“Probably hers,” the sergeant suggested. “It’s got her initials on the band, and it’s filled with red ink.”
“It is hers,” said Kent, who recognised it even at a distance. The stuffy warmth of the room was growing heavy on his forehead. “She had two of them, one filled with blue and the other with red ink. They were something like—mascots.”
Hadley frowned at the pen. “But why red ink?”
“Capable business-woman. She had a part interest in a dress-making shop in Pritchard Street, although she never let it appear. Apparently she thought it wasn’t dignified.” Suddenly Kent felt tempted to laugh. Many images rose in his mind. The term “capable business-woman” seemed the last to describe Jenny, for it did not convey the extraordinary attractiveness which (in a purely spiritual way) turned so many people’s heads. Harvey Wrayburn had once remarked that she appealed to the adolescent mentality. Through those memories he heard Hadley’s voice:
“Finger-prints on this?”
“No, sir.”
“But if she had two pens, where’s the other one?”
“Must be in her trunk,” said Betts. “It’s not in her handbag, over on the dressing-table.”
Disturbed, Hadley examined the trunk. Though solid, it was an old, worn one; and her maiden name, “Josephine Parkes,” had almost faded out in white lettering on one side, the surname now being replaced with a bright white, “Kent.” The top compartment on the right-hand side of the trunk formed a kind of tray, filled with handkerchiefs and stockings neatly arranged. In the middle of a pile of handkerchiefs Hadley found the second pen, together with a little gold box, the key in its lock, containing costume jewellery. He juggled the two pens in his hand, muttering.
“This won’t do. Look here, Fell, what do you make of it? She was undoubtedly beginning to unpack the trunk when the murderer got her. She’d begin with the dresses—my wife always does, anyway, to see that they don’t crumple. But she had taken out only one dress and some shoes; the shoes apparently to change them, for she’s wearing bedroom slippers. The only other thing she removed was this red-ink fountain-pen, which was buried under a pile of handkerchiefs. Unless, of course…”
During this whole examination Dr. Fell had been leaning back against the wall, his shovel-hat over his eyes. Now he roused himself, putting away his pipe.
“Unless the murderer took it out himself. And in that case he knew where to look for it. H’mf, yes,” said Dr. Fell, wheezing in slow laborious breaths. “But I say, Hadley, I should be very much obliged if you would just recapitulate what you think happened here. It’s rather important. Again we have one blessed gift from heaven. The guests seem to have remained quietly in their rooms—except the murderer. We are not obliged to remember a complicated time-table of people treading on each other’s heels through the halls, or who met whom in going to post a letter at 9:46. What we have got to do is merely to read the indications of the physical evidence. But, oh, Bacchus, I’ve got an idea it’s going to be difficult! Begin, will you?”
“Where?”
“With the entrance of the murderer.”
“Assuming that the murderer is the ‘attendant’ Reaper saw outside the door at midnight?”
“Assuming anything you like.”
Hadley studied his note-book. “I know that tone of yours,” he said suspiciously. “Just let me tell you this: I’m not going to stand here and get a whole analysis worked out while you merely wave your hand and say you knew it all the time, but that it’s not the important point. By the Lord Harry, I’m going to have one case where you play fair. Agree or disagree, I don’t give a damn which; but no misleading. Is it a go?”
“You flatter me,” said Dr. Fell with dignity. “All right; fire away.”
“Well, as I see it, there’s one main difficulty. There are eight blows on the face and on the front of the skull, and no blow or bruise on the back of the head. But she certainly couldn’t have been conscious when she was put into that Iron-maiden trunk over there; she had to be fitted into the machine; and she’d have cut up a row that would have been heard. I know the walls look fairly solid, but sound-proof walls are like noiseless typewriters: you can still hear through them. This seems to mean that the murderer must have attacked her face to face with our blunt instrument, and that one of the blows from the front stunned her.”
“Undoubtedly. Whereas, you remember,” Dr. Fell pointed out, screwing up his face, “Rodney Kent was hit on the back of the head.”
“If the murderer, then, used a weapon large enough to do what’s been done to that face afterwards, how was it that she didn’t sing out, or run, or put up some kind of struggle, when she saw him coming? And—in a brightly lighted hotel—how was he able to carry the weapon about without being observed?”
Dr. Fell pushed himself away from the wall. Lumbering over to the tall pile of bath-towels on the table, he began picking them up quickly one after the other, shaking them out, and letting them fall. At the sixth towel, when the floor was littered with them, something dropped with a soft thud and rolled to Hadley’s feet. It was an iron poker some two feet long; its head was covered with lint where stains had made it stick to the towel.
“Look here, my boy,” said Dr. Fell, turning to Kent apologetically; “why not go downstairs and get a drink? It can’t be very pleasant for you to see her like that, and——”
“I’m all right,” said Kent. “It was the way the thing jumped, that’s all. So that’s how it was done?”
Drawing on his gloves, Hadley picked up the poker and turned it over.
“It’s what we want, right enough,” he said. “I see. It was not only a good concealment; but, with your hand on the grip of this thing, and the towels hiding the sight of it from the other person, you could whip it out and hit before the other person knew what you were doing.”
“Yes. But that’s not the only consideration. It is also reasonable to ask: why are there so many towels? There are fifteen of the blighters; I counted. If your purpose is merely to hide the poker, why do you stack them up like that and badly encumber your movements when you have to strike? But fifteen towels would not only serve to hide the poker: they would also hide——”
“The face,” said Hadley.
Again Dr. Fell got the pipe out of his pocket and stared at it blankly. “The face. Quite. Which leads us to the question: if the murderer is a real hotel-attendant, why should he bother to hide his face either in the halls or before Mrs. Kent? In the halls he is in his proper sphere; open to no suspicion so long as he is not seen entering this room; and carrying such a great pile of towels will actually serve to call attention to him. Before Mrs. Kent, when he knocks at the door, he is a hotel employee with an obvious errand. But if he is some member of her own party—some person she knows very well—he must hide his face. He cannot run the danger of being seen walking about in that elaborate uniform with his well-known face bared. Mrs. Kent will certainly be surprised and probably alarmed if she opens the door and sees a friend in fancy-dress: particularly the same sort of fancy-dress that appeared in the house when her husband was murdered. And he must get inside that room before she is suspicious. Add to all this the fact that the liftmen swear no real attendant came up here last night between eleven-thirty at night and five in the morning: you begin to perceive, my boy, that the Royal Scarlet Hotel houses an unco’ dangerous guest with an odd taste in clothes.”
There was a pause. Hadley tapped on his note-book.
“I’ve never suggested,” he returned, “that she was killed by a complete stranger. But in that case—unless he pinched a real attendant’s uniform, the clothes he wore must still be in one of these rooms?”
“So it would appear.”
“But why? Why carry about an outfit, and wear it only for murders?”
Dr. Fell clucked his tongue. “Tut, tut, now! Ne’er pull your hat upon your brows. There are other things to claim our attention. Since you won’t recapitulate, I will.
“Several thin
gs were done in this room besides murder. First, someone picked up a pair of mis-mated brown shoes and put them outside the door. It seems unlikely, to say the least, that Mrs. Kent would have done it. They were not only shoes that did not match; they were suède shoes that could not be cleaned. So the murderer did it. Why?”
“At first glance,” replied Hadley cautiously, “you’d say it was because the murderer didn’t wish to be interrupted by anybody, as he might have been. He was in the midst of a clutter of shoes. So he picked up a pair, which looked alike to a man in a hurry, and put them outside the door so that it would be assumed Mrs. Kent had gone to bed. That was why he also—hold on!”
“Exactly,” agreed Dr. Fell. “That was why, you were going to say, he also hung a ‘quiet’ sign on the door. But there we take a dismal header. The murderer takes a (hidden) ‘quiet’ sign out of the bureau drawer; he takes a (hidden) fountain-pen out of Mrs. Kent’s trunk; on this card he writes ‘Dead Woman’ in large letters, and hangs it on the door-knob. It seems rather a curious way of making sure you avoid interruption. Why does he appear to need so much time, and to take so many precautions?”
“Any suggestions?”
“Only to conclude this account by indicating what happened this morning. We assume,”—he pointed his stick towards Kent, who had been swept aside in the backwash of this argument—“we assume that our friend here is telling the truth. H’mf. At about eight o’clock he comes up here with the hall-porter. At this time the bureau does not contain a bracelet left behind by an American lady who departed yesterday, the body is lying with head almost inside the leaves of the trunk. While the hall-porter waits, our friend gets out. Presently the porter has the door opened again. The missing bracelet is then found in the bureau, and the body has been moved some feet out from the trunk. The conjuring entertainment is over: ladies and gentlemen, I thank you.”
Kent thought that the glance Hadley turned towards him was speculative enough to be ominous.
“If I were judging the matter from outside,” Kent admitted, “I should say I was lying. But I’m not lying. Besides, what about that bracelet? I certainly didn’t come here last night, pinch a bracelet I’d never seen from a woman I’d never heard of; and then come back here this morning and return it. Where does the bracelet fit in?”
“The alternative being,” said Hadley, ignoring this, “that the hall-porter is lying?”
“Not necessarily,” said Dr. Fell. “If you will look——”
There was a knock at the door. Preston brought in the hall-porter and the chambermaid.
The girl was an earnest blonde in a starched blue-and-white uniform which made her look stout; she seemed to jingle like the bunch of keys (all Yale keys) at her waist; but she appeared excited rather than frightened, and a nerve twitched beside one eyelid. Myers, the hall-porter, stood in massive contrast. Though Kent again noted his pointed moustaches and slightly pitted face, the most conspicuous thing in all their eyes was the porter’s costume: notably the long double-breasted frock-coat with the silver buttons. Myers, after one glance, affected not to notice Kent’s presence. That glance was not belligerent; it was one of dignified but hideous reproachfulness.
Hadley turned to the maid first, “Now there’s nothing to worry about,” he assured her. “Just look here, please, and answer a few questions. What’s your name?”
“Eleanor Peters,” said the girl, hardly lifting her eyes from studying the figure on the floor. She seemed to carry an atmosphere of strong soap.
“You were on duty here last night, weren’t you, until half-past eleven?”
“Yes.”
“Look up at me, please; never mind that!—Now. You see these towels? Do you know where they come from?”
A pause. “From the linen-closet down the hall,” she answered, reluctantly following instructions. “Or at least I suppose they do. There was fifteen of them gone from there this morning, and the place was pulled all about, sir.”
“Do you have charge of that linen-closet?”
“Yes, I do. And I locked it up last night, too, but somebody got in and pulled it all about.”
“Was anything else gone?”
“Nothing but one face-towel. That one, I’ll bet.” She nodded in a fascinated way towards Jenny Kent’s body; and Hadley moved over to obscure her sight of it.
“Who else has a key to the linen-closet?”
“Nobody, far as I know.”
“What time did you come on duty this morning?”
“Quarter-past seven.”
Hadley went over to the door, opened it, and detached the “quiet” sign from outside. Standing well back in the room, Kent could now see out diagonally across the corridor towards the door which, on the plan, had been marked as that of Sir Gyles Gay’s sitting-room. This door stood part-way open, and a face was looking out with an air of alert and refreshed interest. If this were Sir Gyles Gay, Kent was conscious of surprise. He remembered Dr. Fell’s mention of interest in names, whatever might have been the significance of it. The name itself had a spacious Cavalier ring, as of one who would down tankards on the table and join a businessmen’s chorus in full Cavalier style. Actually, he was a little wizened, philosophical-looking man with an air of interest in everything and a complete lack of embarrassment. After giving Hadley an amiable, somewhat marble-toothed smile reminiscent of the portraits of Woodrow Wilson, he withdrew his head and shut the door. The mural design on that wall was a representation of a cocktail party. Hadley closed the door of 707.
“You came on duty at a quarter-past seven,” he said to the maid. “I suppose you passed this door?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Naturally.”
“Did you notice this card on the door?”
“I noticed the card, but I didn’t notice what’s written on it. No, I did not,” said the excited Eleanor, who evidently wished she had.
“Between the time you came on duty and the time this gentleman came upstairs with the porter,” he nodded towards Kent, “did you see anyone else in this wing?”
“No. That is, nobody except a page. He came up about half-past seven and looked at the door of number 707 here, and turned round and went away again.”
Myers, the porter, was about to come into action. He had been waiting with several slight clearings of the throat, like a nervous orator who has several speakers before him. Now he began, with massive respectfulness, to explain; but Hadley cut him short.
“Just a moment…. About last night. Were you in this part of the wing when Mr. Reaper’s party got back from the theatre?”
“That’s the handsome one in 701,” said the maid; and stopped, covered with a pouring confusion. She added rapidly: “Yes, I was.”
“Did you see—?” Hadley stood aside and indicated Jenny.
“Yes, I did. I saw them all except the one with the moustache, in 705.”
“What was Mrs. Kent wearing then? Do you remember?”
“Same as she’s wearing now, but with a mink coat over it. Except that she’d got on shoes instead of slippers,” added Eleanor, after another careful inspection. “The other, the fat one”—Melitta Reaper, undoubtedly—”was in evening dress, gold lawn, with a white fur wrap. But this lady, and the hoity-toity one in 708 were both in ordinary clothes.”
Myers, evidently furious, was about to quell this style of talk with cold authority; but Hadley’s glance at him was even colder.
“Did you hear them saying anything?”
“Only good night, that I remember.”
“Did they go directly to their rooms?”
“Yes, sir. They all stood with their hands on the knobs of the doors, looking round, as though they were waiting for a signal or something; and then all of a sudden they all turned round together and went into their own rooms.”
Hadley studied his note-book; then he turned to Myers.
“First, about this bracelet: when did you hear it had been left behind in this room?”
“Eight o’clock this morning, sir
, when I came on duty,” replied the other instantly. He had a good parade-ground manner of giving evidence, and he was on his mettle. His answers bristled up as though you had given him a shake by the shoulders. “I’m the day-porter, you see, and I come on duty at eight. But Billings, the night man, told me about it when he went off duty. Mrs. Jopley-Dunne, who occupied this room last, had telephoned last night about the bracelet. Mrs. Jopley-Dunne was then staying overnight with friends in Winchester, intending to go on to Southampton next day to catch the Directoire. But she telephoned so late that Billings would not disturb Mrs. Kent at that hour.”
“What hour? Do you know when the call came through?”
“Yes, sir, there’s always a record. At 11:50.”
“At 11:50?” the superintendent repeated quickly. “Was anyone sent up here to inquire?”
“No, sir, nor even telephone. As I say, he would not disturb Mrs. Kent at that hour.”
“Where were you at that time, by the way?”
“Me sir? I was at my home, in bed.” A new, somewhat hoarser tone, had come into Myers’s voice; he showed a land of Gibraltaresque surprise.
“Go on: about next morning.”
Myers retold the familiar story. “—so you see, sir, Billings had already sent up a page-boy at seven-thirty, and the page said there was a ‘quiet’ sign on the door. When I came on duty, and Billings passed the word along to me, Hubbard (that’s one of the under-porters) said he thought the gentleman in 707 was just finishing his breakfast in the dining-room. I took the liberty of asking this gentleman, thinking naturally—you understand.
“We went upstairs. I got the chambermaid to open the door, and he went in. He asked me to wait outside, of course. When he had been gone about two or three minutes, and there was no sound out of the room, I tapped on the door: meaning to tell him, you see, sir, that the matter could wait if he could not find the bracelet. There was no answer to that. A minute or so later I tapped again; I was beginning to think it was queer. Then my coat or something brushed that sign on the door. It had been turned round so that the dead-woman part was facing the wall, and I hadn’t seen it until then.” Myers drew a quick whistling breath. “Well, sir, I knew I was taking a responsibility, but I asked the maid to open the door. And I went in. This gentleman—wasn’t there.”
To Wake the Dead (Dr. Gideon Fell series Book 9) Page 7
