The Heel of Achilles: A Golden Age Mystery

by E.

  Colonel Mainforce suddenly eased his position, and placed the bottle he was holding on the table.

  “You win,” he announced. “You generally do.”

  Doctor Manson eyed him interestedly. “Tell it first,” he invited.

  “I was holding the bottle with my left hand to take out the cork with my right hand fingers,” he said. “And so would everyone else. And there’s only one hand marked on that bottle—the right hand.”

  “How about a left-handed man?” Kenway asked.

  “That would be different,” said Manson. “But Canley was right-handed.”

  He forestalled the inevitable question as Mackenzie opened his mouth to ask it. “Look at the table lay-out—with the ashtray on the right of the glass, and the chair to the left of the glass. Only a right-handed man would sit down that way.”[V]

  “However, we did not really want the example of the bottle to prove that there is something fishy about the whole business,” Doctor Manson continued. “Take the other glass and the carafe of water. Both, we know, were carried from the kitchen by Mrs. Skelton and placed on the sideboard. But they have no fingerprints of any description on them.”

  “In other words—” began the Chief Constable.

  “They have been deliberately polished,” suggested Merry, “to remove any fingerprints which were left by someone who was in the place last night, someone who was obviously drinking with Canley.”

  “Fingerprints which had been left, or might have been left.” The doctor augmented Merry’s explanation.

  “In other words,” began the Chief Constable, “someone with guilty knowledge has removed traces of his presence, eh?”

  “That, Mainforce,” agreed the scientist, “is the conclusion to which we are inevitably driven. And in doing so he has, like most people, left traces of his presence.”

  “Ha! The plot thickens.” Colonel Mainforce demonstrated his satisfaction. “We now seem to be getting somewhere.” He rubbed his hands. “Who’d think of polishing glasses, and such-like?” He answered his own question. “A woman. Just the thing she’d do. Now we know of one woman who was in this place last night. Canley’s suc . . . suc . . . his mistress. Know this woman, Mackenzie?”

  “Mrs. Andover?” The inspector nodded. “Lives—lodges,” he corrected—“in a house near the Green, behind us. Been going round with Canley for some time. Races, and so on.”

  “What kind of woman is she?” asked Manson.

  “Strapping woman, all curves. Red-headed,” Mackenzie described her.

  “Hey, what’s that?” The Chief Constable looked up. “Would she be strapping enough to carry a lump of meat like Canley?”

  Inspector Mackenzie took a moment or two to consider the question. “I reckon, sir, she’s pretty strong,” he decided.

  “What about it, Doctor?”

  “I don’t know.” Doctor Manson looked doubtful. “There is not usually that strength in a woman, but it is a possibility we cannot rule out. I think Kenway will have to see her.”

  “Don’t get the point, Doctor,” protested the Chief Constable. “These big women are as strong as some men. Look at Black Maria.”

  “What! the police van?” asked Mackenzie. “She isn’t as big as all that.” The Colonel snorted disgust.

  “Not the van,” he bellowed. “The woman the police van was named after. Boston negress—Boston in America. Kept a boarding house for sailors. When lodgers got out of hand, she’d carry ’em bodily out of the house, and drop ’em in the street. Seeing policeman being attacked one day by a drunken sailor, she went to his aid, picked up the sailor and carried him to the lock-up. Did it several times. Got so well known that police in the district when a chappie was causing them a lot of trouble used to send the SOS ‘Send for Black Maria’. When they got vans to carry struggling blokes to the lock-up, they called the vans Black Marias. See?”

  “Very interesting and instructive, Colonel,” commented Doctor Manson. “Well, Kenway will see what he can learn from this woman of Canley’s—and about her. Now, I think we are pretty well finished here, except for the writing desk, and this table. If Canley has a dressing-case about the place, perhaps Mackenzie would put all the contents of the desk into it, and I will go through them at my leisure in Town. Meanwhile—”

  He turned his attention to the table, starting with the area on which had been standing the glasses and bottle. Thorough examination, however, disclosed no sign of blemish. Grey powder didn’t help, either.

  “You see, Mainforce, that again all fingerprints appear to have been wiped clear over the entire area,” he pointed out.

  Only once did he show any real interest during the examination; that was when, going over the edges of the table he produced his tweezers and loosened a thin curling thread of some sort which had caught on a splinter. This he placed in one of his seed envelopes.

  When he announced that he was finished, he had a last word for the local inspector.

  “I should still keep the place locked up, Mainforce,” he advised. “I may want to confirm something after I’ve gone through, in my laboratory, the things I’ve taken away.”

  As he and Merry walked towards the door, a foot clicked against some object on the floor. Merry picked up the object—a small piece of hard soil, curved slightly in its length.

  “A mixture of clay and chalk, apparently,” said Manson, and looked more closely at it. “Appears to have dried and fallen out of a heel instep. Put it into an envelope and we’ll have a closer look at it later.”

  “Oh, by the way, sir, we’ve found that hat about which you were worried,” Mackenzie announced. He flashed it into sight like a conjuror producing a hat out of a rabbit for a change.

  Doctor Manson took it. The hat, a brown trilby, looked a trifle the worse for wear. The doctor eyed it dubiously.

  “Just the kind of hat he’d have picked for a night like last night,” Mackenzie suggested.

  Doctor Manson nodded, but still dubiously. “And where,” he asked, “did you find it?”

  “Round the side of the house, near the kitchen window, sir. There are marks of footsteps on the flower bed, but it’s loose, soft soil, and there are no definable footsteps.”

  The scientist walked round the house and inspected the spot. He nodded agreement at the impossibility of making anything tangible of the trampling. He wrapped the hat in a piece of newspaper and packed it into the Box of Tricks.

  The Chief Constable walked with the two scientists back to the railway station yard and saw them off for London in Doctor Manson’s big black car.

  “Anything more we can do?” he asked.

  “Only the woman at the moment. Colonel,” the scientist replied, “and anything we can find of Canley’s movements last night. He had not returned, you remember, when Mrs. Skelton (whom God preserve) had laid his evening meal and left the house for the night. Thanks for the lunch.”

  The car purred away.

  * * * * *

  An hour or two later, a car drew into the runway of a garage on the Staines By-pass—a neat, freshly painted garage with green and white facings. The driver crawled out of his seat, stretched his long legs and looked round.

  “Hi, there!” he called.

  From the interior Jack Porter emerged. He was dressed in a pair of brown dungarees and was wiping his hands on a chunk of mutton-cloth as he approached his customer.

  “Petrol—four gallons, please. And you had better put in a pint of oil, too.”

  “Very good, sir. Nice to see a bit of sun in November, isn’t it?”

  The man giggled. “All right for them that can see it,” he agreed. “Know one chap who doesn’t care. He can’t see it.”

  “Who’s that, sir?”

  “Chappie found dead at Thames Pagnall. On the railway.”

  “Oh, him! Yes, of course. I saw it in the early evening papers. Knocked down by a train, wasn’t he?”

  “You’re behind the times,” announced the customer. “That’s the cause of t
he excitement down there. They all thought that he was knocked down by the train and had his head cut off. Only he wasn’t.”

  Porter’s heart stopped a beat. His hand slipped and petrol from the pipe sprayed over the road.

  “Hi! Look out, man,” warned the motorist.

  “Sorry, sir. I’ll put a bit more in over the mark. What were you saying about the dead man?”

  “Oh, only that he wasn’t killed by the train. He was dead when the train ran over him. Rare to-do about how he came to be dead on the track.”

  “I haven’t seen anything about that.”

  “Don’t suppose you have. It isn’t public property. Copper friend told me when I stopped at the local. He’s been on the business. Seems somebody went over the local police and got the Yard in. They sent down a big noise, and he was scouting round until an hour ago. He said that the chap was put on the lines in order to make people think that his death was an accident.”

  “How the dickens can he tell that?”

  “Don’t ask me, laddie. Can’t say. Fellow doesn’t know himself, according to my copper friend. But he reckons he’ll know by tomorrow. That’s what I call damned clever.”

  “Sure,” replied Porter absently, as he counted out change for a pound note. “Perhaps the chap deserved to be killed. You never know.”

  “I know a few I’d cheerfully kill if I couldn’t be found out. Good morning.”

  The customer put his car into gear and drove off.

  Jack Porter walked slowly back into his garage. His heart was beating painfully and his legs were trembling so violently that he could scarcely stand. He sat down on a bench to recover himself.

  How had the police tumbled to the fact that Canley had not been killed by the train? It seemed incredible. He went back in memory over all he had done during the night, carefully checking off each item.

  The marks of Canley’s shoes down the lane and up to the line would surely have told the police that he had walked there. And there were not any other prints. Yet they had said that he did not walk to the railway.

  But there, what did it matter anyway? The more he thought over the thing, the more cheerful he became. His heart settled down into its usual rate of beating. Suppose they had found that Canley was dead when the train went over him, he, Porter, had no cause to worry. There was no trace of him left in the cottage. He was quite certain about that. There was no loop-hole that could send the police in his direction.

  Porter looked through his garage doors, and saw another car pull in. He rose and, whistling cheerfully, went forward to service it.

  At that precise moment, Doctor Manson began preparing the benches in the laboratory in Scotland Yard for the beginning of the search into the identity of the person whom he knew had killed James Canley.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Left to himself—and Inspector Mackenzie—Kenway debated on the best method of beginning his inquiries into Mrs. Andover. He took the problem to his colleague’s local knowledge.

  “Now, Mac,” he said, “you know this place. Where would be the best place to start searching round?”

  Mackenzie, whose way of dealing with the village malefactors was the archaic method of fixing them with the eyes of the Law and thus terrorizing them, as he thought, into subservience, tended in the direction of direct approach. “Seeing as he and she were—”

  “On terms of intimacy is what you are searching for, I think,” put in Kenway, helpfully.

  “—as everybody around here knows,” went on Mackenzie.

  “It looks strange to me that she hasn’t been round to see what’s happened to him. All the village knows by now that he’s dead. I’d have reckoned that she would have turned up at the cottage. Especially as she’s got a lot of things lying about the place. Look’s suspicious to me.”

  “Not if it’s true that murderers always return to the scene of their crime,” said Kenway.

  “Don’t believe in that rubbish,” denounced the Scotsman, whose superstitious beliefs were only those attested by the Book of Common Prayer and the Bishops. “They keeps as far from the scene of the crime as they can. I know where the woman lives. We could go and give her the works.”

  “And give her the chance to know all that we know—so that she can set about preparing a nice alibi among her friends! I’d sooner get to know about her and her movements to be able to question her, knowing that we have a good check on her answers—which she won’t know we’ve got. I take it she used to have a drink now and again. Which pub did she particularly fancy?”

  “The Miller’s Arms, over there on the Green.” Mackenzie waved a hand in the direction of the end of the lane.

  “Then we will drop in and have a beer. What’s the landlord’s name, by the way?”

  “North. Ted North. Who does your doctor man think did it?” he added, inconsequently.

  “The doctor? No idea, Mac. He never says anything about a case until he’s sure of what he’s saying.”

  “Don’t see what he can do about the case in London, anyway.”

  “No?” Kenway looked amused. “Now, I reckon that with the things he’s taken away with him the doctor will learn more about this case in an hour with his microscope and bottles than we’ll get round here in a day.”

  “Do you mean the things he put in envelopes?”

  “I do, Mac, yes.”

  “Well, I reckon he can’t do as well as someone on the spot. Stands to sense. There’s the pub,” he announced.

  The Miller’s Arms stood squarely a little back from the road, and in front of a stretch of common land, on which bracken was mixed with blackberry and hawthorn bushes. Whence it derived its name was a never-ending source of conjecture to the clientele, and even to the landlord, for there was nothing in the archives of Thames Pagnall to suggest that there had ever been a mill in the vicinity; in fact, the only mill which did exist in the area was in a neighbouring village, some two miles away, on the banks of the River Mole, or still farther away at Esher; the mill at the latter place still stands.

  But, fact or fiction, the Thames Pagnall hostelry bore the title The Miller’s Arms, together with a picture of a jolly miller, which looked unlike any miller who ever ground corn!

  At first glance the place appeared to be particularly modern, with its red bricks, nicely pointed, and attractively green and cream paint. It was not until the doors were swung open and one passed to the interior that its antiquity was revealed.

  A long, low room, carpeted, welcomed the thirsty entrant, with long rough oak beams, blackened with age. (A test of the antiquity of oak beams is usually that they are not of the sawn variety, but merely roughly fashioned with an axe or adze.) A large open fireplace in the side of which half a dozen men could sit, and from the chimney of which hung still the old-fashioned spit, gave confirmation of its age.

  Along one of the beams down the centre of the room hung from nails, copper beer-measures, ranging in size from a gill to half a gallon. An air of pleasant quietude and conviviality permeated the atmosphere. Inspector Kenway eyed the bar with appreciation.

  “Old place this, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “More than 500 years,” answered the landlord, who had entered unheard from behind them. He greeted Mackenzie. “It has a rare reputation round these parts, has this pub,” he added.

  “And what would that be, landlord?” asked Kenway.

  “You’ll hardly believe it”—the landlord chuckled—“but its the only pub hereabouts that Dick Turpin didn’t spend a night in. We’ve got the identical bed upstairs in which he didn’t sleep.”

  He joined in the laughter which greeted the announcement.

  “That is probably the reason why Mackenzie here, and the police come,” volunteered Kenway. “Patronizing a law-abiding house, as it were. What do we drink here, Mackenzie?”

  “Wallop,” announced Mackenzie, promptly. “Speciality of the house.”

  “Then, two pints of wallop it shall be. And perhaps you’ll join us, Mr. North?”r />
  “Pleased.”

  The landlord pulled the beer. “Good health,” he pledged; and the three men drank deeply.

  “Visiting here?” The landlord looked inquiringly at Kenway.

  “Detective-Inspector Kenway, of Scotland Yard.” Mackenzie made the introduction. “Mr. North—Councillor here as well as landlord.” He paused. “We’re in a spot of bother here, Ted,” he announced.

  “Ah! Canley, I reckon. Accident, wasn’t it?”

  The swing doors opened, and a couple of men entered. Kenway looked at the landlord. “Can we go somewhere where we can talk, Mr. North?” he asked. “You may be able to give us some assistance.”

  “Come into my snuggery.” The landlord poked his head through the bar hatch. “Tend the bar, Mary, for a bit, will you?” he called out; and then led the way into a small room off the bar, and closed the door. “Only one or two personal friends of mine allowed in here,” he explained. “We shall not be disturbed at this time of the day. Now, what can I do?”

  “Tell us anything you can about Canley,” said Kenway. “I can tell you, in confidence, that he wasn’t killed by the train; he was dead before the train touched him. We are seeking some reason why he should have been on the line at that time of night, and something about his habits and acquaintances.”

  The landlord rubbed a hand over his chin, ruefully.

  “There’s not much I can tell you,” he said. “He was a good customer here—I suppose he spent three or four pounds a week, but we don’t know much about him, really. I gathered he was a south country chap.”

  “Do any work?”

  “No. Not so far as I know. It was understood that he had private means of some kind. He did a bit of racing.”

  “Win anything?”

  “He said so. And one or two tips he gave in the bar here have come up. I should think that Dan Hubbard could tell you more of him in that connection. He’s our local bookie.”

  “Any particular friends—or enemies?”

  “Not that I know of.” The landlord drew puzzled brows together. “It is a peculiar fact that, although he was greeted here affably, nobody really cottoned to him. They’d have his drinks, and buy him a drink, but not like friends. It’s hard to explain, but—”