The Heel of Achilles: A Golden Age Mystery

by E.

  The woman rose slowly to her feet—and beyond. To the Chief Constable she seemed to grow and grow like the Genie out of the bottle. Her eyes flashed red and her hands dropped stiff beside her. Her bosom bulged forward like that of a pouter pigeon.

  For one ghastly moment, the Chief Constable thought he would be unable to restrain his laughter as the thought flashed through his mind, ‘no falsies there; solid roast-beef woman.’

  “Well!” said Mrs. Crouch; and there was no further danger of laughter; he seemed to feel that he was going to be heavily chastised. Hastily, he rallied his forces, and pursued his intended advance. He closed the kitchen door behind him and whispered in a voice like a saw, “Mrs. Crouch, m’dear, the guests—very unexpected. Big noises from Scotland Yard. Everything depends on you. You’ve never let me down yet. I told the Commissioner, ‘wonderful woman is Mrs. C. Would do anything for the Forces.’ So now, Mrs. Crouch, eh? Lunch for three? Yes?”

  “Well, I must say, sir,” ejaculated the cook. “This is the limit. You’re always doing this, sir.” She wagged a finger. “And too late to get anything. It’s enough to break a woman’s heart, that it is. We’ve only enough in the place for two. And the Commissioner here. You don’t deserve no consideration from me, you don’t, the way you treat me. I’m no snack bar just to peck at when you have a mind.”

  “Now, now, Mrs. C.,” soothed the Chief Constable. “Don’t get upset. I realize that I’ve been very stupid, but it’s your own fault, being always ready to dash to my rescue. I rely on you too much, I’m afraid. Forget it. I’ll just take them over the The Bear and give you no trouble.”

  “The Bear,” gasped Mrs. Crouch. “Indeed you’ll do no such thing. Whatever would the Commissioner think if you couldn’t give him lunch after asking him. I’ll do my best. Goodness knows, no woman can do more. But remember, sir—” she hissed the words—“I don’t like it. Now—get out! I’ll be ten minutes.”

  The Chief Constable returned to entertain his guests with local anecdotes, in a slightly nervous voice and apprehensive furtiveness. He heaved a sigh of relief on observing that Mrs. Crouch, entering with the soup, was adorned in the blue-flowered overall reserved only for Christmas and very special occasions. All was going well, he mused; Mrs. C. was ‘going to town on the lunch’, an expression she had borrowed from the American vocabulary via the local cinema.

  He was right. A quite excellent curry of the reinforced stew with trimmings of rice that had already been prepared for his evening meal, was followed by a superb sweet omelet à la Crouch, and gruyère cheese and biscuits. Cona coffee ended the meal.

  She flushed with pleasure at the commendation of the guests at the excellence of the meal. The Chief Constable smiled, as wheeling out the loaded trolley of empty dishes into the hall, she whispered in his ear, “Well, I’m sure I hope you’re satisfied, sir. Now, please take a week’s notice.” She disappeared triumphantly.

  Manson sipped the coffee with relish. “Your housekeeper, Mainforce,” he said, “is a jewel.”

  “Yes, quite priceless, I agree,” responded the Chief Constable. “But, alas, she is no more. She’s given me a week’s notice—for the twentieth time.” He laughed. “Unfortunately, I always forget to tell her when I have invited guests. I am afraid that one day she’ll really get annoyed and I’ll lose her. That will put the kibosh on my establishment. However, while I have Scotland Yard at my back I feel safe. She reads detective stories enthusiastically. Oh, by the way, she thinks you are the Commissioner.”

  “What!” said the startled Manson. “You don’t mean to say you’ve—”

  “Don’t for the love of Heaven let me down, old chap.”

  The company dissolved in loud laughter.

  Mainforce joined in, but then became suddenly serious. “Now, we’d better talk business, Doctor,” he insisted. “My inspector seems to have missed everything it was possible to miss. Sound man in his way. Very trustworthy, you know, but no thinker.”

  “Don’t suppose he has had much practise round here, Mainforce,” suggested Manson. “Nevertheless, he ought to have known about the blood.”

  The Chief Constable looked at him thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking, Manson, you might be wrong about Canley not walking to the railway line,” he said.

  “In what way?” The doctor looked with inquiry and lively interest at his host.

  “Well, his shoes. They were mudless, I agree, and doubtless they had been wiped. But couldn’t Canley have had a reason for wiping them? If he did, it rather disposes of a second person on the line, doesn’t it? I agree it doesn’t sound a likely thing to do. On the other hand, it is possible, I suppose?”

  “Yes, there is no reason why he should not have wiped them, if he so wanted,” replied Doctor Manson. “Folks do queer things sometimes—”

  “Ah!” said the Chief Constable, not without a touch of satisfaction. “Then—” Doctor Manson interrupted. He looked quizzingly at his host. “But tell me, Mainforce,” he asked. “If he did wipe his shoes, with what did he perform the operation?”

  “With what?” The Chief Constable echoed in surprise. “Why with a piece of rag, I suppose. What would he wipe them with?” he asked.

  “Precisely. And what happened to the piece of rag? When did it vanish into thin air. Because there was none found on him, you know. Nor was there any on the line.”

  The Chief Constable retired, disconsolately. “Ah, of course,” he said. “I ought to have known better. Only it seemed to be a little lacking in your usual clear proof.”

  “It is not only the fact that the shoes had been wiped that makes me certain that Canley did not walk to the line.” The doctor amplified his prognostication. “There is more conclusive evidence.”

  “What? I haven’t heard of that.” The Colonel thought introspectively. “What is it?”

  “I’ll show you that when we get back to the cottage,” Manson promised.

  The Chief Constable looked at his watch. “Perhaps we’d better get a move on,” he said. Rising, he led the way to Ypres. With another variety of clatters they waggled a way back to Thames Pagnall.

  A cackle of conversation at the cottage led them to the back room of the house, the kitchen. Inspector Kenway, Mackenzie and Sergeant Bunny were lolling at a table which bore the remains of bread and cheese, the property of the late Mr. Canley. Three empty bottles illustrated the liquid with which the comestibles had been washed down.

  At the entrance of the Chief Constable’s party, the officers rose, fortified, to render whatever help the Chief might decide. He did, in fact, indicate the immediate problem.

  “Before we start on anything else, Doctor,” he said, nodding at Manson, “what is the other part of the proof you possess that Canley did not walk from this cottage to the railway?”

  “He says,” turning to the others of the company, “that the wiping of the shoes is only part of his evidence. Just an elementary fact.”

  “The proof, Colonel,” declared Manson, “lies in the footprints. But I think that the casts which Merry and Kenway made will be sufficient for me to demonstrate the point without us journeying back to the embankment. By the way”—he turned to Inspector Mackenzie—“you can now open the railway line and the path, if you like. I have no further interest in the evidence there.”

  The Chief Constable guffawed. “I reckon there’ll be precious few people using it as a short cut for the time being,” he said. “And a damned good thing, too. Now what about those footprints. Manson?” he asked.

  Merry had opened the Box of Tricks and from it had extracted the casts of the prints which he and Kenway had taken from the impressions on the path and in the lane. He placed them, soles up, on the kitchen table. Doctor Manson quizzed them carefully for a moment or two.

  “Yes,” he said. “The evidence is sufficiently plain. There you are, gentlemen.”

  He replaced the casts on the table, and stood beside them the shoes of Canley, also with the soles up.

  “The evidence
that Canley did not walk. See if you can find it. Mackenzie already knows part of the solution. You may want a lens,” he added. “I did, but then I was examining the actual prints on the path. The evidence here is easier, and, I think, more plainly apparent. But there’s my lens.” He placed it beside the exhibits.

  The officers bent over the table, and surveyed the present but hidden evidence. Merry, more experienced in following Doctor Manson’s line of thinking, spent the first few moments comparing the markings of the soles of the shoes with those on the casts. The casts were faithful productions of the markings, which were detailed finely.

  After a couple of minutes or so, Merry withdrew from the contest. Inspector Mackenzie quizzed him with his eyes, and received a nod. He returned to the casts and eyed them with enthusiasm, but with little hope, Inspector Kenway did the same. Merry whispered a few words into the ears of his chief, and the scientist nodded. “But you should have seen it earlier, Jim,” he said reprovingly.

  “What is it, Manson?” The Chief Constable had exhausted his patience.

  The doctor moved to the table. “Let me deal, firstly, with the print that Mackenzie knows,” he suggested. “And which Kenway knows, too,” he added.

  “Shoes, you know, can tell many things of the habits of their wearer. Now, these shoes are plainly marked with the walking habit of Canley. The outside edges of the heels are considerably worn—which is the stamp of the walker who takes long strides, or strides a little longer than the length of his legs justify. The natural result of that is that he comes down on the ground heavily on the outside of the heels, instead of square over the heels as does the normal walker. That is the reason that the heels of Canley’s shoes are worn down, thusly.”

  The doctor demonstrated the amount of the wear by placing the blade of one of Canley’s table knives across the heel of one of the boots; it showed a space of a quarter of an inch between the knife and the worn outside edge of the sole.

  “That plain?” he asked; after a chorus of “yes,” he replaced the shoe on the table and took up the corresponding cast.

  “Very well. Now, had Canley walked from this cottage down the lane and up the path to the railway, he would, you will agree, have walked in his natural way—with his feet coming down on the outside of the heels. The result should be, of course, a deep well-defined impression of the outer edge of the heel, and a much less defined and lightly pressed mark of the inside section of the same heel.

  “But on the contrary”—the scientist pushed the cast under the eyes of his hearers—“there is here practically no impression at all of the outside of the heels; instead the inside of the heel is cut deep and straight.”

  He demonstrated the fact in all the casts that had been taken by the Inspector and Merry.

  “In addition, you have the fact, pretty obvious, that the length of stride as shown by the distance between the prints, is not the normal stride of a man of the height of Canley—let alone that of a man of Canley’s height who takes long strides.”

  “Oh, Lord,” groaned the Chief Constable. “Elementary.”

  “Observation,” corrected Manson. “As a matter of fact, it was the shortness of the stride that led me to examine the prints more closely. I had concluded from the shoes that Canley strode, and was surprised to find that he had walked.”

  Mackenzie presented the appearance of bewilderment. “Then, Doctor Manson, if Canley did not walk to the railway, how comes it that his shoes made the prints?” he asked. He looked suddenly doubtful.

  “Do you mean that the footprints have been . . .” he searched round for the appropriate word, but could think only of—“forged?”

  “I should say that forged fits the circumstances, yes,” the scientist agreed.

  “But,” propounded Mackenzie, “a chap would have to walk himself to make the forgeries. He’d have to impress the shoes down in the places and he’d leave his own footprints.”

  The Chief Constable jumped in with both feet.

  “Do you mean, Manson, that someone else was wearing Canley’s shoes and walked in them to make the prints appear to be Canley’s?” he asked.

  Manson applauded. “It has been a long, long trail, but you’ve reached the end of the winding at last,” he said. “That is precisely what I think did happen.”

  “And where would Canley have been at the time?” asked Mackenzie.

  Doctor Manson looked at him long and thoughtfully. “You may remember, Mackenzie,” he said at last, “that you were asked to walk up the inclined path to the railway, taking care to place your feet alongside the tracks made by Canley?” The inspector nodded.

  “Afterwards, you may recall that I measured the depths of the footsteps you made with a micro-calliper. Similarly you will remember my examination of the print which you made in the soft spot in the lane by the side of Canley’s print. What did I say to you then?” he demanded.

  Inspector Mackenzie thought back. “I think,” he rejoined, “that you inferred that I was about the same height and weight as Canley.”

  “Excellent, Inspector. You did not, however, notice at your subsequent inspection of the print, any difference between your prints and those of the man who I had told you, and you had agreed, was about your own weight?” The doctor put the statement interrogatively.

  “No,” agreed Mackenzie, absently. He was thinking back as fast as he could.

  “Now, I was intrigued by a peculiarity which seemed to me to tell a remarkable tale. The micro-callipers showed me that the measurement of Canley’s supposed footprint was five-sixteenths of an inch deeper than the impression made by you. And your stride was longer than that shown in the lane as the stride of the supposed Canley.”

  “Being a man with a very suspicious mind, I asked myself what conceivable circumstance could make a man walk with a stride shorter than was his wont, and at the same time make a deeper impression than he normally should make according to his weight. The only reason I could see was that he was much heavier than usual.”

  “I get it, Doctor.” Inspector Kenway broke in on the explanation. “You mean that he was carrying a heavy weight.”

  *“He was carrying Canley. That’s what you are telling us, isn’t it?” demanded the Chief Constable.

  Doctor Manson spread his hands expressively. “That, Colonel, is the one thing which would explain Canley’s shoe-prints showing a tread that was entirely foreign to him, a stride that was not his usual stride, and at the same time explain his apparent walk to the railway line, his death before the train passed over him, and the complete absence of obvious traces of a second person who must have been there.”

  “And I know no other circumstances,” he added, “that can satisfactorily answer all these curiosities.”

  The company digested these facts in silence. They were arguing mentally and individually, that this meant that the supposed accident was definitely a case of murder.

  Inspector Kenway ventured the opinion aloud.

  “I would not dogmatize that at this stage, Kenway,” retorted the scientist. “I think, however, that I shall probably arrive at that conclusion. This cottage should provide us with more data—at least, I hope it will.”

  “At the moment,” declared the Chief Constable, “we have a dead man carried from this house, down the lane, and up a path to the railway lines, and placed over a rail by someone who wore his shoes to give the idea that the dead man was alive, and had walked to his death. In other words, we have a certain chain of circumstances which show a planned and well-thought-out plot to disguise a person’s death. That seems quite a lot to be going on with.”

  His voice had the intonation of a man who sees calamity bearing down upon him; and no way of avoiding it.

  CHAPTER XVII

  Inspector Mackenzie unlocked and threw open the door of the lounge and made way for Doctor Manson and the Chief Constable to enter. The scientist stood just inside the door and let his eyes take in the general lay-out.

  It presented the appearance of
a comfortably, but not luxuriously furnished room left undisturbed after the exit of its occupant. By the table stood a chair pushed slightly back in order to allow the occupant to rise. A bottle of whisky half full of spirit stood on the table, together with a single glass and a carafe of water. Near these was an ashtray with, dropped into it, a match end and a quantity of ash. The fire had burnt out.

  Across the floor in front of the fender was a patterned rug. A strip of carpet ran diagonally from the fireplace to the door, but the remainder of the floor space was plain polished wood. An armchair stood by the fireplace.

  “Looks a placid, contented household, Manson,” suggested the Chief Constable. “There is no sign of a struggle or evidence of violence.”

  “None at all, I agree, Mainforce. This room has not been touched, has it, Mackenzie—either by you or the woman?” he asked the local inspector.

  “Nothing at all has been touched, Doctor. We had no reason to touch anything until the railway doctor insisted on the Yard being called in, and after that I thought it best that the place should be left undisturbed.”

  Doctor Manson nodded a brief acknowledgement and crossed to the fireplace. He lifted from the hearth a formidable iron poker and inspected its heavy knob, first with his unaided eyesight, and afterwards through a lens. The knob dismissed from any complicity in violence, he moved his examination to the length of the weapon. Neither did this afford him any satisfaction, however, and he replaced it.

  “Wiped, probably,” suggested Merry.

  “No,” rejoined Manson. “I do not think so. It is well marked with fingers,[III] but I see no sign of any foreign body, such as would have been noticed after violence, and it seems to have been used for no other purpose than that for which the makers intended it.”

  He called to the men at the door. “Do not tread anywhere near the table,” he warned. “Keep where you are for the time being.”