False Weight

 

 

A MONTAGUE EGG STORY

 

‘HULLO!’ SAID MR MONTAGUE Egg.

He knew the Royal Oak, at Pondering Parva, and it was not, in a general

way, a place he would have chosen to stop at. It did but little business, its

food was bad, its landlord surly, and it offered few opportunities to an

enterprising traveller in high-class wines and spirits. But to find it at half-

past eight in the morning the centre of an interested crowd, with a police car

and an ambulance drawn up before the door, was a challenge to any man’s

curiosity. Mr Egg took his foot from the accelerator, and eased the car to a

standstill.

‘What’s up here?’ he asked a bystander.

‘Somebody killed … Old Rudd’s cut ’is missus’s throat … no, he ain’t –

George done it … that ain’t right, neither, it was thieves and they’ve gone

off with the till … George, he come down and found the blood running all

over the floor … hear that? that’s Liz Rudd a-hollerin’ … she got

highsterics … thought you said ’e’d cut ’er throat … no, I didn’t, Jim said

that, he don’t know nothin’. I tell you ’tis George … Ah! here’s the

Inspector a-comin’ out; now we’ll hear summat …’

Mr Egg was already out of the car and approaching the bar entrance. A

uniformed Inspector of police met him on the doorstep.

‘Now then, you can’t come in here. Who are you, and what do you

want?’

‘My name’s Montague Egg – travelling for Plummett & Rose, wines

and spirits, Piccadilly. I’ve come to see Mr Rudd.’

‘Well, you can’t see him now, so you’d better buzz off. Wait a minute.

You say you’re a commercial traveller. This your regular district?’

Mr Egg replied that it was.

‘Then you might be able to give us some information. Come in, will

you?’

‘Wait while I fetch my bag,’ said Monty. He was interested, but not to

the point of forgetting that a traveller’s first duty is to his samples and

credentials. He fetched the heavy case from the car and carried it into the

inn, to the accompaniment of cries from the crowd: ‘That’s the

photographer, see his camera?’ Setting it down inside the door, he looked

round the bar of the Royal Oak. At a table near the window sat a police-

constable, writing in a notebook. A large, pug-faced man, whom Monty

recognised as Rudd, the landlord, was leaning back against the bar in his

shirt-sleeves. He was unshaven, and looked as though he had dressed

hurriedly. A tousle-headed young fellow, with immense muscles and no

forehead to speak of, stood scowling beside him. From a room somewhere

at the back came a noise of feminine shrieking and sobbing. That was all,

except that a door on the right, labelled ‘Bar-parlour’, stood open, and

through it could be seen the back of a man in an overcoat, who was bending

over something on the floor.

The Inspector took Mr Egg’s papers, looked them through and returned

them.

‘You’re on the road early,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Monty. ‘I meant to get through to Pettiford last night, but the

fog held me up at Madgebury. I’m making up for lost time. I slept at the

Old Bell – they can tell you all about me there.’

‘Ah!’ said the Inspector, with a glance at the constable. ‘Well, now, Mr

Egg. I believe all you commercial gentlemen know each other pretty well, as a rule. We’d like to see if you can identify this man in here.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Monty, ‘though of course I don’t know every traveller on

the road. But surely his name will be on his papers.’

‘That’s just it,’ replied the Inspector. ‘His papers must have been in his

sample case, and that’s gone. He’s got some letters on him, but they don’t –

well, we’ll go into that later on. This way, please.’

He marched into the room on the right. Monty followed him. The

stooping man stood up.

‘No doubt about this, Birch,’ he observed. ‘Head battered in. Dead eight

to ten hours. Couldn’t possibly have done it himself, or by accident.

Weapon probably that bottle over there. Better try it for finger-prints.

Anything else you want to know? Because, if not, I’ll be getting back to my

breakfast. I’ll leave word with the coroner as I go, if you like.’

‘Thanks, doctor. Eight to ten hours, eh? That fits Rudd’s story all right

Now, Mr Egg, come and have a look at this, will you?’

The doctor stepped aside, and Monty saw the dead body of a man. He

was a small man, dressed in a neat blue serge suit. His hair was sleek and

black, and he wore a small tooth-brush moustache. The blood from an open

wound on the temple had run down and caked on his smooth cheek. He

appeared to be about thirty-five or forty years of age.

‘Oh, yes, I know him,’ said Monty. ‘I know him quite well, as a matter

of fact. His name is Wagstaffe, and he travels – travelled – for Applebaum

& Moss, the big cheap jewellers.’

‘Oh did he?’ said Inspector Birch, with emphasis. ‘That case of his

would contain jewellery then, I suppose.’

‘Yes – and watches, and that sort of thing.’

‘Humph!’ said the Inspector. ‘And can you tell me why he should be

carrying letters about in his pocket addressed to a number of other people? Here’s one – Joseph Smith, Esq. Here’s another – Mr William Brown. And

here’s a very touching one – Harry Thome, Esq. Hot stuff, that one is.”

‘Do you need any telling, Inspector?’ inquired Mr Egg, softly.

‘I don’t know that I do, if it comes to that. Ah! you commercial

gentlemen are all alike, aren’t you? A wife in every port of call, eh?’

‘Not me, Inspector. No wedding-bells for Monty Egg. But I’m afraid it’s

true about poor Wagstaffe. Well, he seems to have got what was coming to

him, doesn’t he?’

‘You’re right. He put up a bit of a struggle, though, from the looks of it.’

Inspector Birch glanced round the bar-parlour. It was a small room, and

every piece of furniture in it seemed to have suffered violence. A small

round table before the fireplace had been knocked over, and a broken

whisky-bottle had distributed its contents in an odorous stream across the

linoleum. Chairs had been pushed back and overturned, the glass front of a

what-not was starred as though by a blow from a threshing foot, and a

grandfather clock, standing near the fire-place, had been canted over

sideways, so that only the edge of the mantelpiece kept it from falling. Mr

Egg’s eyes wandered to the clock-face, and the Inspector’s followed them.

The hands stood at ten minutes past eleven.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Birch. ‘And unless he’s a liar, we know pretty well when

this happened and who did it. Do you know anything about a commercial

called Slater?’

‘I’ve heard of an Archibald Slater,’ said Monty. ‘Travels in lingerie.’

‘That’s the man. Is he in a good way of business? Good screw, I mean?

Comfortable, and all that?’

‘I should think so. He works for a good firm.’ Monty named it. ‘But I

don’t know him personally. He used to work Yorkshire and Lancashire, I

believe. He’s taken over old Cripps’s district.’

‘You can’t say if he’d be likely to murder another chap and pinch his

samples?’

Monty protested. The last thing any commercial would be likely to do.

There was a freemasonry of the road.

‘Hum!’ said the Inspector. ‘Now, listen here. We’ll get Rudd’s story

again, and have it taken down.’

The landlord’s account was clear enough. The first traveller – now

identified as Wagstaffe – had arrived at 7.30. He had meant, he said, to push

on to Pettiford, but the fog was too thick. He had ordered dinner, and had

afterwards gone in to sit in the bar-parlour, which was empty. The Royal

Oak did very little high-class hotel business, and there was nobody in that

night except some labourers in the four-ale bar. At half-past nine, Slater had

turned up, also alleging the fog as the reason for breaking his journey. He

had already dined, and presently joined Wagstaffe in the bar-parlour. On

entering, he had been heard to say to Wagstaffe ‘in a nasty sort of voice’,

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ After that, the door had been shut, but presently

Wagstaffe had knocked upon the hatch between the parlour and the bar and

asked for a bottle of Scotch. At half-past ten, the bar being closed and the

glasses washed up, Rudd had gone in and found the two men talking beside

the fire. They both seemed flushed and angry. Rudd said that he and his

wife and the barman were going to bed, as they had to get up early. Would

the guests please put out the light when they came upstairs?

Here the landlord broke off to explain that there were no bedrooms over

the bar-parlour – only a large, empty room running over the whole front of

the house and used for meetings of parish societies, and so forth. The

sleeping accommodation all ran out at the back, and you could not hear,

from the bedrooms, anything that went on in the ground-floor part. He then

went on:

‘It would be about twenty past eleven when I heard someone come up

and knock at our bedroom door. I got out of bed and opened it, and there

was Slater. He looked very queer and upset. He said that the weather had

cleared and he’d made up his mind to push on to Pettiford. It seemed funny

to me, but I looked out of the window and saw that the fog had gone and

there was a sharp frost and moonlight. I said he’d have to pay for his room,

and he didn’t make no bones about that. I put on a dressing-gown and went

with him down the back stairs into the office. That’s behind the bar. I made

out his bill and he paid it, and then I let him out the back way into the

garage. He took his bags with him –’

‘How many bags?’

‘Two.’

‘Did he bring two with him when he came?’

‘Couldn’t say, I’m sure. I never see them to notice. He planked all his

stuff down in the bar-parlour when he come, and when I come out of the

office with his change he was standing ready with them in the passage, with

his hat and coat on. I didn’t go out into the yard with him, because it was

bitter cold, and I weren’t none too pleased to be fetched out of my bed; but I

heard the car drive out a few minutes later. Then I went back to bed again,

and I noticed through the office window that the light was still on in the

bar-parlour, so that the door must have been open. See what I mean?

There’s the back door of the parlour leading into the office, and when that’s

open, you can see the light from the yard, through the office window. So I

thinks, that other fellow’s still sitting up – I’ll charge him extra for burning

all that light. And I goes to bed.’

‘You didn’t go in and see that he was still there?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Mr Rudd. ‘It was too perishing cold to be hanging

about. I went to bed and to sleep.’

‘That’s a pity. Did you go to sleep at once?’

‘Yes, I click.’

‘You didn’t hear Wagstaffe come upstairs at all?’

‘I didn’t hear a thing. But Mrs Rudd was awake till midnight, and he

hadn’t come up then. And it stands to reason he never come up at all, don’t

it?’

‘It looks that way,’ agreed the Inspector cautiously. ‘And how about

George?’

The barman confirmed Rudd’s story, and added a little to it. He said that

he had gone into the bar-parlour between 9.30 and 10 o’clock and had

interrupted the two men in what looked like a violent quarrel. Slater had

been saying, ‘You little rat – I’ve a good mind to break every bone in your

body.’ He thought they were both drunk. He had said nothing to them, but

made up the fire and gone away. He had heard no more quarrelling. After

Rudd had gone up at 10.30, he had looked in again, and they were then

talking quietly and appeared to be reading some letters. He had then gone to

bed, and been wakened by the sound of footsteps and the departure of the

car.

‘And after that?’ asked Inspector Birch.

George’s eyes were lowered sullenly.

‘Mr Rudd came upstairs again.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, that’s all. I went to sleep.’

‘You didn’t hear anybody else moving about?’

‘No. I went to sleep, I tell you.’

‘What time did Mr Rudd come up?’

‘Dunno. I didn’t trouble to look.’

‘Did you hear twelve strike?’

‘I didn’t hear nothing. I was asleep.’

‘How many bags did this man Slater bring with him?’

‘Only one.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Well, I think so.’

‘And the other man – Wagstaffe – did he have a bag?’

‘Yes, he had a bag. Took it into the parlour with him.’

‘Did these men sign the register?’

‘Slater did when he arrived,’ said the landlord. ‘Wagstaffe didn’t. I

meant to remind him in the morning.’

‘Then Slater wasn’t premeditating anything when he arrived,’ said

Birch. ‘Looks like it was a casual meeting. All right, Rudd. I’ll see your

wife later. Now carry on, and don’t go shooting your mouth off too much.

We’ve got the number of Slater’s car,’ he added, to nobody in particular. ‘If

he’s really gone to Pettiford, they’ll pull him in.’

‘Just so,’ said Monty. ‘I suppose,’ he added, tentatively, ‘that clock’s

telling the truth?’

‘Thinking he might have been put back, eh?’ said the Inspector. ‘Like in

that play they’ve got on in town?’

‘Well,’ admitted Monty, ‘it seems funny, the way the criminal carefully

knocked grandpa over, just as if he was going out of his way to provide

evidence against himself. It doesn’t seem natural. Praise with discretion;

purchasers are quick to distrust those who lay it on too thick, as it says in

The Salesman’s Handbook.’

‘We’ll soon see,’ said the Inspector, advancing upon the clock. ‘Wait a

bit, though; we’d better try the case for fingerprints.’

The arrival of a photographer and an apparatus for bringing up and

recording finger-prints led to the discovery of so many signs of handling, both on the clock and on the bottle, as to prove that the use of dusters and

furniture polish must have been abandoned for a very long time at the Royal

Oak. Eventually the photographs were taken, and the Inspector and a

constable lifted the clock back into place. It appeared to have suffered no

great shock, but only to have stopped when the pendulum came up against

the side of the case, for on being righted and started it ticked away merrily.

Mr Birch lifted a thick forefinger to the minute-hand; then he checked

himself.

‘No,’ he said, ‘we’ll leave grandpa to himself. If there’s been any

jiggery-pokery, there might be something to be found on the hands, though

they’re a bit narrow to carry a print. But you never know. I suppose he’ll

run all right for an hour or two.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Egg, opening the case and peering in. ‘The weights

are rather near the bottom, especially one of them, but I should say he had

another twelve hours or so in him. What’s today? Saturday? They probably

wind him on Sunday morning.’

‘Probably,’ agreed the Inspector. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Egg. I don’t think

we need detain you any longer.’

‘No objection to me having a spot of ale in the bar, I suppose,’

suggested Monty, ‘it’ll be open in half an hour or so, and I didn’t have

much breakfast.’

‘I didn’t have any,’ said Inspector Birch, wistfully.

From this point, the procedure was obvious. The Inspector was just

finishing a large mound of bacon and eggs when a commotion at the door

announced the arrival of a police sergeant with the absconding Mr Slater.

The latter was a large, angry-looking man who, as soon as he entered the

room, began to protest violently.

‘Cut that out, my lad,’ said Mr Birch. ‘How many bags did you find

with him, Sergeant?’

‘Only one, sir – his own.’

‘I tell you,’ said Slater, ‘I know nothing about all this. I left Wagstaffe

here in the bar-parlour at twenty past eleven or thereabouts, and he was all

right then – only drunk. I drove away at half-past, or it might be a quarter to

twelve. I brought one bag and I took one bag, and here it is, and anybody

who says anything else is telling a lie. If I’d been doing a murder, do you

think I’d have gone straight off to Pettiford and sat eating my breakfast in

the Four Bells, waiting for you to catch me?’

‘You might and you mightn’t,’ said Mr Birch. ‘Did you know this man

Wagstaffe?’

The angry eyes shifted uneasily.

‘I’d met him,’ said Slater.

‘They say you were quarrelling with him.’

‘Well – he was drunk, and made himself unpleasant. That’s one reason

why I pushed off.’

‘I see.’ The Inspector glanced through the correspondence taken from

the dead man’s pocket.

‘Your name’s Archibald, isn’t it? Have you got a sister Edith? … No,

you don’t!’

Slater had made a quick grab at the letter in Birch’s hand.

‘Well,’ he admitted sulkily, ‘I don’t mind telling you that that swine

Wagstaffe was a dirty scoundrel. Thome’s the name we knew him by, and

my sister’s his wife – or thought she was, till it turned out he was married to

somebody else under another name, the skunk. They got married while I

was away up North, and I knew nothing about it till I came into this district,

and he’s been careful to keep out of my way – till last night. Not that there was anything I could do to him, except try and get maintenance for the kid,

and in the end he said he’d pay. I – look here, Inspector, I quite realise that

this looks bad, but –’

‘Hi!’ exclaimed Monty. ‘Don’t forget the clock. It’s just going to strike.’

‘Yes,’ said the Inspector. ‘Ten past eleven that clock marked when it

was knocked over in the struggle. You were out of here by twenty past. If it

strikes one now, we’ll know it’s been put back – if it strikes twelve, then it’s

telling the truth, and you’re for it.’

The case stood open. As the first stroke of the hammer fell, they

watched, fascinated, while the striking weight moved slowly down from

where it hung, three or four inches below the other.

The clock struck twelve.

‘That’s something, anyway,’ said Mr Birch, grimly.

‘It’s not true!’ cried Slater wildly. Then he added, more soberly, ‘The

man might have been killed after I left, but still before midnight, and the

hands put back three quarters of an hour.’

And while the Inspector hesitated:

‘Half a minute,’ said Monty. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Inspector, I’ve just

thought of something. Twelve o’clock is the longest run that weight ever

does, and it’s only dropped something under half an inch. Now, how does it

come to hang so far below the driving weight? You see what I mean?

During the long hours from six to twelve, the striking weight gets ahead of

the driving weight and hangs below it, but during the short hours, the

driving weight catches up on it, so that – in my experience, anyhow –

there’s never more than half an inch or so between them in an eight-day

clock, and they finish up level. Now, how did this fellow here get all this

long start of his chum?’

‘Wound up carelessly,’ suggested the Inspector.

‘Either that,’ said Monty, ‘or the clock’s been put on eleven hours.

That’s the only way to put back a striking clock, unless you have the sense

to take the striking weight off altogether, which most people haven’t the

wits to think of.’

‘Whew!’ said Mr Birch. ‘Now, who’d know about that, I wonder? Who

winds this clock? We’d better ask Rudd.’

‘I wouldn’t ask him, if you’ll forgive me putting myself forward,’ said

Mr Egg, thoughtfully.

‘Oh!’ said Mr Birch. ‘I see.’ He pulled at his moustache. ‘Wait a

minute. I’ve got it.’

He plunged out, and presently returned with a boy of about fourteen.

‘Sonnie,’ said he, ‘who winds up the grandfather-clock?’

‘Dad does, every Sunday morning.’

‘Did you see him do it last Sunday?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Can you remember if he wound the two weights up to the same height

– or were they apart, like this?’

‘He always winds them up tight – fourteen winds – that’s two turns for

every day – and when the weight’s wound up, it goes bump.’

The Inspector nodded.

‘That’s all – run away. Mr Egg, it looks as if you’d got hold of

something right enough. Here, Sergeant!’

The sergeant gave him an understanding wink and went out. Half an

hour elapsed, marked only by the almost imperceptible descent of the

driving weight and the solemn ticking of the clock. Then the sergeant came

in again, with a bag in his hand.

‘Quite right, sir – under a heap of sacking in the hen-house. It must be

either Rudd or the barman, George.’

‘They must both be in it,’ said the Inspector. ‘But which of them did the

job, damned if I know. We’ll have to wait for those finger-prints.’

‘Why not ask them for the key of the clock?’ put in Mr Egg.

‘What for?’

‘Just an idea of mine.’

‘All right. Send Rudd in. Rudd, we want the key of this clock.’

‘Oh, do you?’ said the landlord. ‘Well, I haven’t got it, see. I don’t know

where it’s gone, and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it. A nice job

this is, in a respectable house.’

‘All right,’ said the Inspector, ‘we’ll ask George. Where’s this clock-

key, George?’

The barman passed a hand across his dry mouth. ‘It’s in that there pot

on the chimbley-piece,’ he said.

‘It’s not there,’ said the Inspector, peering into the pot.

‘No,’ said Monty. ‘And how did Rudd know it wasn’t there, if he wasn’t

hunting for it last night to wind that weight back to the right place, after

he’d put the clock eleven hours forward? No wonder the place is turned

upside-down.’

The landlord turned a dirty green colour, and George broke out into a

whimper.

‘Please, sir, I never knew nothing about it till it was all over. I didn’t

have no hand in it.’

‘Put the bracelets on ‘em both, Sergeant,’ said Inspector Birch. ‘And

you, Slater, remember your evidence will be wanted. Much obliged to you,

Mr Egg. But it’s a funny thing where that key can have gone to.’

‘Better ask young Hopeful,’ said Mr Egg. ‘It’s surprising how a little

thing like that will trip a man up. As The Salesman’s Handbook says: Attend to details and you’ll make your sale – a little weight will often turn

the scale.’