Sir Clinton made a gesture of dissent. He crossed the room, and threw open the door of a cupboard wardrobe, revealing empty hooks and shelves.
“She’d hardly be living here with nothing but an evening frock in the way of clothes, would she?” he asked. “You can look round if you like, Inspector; but I’m prepared to bet that she never set foot in this room. You won’t find much.”
He stepped over to the dressing-table and examined one by one the knick-knacks placed upon it.
“These things are all split-new, Inspector. Look at this face-powder box—not been opened, the band’s still intact on it. And the lip-stick’s unused. You can see that at a glance.”
Flamborough had to admit the truth of his superior’s statements.
“H’m!” he reflected. “Of course it’s Mrs. Silverdale, I suppose, sir?”
“I should think so, but we can make sure about it very soon. In the meantime, let’s finish going round the premises.”
The rest of the survey revealed very little. The remainder of the house was obviously dismantled for the winter. Only once did Sir Clinton halt for any time, and that was in the pantry. Here he examined the cups suspended from hooks on the wall and pointed out to Flamborough the faint film of accumulated dust on each of them.
“None of that crockery has been used for weeks, Inspector. One can’t live in a house without eating and drinking, you know.”
“A port of call, then?” the Inspector persisted. “She and young Hassendean could drop in here without rousing any suspicion.”
“Perhaps,” Sir Clinton conceded abstractedly. “Now we’ll get Dr. Ringwood to give his assistance.”
He led the way back to the room through which they had entered the house.
“She was dead before that shot was fired, of course,” he said as they crossed the threshold. “But beyond that there ought to be something to be seen.”
“What makes you so sure that the shot didn’t kill her, sir?” the Inspector demanded.
“Because there wasn’t half enough blood scattered about the place. She was dead when the shot was fired—must have been dead for some minutes, I suspect. There was no heart-action to lift the blood in her body, so consequently it sank under gravity and left her skull nearly empty of it. Then when the shot was fired, only the merest trickle came from the wound. I think that’s right, isn’t it, doctor?”
“It’s quite on the cards,” Dr. Ringwood agreed. “Certainly there wasn’t the normal amount of bleeding that one might have expected.”
“Then the really important point is: how did she come to die. This is where we rely on you, doctor. Go ahead, please, and see what you make of it.”
Dr. Ringwood went over to the arm-chair and began his examination of the dead girl. His glance travelled first to the open eyes, which seemed curiously dark; and a very brief inspection of their abnormal appearance suggested one possible verdict.
“It looks as if she’d had a dose of one of these mydriatic drugs—atropine, or something of that sort. The eye-pupils are markedly dilated,” he pronounced.
Sir Clinton refrained from glancing at the Inspector.
“I suppose you couldn’t make a guess at the time of death?” he inquired.
Dr. Ringwood tested the stiffness of the limbs, but from his face they gathered that it was almost a purely formal experiment.
“I’m not going to bluff about the thing. You know yourselves that rigor mortis is only the roughest test; and when there’s an unknown poison to complicate matters, I simply couldn’t give you a figure that would be worth the breath spent on it. She’s been dead for some hours—and you could have guessed that for yourselves.”
“Congratulations, doctor! There are so few people in this world who have the honesty to say: ‘I don’t know,’ when they’re questioned on their own speciality. Now you might have a look at the wound, if you don’t mind.”
While Dr. Ringwood was carrying out this part of his examination, Inspector Flamborough occupied himself in a search of the room. An ejaculation from him brought Sir Clinton to his side, and the Inspector pointed to a dark patch on the floor which had hitherto been concealed by one of the displaced chairs.
“There’s quite a big pool of blood here, sir,” he said tilting the chair so that the Chief Constable could see it better. “What do you make of that?”
Sir Clinton looked at him quizzically.
“Think you’ve caught me tripping, Inspector? Not in this, I’m afraid. That’s not the girl’s blood at all. Unless I’m far out, it’s young Hassendean’s. Now, while you’re about it, will you have a good look for empty cartridge-cases on the floor. There ought to be three of them.”
The Inspector set to work, industriously grovelling on the floor as he searched under the heavier articles of furniture in the room.
“Well, doctor, what do you make of it?” Sir Clinton asked, when he saw that Ringwood had completed his examination.
“It’s plain enough on the surface,” the doctor answered, as he turned away from the body. “She must have been shot at quite close quarters, just above the ear. Her hair is singed with the flame of the powder. The bullet went clean through the head and then into the padded ear-piece of the chair. I expect it’s stuck there. You can see for yourself that the shot didn’t produce any twitch in the body; the position she’s sitting in shows that well enough. I’m quite prepared to bet that she was dead before the shot was fired.”
“The P.M. will clear that up for us definitely, if the poison can be detected,” Sir Clinton answered. “But these vegetable poisons are sometimes the very devil to spot, if they’re at all out-of-the-way ones.”
He turned back to the Inspector, who was now on his feet again, dusting the knees of his trousers.
“I’ve found three cartridge-cases sure enough, sir,” he reported. “Two of them are under that couch over there; the third’s in the corner near the window. I didn’t pick them up. We’ll need to make a plan of this room, I expect; and it’s safest to leave things as they are, so as to be sure of the exact spots.”
Sir Clinton signified his approval.
“On the face of things, judging by the way an automatic ejects its cartridge, one might say that the single case near the window came from the shot that killed the girl. The other two, which landed somewhere near each other, might represent the two shots that made the wounds in young Hassendean’s lung. But that’s mere speculation. Let’s have a look at the pistol, Inspector.”
Flamborough put his hand into his waistcoat pocket, stooped down, picked up the pistol gingerly, and drew a rough outline of its position on the floor with a piece of chalk.
“Try it for finger-prints, sir?” he inquired. “I’ve got an insufflator in the car.”
Receiving permission, he hurried off to procure his powder-sprayer, and in a few minutes he had treated the pistol with the revealing medium. As he did so, his face showed deepening disappointment.
“Nothing worth troubling about here, sir. Whoever it was handled this pistol last must have been wearing gloves. There’s nothing to be seen but a few smears of no use to us at all.”
Sir Clinton seemed in no wise depressed by the news.
“Then just open it up, Inspector, and have a look at the magazine.”
“It’s three shots short of being full, sir, counting the cartridge that must be in the barrel now,” Flamborough explained, after he had slid the magazine from the butt.
“Then you’ve found all the empty cases corresponding to the number of shots fired from this pistol, at anyrate. We can leave someone else to hunt for extras when the plan’s being made. I don’t expect they’ll discover any. Now we’ll—H’m! What’s this?”
He stepped swiftly across the room and lifted something which had rolled under a little book-case standing on four feet. As he picked it up, his companions saw that it was an amber cigarette holder. Flamborough’s face betrayed some mortification.
“I could have sworn I looked under there,�
� he declared.
“So you did, Inspector; but it happened to be close up to one of the feet of the bookcase, and probably it was hidden from you in the position you were when you lay on the floor. It just happened to be in the right line from where I was standing a moment ago. Now let’s have a look at it.”
He held it out, handling it by the tip with the greatest precaution to avoid leaving his finger-prints upon the tube. At first sight, it seemed simply a cigarette-holder such as could be bought in any tobacconist’s shop; but as he rotated it between his finger and thumb, the other side of the barrel came into view and revealed a fly embedded in the material.
“One hears a lot about flies in amber,” Sir Clinton said, “but this is the first time I’ve seen one.”
Dr. Ringwood bent over and examined the imprisoned insect.
“That ought to be easy enough to identify,” he commented. “I never saw a fly in amber before; and that one, with its wings half-spread, must be fairly well known to most of the owner’s friends.”
“It may have nothing to do with the case, though,” Inspector Flamborough put in. “It’s quite on the cards that it was dropped there at the time the house was open for the summer. Some visitor may have lost it, for all one can tell. Or it may belong to either of the Hassendeans.”
Sir Clinton twisted the little object into a vertical position and peered into the cavity which had received the cigarettes’ ends.
“It’s not a left-over from summer, Inspector. The tube’s got quite a lot of tarry liquid in it. That would have gone viscid if the thing had been lying there for a couple of months. No, it’s been used quite recently—within the last day or two, certainly.”
He moved towards the window.
“Just bring that machine of yours, Inspector, and blow some powder over it, please.”
Flamborough obeyed; but the application of the powder revealed nothing except a few shapeless blotches on the stem of the holder.
“Nothing!” Ringwood exclaimed, with more than a tinge of disappointment in his tone.
“Nothing,” Sir Clinton admitted.
He handed the holder to Flamborough, who stowed it away safely.
“We’ve still to overhaul the body,” the Chief Constable suggested. “You’d better do that, Inspector.”
“Not much help in these modern dresses,” said Flamborough, eyeing the girl’s evening frock with a disparaging glance. “But she ought to have a bag with her, surely. . . . Here it is!”
He plunged his hand between the body and the chair and withdrew a little bag, which he proceeded to open.
“The usual powder-box,” he began, enumerating the articles as they came to hand, “Small mirror, silver-mounted, no initials on it. Small comb. Lip-stick—been used once or twice. No money. No handkerchief.”
“You found Mrs. Silverdale’s handkerchief in the car last night,” Sir Clinton reminded him.
“Then I suppose this must be her body, right enough, sir. Well, that seems to be all that’s here.”
“What about these rings she’s wearing,” the Chief Constable suggested. “See if you can get them off. There may be some inscriptions on the inside; some women go in for that kind of thing.”
Fortunately the hands of the body were relaxed, and it was possible to remove the circlets from the fingers. Flamborough rose with three rings in his possession, which he examined with care.
“You’re on the mark there, sir, right enough. Here’s her wedding-ring. It’s engraved ‘7–11–23’—that’ll be the date of her marriage, I suppose. Then on each side of the date are initials. ‘Y. S.’—that’s for Yvonne Silverdale, obviously; and ‘F. S.’—these’ll be her husband’s initials. Then there’s a diamond ring that she was using for a keeper. Let’s see. It’s got the same pairs of initials on each side of the date ‘4–10–23.’ That’ll be her engagement-ring, I expect. H’m! They don’t seem to have given themselves much time for second thoughts if the engagement lasted only a month and three days.”
He passed the two rings to Sir Clinton and picked the last one from his palm for examination.
“This is off the little finger. It’s a plain gold signet with Y and S intertwined on it. Evidently it’s Mrs. Silverdale right enough, sir. The inscription’s inside . . . H’m! there’s a variation here. The date’s ‘15–11–25’ here; but there’s only a single letter at each end: a Y at one side and a B at the other. That’s a bit of a puzzle,” he concluded, glancing at his superior to see if he could detect anything in his face.
“I agree with you, Inspector,” was all that he elicited for his pains. “Now take off the bracelet, and that string of pearls round her neck. Anything of note on the bracelet?”
“Nothing whatever, sir,” the Inspector reported after a glance at it.
“Well, you’d better put these in a safe place when we get back to town. Now does that finish us here?”
He glanced round the room and his eye was caught by the second window which looked out from the side of the bungalow. The curtains were still undrawn, and he noticed a minute gap through which the outer daylight could pass freely. A thought seemed to strike him as he ran his eyes over the fabric.
“We’ll just go outside for a minute,” he announced, and led the way through the hall and out of the front door. “Let’s see, that window’s round here, isn’t it. Keep back for a moment.”
He halted outside the window and scrutinised the ground with care for a few seconds.
“See that, Inspector?” he inquired. “There aren’t any foot-prints that one could make anything out of; but someone has put his foot on the box edging of the path just in front of the window. It’s quite obviously crushed . . . and freshly crushed, too, by the look of it.”
Stepping softly on to the flower-bed which lay under the window-sill, he bent down until his eye was level with the chink between the curtains and peered through into the room.
“That’s interesting,” he said, as he turned again to face his companions. “One gets quite a good view of the room from here; and it looks as if somebody had taken advantage of it last night. Nobody would attempt to look into a shut-up house in the dark, so presumably the lights were on when he took the trouble to put his eye to the crack.”
The Inspector made no pretence of concealing his delight.
“If we could only get hold of him. Perhaps he saw the murder actually done, sir.”
Sir Clinton seemed disinclined to rejoice too fervently.
“It’s all pure hypothesis,” he pointed out, rather frigidly.
Flamborough’s rectitude forced him into a semi-apology for past doubts.
“You were quite right about Mr. Justice, sir. He’s been a trump-card; and if we can only get hold of him and find out what he saw here last night, the rest ought to be as easy as kiss-your-hand.”
Sir Clinton could not restrain a smile.
“You’re devilish previous, Inspector, in spite of all I can do. This Peeping Tom may be Mr. Justice, or again he may not. There isn’t any evidence either way.”
He stepped back on to the path again.
“Now, Inspector, we’ll have to leave you here in charge. It seems to be your usual rôle in these days. I’ll send a couple of men up to relieve you—the fellow who makes our scale-models, too. You can set him to work. And I’ll make arrangements for the removal of Mrs. Silverdale’s body.”
“Very good, sir. I’ll stay here till relieved.”
“Then Dr. Ringwood and I had better get away at once.”
They walked round the bungalow to the car. As he drove away, Sir Clinton turned to the doctor.
“We must thank you again, doctor, for coming out here.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Ringwood assured him. “I got Ryder to look after my patients—at least the worst ones—this morning. Very decent of him. He made no bones about it when he heard it was you who wanted me. It hasn’t been a pleasant job, certainly; but at least it’s been a change from the infernal grind of Carew�
�s practice.”
Sir Clinton drove for a few minutes in silence, then he put a question to the doctor.
“I suppose it’s not out of the question that young Hassendean might have driven from the bungalow to Ivy Lodge with those wounds in his lungs?”
“I see nothing against it, unless the P.M. shows something that makes it impossible. People with lung-wounds—even fatal ones—have managed to get about quite spryly for a time. Of course, it’s quite on the cards that his moving about may have produced fresh lesions in the tissues. What surprises me more is how he managed to find his way home through that fog last night.”
“That wouldn’t be so difficult,” Sir Clinton rejoined. “This road runs right from the bungalow to the end of Lauderdale Avenue. He’d only to keep his car straight and recognise the turn when he came to it. It wasn’t a case of having to dodge through a network of streets.”
A thought seemed to occur to him.
“By the way, doctor, did you notice any peculiar coincidence in dates that we’ve come across?”
“Dates? No, can’t say I did. What do you mean?”
“Well,” the Chief Constable pointed out deliberately, “the date on that scrap from the torn envelope we found in the drawer was 1925, and the figures on that mysterious signet-ring were 5–11–25. It just happened to strike me.”
His manner suggested that he had no desire to furnish any further information. Dr. Ringwood changed the subject.
“By the way, you didn’t examine the lever handle of the window for finger-prints,” he said, with a note of interrogation in his voice.
“The Inspector will do that. He’s very thorough. In any case, I don’t expect to find much on the lever.”
For a few moments Sir Clinton concentrated his attention on his driving, as they were now within the outskirts of Westerhaven. When he spoke again, his remark struck the doctor as obscure.
“I wish that poor girl who was done in at Heatherfield last night hadn’t been such a tidy creature.”
Dr. Ringwood stared.
“Why?” he inquired.
“Because if she’d shirked her job and left those coffee-cups unwashed, it might have saved us a lot of bother. But when I looked over the scullery, everything had been washed and put away.”
The Case With Nine Solutions (A Clinton Driffield Mystery) Page 7
