The Twenty-One Clues

by J. J. Connington

  Peter considered for a few seconds before replying.

  “Might be something in that,” he conceded, finally. “I’ll have a dash at it, anyhow.”

  Chapter Seven

  The Suit-Cases

  PETER had hardly left the room when Constable Loman presented himself to make his report to the inspector. He saluted, advanced to the table and produced various envelopes which he put down before Rufford.

  “We carried out your instructions, sir, and clipped away the bracken carefully. Amongst it, we found four more bits of paper. They’re in this envelope here.”

  Rufford picked up the envelope, shuffled the scraps of paper out on to the table, and examined them. Three of them were bluish, the other one was white. Each of them had some words on it, but Rufford found no trace of address on these additional white fragments. He replaced them in the envelope without comment, promising himself to fit the two letters together later on, now that he had all the available material.

  “What else?” he demanded.

  “We’ve found some empty brass cartridge-cases, sir. Four of them.”

  “Four?” interjected the inspector, taken aback.

  “Four, sir,” said Loman. “It surprised me, too, sir. But there they are. I’ve put each in a separate envelope, with a number on it, just to have everything according to Cocker. And I’ve drawn a rough sketch, sir, to show where they lay. Here it is, sir.”

  He drew from his pocket a piece of paper bearing a rough diagram, which he spread out on the table.

  “I’ve got the measurements in my note-book, sir; but this gives you the general lay-out of the position, so that you can see the thing at a glance.”

  “I see,” commented Rufford, with his eyes on the diagram. “The dagger signs represent the two bodies: Mrs. Callis’s and Barratt’s. The stars show the positions where you found the cartridge-cases, and the numbers correspond to these figures on the envelopes. That’s it? And I suppose the dotted line X to X represents the single track we found going up through the bracken. And the other line, ZZ to ZZ, corresponds to the double trail we noticed. That’s it?”

  “That’s it, sir, as you say. Tatnell and me, we measured out the tracks down to the road, before we started cutting away the bracken, so as not to be destroying any evidence if such was needed, by and by. I’ve got all the figures in my note-book, sir.”

  “Excellent,” commended Rufford, who now remembered that he had omitted to give instructions on this point and who was only too relieved to find that his subordinates had wiped his eye in the matter. He gave them mentally a good mark for their thoroughness.

  He bent over the table, scanning the diagram thoughtfully and trying to make some meaning out of it. Four shots? He had expected two at the most, one for each head wound. Could there be two bullets in each skull? He dismissed that idea almost at once, from his recollection of the character of the wounds. In any case, the surgeon would find the actual bullets when he carried out his post mortem, and that would settle the matter beyond dispute.

  He examined the contents of the envelopes in turn. Each of them contained the shell of a .38 automatic cartridge. Four shots had been fired, undoubtedly. Peter’s caricatured account of the Chief Constable’s methods came back to his mind, and influenced the trend of his thoughts. Treating it mathematically, one had five possibilities: four shots fired by one person, A; three shots by A and one by B; two shots by A and two by B; two shots by A, one by B, and one by C; and finally, all four shots fired by different persons, A, B, C, and D. These five arrangements covered the whole ground, and the truth must He somewhere amongst them.

  Then a complementary piece of evidence drifted out to the front of his mind. Up to that moment he had put it aside, engrossed as he had been in collecting fresh facts from his interviews. He recalled those tracks in the bracken: the single track and the double width track which had crossed the other lower down the slope and which, by the bending of the bracken-stems, had appeared to be made later than the single trail. That seemed to suggest that three people had been on the spot: two coming up together, side by side, whilst the third had been made independently. The two who came up together would probably be Barratt and Mrs. Callis. But who could this third party be? Someone who had surprised the couple? A moment’s reflection led Rufford to discard this idea. Since the double track had been made later than the single trail, obviously the third party must have been on the spot first, and was waiting for the other two when they came up. In other words, there had been prearrangement between the trio, and they had an appointment to meet on the scene of the tragedy.

  “I wonder, now,” mused the inspector. “Three people on the spot. One of them was a woman. She was hardly likely to play any part in the shooting, except to get shot. She was shot; Barratt was shot; and that leaves two bullets unaccounted for. Suppose these two shots were fired by Barratt at this third party. He must either have hit or missed. If he missed his mark, these two bullets will be out in the wide world somewhere, and there’s not much chance of finding them. If he hit and wounded this third party, then the missing pair of bullets will be somewhere inside the third party’s skin—perhaps—and we’ve got to hunt for somebody who’s been seeking medical assistance for a shot-wound.”

  Feeling the need of an auditor to clarify his ideas, he turned to Loman.

  “Look here, Loman,” he said. “Just let’s work this business out on the basis of your diagram.”

  “Yes, sir,” answered the constable, eager enough to listen, but chary of suggesting any ideas of his own.

  “After you fire an automatic,” said the inspector, “it ejects the spent cartridge from the breech and brings up a fresh cartridge to the barrel. The case of the spent cartridge is jerked out backwards and a little to the right. Generally it goes over your right shoulder or thereabouts.”

  “Yes, sir,” repeated Loman, obviously waiting for a lead.

  “When Mrs. Callis was shot,” Rufford expounded, “she must have been sitting among the bracken, facing south; and she was shot in the left temple. Barratt seems to have been standing up, facing her. He fell face downwards, shot in the right temple. Obviously the case of the cartridge which shot Barratt would be ejected eastwards and a bit to the north. So that must have been the empty shell which you found at position 4. That’s right?”

  “That’s right, sir,” agreed the constable. “And the one I found at position 3 would be the one that shot Mrs. Callis, wouldn’t it?”

  “I imagine so,” agreed the inspector. “Now that leaves us to see what we can make out of the remaining two shells. Allow for the same jump before the shell caught in the bracken and number 1 shell might have come from a pistol fired by someone standing about where the ZZ is in your diagram and firing southwards. And number 2 might have been fired in the same way by somebody standing a bit to the east of your ZZ point. But that doesn’t make much sense, does it? Why should anyone turn his back on Barratt and Mrs. Callis when he was firing? And what could he be firing at? That notion doesn’t seem to fit in.”

  “No, sir, it does not,” agreed Loman, evidently relieved at knowing just what was expected from him.

  “These shots couldn’t have been fired from anywhere north of 1 and 2,” the inspector proceeded, “because in that region the bracken was quite untrodden until we ourselves came along.”

  “That’s true, sir, I noticed that myself.”

  “But if they were fired from south of 1 and 2, then the gunman must have had his back to the two victims. That’s right? And the same’s true if the man firing had stood either east or west of Barratt and Mrs. Callis.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s plain enough,” said Loman, staring at the diagram on the table.

  Rufford saw that he was making very little of this puzzle. He put up his hand and rubbed the back of his head in perplexity.

  “This wants a bit more thinking out,” he said, in an attempt to cover his failure.

  “It does indeed, sir,” agreed Loman unhelpfully. />
  “Well, think over it and see what you make of it,” ordered Rufford. “There’s a screw loose somewhere; but there’s no getting over the facts, is there? We’ll need more information before we can put this jigsaw together. By the way, have these suit-cases been brought up from the left-luggage office yet?”

  “Yes, sir, Sergeant Quilter has them outside. Shall I tell him you want them now?”

  “Yes. Ask him to trot them along.”

  Loman left the room and within a few seconds Sergeant Quilter came in, carrying the suit-cases, which he placed on the table before the inspector. The sergeant was a methodical man, and had gained his promotion by thoroughness. No one could accuse him of any imaginative powers. “Facts are facts,” was his favourite apophthegm. He dumped the two cases on the table, retreated one pace, and waited for the inspector to make the next move. A glance showed Rufford that he had got what he had hoped for. One suit-case was an oldish one, of compressed cane, with three locks, and bearing a white-painted letter “B” on it, exactly as Mrs. Barratt had described. The other was a fairly new leather case, with an L. M. & S. Strathpeffer label stuck on it, which tallied with the account given by Callis’s maid. Rufford leaned over to examine the outsides, and his eye was caught by the two tie-on labels attached to the handles of the cases: “Barratt, Alcazar Hotel, Leicester Square, London.” He recognised the handwriting as Barratt’s.

  Rufford knew the Alcazar. It was an enormous caravan-serai, popular with visitors of a certain class, since it supplied bed and breakfast for a very moderate sum, while its amenities and central position made it the ideal of country cousins unaccustomed to such garish splendours. Rufford himself invariably stayed there when on a visit to the metropolis.

  “The Alcazar?” he said, musingly, with a glance at the sergeant. “They get a mixed lot of guests there. All sorts. I remember I once went there with Mrs. Rufford; and the clerk at the desk asked me point-blank if she and I were married. They must get a lot of divorce business, I expect, or they wouldn’t ask that kind of question.”

  Amongst the “facts” docketed in the sergeant’s mind was his impression that Mrs. Rufford was a strikingly pretty young woman with rather go-as-you-please manners, and what Quilter described to his own wife as “an R.S.V.P. eye.” This seemed hardly the occasion for mentioning such matters, however, so he made no comment upon his superior’s remarks.

  The inspector lifted the leather case on to the floor to make more room on the table. Then he tried the fastenings of the other, and, finding them unlocked, he opened the cane suit-case and began to go through its contents, dictating a list to the sergeant as he did so.

  “Man’s pyjamas, rayon, slaty-blue stripes. They were gone from his house when I asked about his things. No slippers or pumps here. His wife told me he’d only one pair of slippers and they were a bit shabby. I saw them myself, well-worn and hardly what one would take on a honeymoon. Bath-sponge. That’s right. It’s missing from his home. Saxe bath-gown, ditto. No shoes. He must have been depending on the ones he was wearing, for there was another pair at his house. Pair of military hair-brushes, split new. He left his old ones behind him. Grey plus-four suit. One complete change of underclothing. Two pairs socks. Split new tooth-brush and an unopened tube of Euthymol tooth-paste. That’s right. I saw the old brush and a half-used tube of Euthymol in his bath-room. He evidently meant to start afresh with a new set. That’s the lot.”

  The sergeant pondered for a moment; then rubbing his chin, apparently by force of suggestion, he inquired:

  “No shaving tackle, sir?”

  Rufford shook his head.

  “No, he left a safety razor, shaving-brush, and a stick of soap behind in his bath-room. Forgot them, apparently. I did the same thing myself, once, though never again. That wouldn’t have hampered him. You can buy ’em in any druggist’s or at a chain store. Well, that’s that.”

  He repacked and closed the case, swung it off the table and replaced it by the leather one, which also proved to be unlocked.

  “A bit more stuff here,” commented the inspector, as he began to unpack the contents. “Pair of silk pyjamas, white with coral facings. Half-dozen handkerchiefs, various. Slacks, navy. Jumper, one. Blouse, one. Black evening frock—make a note that the belt’s missing. Pair of evening shoes, glacé, with trees in them. That’s right. Silk stockings, three pairs, various. Change of underclothing complete, as far as I can see. Note ’em down for yourself. Packet of cigarettes. Book of paper matches. A cheque-book. No sign of brush and comb: I know about them, she left them behind. Small morocco jewel box with . . . let’s see . . . a blue zircon brooch with some diamonds round the zircon in a platinum setting. A sapphire and diamond ring, the ring’s gold, the setting’s platinum. Another ring, gold with diamonds only. Another gold ring, with twin diamonds. An emerald pendant, or something of that sort, anyhow. And a pearl necklet with diamond snap. Must be a fake by the size of it, but I’m no judge. That’s the lot. By the way, make a note that we found no bath-salts.”

  The sergeant nodded as he jotted this down and then looked up inquiringly.

  “I found a box of bath-salts at her house,” Rufford explained. “She must have packed in something of a hurry if she forgot them, not to speak of her face-cloth.”

  “Perhaps she didn’t use a face-cloth,” objected the sergeant.

  “She did. I saw it in her bath-room,” retorted Rufford. “Now we’re done with these things.”

  He repacked the suit-case, closed it, and placed it on the floor beside Barratt’s one.

  “What about the wire in the name of Mrs. Longnor?”

  “It was handed in at the G.P.O., just as you said. I made inquiries there, and managed to get hold of the clerk who took it in. He couldn’t remember anything definite about it; they’re kept pretty busy at the telegrams counter and he paid no particular attention to who handed it in. He did seem to remember, after a bit, that it was handed over the counter by a woman. I didn’t prompt him there. But I wouldn’t put too much weight on his recollections. He’d seen the signature and the address on the back of the form, and probably they gave him the hint that it was a woman that sent it.”

  “Likely enough,” agreed the inspector. “You got the form?”

  “It’s here,” explained Quilter, pulling out his note-book and taking the telegraph form from among the pages.

  “H’m! All written in block letters,” commented Rufford, after a glance at the paper. “I’d been hoping it was in her ordinary handwriting. That would have clinched things, seeing that it was supposed to be written by Mrs. Longnor. It doesn’t matter much. We’ve got Mrs. Longnor’s evidence that she didn’t write it. Now another thing. Did you inquire at the booking-office about the buying of these tickets?”

  “Yes, sir. All the booking-clerk could tell me was that likely they were bought between eleven and twelve, yesterday morning; and he wasn’t too sure about the time. But he does remember, queerly enough, that the fellow who bought them had a soft black felt hat on—the sort of thing——”

  “That parsons sometimes wear?” Rufford completed the sentence to hasten the sergeant’s rather slow discourse. “I saw one of the sort on Barratt’s hat-stand at his house. Did you show him a copy of the photo of Barratt?”

  “I did, sir. He didn’t recognise it at once, but after a bit he thought it was like the man who came to his window.”

  “A fat lot of good that kind of identification would be in court,” said Rufford impatiently. “If you’d shown him a photo of the Grand Mogul, he’d probably remember seeing him last Friday week.”

  “There isn’t any Grand Mogul nowadays, sir,” said Quilter firmly. “That’s a matter of fact.”

  “Oh, call him the Shah of Persia, if you like it better.”

  “I’m not sure if there’s a Shah either, nowadays, sir; and I read in the paper, not long ago, that they’ve been changing the name of Persia into Iran or something like that. I’m not just sure how a country changes its name, sir, w
hether it’s by deed poll or how——”

  “Never mind,” said Rufford, hastily, lest Quilter should put him in a difficulty by asking a question which he could not answer. “Did you inquire at the left-luggage office about the person who left these suit-cases?”

  “I did, sir. They were just as vague as the ticket-office fellow. All they could remember was that perhaps, or probably, they were left by a man in darkish clothes.”

  “Semi-clerical, like the hat?” Rufford surmised.

  He glanced at his watch.

  “Here’s another job for you,” he ordered. “Ring up this Alcazar hotel in Leicester Square and ask them if any room was booked for last night in the name of Barratt or Callis. And if none was booked in either of these names, ask if anyone from this town booked a room or rooms and get particulars. I want to know when and how the booking was done, in any case. Make sure they’re careful about it. Then, if a room was booked by phone, get the date and see if the post office can give you any information. If it was done by wire, get the original form, if possible. And if the room was booked by letter, tell the Alcazar to send on the letter, if they still have it. Now I’m going to get some grub, and then I’m going on to see Callis again, about this armoury of his. He’ll be home again by the time I get to his house, probably, but you’d better ring him up, anyhow, and tell him I’m going to call. And please tell Dr. Fanthorpe that I specially want the bullets he finds in those two bodies, as soon as he can conveniently give me them.”

  “He’s working at the P.M. now, sir.”

  “Very good. Oh, and another thing. Ring up Arthur Alvington, Crest Hill, Windsor Drive, and ask him if he’ll kindly come down here at . . . oh, say nine o’clock, if it suits him, or any time round about then that suits him better. You can say Mrs. Barratt gave me his name. It’s the identification of Barratt. You can explain that I don’t want to put Mrs. B. to trouble over an unpleasant job like that, and so on. You understand how to put it.”