“The windows were all securely fastened; so was the back door: I’ve seen to that.”
“How does the front door open?”
“Apparently only with a latchkey. The man, if he was a stranger, could only have got in by having the door opened to him by someone from inside—of course Pomeroy would have had his own latchkey. Have you made up your mind, sir, in which room the murder was committed?”
“There’s not a shadow of doubt about that. It was here in this bathroom. The woman was standing when the blow was struck: you see the blood spurted up to the ceiling.” He pointed to one or two splashes on the whitewash.
“She wasn’t wearing her nightdress at the time. Here it is hanging on this peg and only a few drops of blood on it, so she must have been wearing nothing but her dressing gown when the murderer came in. It seems to me that the woman was just going to step into her bath when the doorbell rang or when someone came in with a latchkey, and she slipped on her dressing gown, which is drenched with blood, as you see.
“Now the next thing to do is to verify Pomeroy’s statement that he bought a grapefruit and a newspaper in the town this morning.”
“There is a grapefruit on the table in the dining room.”
“But we don’t know whether it was bought this morning.”
“No sir, but I’ll find out.”
“And while you’re about it get hold of the milk and the bread roundsmen and ask them if they noticed any stranger about. While you’re away I will go carefully round the house.”
Aitkin’s more minute search on the outside of the house produced nothing. The weather had been dry for some days and it was useless to search for footprints, but Aitkin did establish the fact that behind the garden lay a tract of undergrowth which ran down to the public road. This was thick enough to conceal any person approaching the bungalow from behind, or escaping from it into the public road. Clearly this undergrowth had been used for this purpose, for brambles had been trampled down or brushed aside. He had just completed a survey of this waste ground when something brown attracted his attention. A clumsy attempt seemed to have been made to conceal it by dragging or kicking the brambles into a kind of knot, but Aitkin was wearing stout boots and he found it easy to hook out the object with his toe. It was a raincoat which had seen wear. Some attempt had been made to fold it into as small a compass as possible, but it was discoloured by stains which Aitkin recognized at once as having been made by fresh blood: the stains were still red. He spread out the garment on the ground and found that it was one of those coats that are manufactured largely by machinery. One can buy them by the dozen in any clothier’s, and it is the exception for any of them to bear a label indicating the shop where it was sold. All that this particular coat bore was the heraldic sign of a white horse, but coats of this brand are sold everywhere, and it would be useless to attempt to find the shop that had any record of the purchaser. Aitkin returned to the bungalow carrying the coat and hung it up on a peg in the entrance lounge to await Pomeroy’s return. His sergeant was the first to appear. He reported that he had questioned the roundsmen who delivered milk and bread, and that they had seen no stranger hanging about the bungalow that morning. They said that Mr Pomeroy himself had opened the door to them.
“Did you find out where he bought the grapefruit?”
“Yes, the people at the shop knew him personally as a customer. He was there just before nine.”
“And the newspaper?”
“That was not so sure. The woman at the news agent’s wasn’t certain that she’d seen him this morning. Did you have any luck in your search, sir?”
“Yes,” said Aitkin, going to the coat pegs. “I found this. You see the blood has not had time to turn brown. It’s a common kind of coat.”
“Yes, in more than half the houses in this settlement you’d find a coat like that, but that’s the coat the murderer must have been wearing.”
“Yes, and if it belongs to Pomeroy it would be sufficient to account for the absence of bloodstains on the clothes he is wearing.”
“You think that Pomeroy did it?”
“I don’t see who else it could have been. At any rate we must assume that it was Pomeroy, but I doubt if Superintendent Richardson will allow us to arrest him on the evidence we have. Pomeroy mustn’t be allowed to get away, or we shall hear more of it. I don’t suppose he’ll come back here; he will stay and have lunch with his people in Ealing. I wonder if we can find another latchkey in his desk or somewhere?”
“Better look in his dead wife’s vanity bag: she is sure to have had one,” said Hammett. He was, at the moment, searching a bag which he had found lying on the kitchen dresser. “Here, try this key.”
“Right,” called Aitkin from the door; “it fits. Now come along, and we’ll call on the Pomeroy family.”
“Taking the coat with us?”
“No, you can take that down to the police station, and I’ll go alone to the Pomeroys and try to find out what plans Pomeroy has made. There’s one thing certain: he won’t want to pass another night in the bungalow after what’s happened. We’ve plenty to do. There’s the body to get down to the mortuary for the inquest; there’s the coroner to be notified and the undertaker to be seen. That must be done before we go to lunch.”
When Aitkin rang the bell at the house of the Pomeroy family it was clear that it was in a flutter. A rather grubby little maid came to the door.
“Missus can’t see no one,” she blurted out almost before Inspector Aitkin had intimated his wishes. It was the first time that this child had been mixed up in a case of murder, and she was enjoying it to the full.
Aitkin took a card from his pocket and said, “It is not Mrs Pomeroy that I have come to see, but her son.”
“You can’t see him neither. No, you can’t see him whoever you are.” She was for slamming the door in his face, but he put a foot against it and assumed an air of severity.
“Take that card to Mr Miles Pomeroy and tell him that I must see him at once.”
“You can’t see anyone in this house,” returned the damsel stoutly. “Them’s my orders.”
“Then I must give you fresh orders, young woman. Take that card in to Mr Miles Pomeroy and say that I’m waiting to see him in the hall.”
Very unwillingly the young woman retired to a sitting room on the ground floor, from which Miles Pomeroy emerged.
“I’ve called to ask you one question, Mr Pomeroy. Do you possess a fawn-coloured raincoat?”
“No. I had one until some days ago, and then my wife took it to send to some connection of hers in another part of the country.”
“Do you remember what label it had on the inside of the collar?”
“I don’t think it had any label; I don’t remember noticing one.”
“Do you know the address of the person your wife sent it to?”
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t. It was someone who wrote to her for help.”
“I see. Thank you. That is all I want to ask just now.”
Inspector Aitkin left the house with a confident smile upon his features.
Chapter Three
TWO DAYS after their adventure on the Ealing estate Jim Milsom rang up his friend Herbert Mitchell.
“Is that you, Herbert? Milsom speaking. You’re coming down to the inquest, of course?”
“No, they haven’t subpoenaed me.”
“What does that matter? They’ve left me out too, but we have a duty to perform. We’ve got to see that Pomeroy has a fair ‘do.’ I’ll come round with the car and drive you down. It’s a public enquiry, and we’ll jolly well see that justice is done.”
On the way down they discussed the case. “You’ll see,” said Milsom, “that the police have got together every scrap of evidence that bears against Pomeroy and haven’t worried themselves about any other possible malefactor.”
“Well, that’s quite natural, isn’t it? Who else could it be but Pomeroy? Oh, I know what you’ll say—that Pomeroy isn’t at all the
kind of person to commit a murder—but remember that still waters run deep and these innocent-looking culprits are very often born actors.”
“I hope to goodness the coroner is a discriminating bloke. He may have something up his sleeve that we know nothing about.”
The two took their seats unobtrusively in the coroner’s court—a bare room which was used for dances and concerts and was furnished with the hardest kind of chair that people can be condemned to sit upon. The jury had already been sworn, and the coroner, a man who knew his job, had been furnished by the police with the results of enquiries that had been made about the bridge party at the house of the Claremonts on the evening before the murder. It was of a sensational character. Though it had no direct bearing upon the crime, the coroner determined to bring it before the jury through the witnesses who had been present. In his opening charge to the jury he explained that even trivial incidents might have a bearing upon their verdict. First he called Miss Lane, who described her meeting with Mr Pomeroy on the morning of the murder. She said that he was quietly weeding the lawn in his garden; that he seemed quite normal and in no way disturbed in manner; that he led the way into the lounge and went to the bathroom to see whether his wife was in a fit state to receive them. Then she described his cry for help and what she found in the bathroom. No questions were put to her.
‘‘Edward Green,” called the coroner. Dr Green took his place at the witness stand. After the usual questions about his qualifications, the coroner asked him, “Were you the regular medical attendant of the deceased woman?”
“I was.”
“Would you describe her as a person of normal health?”
“Yes, physically she was, but she had fits of cerebral excitement when perhaps she would not act normally.”
“In simpler language you would say that she had a bad temper?”
“Yes, and when in that condition she would not have full command of her language or her acts.”
“On the morning of September thirteenth were you called to her by telephone?”
“I was. Mr Pomeroy took me into the bathroom, where I found the deceased lying against the end of the bath. I sent Miss Lane to telephone to Dr Leach.”
“In what state was the body?”
“The woman seemed to have been dead for a little over an hour; the body had not begun to stiffen. When I reached the bathroom the water had been run off and the bath was empty. The shoulders were lying against the taps, but the head had fallen forward on the chest. There was a deep scalp wound on the top of the head which had produced a fracture of the skull. That, undoubtedly, was the cause of death.”
“Was it the sort of blow that might have been made by this hammer?” asked the coroner, holding up a hammer. Dr Green took the tool in his hand and weighed it.
“Yes sir, it may have been an implement like this.”
There was corroborative evidence from Dr Leach. The coroner now called Divisional Detective Inspector Aitkin, who deposed to having made a detailed inspection of the bathroom and other parts of the little house.
“Did you find evidence of there having been a struggle in the bathroom?” asked the coroner.
“Yes sir, there had been some kind of struggle just inside the door. The bath sponge, the brush and the bath mat had been kicked or pushed under the bath. It looked to me as if the woman had been standing when she received the blow, for blood had spurted up to the ceiling.”
“You found fingerprints?”
“Yes sir, some of them stained with blood.”
“Whose were they?”
“Those of Miles Pomeroy, the husband. I have brought his prints here for the jury to compare with photographs of the prints on the bathroom wall.”
“Did you find any other prints in the bathroom?”
“No sir.”
“There were men’s bedroom slippers near the bath?”
“Yes sir, but Mr Pomeroy explained that his wife was in the habit of using his slippers when she went to her bath.”
“Did you find any bloodstained clothes about the house or in the bathroom?”
“Yes sir, the deceased’s nightdress with only a splash or two was hanging on a hook behind the door, but her dressing gown drenched with blood was lying in a heap on the floor.”
“You found none of Mr Pomeroy’s clothes stained with blood?”
“No sir.”
“Neither on the clothes he was wearing nor on any of his clothing in the house?”
“Only on the left sleeve of the coat he was wearing, which could have got there when he lifted the body.”
“Did you notice any indications of there having been a robbery in the house?”
“No sir.”
“Or any sign of breaking in?”
“No sir.”
“This hammer—where did you find it?”
“Sergeant Hammett found it at the bottom of the little ornamental pond. He got it out with a garden rake.”
“Did you enquire whether any strangers had been seen near the house that morning?”
“I did, sir, but without result.”
“I understand that the bungalow is rather isolated from the other houses on the estate.”
“Yes sir, it stands quite alone and out of sight of the other houses.”
“Where was this coat found?” The coroner held up the bloodstained raincoat.
“I found it rolled up in the undergrowth behind the bungalow which runs down to the public road.”
“Had Miles Pomeroy a raincoat like this?”
“No sir. Mr Miles Pomeroy stated that he had had a coat like this, but that his wife had given it away about a fortnight ago.”
The coroner now called Jane Trefusis, a vivacious-looking woman in the early thirties.
“You were one of the guests at a bridge party on the evening before Mrs Pomeroy met her death?”
“I was.”
“And you were playing at the same table?”
“Yes, we four ladies were playing at one table; we had drawn for partners, and it happened that way. The four men played at a separate table.”
“The deceased woman, Mrs Pomeroy, was your partner?”
“No, she was playing with Mrs Meadows.”
“Did anything unusual happen during the game?”
“Yes. Mrs Meadows was losing. She said laughingly, ‘It’s this opal-and-diamond ring I’m wearing. I’ll take it off while I deal.’ She was in the middle of dealing when the electric light failed. When it came on again the ring had disappeared. Nobody had been near the table in the darkness except we four ladies. Our exclamations brought Mr Meadows over from the other table. He was much upset. ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ he said: ‘we must turn out the lights and see whether the ring comes back.’ As nobody objected at the time, this was done. Nobody moved while the lights were out, and then, when they were switched on again, the ring was there. Then we all objected very strongly, since it left three of us under suspicion. Mrs Pomeroy lost her temper and accused Mrs Meadows of having hidden the ring as a practical joke. Her husband tried to calm her, but that only made her worse.
He apologized to the rest of us and took her home. “We could hear her angry recrimination even when the front door had been shut.”
The next witness called was Police Sergeant Steggles.
“You are station sergeant at Ealing?”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you remember a charge being brought against the deceased woman, Stella Pomeroy?”
“Yes sir, a charge of shoplifting two years ago, but she was acquitted.”
“What was the attitude of her husband on that occasion?”
“He was very angry with her, and at first he refused to go home with her; afterwards he calmed down, and they went away together.”
The next witness was Margaret Close, who said that she was a charwoman employed by several householders. She was engaged by Mrs Pomeroy for two hours three times a week.
“Were you ever present wh
en there were quarrels between Mr Pomeroy and his wife?”
“Was I not, sir! They was at it all the time, about one thing or another. I tell you that I was sorry for the poor man what he had to put up with. I didn’t wonder when he lost his temper as he did sometimes.”
“Call Miles Pomeroy,” said the coroner.
The court rustled with anticipation as Pomeroy walked to the witness stand. After giving an account of his movements on the fatal morning, he was questioned by the coroner about the incidents at the bridge party. He confirmed the account given by Mrs Trefusis.
“When the ring disappeared from the ladies’ bridge table had you any suspicion against any of them?”
“No.”
“I put it to you that after that charge of shoplifting of which your wife was acquitted, you did accuse her of having abstracted the ring when the lights were out and of having put it back when the lights were extinguished for the second time.”
The witness hesitated.
“Surely you can remember what you said to your wife on the way home.”
“I may have said something like that.”
“And she, very naturally, resented it.”
“Yes, but I said nothing more. I shut myself into my room.”
“Did you continue your quarrel in the morning?”
“No. I got up early and made her a cup of tea and took it to her room.”
“How did she receive you?”
“Oh, quite in a friendly way. She seemed grateful. She told me she was not feeling very well and that she would not get up very early.”
“You had said something to the agent, Miss Lane, a week or two ago, about letting your bungalow, but you had not definitely put it into her hands.”
“That is so.”
“And yet your wife was surprised to hear from Miss Lane a few days afterwards that you thought of leaving.”
“I had not discussed it with her.”
Who Killed Stella Pomeroy? Page 3
