“Let’s hear the details of this latest affair,” Sir Clinton demanded, putting aside the other subject.
“I’ve been trying to get hold of this fellow Whalley for the last day or two, sir, so as to follow up that line as soon as possible,” the Inspector began. “But, as I told you, he’s been away from Westerhaven—hasn’t been seen anywhere in his usual haunts. I’ve made repeated inquiries at his lodgings, but could get no word of him except that he’d gone off. He’d left no word about coming back; but he obviously did mean to turn up again, for he left all his traps there and said nothing about giving up his bedroom.”
“You didn’t get on his track elsewhere?”
“No, I hardly expected it. He’s a very average-looking man and one couldn’t expect people to pick him out of a crowd at a race-meeting by his appearance.”
Sir Clinton nodded as a permission to the Inspector to continue his narrative.
“This morning, shortly before seven o’clock,” Flamborough continued, “the driver of a milk-lorry on the Lizardbridge Road noticed something in the ditch by the roadside. It was about half an hour before sunrise, so I expect he still had his lamps alight. It’s pretty dark, these misty mornings. Anyhow, he saw something sticking up out of the ditch and he stopped his lorry. Then he made out that it was a hand and arm; so he got down from his seat and had a closer look. I expect he took it for a casual drunk sleeping things off quietly. However, when he got up to the side of the road, he found the body of a man in the ditch, face downward.
“This milkman was a sensible fellow, it seems. He felt the flesh where he could get at it without moving the body; and the coldness of it satisfied him that he’d got a deader on his hands. So instead of muddling about and trampling all over the neighbourhood, he very sensibly got aboard his lorry again and drove in towards town in search of a policeman. When he met one, he and the constable went back on the lorry to the dead man; and the constable stood on guard whilst the milkman set off with the lorry again to give the alarm.”
“Did you go down yourself, by any chance, Inspector?”
“Yes, sir. The constable happened to recognise Whalley from what he could see of him—I told you he was pretty well known to our men—and knowing that I’d been making inquiries about the fellow, they called me up, and I went down at once.”
“Yes?”
“When I got there, sir,” the Inspector continued, “it didn’t take long to see what was what. It was a case of the tourniquet again. Whalley had been strangled, just like the maid at Heatherfield. Quite obvious symptoms: face swollen and congested; tongue swollen, too; eyes wide open and injected a bit, with dilated pupils; some blood on the mouth and nostrils. And when I had a chance of looking for it, there was the mark of the tourniquet on his neck sure enough.”
Flamborough paused, as though to draw attention to his next point.
“I hunted about in the ditch, of course. And there, lying quite openly, was the tourniquet itself. Quite a complicated affair this time; he’s evidently improved his technique.”
“Well, what about it?” Sir Clinton demanded rather testily, as though impatient of the Inspector’s comments.
“Here it is, sir.”
Flamborough produced the lethal instrument with something of a flourish.
“You see, sir, it’s made out of a banjo-string threaded through a bit of rubber tubing. The handles are just bits of wood cut from a tree-branch, the same as before; but the banjo-string and the rubber tube are a vast improvement on the bit of twine he used last time, at Heatherfield. There’d be no chance of the banjo-string breaking under the strain; and the rubber tube would distribute the pressure and prevent the wire cutting into the flesh as it would have done if it had been used bare.”
Sir Clinton picked up the tourniquet and examined it with obvious interest.
“H’m! I don’t say you’ve much to go on, but there’s certainly more here than there was in the other tourniquet. The banjo-string’s not much help, of course; one can buy ’em in any musical-instrument shop. But the rubber tubing might suggest something to you.”
Inspector Flamborough scrutinised it afresh.
“It’s very thick-walled, sir, with a much smaller bore than one would expect from the outside diameter.”
Sir Clinton nodded.
“It’s what they call ‘pressure-tubing’ in a chemical laboratory. It’s used when you’re pumping out vessels or working under reduced pressures generally. That’s why it’s made so thick-walled: so that it won’t collapse flat under the outside air-pressure when you’ve pumped all the gas out of the channel in the middle.”
“I see,” said the Inspector, fingering the tubing thoughtfully. “So it’s the sort of thing one finds in a scientific place like the Croft-Thornton Institute?”
“Almost certainly,” Sir Clinton agreed. “But don’t get too sure about your rubber tubing. Suppose someone is trying to throw suspicion on one of the Croft-Thornton staff, wouldn’t this be an excellent way of doing it? One can buy pressure-tubing in the open market. It’s not found exclusively in scientific institutes, you know.”
Flamborough seemed a shade crestfallen at the loss of what he had evidently regarded as a promising line.
“Oh, indeed?” he said. “I suppose you’re right, sir. Still it’s a bit uncommon, isn’t it?”
“Not what you’d expect the ordinary criminal to hit on straight off, I suppose you mean? But this fellow isn’t an ordinary criminal. He’s got plenty of brains. Now doesn’t it strike you as strange that he should go to the trouble of leaving this tourniquet for your inspection? He could have slipped it into his pocket easily enough and it wouldn’t have bulged much.”
“Well, sir, a glance at the body would show anyone that something of the sort had been used. He wasn’t giving much away by leaving the thing itself, was he?”
Sir Clinton did not seem altogether satisfied with the Inspector’s view.
“The less a murderer leaves behind, the more difficult it is to catch him, Inspector. That’s a truism. Now this fellow is no fool, as I’ve frequently remarked to you. Hence one might have anticipated that he’d leave as few traces as possible. But here he presents us with the actual weapon, and a weapon that has fairly salient peculiarities of its own. Queer, isn’t it?”
“Then you think it’s a non-scientific murderer using scientific appliances so as to suggest that the crime was done by someone in the scientific line—Silverdale, I mean?”
Sir Clinton was silent for a moment or two, then he said thoughtfully:
“What I’m not sure about is whether it’s a pure bluff or a double bluff. It looks like one or the other.”
The Inspector obviously had difficulty in interpreting this rather cryptic utterance. At last he saw his way through it.
“I think I see what you mean, sir. Suppose it’s not Silverdale that did the murder. Then somebody—knowing that this kind of tubing’s common in Silverdale’s laboratory—may have left it on purpose for us to find, so that we’d be bluffed into jumping to the conclusion—as I admit I did—that Silverdale did the trick. That would be a simple bluff. Or again, supposing it’s Silverdale who’s the murderer, then he may have left the tubing on purpose, because he’d say to himself that we’d never believe that he’d be such a fool as to chuck a thing like that down beside the body—and hence we’d pass him over in our suspicions. Is that it, sir?”
“It sounds devilish involved, as you put it, Inspector; but I have a sort of dim perception that you’ve grasped my meaning,” Sir Clinton answered. “My own impression is simply that we musn’t let this tourniquet lead us too far, for fear we go completely astray. If we get on the right track, I’ve no doubt it’ll fit neatly enough to the rest of the evidence; but it’s not the sort of thing I’d care about staking a lot on by itself. Now suppose we come out of these flowery by-paths and get back to the main thoroughfare of the facts.”
The Inspector refused to be damped by his superior. Indeed, he had the
air of a player holding good cards, and not caring who knew it.
“It was hard frost last night, sir, as you’ll remember; so there were no foot-prints on the road, or anything of that sort. But the grass by the side of the ditch is fairly long; and when I examined it, it was clear enough that there hadn’t been any struggle on it. They may have struggled on the road, of course; but the grass was quite undisturbed.”
“Then the body hadn’t been dragged off the road into the ditch? It must have been lifted and pitched in?”
“So I think, sir. The grass border between road and ditch is quite narrow—just room to stand on it comfortably. One could hoist a body over it without too much trouble.”
“And from the look of the body you think it had been thrown in?”
“Yes, sir. It was huddled up anyhow in the ditch, just as it might have fallen if it had been dropped in with a thud.”
“Single-handed business, then, you believe?”
“Well, sir, I think if two people had been handling him—one taking his shoulders and another taking his feet—he’d have fallen more tidily. He certainly looked as if he’s been bundled in anyhow. I’d put it down as a single-handed job from the look of it.”
“I suppose you examined the pockets, and so forth?” Sir Clinton asked.
“Of course, sir. But there was nothing in them of any use to us.”
The Inspector’s voice betrayed that he had something still in reserve. Now he brought it forward.
“I examined his hands, sir; and in the right one, I found something important. The hand was clenched, and when I got it open at last, this fell out.”
He produced a button with a shred of cloth attached to it, which he laid on the desk before Sir Clinton. The Chief Constable picked it up, examined it closely, and then, pulling out a pocket magnifying glass, made a still more minute inspection.
“Very interesting, Inspector. What do you make of it?”
“Obviously it was torn off the murderer’s clothes during the struggle, sir. And I’ve seen something like it before. You see that canary-coloured stain on the bit of cloth and also on the threads that hold the button to the fabric?”
“Dyed with picric acid, by the look of it, I should say. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes, sir. And the pattern of the cloth’s another point.”
“You mean it looks like a button torn off the old jacket that Silverdale was wearing, that day we saw him at the Croft-Thornton Institute—his laboratory coat?”
“That’s undoubtedly what it is, sir. I remember that stain perfectly. And as soon as I saw it, I remembered the pattern of the cloth.”
“And your view is?”
“I think that when Silverdale set out to murder Whalley he was afraid that some blood from the face might get on to his coat. So he put on his old laboratory jacket. If it got spotted, he could destroy it and rouse no suspicions. It was only an old coat that he might think was worn out. Quite a different thing from destroying some of his ordinary clothes. That would have been suspicious. But an old coat—no one would wonder if he got rid of it and brought another one down to the laboratory to replace it.”
“It sounds deuced plausible, Inspector, I must admit. But——”
“But what, sir?”
“Well,” Sir Clinton answered thoughtfully, “it leaves us again with the choice between the single and the double bluff, you see, even if one goes no further with one’s inquiries.”
The Inspector pondered over the point for a few seconds, but at the end of his cogitation he seemed unimpressed. Apparently, however, he thought it wise to change the subject.
“In any case, sir, I think Whalley’s part in the bungalow affair is pretty plain now. I told you he was the sort of fellow who was out for easy money, no matter how dirty it might be. By the way, he was the man who inquired about the number of that motor which he said knocked him spinning—an obvious try-on to get damages, although he wasn’t hurt at all. You can see he’d do anything to make money and save himself from honest work. If you remember that, it’s easy enough to see the part he played at the bungalow. He was the person you christened Peeping Tom.”
“Anything further about him that you can think of, Inspector? I don’t say you’re wrong, of course.”
“Well, sir, if Silverdale expected to take his wife in flagrante delicto, he’d need an independent witness, wouldn’t he? Possibly Whalley was the man he picked out for the work.”
“Do you think he was the sort of witness that was wanted? I’m not so sure of his suitability myself.”
“It wasn’t exactly a nice job, sir,” the Inspector pointed out. “Silverdale would hardly care to take one of his close friends to inspect an affair of that sort. And of course a woman——”
He broke off suddenly, as though struck by a fresh idea. Sir Clinton ignored the last phrase of the Inspector.
“Assume that Whalley was the witness, then, what next?”
“Assume that Silverdale posted Whalley at the second window and went round to the first one—at the front. Then, to make the thing complete, he breaks in through the window and jumps into the room. Young Hassendean has his pistol and mistakes the state of affairs—thinks that Silverdale means to thrash him or worse. He pulls out his pistol and there’s a struggle for the possession of it. The pistol goes off accidentally, and the bullet hits Mrs. Silverdale in the head by pure chance. Then the struggle goes on, and in the course of it, young Hassendean gets shot twice over in the lung.”
The Chief Constable looked at his subordinate with quite unaffected respect.
“It looks as if you’d come very near the truth there,” he admitted. “Go on.”
“The rest’s fairly obvious, if you grant what’s gone before. Whalley’s seen the whole affair from his post at the window. He sneaks off into the dark and gets out of Silverdale’s reach. If he hadn’t, then Silverdale would probably have shot him at sight to destroy the chance of evidence against him. But when Whalley has time to think things over, he sees he’s got a gold-mine in the business. If he can blackmail Silverdale, he’s got a steady income for life. But I expect he weakened and tried to play for safety. He blackmailed Silverdale; then he came to us, so that he could say he’d been to the police, meaning to give information. Then he went back to Silverdale, and in some way he let out that he’d given us a call. That would be enough for Silverdale. Whalley would have to go the way the maid went. And so he did.”
Sir Clinton had listened intently to the Inspector’s reconstruction of the episode.
“That’s very neat indeed, Inspector,” he adjudged at the close. “It’s quite sound, so far as it goes, and so far as one can see. But, of course, it leaves one or two points untouched. Where does the murder of the maid come into the business?”
Flamborough reflected for a moment or two before answering.
“I’m not prepared to fill that gap just at this moment, sir. But I’ll suggest something. Renard told us that Mrs. Silverdale was going to draw up a note of the terms of her new will. It’s on the cards that Silverdale knew about that—she may have mentioned it to him. He’d want to get that note and destroy it at any cost, before there was any search of his house or any hunting through Mrs. Silverdale’s possessions.”
“He might have thought it worth while, I admit. But I’d hardly think it important enough to lead to an unnecessary murder. Besides, it wasn’t necessary for Silverdale to murder the maid at all. It was his own house. He could search where he chose in it and nobody could object. The maid wouldn’t see anything strange in that.”
“It was pretty clear that the maid knew her murderer, anyhow,” the Inspector pointed out. “Everything points to that. I admit I’m only making a guess, sir. I can’t bring any evidence against Silverdale on that count yet. For all one can tell, she may have seen something—blood on his coat from the shots, or something of that sort. Then he’d have to silence her.”
Sir Clinton made no comment on the Inspector’s suggestion. Inst
ead, he turned to a fresh aspect of the case.
“And where does Mr. Justice come into your theory of the affair? He wasn’t your friend Whalley. That’s evident.”
The Inspector rubbed his nose thoughtfully, as though trying to gain inspiration from the friction.
“It’s a fact, sir, that I can’t fit Mr. Justice into my theory at present. He wasn’t Whalley, and that’s a fact. But hold on a moment! Suppose that Whalley wasn’t Silverdale’s witness at all. Come to think of it, Whalley was hardly the sort that one would pick out for the job, if one had been in Silverdale’s shoes.”
“I’m quite convinced of that, at any rate, Inspector. You needn’t waste breath in persuading me.”
“Yes, but there’s another possibility that’s been overlooked, sir,” Flamborough interrupted eagerly. “I’ve been assuming all along that Silverdale was the only person at the opened window. But suppose he’d brought someone along with him. Both of them might have been looking through the front window, whilst Whalley was at the side window, quite unknown to them at the time.”
“Now you’re getting positively brilliant, Inspector,” Sir Clinton commended. “I think you’ve got at least half the truth there, beyond a doubt.”
“Who could Silverdale’s witness have been?” the Inspector pursued, as if impatient of the interruption. “What about the Deepcar girl?”
“Think again,” Sir Clinton advised him drily. “Do you really suppose that Silverdale—who seems in love with the girl—would have picked her out for business of that sort? It’s incredible, Inspector.”
The first flush of enthusiasm at his discovery passed from Flamborough’s thoughts at the tone of the Chief Constable’s voice.
“I suppose you’re right, sir,” he had to admit. “But there’s another girl who’d have enjoyed the job—and that’s the Hailsham girl. She’d have given a good deal just for the pleasure of seeing those two humiliated. She’d have gloated over the chance of giving that particular evidence in court and squaring accounts with young Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale. It would have been all jam to her, sir. You can’t deny that.”
The Case With Nine Solutions (A Clinton Driffield Mystery) Page 17
