Tragedy at Ravensthorpe (A Clinton Driffield Mystery)
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“If I can be of no use here,” he said, “I think I’d better go.”
He hesitated for a moment as a fresh thought struck him.
“By the way, how much of this is confidential?”
Sir Clinton looked at him with an expressionless face.
“I think I may leave that to your discretion. It’s not for broadcasting, at any rate.”
“What about Maurice?” Michael persisted.
“I’d leave Maurice out of it as far as possible,” said Sir Clinton, in obvious dismissal. “Now, Inspector, I think we’d better have a look at the late Mr Foss.”
Michael retreated from the room as they turned towards the body on the floor.
“Leave Maurice out of it!” he thought, as he walked at a snail’s pace towards the room where he had left Joan. “That’s a nice bit of advice! If you leave Maurice out of it, there seems to be nothing left in it. Now what the devil am I to say to her? If I say nothing, she’ll jump to the worst conclusion; and if I say anything at all, she’ll jump to the same.”
Chapter Nine
THE MURAMASA SWORD
AS the door closed behind Michael Clifton, the Chief Constable turned to the Inspector.
“Now we can get to business, Inspector. Let’s have a look round the place at leisure, and perhaps the surgeon will turn up before we reach the body itself.”
Followed by Armadale, he stepped over to the bay containing the corpse of Foss and began methodically to inspect the surroundings.
“This must have been the case that Marden slipped against when he cut his hand,” the Inspector pointed out. “There’s a big hole in the glass and some blood on the broken edges of the gap.”
“Oh, yes, there’s blood enough to suit most people,” Sir Clinton admitted, with a glance towards the shattered case. But he seemed less interested in the glass than in the floor surface; for he moved slowly to and fro, evidently trying to place himself so that the sunlight from the window was reflected up to him from the parquet. After a moment or two, he seemed satisfied.
“That part of Marden’s story seems true enough. He did slip here. If you come across, you’ll see a line where the polish of the parquet has been taken off by some hard part of his shoe. You won’t be able to spot it unless you make a mirror of the floor.”
The Inspector in his turn moved over and satisfied himself of the existence of the faint mark.
“That confirms part of his story,” he admitted, grudgingly. “There’s a lot of blood about, quite apart from the stuff from the body. One might make something out of that.”
“Suppose we try,” Sir Clinton suggested. “Assume that he cut his hand here on the glass. He’d be all asprawl on the floor; and the first thing he’d do would be to put his hands down to help himself up. That would account for these biggish patches here, under the case. Then a foot or so away you see those round marks of droplets with tiny splashes radiating from them with a fair regularity all round. These must have been made by drops falling from his hand while he stood still—no doubt while he was feeling with the other hand for his handkerchief to stanch the bleeding.”
The Inspector indicated his agreement.
“After he’d got it fixed up, one might expect him to go over and look at Foss. He’d gone down on the floor, you remember, while he was hurrying to Foss’s assistance.”
“There’s no sign of that,” Armadale hastened to point out. “I can’t see any blood-drops round about the body.”
“Oh, don’t be in too much of a hurry, Inspector. Perhaps they fell in the pool of Foss’s own blood or, more probably, his handkerchief soaked up any blood that flowed just then.”
Sir Clinton, still with his eyes on the ground, began to cast about in search of further traces.
“Ah, here are a couple of drops at the end of the bay. Have a look at them, Inspector.”
Armadale knelt down and examined the clots.
“Made on his way to the door, probably,” he suggested.
“They might have been, if he was swinging his arm as one does when one walks freely; but one doesn’t usually swing the arm when there’s a fresh wound in the hand, I think. These aren’t round blobs like the others; they’re elongated, and all the splashing from them is at one end—the end towards the safe. His hand, when they were made, was moving towards the safe’s bay, whatever his body was doing.”
Sir Clinton made a rough measurement of the distance between the two drops.
“If they’d been nearer together or further apart, then each of them might have been made while his arm was going backwards in its natural swing while he was walking towards the door. But the distance between them won’t fit that. You’ll see at once if you try walking over the ground yourself, Inspector; for you’re just about Marden’s height and your stride must be nearly the same as his.”
“He said something about going to the safe and trying the handle,” the Inspector admitted, grudgingly. “So far, his tale’s got some support.”
Sir Clinton smiled covertly at Armadale’s obvious desire to pick holes in the valet’s narrative.
“Well, let’s find out how it happened,” Sir Clinton suggested. “He evidently passed this bay and went on towards the next one, where the safe is. We’ll follow his example.”
They turned the corner of the show-case and stepped over to the safe door.
“There’s a trace of blood on the handle, true enough,” the Inspector admitted. “But I’m not sure he told the truth about why he came to the safe.”
Sir Clinton inspected the smear of blood on the handle, but he seemed to attach very little importance to it.
“I suppose one mustn’t jump to conclusions and assume that everything’s all above-board,” he conceded. “But even if we keep open minds, wouldn’t it be the most natural thing in the world for Marden to try the safe door? Remember what had happened according to his story. Mr Chacewater was in the room, for Marden saw him with his own eyes. Mr Chacewater turned the corner of a bay—the one next this; and then Marden lost him for good. If you’d been in Marden’s place, wouldn’t you have searched about, and then, finding no trace of the missing man, wouldn’t you have jumped to the conclusion that he might be hidden in the safe? And wouldn’t you have given the handle a pull, just to make sure the safe was really locked and that Mr Chacewater wasn’t hiding inside it?”
“I suppose so,” conceded the Inspector, evidently dissatisfied.
“I expect his tale isn’t complete, of course. He could hardly give every detail. It would be a bit suspicious if he had, I think. If his tale had been absolutely complete in every detail, I’d be inclined to suspect a previously prepared recitation rather than an account of the facts. In a case of this sort, one could hardly expect a water-tight narrative, could one?”
He continued his examination of the floor; but there seemed to be no other blood-stains of any importance.
“Now let’s have a glance at the body,” he suggested. “We needn’t shift it till the surgeon comes; but we can see what’s to be seen without altering its position in the meanwhile.”
The Inspector was the first to reach the spot, and as he knelt down beside the corpse he gave an exclamation of surprise.
“Here’s an automatic pistol, sir. It’s lying almost under the body, but I can see the muzzle. It looks like a ·38 calibre.”
“Leave it there. We’ll get at it later.”
Sir Clinton examined the body itself. The cause of death seemed obvious enough, for the weapon still remained in the wound. A glance at it set the Chief Constable’s eye ranging over the museum cases. He retreated from the bay and searched for a time until he found what he was looking for: an empty sheath in an unlocked case. Without touching the sheath, he scanned the Japanese inscription on its surface.
“So that’s the thing?”
The Inspector had come across to his side and stood looking at the sheath.
“So the thing’s one of the specimens?” he asked.
“
Yes. Don’t touch it, Inspector. We may as well see whose finger-prints are on it, though it’s quite on the cards that it’s been handled by other people lately as well as the murderer. It’s rather a show specimen, you see—one of Muramasa’s making. This was the sword they were discussing when they were out on the terrace. Muramasa’s weapons have the name of being unlucky; and this one seems to bear out the legend.”
The Inspector looked at the sheath with apparent care, but his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.
“Nobody could have got away from here through the windows,” he observed, rather irrelevantly. “They’re all barred outside, and the catches are fast on the sashes.”
Evidently Sir Clinton had noticed this in the course of his previous search, for he gave a tacit assent to the Inspector’s statement without even glancing up at the windows.
“Here are the sheets of rubbing-paper that Foss was using,” the Inspector went on, picking them up as he spoke. “They’ll have his finger-prints on them, so I’ll stow them away. We might need them. One never knows.”
“We can get actual prints from the body if we need them,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “You don’t suppose it’s a suicide case, do you?”
The Inspector was too wary to throw himself open to attack. He contented himself with putting the papers away carefully in his pocket-book.
“Finger-prints will be useful, though,” Sir Clinton went on. “At the earliest possible moment, Inspector, I want you to get prints from the fingers of everyone in the house. Start with Miss Chacewater. She’ll agree to let you take her’s without any trouble; and after that you can go on to Mr Clifford and so down the scale. We’ve no authority for insisting, of course; but you can make a note if anyone objects. I expect you’ll get the lot without difficulty.”
At this moment Mold opened the door to admit the police surgeon; and Sir Clinton broke off in order to explain the state of affairs to him. Dr Greenlaw was a business-like person who wasted no time. While Sir Clinton was speaking, he knelt down beside the corpse and made a cursory examination of it. When he rose to his feet again, he seemed satisfied.
“That sword appears to have entered the thorax between the fifth and sixth ribs,” he pointed out. “It’s pierced the left lung, evidently; you notice the blood-foam on his lips? And most probably it’s penetrated right into the heart as well. It looks as if it had; but of course I’ll need to carry out a P.M. before I can give you exact details.”
“I suppose we can take out the sword before we shift the body?” asked the Inspector. “We want to examine it before anyone else touches it.”
“Certainly,” Greenlaw replied. “You can see for yourselves what happened. He was struck from the front by a right-handed man—a fairly heavy blow, I should judge from the depth to which that sword has buried itself. There’s no sign of a twist in the wound, which looks as though he went down under it at once. Quite possibly the base of the skull may have been fractured on the floor by the force of his fall. We’ll see when we come to the P.M. But in any case that wound alone would be quite sufficient to cause almost immediate death. It’s a blade almost as broad as a bayonet, as you can see. I’ll go into the whole thing carefully when I can make a thorough examination. You’ll have him sent down to the mortuary, of course?”
“As soon as we’ve finished our work here.”
“Good. I’ll make a note or two now, if you don’t mind. Then I’ll leave you to get on. As things are, there’s nothing there which you couldn’t see for yourselves.”
He took out a pocket-book and began to jot down his notes.
“Just a moment, doctor,” Sir Clinton interposed. “I’ve got a patient for you here. I’d like you to have a look at his hand and bandage up some cuts before you go.”
Greenlaw nodded in agreement and went on with his note-taking.
“Now, Inspector,” Sir Clinton continued, “we’d better get this sword out. Be sure to take all the care you can not to rub out any finger-prints.”
Armadale obeyed, and after some cautious manœuvres he succeeded in withdrawing the weapon, which he laid carefully on the top of the central show-case.
“Now we can have a look at him,” Sir Clinton said. “You don’t mind our shifting the position of the body, doctor?”
Greenlaw closed his notebook and prepared to assist them if necessary.
“Begin with the contents of his pockets, Inspector,” Sir Clinton suggested.
“The blade’s gone clean through his left breast pocket,” the Inspector pointed out. He felt the outside of the pocket gingerly with his fingers.
“Nothing there except his handkerchief, so far as I can feel. It’s all soaked with his blood. I’ll leave that to the last. I want to keep my hands clean while I go over the rest.”
He wiped his finger-tips carefully on his own handkerchief and continued his search.
“Right-hand breast pocket: a note-case.”
He drew it out and handed it to Sir Clinton, who opened it and counted the contents.
“Three hundred and fifty-seven pounds in notes,” he announced at length. “That’s a fair sum to be carrying about with one. Ten visiting cards: ‘J. B. Foss,’ with no address.”
He crossed over to the central case and put down the note-case thoughtfully.
“The left-hand waistcoat pockets are saturated with blood,” Armadale continued. “I’ll leave them over for the present. Top right-hand waistcoat pocket, empty. Lower right-hand waistcoat pocket: a small penknife and a tooth-pick. Not much blood here; he was lying slightly on his left side and it must have flowed in that direction, I suppose. Right-hand jacket pocket, outside: nothing. I’ll take the trousers now. Right-hand pocket: key-ring and a purse.”
He handed them to Sir Clinton, who examined them in turn before putting them on the central case.
“Only keys of suit-cases here,” the Chief Constable reported. “We haven’t come across the latch-key of his flat, if you notice.”
He counted the contents of the purse.
“Eight and sixpence and one ten-shilling note.”
The Inspector proceeded with his examination.
“Here’s something funny! He’s got a smallish pocket over his hip, just below the trouser button. That’s unusual. But it’s empty,” he added, after an eager search.
“Let me look at that,” Sir Clinton demanded.
He stooped down and inspected the pocket closely, then stood up and passed his hand across the corresponding spot on his own clothes. As he did so, Armadale noticed a peculiar expression pass across the Chief Constable’s face, as though some new idea had dawned upon him and had cleared up a difficulty. But Sir Clinton divulged nothing of what was passing in his mind.
“Make quite sure it’s empty,” he said.
Armadale turned the little pocket inside out.
“There’s nothing there,” he pointed out. “It wouldn’t hold much—it’s hardly bigger than a ticket pocket.”
He looked at the pocket again, evidently puzzled by the importance which the Chief Constable attached to it.
“It’s a silly place to have a pocket,” he said at last. “It’s not like the old-fashioned fob. That was kept tight shut by the pressure of your body. This thing’s mouth is loose and it’s simply a gift to a pickpocket.”
“I think we’ll probably find another of the same kind on the other side,” Sir Clinton contented himself with saying. “Let’s get on with the rest of them.”
Armadale turned the body slightly and put his hand into the hip pocket.
“It’s empty, too,” he announced. “It’s a very loose pocket with no flap on it. I expect he carried his pistol there and he had the pocket built for easy handling of his gun.”
He looked at the ·38 automatic which had been disclosed as he turned the body.
“That wouldn’t have fitted into the little pocket,” he pointed out. “The pistol’s far too big for the opening.”
Sir Clinton nodded his agreement with this view.
Inspector Armadale stolidly continued his investigation.
“Left-hand breast pocket in jacket,” he announced. “Nothing but his handkerchief, saturated with blood.”
He handed it to Sir Clinton, who inspected it carefully before putting it with the rest of the collection.
“No marks on it, either initials or laundry-mark,” he said. “Evidently been bought and used without marking.”
“Ticket pocket, empty,” the Inspector went on, withdrawing his fingers from it. “Top left waistcoat pocket: a self-filling Swan pen and a metal holder for same. Lower left waistcoat pocket: an amber cigarette-holder. Not much to go on there.”
He turned to the trousers.
“Left-hand trouser pocket: five coppers.”
Handing them over, he proceeded.
“Your notion’s quite right, sir. There’s another of these side pockets here. But it’s empty like the other one.”
Instead of replying, Sir Clinton gingerly picked up the automatic pistol from the floor and placed it along with the other objects on the central case.
“You’d better examine that for finger-prints, Inspector,” he suggested. “I leave you to make the arrangements about taking the body down to the mortuary. The sooner the better. Now, doctor, we’ll get your patient for you, if the Inspector will be good enough to bring him to the lavatory near by, where you can get his wounds patched up.”