by Annie Haynes
Harbord looked at his chief.
“You have formed a definite opinion, I think, sir.”
The inspector raised his eyebrows.
“It is facts, not opinions, that I am looking for now,” he said shortly.
“Finger-prints are pretty hopeless it seems to me,” Harbord said slowly. “Unless the saucer – if the murderer had tea I suppose he would take that in his hand. Door handles are never much good – too many people hold them.”
“No, I fancy the saucer is our only chance,” the inspector said, as he went towards the tea-table and gingerly lifting out the cups, sifted his powder over both saucers and blew it away. “We don’t know which he used,” he said, as Harbord looked across. “Ah! Just what I thought.”
Harbord peered forward. No finger-print of any kind was visible. A confused mark seemed to run all round both.
“Shows you what sort of a criminal we’re up against,” the inspector said. “He has rubbed both saucers round. We shall find no finger-prints here, Harbord. Now I think we will have the maid up. When we have heard her story the flat must be searched and we may be in a better position to know what to look for.”
Harbord went to the speaking tube outside. While they waited for Alice Downes’s appearance, he walked over to the window and stood perfectly still, his keen eyes glancing from one piece of furniture in the room to another as he mentally reconstructed the crime.
The inspector had concentrated on the mantel-piece, going over it meticulously with a tiny microscope which he produced from some mysterious pocket.
At last the maid, Alice Downes, appeared. Her hat was drawn down low over her brow, her eyes were swollen, and this morning they had a curious, sidelong, fashion of glancing here, there and everywhere. When the inspector beckoned her into the drawing-room she threw up her hands before her face.
“Oh, sir, I can’t – really I can’t! I – I came in last night and saw – her – it. I couldn’t speak a word, sir, if you make me come into that awful room.”
“I should be the last to do that. I would not hurt any lady’s feelings,” the inspector said politely. “But you will understand Miss Downes, that there are certain questions that must be put to you. Still, we can talk outside.”
He passed into the lounge as he spoke and put one of the two oak chairs that stood by the wall for the girl, taking the other himself.
“Now we will hear what you can tell us of this dreadful affair,” he said persuasively.
“But I don’t know anything, sir,” the girl said, twisting her handkerchief about in her fingers, and casting furtive glances at the halfopen door of the drawing-room through which she could see Harbord as he moved quietly about. “Not a thing! I left Mrs. Wilton as well as you and me when I went out, and I came back to find her stretched out there – dead,” with a dramatic gesture at the drawing-room door.
“And she must have died within a short time of your leaving,” the detective said quietly. “Tell me first exactly who was in the flat when you went out.”
“Nobody but Mr. and Mrs. Wilton, sir. I am certain of that.”
“Then, when you had your evening off, there was no one to take your place. Mrs. Wilton answered the door and did anything that was required in the way of getting a meal herself?”
“There was not much to do,” Alice Downes said. “I brought tea in before I left, and they would only have a cold supper. That is if Mr. and Mrs. Wilton did not dine out. Mrs. Wilton always did before she was married – at a restaurant.”
“But not after?”
Alice Downes’s eyes glanced at him in an oblique fashion from beneath their heavy lids.
“Well, you see, Mr. Wilton was more or less of an invalid,” she said slowly. “He was not often able to go out at all. Only now and again in a car.”
And now Alice Downes spoke quickly and volubly as if anxious to give all the information she could.
“What was the matter with him?” the inspector inquired.
“I don’t know, I’m sure, sir. Mrs. Wilton she called it a nervous breakdown. She said he had been working too hard and that he had had some sort of shock, and it had been too much for him. He always seemed to me dull and halfdazed like. But Mrs. Wilton thought the world of him. She waited upon him hand and foot before they were married and after.”
“Who was his doctor?”
Alice Downes paused.
“I don’t know, sir. No one ever came to the flat, but sometimes I have thought Mrs. Wilton took him to consult one when they went out.”
“I see!” The inspector glanced at his notes. “You say no one ever came to the flat. Do you mean that Mrs. Wilton had no friends?”
Alice Downes gave him that odd, fleeting glance again.
“None of them ever came to the flat if she had, sir. That is all I can say.”
The inspector stared at her.
“Do you mean that she had no visitors – not even before she was married?” And all the time he had a strange, extraordinary feeling that Alice Downes was not speaking the truth. That in spite of her apparent anxiety to tell him all, she was keeping back something which might be of vital importance to him.
She shook her head.
“Never to my knowledge. Mrs. Wilton was not much at home before she was married. She had most of her meals out. And the only visitor I ever saw at the flat was Mr. Wilton. And when he came he stayed on until they were married.”
“No visitors at all for a young woman like Mrs. Wilton seems an extraordinary state of things,” the inspector cogitated as if speaking to himself, though his keen eyes were watching her face. “Did she have many letters?”
Again there was that odd, flickering smile.
“Not many, sir. One now and again. And – and I think Mrs. Wilton mostly knew when they were coming. She was generally up and picked them out of the box as soon as the postman came. Once since I came here I took in a letter to her, and that was all.”
“Did you notice that one? Was the writer a man or a woman?” the inspector questioned quickly.
The malicious glint in Alice Downes’s eyes deepened.
“I can’t tell. The address was typed.”
For a moment the inspector was nonplussed. From the first he had felt certain that the girl was keeping something back; now what had been only suspicion became a certainty.
“When did this letter come – lately?” he asked sharply.
Then Alice Downes’s face became curiously contorted. She tried to speak, but for a moment no words came; when they did it was with a loud indrawn breath.
“It was just the day before she died.”
“How was it you got it?”
“Well, I don’t think Mrs. Wilton expected it. And I heard the man put it in, so I got it out and took it to the dining-room where Mr, and Mrs. Wilton were having breakfast.”
“Did you see Mrs. Wilton open it?”
“No. She put it in the black satin bag she always carried, without opening it or saying anything about it.”
The inspector looked at his notebook again.
“Now, Miss Downes,” he said after a pause. “I am taking it that you have your share of your sex’s failing – curiosity. Now, have you no idea who that letter came from? I am asking you in the interests of poor Mrs. Wilton – in the interest of us all, for we must all wish her murderer to be discovered. Did you see nothing of this letter or of any former letters in the waste-paper-basket or elsewhere?”
Again the maid shook her head.
“Never was there a bit of one in the waste-paper-basket. Never a bit of one anywhere – unless you could call a few ashes on the hearth a bit of one. There was not much Mrs. Wilton didn’t know. She had been a secretary herself, she told me, and it wouldn’t have been any good trying to take her in.”
“Her name before she was married was Houlton – Iris Houlton,” the inspector said. “Do you know where she came from, or anything about her friends or relatives?”
*“Nothing at all!” The
girl raised her eyes openly enough now. “And there is not a photograph or anything about the flat. I have often said to my mother it seemed very queer.”
“Ah! You must give me your mother’s address, please,” the detective said, scrawling an indecipherable hieroglyphic in his notebook. “I presume you will go there for a time anyway when you leave here.”
Alice Downes flushed darkly red.
“Now what has my mother’s address to do with you?” she demanded wrathfully. “She knows nothing about this – this affair. Never set foot in the flat, nor saw Mrs. Wilton in her life, she didn’t. And I can’t have the police going round there again, nor yet worrying her, and I won’t, so that’s flat.”
The inspector looked at her over the top of his glasses. That one little tell-tale word which he felt sure Alice Downes had let fall accidentally had explained something that had been puzzling him ever since he came into the flat.
“You must know that you will have to keep in touch with the police, Miss Downes. Your previous experiences must have taught you that.
Alice Downes turned from red to white.
“Previous experiences!” she repeated. “I’d like to know what you mean! I have never been mixed up with murders, anyway.”
“Ah, no! Shoplifting is a very different thing, is it not?” the inspector assented blandly. “Now, Miss Downes, don’t upset yourself. Your mother needn’t know anything about it, if you are a sensible girl and keep in touch with me. But your evidence may be wanted at any time. You will most certainly have to give it at the inquest, and at the trial should there be one.”
“Trial!” Alice Downes echoed. “And who is going to be tried, I should like to know? Mr. Wilton never did it, I’ll swear to that. A kinder-hearted gentleman never breathed. He wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”
“Quite possibly not,” the inspector assented, thinking that flies would probably not have offered much inducement to Iris Houlton’s murderer.
CHAPTER 15
“And now we must have a look at the poor thing’s room.”
The inspector unlocked the door of the largest bedroom. Poor Iris Wilton’s body had been taken to the mortuary. The bedroom remained as it was when she left it. Both men instinctively stepped quietly as they went in, and lowered their voices when they spoke.
*“If there is any clue to be found, I rather fancy we shall find it here,” the inspector said, as he looked round.
The furniture was very modern and obviously new. The bedstead stood against the wall near the door that opened into the dressing-room, which had evidently been occupied by Basil Wilton. The wardrobe door was half open, and the bright-coloured frocks hanging inside were a pathetic reminder of their murdered owner.
The inspector moved them to one side.
“No good looking for pockets. Women don’t wear anything so sensible nowadays. They stick all their belongings in these stupid little handbags they are always leaving about and losing.”
*“You never know where they put their things,” Harbord observed. “I had a girl out with me the other day. She wanted her purse and where do you think it was? In her stocking. Just at the top poked in between those things – what do you call them? –suspenders.”
“My sister keeps hers there,” the inspector said, diving to the bottom of the wardrobe and emerging very red in the face. “And when she goes out with her young man she tells him to look the other way while she gets it out.”
“Mine didn’t bother about that,” Alfred Harbord said in an abstracted fashion, while his eyes wandered appraisingly over poor Iris Houlton’s dressing-table. “Just the usual things here, sir, powder, rouge, lipstick, and what is this dark stuff? Oh, what they put round their eyes, I suppose.”
The inspector’s capable fingers were sorting and arranging the contents of the wardrobe.
“I never saw a woman who had so few personal belongings.”
“It is extraordinary!” Harbord said in a puzzled tone.
Both men worked on in silence for some time, then the younger uttered an exclamation.
“I have got it, sir, I believe.” He held up a flat russia leather case. “There will be something in this, I reckon.”
The inspector took it from him.
“Where did you find it?”
Harbord pointed to the bed. “Between the mattress and the bolster. Rather cunningly tucked in the bolster-case – it is flat and I might easily have missed it.”
“Ay! But you don’t miss much, my lad,” the inspector said approvingly. “Locked this is, and I suppose she thought it was safe. I dare say she has hidden the key. But it won’t take us long to get it open.”
He took something that looked like a thin, twisted piece of wire from his pocket and, putting it in the tiny lock, turned it and had the case opened in a minute.
“Ah, I expected this,” he said as he looked at the contents.
There was a cheque-book of one of the well-known Joint Stock Banks and a pass-book. The inspector opened this first.
“Tells its own story, if we could only understand it,” he said as he handed it to Harbord.
The younger man turned over the leaf. The book was a comparatively new one and only dated back, as the inspector noticed at once, to the time of Dr. Bastow’s death. The first entry showed that five hundred pounds in cash had been paid in to open an account for Iris Houlton. Another five hundred also in cash had been paid in since. On the other side – by the cheques paid out – it was evident that Iris Houlton had settled most of her bills by cheque.
“What do you make of it?” Stoddart questioned as Harbord looked up.
“On the face of it, I should say that Iris Houlton’s fortune was the result of some previous connexion with some one who had very good reason for wishing his name kept out of the papers.”
The inspector coughed.
“If the connexion was with a married man, the most ordinary wife would supply an excellent reason for keeping the matter secret. But I don’t fancy we shall find the solution quite so easy. So far Basil Wilton is the only man of whom we have been able to find a trace in his wife’s life. And you may imagine I had her pretty well looked after at the time of Dr. Bastow’s murder.”
Harbord nodded. “A good deal of suspicion attached to her then. I fancy people were pretty well divided between her and Dr Sanford Morris.”
“Yes, but the British public is not always right in its conclusions,” the inspector remarked.
Harbord looked at him.
“I always wish I had been with you in that case, sir. For I have fancied sometimes that your suspicion strayed to –”
“It is facts not suspicion that are wanted, as I have said before,” the inspector struck in. “As for you, I would have asked for no better colleague, but you were in the north, on the Bratson-Harmer case. Now before we go any further we must pay a visit to the Bank and see whether we can learn anything there.”
They went out, carefully locking the doors.
The branch of the Bank which Iris Wilton had used was some little distance away. The inspector beckoned a taxi.
“Time is money in these cases,” he observed to his subordinate.
Arrived, the inspector asked at once for the Bank manager and they were shown to his private room.
The manager came to them at once – a fussy, pompous-looking man. He held the inspector’s card in his hand.
“You wished to see me?” he said, glancing at his visitors inquiringly.
“Yes. My card will have told you that I come from Scotland Yard,” the inspector said, taking the bull by the horns at once. “I want some information respecting the account of the late Mrs. Basil Wilton, formerly Miss Iris Houlton.”
The manager fidgeted beneath the detective’s gaze. “It is not our custom to give information about our customers’ private accounts.”
“Quite so,” the inspector assented. “In an ordinary case, I understand. But in this particular one, when your client was foully murdered, you must realize t
hat you have no choice but to speak.”
“‘No choice but to speak,’” the manager echoed, knitting his brows. “Well, Inspector Stoddart” – glancing at the card – “the responsibility rests with you. What is it you want to know?”
The inspector took the pass-book from his breast pocket.
“I see there have been two large cash payments to Miss Iris Houlton’s account. Can you give me any information as to who paid them in?”
“Certainly!” The manager’s answer came with a readiness that surprised the detective. “Both sums were paid in by Miss Iris Houlton herself – in notes.”
“In notes!” The inspector took out his pocket-book. “You have the numbers, of course?”
“Of course,” the manager assented. “I can get them for you now.”
He turned to the speaking-tube and gave his directions in a perfectly audible voice.
There followed an awkward silence between the three men. At last the manager cleared his throat.
“I don’t fancy that anything we can tell you will help you to discover poor Mrs. Wilton’s murderer.”
“Perhaps not,” the inspector agreed blandly. “But I am sure –”
He was interrupted by the entrance of a boy with the numbers of the notes paid into the Bank. Stoddart frowned as he looked over the slips of paper the manager handed to him. The notes were for varying sums, from fifty pounds in one case to twenty pounds, ten pounds, even one pound – of this latter denomination there were one hundred and eighty. But no two of the numbers ran together as the inspector had half expected to find. He looked up.
“You knew Miss Iris Houlton personally, I presume?”
“Oh, yes,” the manager said at once. “She came here several times, as she invested a hundred or two in the new Argentine Loan. And she brought in these large packets of notes herself. I own I was surprised, though it is not my business to be surprised at our customers’ doings. If there is nothing else I can do for you this morning, inspector –?”
