The Ha-Ha Case Read online

  “Wait a minute,” Hinton interjected. “What all this amounts to is that he got you to accept a £25,000 risk by a first payment of . . . let’s see . . . Yes, a first payment of £194 15s. 10d. Is that right?”

  “Quite correct,” Templand admitted. “But it was a normal risk, you know. However, to continue. After the medical examination, John Brandon filled up the fresh form and I tore up his original proposal.”

  “He didn’t make any fuss about the change?”

  “Oh, no. Mr. Laxford told him there had been a mistake made in the original form and that he’d have to fill in a fresh one for a ‘without profits’ policy. I gave him the form and helped him to fill it up. He didn’t strike me as particularly bright, but he understood what he was doing, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “And after that?”

  “They went away. Mr. Laxford said that he would call next day and pay the first premium. I made an appointment with him.”

  “Do you usually receive premiums personally?” Hinton demanded.

  Templand shook his head with a smile.

  “I did in this case, though,” he explained. “The fact is, we’d made some inquiries. Of course we made the usual inquiries about John Brandon’s health from friends whose names we’d asked for. But we’d made other inquiries, and we found that Mr. Laxford was an undischarged bankrupt. Naturally I didn’t propose to take his cheque for the premium payment. But that’s the sort of thing best settled by the man at the top without dragging the cashier into it, you understand?”

  “Quite so,” Hinton agreed.

  “Next day, Mr. Laxford turned up to pay the first premium. I glanced at the cheque and found it wasn’t his. It was signed by Diana Laxford—Mrs. Laxford. I took it, and gave him a receipt. He asked again if that meant that our risk was now on. I said that we accepted the risk from that moment. He seemed quite satisfied. Then he handed over a letter signed by young Brandon. I read it at the time. Here’s a copy.

  ‘EDGEHILL,

  15th August, 1924.

  DEAR SIR, I have assigned my insurance policy for £25,000 to Mrs. Diana Laxford in return for value received. Be so good as to hand over this policy to her, as she will be the person to whom the money should be paid in the event of my death.

  Yours faithfully, JOHN BRANDON.’”

  “But that landed you just where you were, didn’t it?” the inspector demanded. “In the event of Brandon’s death, Mrs. Laxford got the money. That was what you rejected in the first case.”

  Templand shook his head.

  “No; there’s a very big difference. A man can insure his own life if he likes. By a fiction, he’s assumed to have an insurable interest in himself. And he can assign his life policy to anyone if he wants to, provided he’s of age.”

  “Yes, but young Brandon wasn’t of age at that time,” Hinton objected.

  “Of course not. But what difference did that make to us at the moment? We didn’t expect him to die within a year. If he did, then it was up to his trustees to go into the matter and get a ruling as to the validity of the assignment. We’d have to pay the money in any case, and it didn’t matter two straws to us who got it. We’d take care not to have to pay twice over. That’s the only point so far as we’re concerned. I knew quite well that this letter had no value in a court of law. Whether Laxford knew that or not was his own affair. No concern of mine.”

  “Naturally,” Hinton agreed.

  “Just as a precaution,” Templand went on, with a shrewd glance, “I made immediate inquiry as to that cheque signed by Mrs. Laxford. The reply I got was that, at the moment, there wasn’t a penny in her account. The cheque went through eventually. Evidently some cash came into her account from somewhere, not long afterwards. But at the moment when Laxford handed me that cheque, it was a worthless bit of paper. In other words, he got us to take on the risk without paying any premium. I’m no legal expert; but it seems a pretty problem. Suppose we chose to make a fuss and say he’d induced us to take the risk under false pretences and for no consideration. There’s enough point in it to form a basis for a spun-out correspondence, if we have any real grounds for delaying payment.”

  Hinton shook his head sceptically, but made no comment.

  “Well, young Brandon dies, quite unexpectedly,” Templand went on. “On behalf of his wife, Laxford writes to us and demands the payment of this £25,000 to her under the policy. Naturally we refuse, on the ground that the assignment was invalid because young Brandon was under age when he made it. There was some more correspondence, formal merely; and the result was our visit to-day.”

  Templand paused, with evident dramatic intention, as he felt for his cigarette-case. Then he continued:

  “When Mr. Kirkstall and I called on Laxford this afternoon, he put a new face on things. He produced a new assignment. I’ve a copy of it here.

  ‘28th August, 1924.

  In consideration of value received and hereby acknowledged, I assign to Mrs. Diana Laxford the policy of insurance for £25,000 which I hold from the Mersey and Midland Insurance Company. She is to pay the premium on it on my behalf, and in the event of my death she is to be the sole beneficiary under that policy. I have given notice to the Mersey and Midland Company to this effect, and they have accepted this notice.

  JOHN BRANDON.

  Witnesses to the signature

  of John Brandon

  JOSEPH HAY

  THOMAS LAXFORD.’

  “That was written with pen and ink by young Brandon himself, Mr. Laxford told me,” Templand explained. “You notice the date, of course; it’s the date on which young Brandon came of age, and therefore this new assignment is a valid document. Quite on a different footing from the one he mentioned in his letter to us. And of course you notice”—he made an almost imperceptible pause—“that on that morning he died.”

  “Yes, I remember that,” Hinton returned thoughtfully. Then with a cynical smile he added: “Curious, isn’t it?”

  But there was no cynicism in the inspector’s inner consciousness. Behind his emotionless façade, a flame of excitement had been rising higher and higher as Templand unfolded his narrative. Now, with that sinister coincidence before him, his last doubts were dispersed. This was ‘the big case’ at last, unmistakable, made for him.

  “I’d be obliged for a copy of that correspondence,” he said, closing his notebook. “It’ll bear looking into a bit closer than I’ve been able to do just now.”

  “Certainly,” Templand assured him. “So we’re making common cause? My company certainly won’t want to pay. . . . You mean to go on investigating, I take it?”

  “You can put your shirt on that!” the inspector declared in vulgar exultation. “And the longer you can spin things out on your side, the better.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The Laxford Finances

  FORTIFIED by several pipefuls of his special smoking-mixture, Inspector Hinton devoted the rest of that evening to a full reconsideration of the Edgehill problem. Templand’s evidence had thrown a flood of light upon it from a fresh quarter. What was even more satisfactory, the insurance transactions furnished a sound motive—hitherto missing—for the elimination of young Brandon. On the solid basis of that £25,000 policy it seemed, at the first glance, a simple enough matter to build up the remainder of the evidence into a coherent and convincing structure of argument.

  How would it look to a jury? That was the ultimate test, from Hinton’s point of view. Well, first of all, there was Laxford’s attempt to insure the boy’s life for £50,000 in favour of Mrs. Laxford. Why Mrs. Laxford? Obviously because Laxford himself was an undischarged bankrupt who would have difficulty in entering into the transaction in his own name. That attempt failed. No insurable interest. Still, it would influence the jury when it was dragged out before them.

  Just as he was dismissing this episode from his mind, another idea struck Inspector Hinton; and he reached for his notebook to make a jotting. The pretext for that business had been th
at Mrs. Laxford, out of her personal estate, was going to advance money in order to buy out an insurance company’s claim and get control of an estate on behalf of young Brandon. But if she were rolling in cash to this extent, why didn’t she pay off her husband’s debts and clear him of the slur of bankruptcy? And if she had all this pile in hand, why had her current account sunk so low that she had no assets to meet that cheque she drew for the first premium payment? Further, how did this Brandon estate business actually stand? That might be worth looking into. Hinton scribbled some memoranda in his notebook before turning to the next phase of the case.

  The second insurance transaction was quite aboveboard, so far as the company went. But how would it look to a jury? Again it was Mrs. Laxford who was to profit ultimately, though this time it was under an assignment of the £25,000 policy taken out by young Brandon himself. But in this assignment there was no mention of the Brandon estate. Instead, there was that curious phrase about ‘value received and hereby acknowledged.’ A jury would want to know what ‘value’ was received. But it would be Laxford’s job to tell them that, not Hinton’s.

  Then there was the business of the two assignments. The first of them had been made on or before 15th August, when young Brandon was a minor. The second one, dated 28th August, must have been signed on the very morning of the boy’s death—at the earliest moment when he could make a valid assignment after coming of age. Templand had not been able to say whether Laxford knew that a minor could not make a valid assignment; but on the face of the transaction it was plain enough that he did not know that on August 15th, but that later, having found out the fact, he had got the boy to make a fresh and valid assignment on the 28th. And immediately after signing that, he had come to grief. That would be a bit of a fish-bone in the jury’s throat, if Hinton knew much about juries. So far, so good. Even at that stage of the case the prosecutor would manage to instil something stronger than doubts into the minds of the jurymen.

  And that wouldn’t stand alone. One could follow it up with an awkward point or two. The youngster signs the assignment. Then they go out shooting. What sort of morning was it? The inspector remembered it well enough: a blustering, squally day, with rain beating in torrents at intervals. Hardly the weather to choose specially, seeing they could go out rabbit-shooting at any time they liked. But the next thing on the bill would be the arrival of this shooting-party that had been invited. If Laxford meant to remove young Brandon, he could hardly afford to wait until all that pack came on the scene. The jury would appreciate the bearing of that point, without having it explained in big type.

  Then a fresh argument occurred to him. Laxford had taken out that £25,000 policy on the ‘without profits’ basis. Well, if the boy wasn’t expected to live for even six months, then there would be no profits accruing and there was no point in paying the higher rate of premium. The same argument fitted the fact that the cheque covered only the first half-year’s premium. Nothing much in it, perhaps, but it would help to build up an impression in the minds of the fellows in the jury-box.

  The next thing was the distance from which the shooting had been done. That would have to be tried out with the gun itself. Hinton jotted down a reminder to procure the guns from Edgehill. That could be done without setting Laxford on the alert, thanks to this row between the Laxfords and the Brandons.

  Then, with something of a shock, the inspector recalled that Laxford’s gun had been in the hands of Dunne at the moment of the tragedy.

  He laid down his pencil and puffed at his pipe for some time before seeing his way through the tangle of possibilities which this fact suggested.

  “Well,” he said aloud in an irritable tone, “there were only four guns out that morning—his own, his brother’s, Laxford’s, and Hay’s. He must have been shot by one of them, whichever it was. It may have been his own gun, by accident. But then where’s the blood in the ditch? It may have been his brother’s gun—no, that’s bosh, on the face of it. Far too far off, for one thing; the charge would have spread, at that distance. Of course it might have been Dunne, with Laxford’s gun. Or it might even have been Hay. That would fit in with his vamoosing so slick, instead of turning up to give evidence at the inquest. Holy blue smoke! A cross-word puzzle’s a fool to this business. Still, so far as any traceable motive’s concerned, Laxford must have been at the back of the business somewhere. O Lord! If only that damned lunatic could get his memory back for five minutes, I’d have the whole thing cut and dried, even if we couldn’t call him as a witness. But there’s no chance of that, I suppose. Or if I could only lay my hands on Hay . . .”

  By the time Inspector Hinton knocked the ashes from his last pipe that night, he had lost a good deal of his initial confidence. Wherever he turned, he was met by one elusive figure, a thing that was by turns a normal human being and a mere sentient machine without control of its actions or memory of its deeds. That, his cooler judgment told him, was the weak spot in the affair, unless he could build up an absolutely cast-iron case against Laxford. With that in their hands, it was easy enough to forecast what line the defence would adopt. They would find some more or less plausible excuse to account for the insurance transactions, and then they would turn the spot-light upon the sinister figure of the epileptic coming quietly out from among the bushes with Laxford’s gun in its hand. That puppet could find no legal place in court. Barred alike from witness-box and dock, it would none the less dominate the whole trial. “Can you be sure,” the defending barrister would ask, “Can you be sure, gentlemen of the jury, that this is not the killer of John Brandon?” And, on the face of things, no jury could be sure. They would give Laxford the benefit of the doubt. In a hanging case, almost any jury would be glad to escape from “Guilty” if they could honestly convince themselves that there was an alternative explanation. And here was the alternative, ready-made, with no rope for Dunne, no matter what happened. Of course the jury would take that line, unless one could prove the case against Laxford up to the very hilt.

  “Damn that lunatic!” the inspector growled to himself as he glanced once more over his notes before going to bed. “He’s the rock my case’ll split on, if I don’t manage to steer round him.”

  Next morning, at the earliest convenient hour, he presented himself at Edgehill.

  “Can I see Mr. Brandon?” he asked the maid who came to the door.

  “Mr. Brandon’s not well to-day. He’s keeping his room, and Miss Menteith’s sent for Dr. Brinkworth. He had a bad night. . . .”

  “Oh, you mean old Mr. Brandon?” the inspector interrupted rather unsympathetically. “I don’t want to see him. It’s Mr. James Brandon I mean.”

  “He’s in London.”

  “Then his brother will do instead.”

  “He’s not here, either.”

  At these answers, the inspector’s hopes of picking up information about the Brandon estate diminished uncomfortably.

  “Ask if old Mr. Brandon will see me for a moment or two,” he proposed.

  The maid shook her head without hesitation.

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t. He’s not well at all.”

  Hinton seemed to have reached a blank end. All he would get for his visit now would be the guns, and he might have sent a constable to fetch them. Then a fresh idea crossed his mind.

  “Ask Miss Menteith if she’ll speak to me, just for a moment or two,” he ordered.

  The ex-governess might know nothing useful, but at least he could try her, since he had come all this length.

  “She’s with Mr. Brandon just now; but I’ll ask her, if you’ll come in and wait,” the maid explained, stepping aside to allow Hinton to enter. “If you’ll go into the drawing-room, there, I’ll run upstairs and tell her.”

  When Hinton’s message was delivered to her, Una Menteith was taken aback, though she did not show it. She had watched the inquest with anxiety, always with the fear at the back of her mind that some scrap of evidence might put the coroner on the alert and open up the whole sordid bus
iness which they had taken such pains to hide. With the announcement of the verdict, her anxiety had vanished. The affair seemed closed for good. That miserable scandal need never be dragged into public view to throw discredit on the Brandon name.

  And now, while they were relaxing in their fancied security, came this inspector, like some bird of ill-omen, to show that the danger was still alive.

  Obviously he must have come to Edgehill in connection with Johnnie’s death. Obviously he must suspect that something still remained to be cleared up, despite the verdict of the jury. Obviously, too, he was pertinacious: his successive demands for one person after another showed that plainly enough.

  Una swiftly reviewed the situation as it presented itself to her. If she refused to see Hinton, he would not be permanently baulked; he would merely return later, with increased suspicion, to renew his inquiries. There was nothing to be gained by that policy. On the other hand, by speaking to him now, she might get some hint of his purpose and thus be able to forewarn the Brandons ere it came to their turn to be questioned. Incontinently she decided on her course of action. She would see Hinton, give nothing away, and discover, if possible, what he had in his mind.