Have His Carcase

‘It seems it was like this. You may remember seeing awhile ago not more than a month or so back — a bit in the papers about a queer old girl who lived all alone in a house in Seahampton with no companion except about a hundred cats. A Miss Ann Bennett — but the name don’t matter. Well, one day the, usual thing happens. Blinds left down, no smoke from kitchen, chimney, milk not taken in, cats yowling fit to break your heart. constable goes in with a ladder and finds the old lady dead in her bed. Inquest verdict is “death from natural causes”, which mean old “age and semi-starvation: with neglected pneumonia on top of it. And of course plenty of money in the house, including four hundred gold sovereigns in the mattress. It’s always happening.’

Wimsey nodded.

‘Yes. Well, then, the long-lost next-of-kin turns up and who should it be. but this old chap from Princemoor, Abel Bennett. There’s a will found, leaving everything to him, and begging him to look after the poor pussies. He’s the executor, and he steps in and takes charge. Very good. On the day after the inquest, along comes our young friend Paul Alexis — name correctly given and person identified by the photograph. He tells old Bennett a rambling kind of story about wanting gold sovereigns for some purpose or other. Something about wanting to buy a diamond from a foreign rajah who didn’t understand bank-notes — some bosh of that kind.’

‘He got that out of a book, I expect,’ said Wimsey. ‘I’ve seen something like it somewhere.’

‘Very likely. Old Bennett, who seems to have had more wits than his sister, didn’t swallow the tale altogether, because, as he said, the young, fellow didn’t look to him like a person who would be buying diamonds off rajahs, but after.all it’s not criminal to want gold, and it was none of his business what it was wanted for. He, put up a few objections, and Alexis offered him three hundred pounds in Bank of England notes, plus a twenty-pound bonus, in exchange for three hundred sovereigns. Old Abel wasn’t adverse to a buckshee twenty quid and was ‘ willing to hand over, on condition he might have the notes vetted for him at a Seahampton bank. Alexis was agreeable and pulled out the notes then and there. To cut a long story short, they went to the Seahampton branch of the London & Westminster and got the O.K. on the notes, after which Bennett handed over the gold and Alexis took it away in a leather hand-bag. And that’s all there is to it. But we’ve checked up the dates with the bank-people, and it’s quite clear that Alexis drew his money out here for the purpose of changing it into gold as soon as ever he saw the account of Ann Bennett’s death in the papers. But why he wanted it or what he did with it, I can’t, tell you, no more than the Man in the Moon.’

‘Well,’ said Wimsey, ‘I always knew there were one or two oddities about this case, but I don’t mind admitting that this beats me. Why on earth should anybody want to clutter himself up with all that gold? I suppose we can dismiss the story of the Rajah’s Diamond. A £300 diamond is nothing very out of the way, and if you wanted one you could buy it in Bond street, without paying in gold or dragging in Indian potentates.!

‘That’s a fact. Besides, where are you going to find a rajah who doesn’t understand Bank of England notes? These fellers aren’t savages, not by any means. Why, lots of them have been to Oxford.’

Wimsey made suitable acknowledgement of this tribute to his own university.

‘The only explanation that suggests itself to tile,’ he said,

’is that Alexis was, contemplating a, flitting to.some place where Bank of England notes wouldn’t pass current. But I hardly know where that could be at this time of day. Central Asia?’

‘It may not be that, my lord. From the, way he burnt everything before he left, it looks as though he didn’t mean to leave any trace of where he was going. Now, you can’t very well lose a Bank of England note. The numbers are bound to turn up somewhere or other, — , if you wait long enough. Currency notes are safe, but it, is quite possible that you might have difficulty in exchanging them in foreign parts, once you were off the beaten track. It’s my opinion Alexis meant to get away, and he took the gold because it was, the only form of money that will pass everywhere and tell no tale. He probably wouldn’t be asked about it at the Customs, and if, he was, they would be very unlikely to search him.’

True. I think you’re right, Inspector. But, I say, you realise this knocks the suicide theory on the head all right?’