Too Many Cousins

If she is eliminating her cousins, it’s the sort of story she would put out.”
“Why draw attention to the thing at all?”
“Suppose she has another little accident in view. It might then seem good policy. Even as the case stands, sooner or later—when the second Mrs. Shearsby dies, for instance, and the trust fund is distributed—somebody may put two and two together, and ask questions. They are less likely to be asked of an apparent victim. Or again she may be planting evidence against one of the other survivors. I have no reason to suppose, of course, that she isn’t telling the truth. I’ve asked Yvette to suggest packing her off to France, or well out of London. Her reactions may give us a line.”
“She didn’t appear to know about this writer chap being bumped off?”
“She talked about him, with a perfectly straight face, as though he were still alive. That’s all I can say.”
“Are you seriously suggesting another little accident?” Sir Bruton asked, reaching vaguely for an ashtray and hitting a bowl of paper-clips. “Damn it, if these are murders, whoever’s doing ’em ’ll collar a third of the cash now. Sixty or seventy thousand quid ought to be enough.”
“You or I might think so,” Mr. Tuke said. “We’re cautious blokes. We know when to stop. But the average mass murderer doesn’t. It’s like drink. Just one more quick one—nobody will spot it. You know that as well as I do.”
“Better,” Sir Bruton agreed with a sinister chuckle. “You needn’t teach your old uncle to suck eggs. I’ve had some of these coves in the dock. Remember Scarsbrick, the solicitor, who did in three wives? If he’d stopped at two, he’d have got away with it. Excess of zeal. Armstrong was another, and Palmer, of course, though they only proved one murder in either case.” The Director chuckled again. “Did you ever hear how the people of Rugeley petitioned the P.M. to have the name of the town changed after Palmer’s trial? The P.M. was old Pam, and he wrote ’em a nice letter suggesting they might call the town after him—Palmerstown.” Sir Bruton gobbled, banged his spectacles, and replaced them for safety on his nose. “Interesting thing about all these coves,” he said, “is that they were educated men—not like Smith and his little tin baths. They ought to have had more sense.” He wagged his head sadly at over-indulgence in murder by educated men. “But where would you and me be, my boy,” he reflected more cheerfully, “if criminals had sense?”
“What an old ghoul you are,” said Mr. Tuke. “Well, the Shearsby murderer, if there is one, is another educated man, or woman. It will be instructive to see whether he, or she, knows when to leave well alone.”
“Ghoul to you,” Sir Bruton retorted, hoisting himself up in his chair, into which he had slid so far that only his ample stomach prevented his slipping beneath the desk. He took off his glasses again to wave them at Mr. Tuke. “You and your busman’s holiday! Now look here, Tuke. Whatever you’re up to, you’ve got to turn the whole thing over to G.I. straight away. See Wray about it. No more of this gifted amachoor stuff.”
“I’m going to see Wray about it in any case,” Mr. Tuke said equably.
He got up and perched himself on the edge of the desk, where he reached for the telephone. Sir Bruton appeared to have lost interest. His lips were moving silently, and Mr. Tuke paused to inquire:
“What are you muttering about?”
The Director fixed him with a protuberant eye and began to recite:
“The Mayor and Town Council of Rugeley
Disliked notoriety hugely.
They said: ‘Well, we mean,
What with this ’ere strychnine,
It’s a hell of a life for yours trugely.’ ”
Mr. Tuke made a face as he took up the telephone. “Give me Scotland Yard, please,” he said. “Mr. Wray.”

CHAPTER V
MR. HUBERT ST. JOHN WRAY, the Assistant Commissioner (Crime), was a small, dapper, reddish-haired man with a marked general resemblance to a fox. Mr. Tuke and he seldom met without bickering; and when, a little later on that Monday morning, Harvey entered the large upper room in Norman Shaw’s lofty building on the Embankment, Wray greeted him with a faintly malicious smile.
“Hello, Tuke.”
“Hello to you.”
“I thought you were on holiday.”
“Why does everyone make that remark? Does a holiday necessarily entail exile from all one’s usual haunts?”
“It does, with rational people,” Wray said, with his neighing little laugh, which showed his gums. “We’re only too glad to forget our usual haunts. But I suppose you must be different.” He picked up a file from a tray on his table. “Well, you’re wasting your time now. Nice to see you, and all that, but your little inquiry’s a mare’s nest. It was a perfectly genuine accident. No doubt about it at all. What made you think otherwise?”
Harvey had relapsed into a chair beside the Assistant Commissioner. “I didn’t think otherwise,” he said. “I know nothing about the case. I am merely curious.”
“Why? Did you know the fellow?”
“Never heard of him till the other day. Tell me about the genuine accident.”
Wray gave him a foxy look which was an example of Nature’s thoroughness when she creates one of the higher animals in the image of a lower. Taking a Turkish cigarette from a silver box on his table, he lighted it and opened the file.
“This is all the Traffic Branch has on it. It’s perfectly straightforward. Captain Sydney Dresser, R.A.S.C., was attached to the S. & T. Branch of London District. His office was in Curzon Street. He was a man of thirty-three, a bachelor, and lived in rooms in Bayswater. On the evening of the 14th of March he left his office just after seven. It was a filthy wet night, and pitch dark. Dresser always went home by bus, from the stop in Park Lane by Stanhope Gate. He’d just started to cross Park Lane when a van came down