names. Well, what I mean is, it can’t be very pleasant for you to have so many people nosing round; but it’s got to be done somehow, and you seem to be the right man to come to. D’you think there was anything wrong in the upper story?”
“The man was as sane as you or I. I never knew a man with such a level head.”
“Well, that’s important. You don’t mind if I scribble a note or two? I’ve got such a wretched memory. Then, here’s another thing: was the old fellow worried about anything? His health, for example?”
There was an infinitesimal pause; just for that fraction of a second which is fatal, because it shows that a man is making up his mind what to say. Then Brinkman said: “Oh, there can be no doubt of that. I thought he’d been and told your people about it. He went to a doctor in London and was told that he’d only two more years to live.”
“Meaning, I suppose—”
“He never told me. He was always a peculiar man about his health; he got worried even if he had a boil on his neck. No, I don’t think he was a hypochondriac; he was a man who’d had no experience of ill-health, and the least thing scared him. When he told me about his interview with the specialist he seemed all broken up, and I hadn’t the heart to question him about it. Besides, it wasn’t my place. I expect you’ll find that he never told anyone.”
“One could ask the medico, I suppose. But they’re devilish close, ain’t they, those fellows.”
“You’ve got to find out his name first. Mottram was very secret about it; if he wrote to make an appointment, the letter wasn’t sent through me. It’s a difficult job, circularizing Harley Street.”
“All the same the doctor in Pullford might know. He probably recommended somebody.”
“What doctor in Pullford? I don’t believe Mottram’s been to a doctor any time these last five years. I was always asking him to these last few months because he told me he was worried about his health, though he never told me what the symptoms were. It’s difficult to explain his secretiveness to anybody who didn’t know him. But, look here, if you’re inclined to think that his story about going to a specialist was all a lie, you’re on the wrong track.”
“You feel certain of that?”
“Absolutely certain. Look at his position. In two years’ time he was due to get a whacking annuity from your company if he lived. He was prepared to drop his claim if the company would pay back half his premiums. You’ve heard that, I expect? Well, where was the sense of that, unless he really thought he was going to die?”
“You can’t think of any other reason for his wanting to do himself in? Just bored with life, don’t you know, or whatnot?”
“Talk sense, Mr. Bredon. You know as well as I do that all the suicides one hears of come from money troubles, or disappointment in love, or sheer melancholia, There’s no question of money troubles; his lawyers will tell you that. He was not at the time of life when men fall badly in love, bachelors anyhow; and his name was never coupled with a woman’s. And as for melancholia, nobody who knew him could suspect him of it.”
“I see you’re quite convinced that it was suicide. No question of accident, you think, or of dirty work at the crossroads? These rich men have enemies, don’t they?”
“In storybooks. But I doubt if any living soul would have laid hands on Mottram. And as for accident, how would you connect it with all this yarn about the specialist? And why was the door of his room locked when he died? You can ask the servants at Pullford; they’ll tell you that his room was never locked when he was at home; and the Boots here will tell you that he had orders to bring in shaving-water first thing.”
“Oh, his door was locked, was it? Fact is, I’ve heard very little about how the thing was discovered. I suppose you were one of the party when the body was found?”
“I was. I’m not likely to forget it. Not that I’ve any objection to suicide; mark you, I think it’s a fine thing, very often; and the Christian condemnation of it merely echoes a private quarrel between St. Augustine and some heretics of his day. But it breaks you up rather when you find a man you said ‘Good night’ to the night before lying there
