“You were his legal adviser, I understand, sir?”
“I was, indeed. And am still, so far as the posthumous disposition of his affairs is concerned.”
“He made a will, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes. A straightforward document. Everything goes to his nephew, Mr Lintz, including the controlling interest in the Flaxborough Citizen Printing and Publishing Company. I believe the arrangement was fairly widely understood, so there can be no harm in my revealing the terms of the will. The fact is that Mr Gwill had no one else to whom he could leave his possessions: no one of blood relationship, that is.”
Gloss looked at Purbright intently, as if daring him to cross-examine. But the will seemed to have lost significance already. The inspector went straight on to other matters.
“How long had you known Mr Gwill, sir?”
“A fair number of years, I should say. Almost a life-time, in fact. The professional relationship dates back to, oh, the early ’thirties.”
“You had always been on good terms with him?”
“Come, inspector; you do not, surely, expect me to make any such claim?” Gloss was the bluff and open advocate now. “We had differences of opinion on many occasions. Marcus was not of an altogether amenable disposition. One made allowances...” he shrugged. “One got on, notwithstanding. I wonder your inquiries, even at their present presumably undeveloped stage, have not adduced evidence of a certain coolness in my client’s attitude to others.
“But”—Gloss bulged his eyes—“do not misunderstand me. At no time, no time, was there any serious likelihood of a breach between us. Men of business never allow temporary emotional discord to blind them to the mutual advantages of association. Please do not regard that as cynical, inspector; it is plain truth.”
“It sounds logical, sir. May I ask if you had any business interest in common with Mr Gwill beyond the...the normal client-solicitor relationship?”
“Pray amplify that question, inspector. I am not altogether with you.”
“Perhaps I had better put it another way. Are you aware of any occupation, any source of income, of Mr Gwill’s, apart from his ownership of the newspaper?”
“Ah, now you are framing the question very differently. In its original form, it almost implied suspicion that Gwill and I might have shared in some pecuniary enterprise on the side, as it were. I do hope you entertain no thought of the possibility of anything so improper?”
“I’m sure you would be guilty of nothing the Law Society might frown on, Mr Gloss.”
“No, indeed. That would be quite unrealistic. As to your amended question, now...” Gloss puckered his brow and was silent a while. Then he shook his head. “The answer must be no, inspector. Not that the bare negative is incapable of qualification, you understand; but I think it will serve in the context of police investigation.”
“If I were of an uncharitable disposition,” Purbright said quietly, “I might almost take that to be a roundabout way of saying that your client’s sudden departure has left some money lying around that isn’t strictly accounted for.”
Gloss looked at the policeman with undisguised admiration. “Upon my soul, but you’re a perceptive fellow, inspector. And you’re absolutely right. The trouble is, you know”—he leaned forward—“that my client suffered a disadvantage common to many gentlemen in a commercial way of occupation. They are naturally concerned to order their affairs to meet the contingencies of our times. Taxation and so forth, you understand. But such arrangements demand supervision by a live principal—a man who can sign his name—perhaps several names, alas. Manipulation is called for, inspector. Manipulation. And a corpse, God bless us, cannot manipulate.”
“I see what you mean, sir.”
The solicitor crossed one leg over the other and examined a carefully polished shoe cap. “You must not conclude, of course, that any substantial proportion of Mr Gwill’s assets is, how shall we say, frozen. His less orthodox accounts and holdings may need to remain outside the scope of the will for the time being, but they represent no part of the money that has accrued from his publishing business.”
“Can you tell me what they do represent?”
After the briefest of pauses, Gloss shook his head. “No, inspector, I’m afraid I cannot help you there.”
“You appreciate, I expect, sir, that the fact of Mr Gwill having been murdered obliges us to examine everything about his affairs that might show a motive.”
“Do I take it that you infer from the existence of an unofficial source of income that he might have been obtaining money by exerting pressure on some person?”
“I infer the possibility of blackmail.”
Gloss pursed his lips. “That is what I imagined might be your line of reasoning. But do you think that if that had been the case my client would have acquainted me with the extent of his investments? He need not have done so.”
“Nor need you have said anything about them to me, sir.”
“No, but I think it safer that I should.”
“Safer? Safer for whom, Mr Gloss?”
“For myself, inspector. I shall be entirely frank with you. It is my private belief that this money was obtained not by blackmail but by other means of questionable legality. What they were I do not know and I do not wish to know. But some months ago I noticed a change in the man’s manner. He became more excited, yet there was an element of fear in his excitement. He boasted of the supplements to his means and hinted at his having to be clever to obtain them. The sums themselves, as far as I have been able to check, were not spectacular. I think it was the method of coming by them that gave him some sort of stimulus. I further received the impression that some third person was being deprived of a share in the gains and that his discomfiture was contributing to my client’s sense of elation.”
“You felt Gwill was doing something dangerous, you mean? For the thrill of it?”
“Exactly. These little extras had been coming his way for a fairly considerable time, but he had said nothing about them to me, apart from asking advice on investment occasionally.”
“Which you gave?” Purbright interjected.
“Oh, yes. Why not? I had no proof of my client’s transactions being in any way improper.”
“Please go on, sir.”
“Well, during recent months he grew more loquacious. Not factually informative, you understand, but full of little hints and boasts of a slightly provocative character. He seemed anxious that I should feel involved in some way. I remember he said once that I should need to be careful for my own skin—that was how he put it—for my own skin, if ever anything happened to him. I asked him what he meant and he said something to the effect that he had made an enemy ‘good enough for us both’. To be quite honest, I had come by that time to suspect my client of being considerably overwrought and perhaps lacking balance.”
“You think now there may have been something in what he said?”
Gloss got up and walked to the window. With his back to Purbright, he went on talking as he stared out at the passing traffic.