“A bit of a virago,” the Inspector agreed. “What I was wondering when I read that stuff was whether she’d keep up to that standard permanently or whether this was just a flash in the pan. If she’s the kind that treasures grievances. …”
“She might be an important piece in the jigsaw, you mean? In any case, I suppose we’ll have to get her sized up somehow, since she plays a part in the story.”
The Chief Constable turned back to the journal and skimmed over a number of the entries.
“Do you know,” he pointed out after a time, “that young fellow had an unpleasant mind.”
“You surprise me,” the Inspector retorted ironically. “I suppose you’ve come to the place where he gets really smitten with Mrs. Silverdale’s charms?”
“Yes. There’s a curious rising irritation through it all. It’s evident that she led him on, and then let him down, time after time.”
“For all his fluff about his complex character and so forth, he really seems to have been very simple,” was Flamborough’s verdict. “She led him a dance for months; and anyone with half an eye could see all along that she was only playing with him. It’s as plain as print, even in his own account of the business.”
“Quite, I admit. But you must remember that he imagined he was out of the common—irresistible. He couldn’t bring himself to believe things were as they were.”
“Turn to the later entries,” the Inspector advised; and Sir Clinton did so.
“This is the one you mean? Where she turned him down quite bluntly, so that even he got an inkling of how matters really stood?”
“Yes. Now go on from there,” Flamborough directed.
Sir Clinton passed from one red marker to the other, reading the entries indicated at each of the points.
“The tune changes a bit; and his irritation seems to be on the upgrade. One gets the impression that he’s casting round for a fresh method of getting his way and that he hasn’t found one that will do? Is that your reading of it?”
“Yes,” Flamborough confirmed. “He talks about getting his way ‘by hook or by crook,’ and one or two other phrases that come to the same thing.”
“Well, that brings us up to a week ago. There seems to be a change in his tone, now. More expectation and less exasperation, if one can put it that way.”
“I read it that by that time he’d hit on his plan. He was sure of its success, sir. Just go on to the next entry please. There’s something there about his triumph, as he calls it.”
Sir Clinton glanced down the page and as he did so his face lit up for a moment as though he had seen one of his inferences confirmed.
“This what you mean?” he asked. “ ‘And only I shall know of my triumph’?”
“That’s it, sir. Highfalutin and all that; but it points to his thinking he had the game in his hands. I’ve puzzled my brains a bit over what he really meant by it, though. One might read it that he meant to murder the girl in the end. That would leave him as the only living person who knew what had happened, you see?”
“I’m not in a position to contradict that assumption,” Sir Clinton confessed. “But so far as that goes, I think you’ll find the point cleared up in a day or two at the rate we’re going.”
“You’re very optimistic, sir,” was all the Inspector found to reply. “Now I’ve left one matter to the end, because it may have no bearing on the case at all. The last year of that journal is full of groans about his finances. He seems to have spent a good deal more than he could afford, in one way and another. I’ve noted all the passages if you want to read them, sir. They’re among the set marked with white slips.”
“Just give me the gist of them,” the Chief Constable suggested. “From that, I can see whether I want to wade through the whole thing or not.”
“It’s simple enough, sir. He’s been borrowing money on a scale that would be quite big for his resources. And I gather from some of the entries that he had no security that he could produce. It seems he daren’t go to his uncle and ask him to use his capital as security—I mean young Hassendean’s own capital which was under his uncle’s control as trustee. So he was persuaded to insure his life in favour of his creditor for a good round sum—figure not mentioned.”
“So in the present circumstances the moneylender will rake in the whole sum insured, after paying only a single premium?”
“Unless the insurance company can prove suicide.”
Sir Clinton closed the last volume of the journal.
“I’ve heard of that sort of insurance racket before. And of course you remember that shooting affair in Scotland thirty years ago when the prosecution made a strong point out of just this very type of transaction. Have you had time to make any inquiries along that line yet?”
Flamborough was evidently glad to get the opportunity of showing his efficiency.
“I took it up at once, sir. In one entry, he mentioned the name of the company: the Western Medical and Mercantile Assurance Co. I put a trunk call through to their head office and got the particulars
