Except For One Thing

by John Russell Fearn

  “Any fingerprints?” Garth asked, reflecting.

  “Quite a few. I had the boys on the job right away, of course. Chiefly there are two sets…One set of the plain arch variety with ten ridges — showing age over fourteen, of course — definitely belong to the chauffeur; and the other, mainly in the back of the car, are of the twinned loop type with nine ridges. There is no doubt that they belong to Valerie Hadfield. They checked with prints found in her flat and especially on a fan at the theatre that she used a lot in her act…There are also,” Whiteside finished, frowning, “traces of a third set of prints, ten ridged, and of the exceptional arch type. A man’s. Can’t quite place to whom they belong as yet.”

  Richard took out a cigarette and lighted it, watching the smoke drifting into the windless air. Other prints? A man’s? He had ridden in that Daimler himself, of course, but he had been wearing rubber gloves…But had not been wearing them when he had been with Valerie in the rear of the car! He stood with his cigarette motionless as he suddenly realised the fact. He had clean forgotten that he had ridden with the girl at previous times and no doubt had left prints in various places in the car back — on the polished parts and even on the door latch, parts which had evidently escaped Peter’s duster. And since he, Richard Harvey, had been the only man ever permitted to ride with Valerie Hadfield…

  CHAPTER X

  “It is possible,” Garth said at length, “that the prints not yet identified may belong to our elusive friend Rixton Williams. We’d better take a look at that house he bought. Anywhere near here, Superintendent?”

  “Yes, sir — not far down the main road. I’ve been over the place casually myself. Thought I’d better leave the details to you or the Divisional Inspector here.”

  “You come with me, Super,” Garth said, “and you, Whiteside, and you, too, Whittaker. You others had better wait for the fingerprint and photograph brigade and tell them to follow us on to Williams’ house. You know where the place is?” Garth asked one of the constables.

  “I do, sir,” said P.C. Hanthorne, nodding. “Right.”

  The four men turned and Richard followed them at a slight distance, caught up with them again when they had reached the official cars in the lane.

  “Gets better as it goes on, eh, Dick?” Garth asked, smiling. “Any notions?”

  “Afraid not,” Richard answered quietly.

  “Nor I, dammit — not yet.”

  Richard clambered in the car’s rear and Garth dropped beside him. Whittaker took the wheel and Superintendent Chalfont sat next to him. Whiteside went to his own car and drove it in the wake of Garth’s. So, one behind the other, they emerged from the lane, turned left, and headed down the main road towards the house the Superintendent presently indicated. Outside the front door a constable stood on duty, his bicycle propped against the front garden fence.

  “You certainly covered everything, Super,” Garth remarked. “Nice work…”

  Chalfont smiled in satisfaction; then he climbed out of the car and went up the house’s narrow front pathway. Garth, Whiteside, and Sergeant Whittaker followed him.

  Richard glanced about him. If there had been faces behind curtains when he had taken the place they had been mere ghosts compared to now. Curtains had been abandoned as shields and for quite a distance men and women stood in doorways or found interesting things to do in their front gardens.

  “Nobody called?” the Superintendent asked the constable.

  “No, sir. Nothing’s happened since I came on duty.”

  Garth led the way into the front room and stood gazing round him. Presently his eyes moved to the folded letter on the mantelpiece. He went closer to look at it but did not touch it,

  “Everything just as I found it, sir,” the Superintendent said. “Or nearly. Light was switched off and the curtains drawn. I used a piece of string round the light switch to put it on and so save blurring any prints — ”

  “And door handles?” Garth questioned.

  “This door here was open, sir, and there was no need to smear the front door. A master key opened the lock and we just pushed the door forward. No disturbance.”

  Richard felt uneasy as he looked the room over. The air was heavy, musty from enclosure. The small, modernistic clock ticked steadily on the mantelshelf and showed four-twenty.

  Garth looked at the clock casually, then back again with sudden intentness. Richard frowned, wondering what the attraction was. Garth went over and surveyed the clock from different angles. Presently he turned round with a grin.

  “What a lovely set of fingerprints!” he whistled. “On the glass face and polished wood sides…”

  Fingerprints? There? But why should there be? For a moment cold dread gripped Richard, but he fought it back. Probably from the furniture removers anyway…Yes, that would be it! The furniture removers!

  Garth went to the windows and flung back the curtains, then he nodded to the Superintendent who pulled the piece of thin string wrapped round the light switch. The lights went out. Dull grey afternoon daylight made the small, newly-furnished room pale and sombre, filled with a vague suggestion of dread and things unexplained.

  Coming to the divan, Garth paused and knelt beside it, looking but not touching anything. Sergeant Whittaker came to his side.

  “Hair,” Garth said, pointing. “Long hair too — blonde…In fact several hairs. Evidently our lady friend had a lie down on the divan here amongst other things.”

  “Maybe when she was tight,” Richard suggested.

  “Maybe.” Garth stood up again. “Which reminds me — what about the champagne?”

  The Superintendent looked vaguely surprised. “There is an empty champagne bottle in the kitchen, sir, as it happens — standing on a tray with three glasses. This way.”

  Garth grinned a little. “I’m not dazzling you with a piece of Holmesian deduction, Super. I just happen to know about the champagne from one Timothy Potter. Whittaker, let the Super see Potter’s statement, will you?”

  “Right, sir.”

  Richard followed into the hall and stood leaning idly in the kitchen doorway as Garth went and looked at the glasses and Chalfont stood reading the notes Whittaker had given him. Divisional Inspector Whiteside prowled round the kitchen meanwhile, peering everywhere and touching nothing.

  “Odd,” Garth said, raising each of the glasses in turn with his fingers straddled inside them. “Don’t seem to be any fingerprints…not even a blur. What do you make of it, Whiteside?”

  “How about the tray?” Whiteside asked, and Garth pressed his palms against the tray’s thin edges and took it to the light. “Clean!” he said. “And the same goes for the bottle.”

  Garth peered into the glasses, sniffed at them. Champagne dregs in each glass apparently. No smell of any drug. “Now why the devil should all the prints be wiped off?”

  “Off-hand,” Richard said, “I’d say it was to conceal identity by fingerprints.”

  “But why?” Garth turned his death-mask face. “Everybody around here knows Mr. Williams, and Potter has testified that he was present when Valerie Hadfield and Williams drank the champagne. So where was the point in wiping away the fingerprints afterwards?”

  “Mr. Harvey may not be so wrong, sir,” Whittaker said, musing. “Perhaps Williams isn’t that chap’s genuine name and he knows — or knew — that fingerprints would prove his identity to the hilt, so he wiped them away. An alias, sir, if you see what I mean.”

  Richard stared at the sergeant in snake-like coldness for a moment, astounded that the actual truth had been dropped upon so neatly. In fact too neatly for Garth didn’t accept it — not in its entirety.

  “Mebbe,” he said, pondering. There came a sudden noise in the hall and two men entered, one carrying small camera equipment and the other a black attaché case.

  “I’m Smithers, sir, from Ipswich,” said the one with the attaché case, cuffing his trilby up on his forehead. “Oh good afternoon, Inspector Whiteside. Second time today, eh?”r />
  “Have you got specimen prints of Valerie Hadfield with you, Smithers?” Garth questioned.

  “Yes, sir. From her flat. Fixed them up this morning and got some good photo-enlargements.”

  “Right. Check on this house for prints. When you want me I’ll be seated on the stairs out of your way…Come on, Dick.”

  Richard followed to the staircase and sat two steps below Garth as he squatted down with a sigh and tugged forth another of his fragrant-smelling cheroots. It was gloomy here in the hall. Inspector Whiteside and Superintendent Chalfont stood waiting, the Superintendent still reading Whittaker’s notes. Whittaker remained in the kitchen, watching the fingerprint men as they got to work with the insufflators and varicoloured powders. The man with the camera weighed up the surroundings pensively…

  “Still sure that Scotland Yard doesn’t work hard for its living, Dick?” Garth asked presently.

  “I grant that, Garth — but what have you found? An abandoned car with three bloodstains on it; a man who might really be somebody else and who has vanished into thin air, and a musical comedy actress who has done likewise. A chauffeur who dies from an accident. And not an atom of proof that murder was done…”

  “It’s looking mighty near to murder,” Garth said, suddenly grim again. “F’rinstance, those champagne glasses have no trace of foreign element in them, so Valerie Hadfield was not drugged. And I defy anybody, much less one accustomed to drinking, to get hopeless on a third of a bottle of champagne.”

  “Unless Williams slipped her some kind of poison separately,” Richard said slowly. “Maybe he forced her down on the sofa and did it. Remember the hairs.”

  “Why?”

  “God knows! You’re the detective….”

  “Which reminds me, I’d better go and take a look upstairs.”

  “No need, sir,” Superintendent Chalfont interrupted. “I’ve had a look already and there’s nothing of interest. Whatever happened seems to have happened down here.”

  “Hmm, that’s a relief,” Garth settled down again. Then he peered through the banisters, “I say, Whiteside!”

  The Divisional Inspector looked up from the notebook. “Sir?”

  “About those notes Valerie Hadfield received from Williams. Have you got them with you?”

  “Not with me, no; they’re at headquarters.”

  “Then bring ‘em along to my office this evening. I want to see them. A lot depends on whether Valerie made this trip here of her own free will or not. Maybe we can get somewhere when we can handle that letter on the mantelpiece in the front room. Hey, Smithers, how much longer are you going to be?”

  “Just finishing, sir…” Smithers came out of the kitchen.

  “Well?” Garth questioned.

  “Plenty of prints about, but none of them check with the prints we’ve got. From the depth of most of them, and the smudges, I’d say the furniture men made them.”

  “And the tray, glasses, and bottle?”

  “Polished like mirrors.”

  “Blast! What did you find on the car?” Smithers went back for his notes and his colleague went through into the drawing room to start work.

  “Prints in various parts of the car, sir,” Smithers said. “Mostly inside as though somebody sat next to the driver. The “somebody” was undoubtedly Valerie Hadfield. Her twinned loop, nine-ridged variety is all over the place. No others worth bothering with. Only smudges.” Garth nodded. “Had that chap from pathology got there before you left?”

  “He’d just arrived — Doc Winters himself. The photographers and he were busy as we came away.”

  Smithers turned into the front room as nothing more was said. For a time Garth sat thinking, elbow on the step above him. Richard too, was lost in thought.

  There were sounds on the macadam pathway outside and the photographers came in. Behind them trotted a small, middle-aged man in a bowler hat and overcoat too long for him, carrying a neat bag.

  “Not much for you boys,” Garth said to the photographers. “No body, no work, as far as you’re concerned. Anyway, photograph those glasses and bottle in the kitchen and then get three angles on the front room, including the clock. That’ll be all for you. Send in your findings with the car photographs to my office.”

  The men nodded and went through with tripod and equipment to the kitchen. Richard glanced at the little man in the bowler hat. He knew him fairly well — Dr. Eustace Winters, the Home Office pathologist, by no means the top man of his department but relentlessly thorough all the same. Not that there was anything to fear from him; Richard knew exactly how far the man’s knowledge extended. “Anything?” Winters asked briefly.

  “Not here, no,” Garth answered him. “No sign of a body and even less sign of your beloved stains. Nothing gory about this job. One of the “thin air” breed…How about the car? Any luck?”

  “Undoubtedly bloodstains,” Winters said. “No telling whether they’re human or animal until I’ve given the residue the precipitin test. I’ve got the deposit off the car and I’ll let you have my report as soon as I can.”

  “Good,” Garth approved. “Make it some time this evening if possible.”

  Richard smiled and looked up at Garth.

  “He can prove whether it’s human or animal blood,” he said, “but he can’t prove whether it’s man or woman’s. Research hasn’t got things narrowed down that far yet.”

  “I know,” Garth growled. “Never know what you might find, though.”

  He rose, went into the front room where the electric light was now on and the curtains drawn. The fingerprint men were busy with the clock. It was on the table, smeared in powder. Garth remained silent, watching.

  “Several Valerie Hadfield prints, Inspector,” said the man with the camera finally. “They’re on the arms of that chair by the fire, on the top of this table here, and then there are these beauties on the clock…Lots of other smudged prints, but again from the position of them I think the furniture removers may be responsible.”

  “And the letter?” Garth asked. “That’s the important thing.”

  “Very faint smudges, useless for identification.”

  “Hmmm…” Garth reflected. “Okay, turn in your report to headquarters in the usual way. Better see what there is upstairs.”

  The men nodded, gathered up their equipment and left the room. Garth picked up the letter, unfolded it and brooded over it as the photographers came in from the kitchen with camera and flashbulbs. Richard stood pondering, recalling Valerie’s interest in the clock. While he had been out fetching Potter she must have picked it up and examined it.

  “Sent on Thursday,” Garth murmured. “Or at any rate the letter says Thursday…” Whiteside and Whittaker moved up to look over his shoulder. ““Ricky, my dear. All right. I can spare time for a little tete-a-tete tomorrow. Thanks for keeping away from the phone. It might make things difficult for me and I must think of my career. Always, Val…” Hmm, it looks normal enough but I think we’ll put it under the ultra-violet later and see if there’s anything fishy about it. We’ll give those letters you’ve got the same treatment, Whiteside.”

  “Right you are, sir. I’ll bring them along this evening.”

  Garth put the letter away in his wallet “Bit odd,” he mused, “using the phrase tete-a-tete to a man who apparently was not remarkable for his culture. Isn’t convincing somehow.”

  “But surely,” Richard put in, “if that be Valerie Hadfield’s natural way of expressing herself she wouldn’t think of descending to her — er — lover’s level?”

  “For a lover one is prepared to sink most things — even culture — sometimes,” Garth answered briefly. “It’s queer, like this whole infernal business. Motive, for instance? Damned if I can find one yet, unless it’s publicity.”

  He gave his chest a thump and went over to the divan, carefully lifted three or four of the golden strands of hair in a pair of small tweezers and dropped them in a cellophane envelope out of his wallet. Sealing it
up he returned it to his wallet.

  “Might as well have them mounted and checked with any hairs we can find in Valerie Hadfield’s flat or dressing room.”

  “Supposing after all this she isn’t dead?” Richard asked dryly. “Make all of you look fools, wouldn’t it?”

  “No, Dick, I think she is dead — and I think she has been murdered…Anyway, she has disappeared and the police have been asked to look for her, so we’re doing it…Okay, I think we can get out of here now.”

  “Back to London?” Richard inquired.

  “Why? In a hurry to go home?”

  Richard shrugged. “Not at all — but what more is there around this neighbourhood?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Garth chuckled. “I’m going to the post office — or sub-post office rather. It just occurs to me that there’s no sign of an envelope for this letter Williams left. I’d like to know the date it was sent. “Thursday” might be any time. Be a help to find out when it was delivered.”

  When it was delivered! For the second time during this initial investigation Richard felt cold shock. Of course! A postman should have delivered it, and none had. No postman had ever been since he’d bought the place…He got a grip on himself as he followed Garth and the others out of the room.

  Superintendent Chalfont gave his instructions to the constable on duty and then came down the front path to where Richard and the others were standing.

  “The sub-post office for this district is just across the way, sir,” he said to Garth. “About half-a-mile down the road amongst a group of shops.”

  “Okay!” Garth gave a nod. “I’ll go over…Care to come, Dick?”

  Richard fell into step beside the Chief Inspector’s square, overcoated figure. It was nearly dark now and the countryside was smothering gently in a dank autumnal mist.

  “Whoever this chap Williams is — or was — he seems to have covered up his tracks beautifully,” Richard commented. “Not left a single print — not even any footprints on the pathway to his house or on the pavement outside.”