Half-Mast Murder

by Milward Kennedy

  He rang and gave brief instructions to the clerk.

  “Yes, here he is,” he said, consulting the register. “He arrived to-day.”

  The porter appeared, and said he knew which Mr. Quirk was. He’d arrived soon after lunch, by train presumably at all events, by taxi, and not by car. He had registered, left his luggage, and gone out. And he had not returned till nearly dinner-time.

  “He’s in the hotel now,” he added. “In the writing-room, I think. Anyhow, he asked me where it was.”

  “Thank you,” said Guest. “That’s capital.”

  “Anything else ?” Mr. Judson enquired suavely.

  “Yes. What about Mr. Paley ?”

  “Oh, I know him,” said the manager significantly. “And he’s been here since the day before yesterday.” He turned a page in the register and pointed triumphantly to the entry.

  “So he’s a regular visitor, is he ?” Guest asked.

  “Regular visitor ? Oh, no. I don’t think he’s been here before.”

  “You astonish me,” the Superintendent commented. “I should have thought he was a much more ordinary-looking person than Mr. Quirk.”

  “Not a matter of looks,” was the answer. The porter’s face wore a subdued grin. Guest waited with a questioning expression.

  “We’ve had a little trouble with Mr. Paley,” the manager went on to explain. “Oh, nothing serious. I mean to say he didn’t leave the hotel or—but I’ll tell you. It was like this. Mr. Paley complained on the first morning of his stay—yesterday morning, I mean—that something had been put into his whiskey and soda the night before.”

  “What d’you mean ? Something put into his whiskey ?”

  Mr. Judson shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, that’s what he said. And just what I asked too. He said he’d overslept and woken up with a splitting headache. Of course I said—or at least I hinted—but he was quite indignant. He had only had the one drink, he declared, and there must have been something in it.”

  “Doesn’t sound very serious,” Guest observed.

  “No, but he was very angry about it,” the manager assured him, and the porter grinned openly now, perhaps in sympathy.

  “He even said he was going to have what was left in the glass analysed,” Mr. Judson added.

  “I shouldn’t say there was much left,” Guest put in.

  “Oh, there was a drop all right,” the manager told him.

  “I saw it in his room—and smelt it too. He rang and rang till I went up.”

  “And he went off with a medicine bottle that afternoon too,” the porter added.

  “That’s right.” Mr. Judson confirmed the statement. “I had to provide him with a medicine bottle, and he made me seal it up when he’d poured the whiskey into it.”

  Superintendent Guest was not particularly interested in the story. It was probably no more than a coincidence that this second suggestion of a narcotic should have been made to him. He enquired whether Mr. Paley’s movements had been remarkable in any other way, but could not find that they had been. He had arrived by car, had dined in the hotel on the day of his arrival, and had all his meals in on the following day : no suggestion of over-indulgence in alcohol. He had gone out in his car with a bundle of towels that morning, and had not reappeared until a few minutes ago—“But you were there, sir, with him, weren’t you ?” the porter said.

  The Superintendent finished his drink and rose to his feet.

  “I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Judson,” he said, extending his hand. “Now I’ll just go and see if Mr. Quirk is about. And you might keep an eye on both of them and let me know if anything curious happens.”

  The porter opened his mouth as if to speak, but caught the manager’s eye and thought better of it. Guest had turned towards the door, and did not notice the incident. Mr. Judson promised to do as he asked ; his curiosity could not be restrained, however. “What’s it all about, Superintendeńt ?”

  Guest laughed easily.

  “I don’t know that it’s anything at all. You’ll see it in the paper tomorrow—Professor Paley was found dead at his house this afternoon. There’ll have to be an inquest, so I’m finding out where everyone connected with the household has been the last day or two.”

  “You don’t mean that he was murdered ?”

  “I certainly don’t. But Coroners and their juries always want to know a lot that’s beside the point. And, look here—it’s understood that this talk is between the three of us—eh ?”

  Mr. Judson protested that of course that was fully understood : he’d answer both for himself and the porter.

  “Good,” said Guest. “I know I can trust to your discretion— it’s an important quality in the manager and the head porter of this hotel, isn’t it ?”

  The manager looked uncomfortable, but decided that this, if intended to be a concealed threat, had better be treated as a pleasantry, and he produced a loud if rather forced laugh.

  The Superintendent again bade him good night, cordially enough, and went out in search of Mr. Quirk.

  “Hadn’t we ought to tell him about the other gentleman—you know, sir ?” the porter broke out, when he was alone with the manager.

  “Certainly not, Hammond,” was the reply, in severe tones. “Didn’t you hear the Inspector say that discretion is a very good thing for this hotel ? And if a gentleman chooses to pay for a room and not use it—well, so much the better for the hotel.”

  “Very good, sir,” the porter said submissively.

  “And it isn’t as if there was any connection between, the gentleman and this Professor Paley.”

  “Not that we knows of, sir.”

  “That’s, right. If it turns out that there is a connection we’ll tell the police at once. But remember, Hammond, what the Superintendent said. Discretion. Eh ?”

  Manager and porter returned to their respective duties. Meanwhile the Superintendent had found Mr. Quirk—had, indeed, almost run into him, at the door of the writing-room, whither the Superintendent had made his way. It was a somewhat garish apartment, more suitable (and probably more used) for the consumption of liquid refreshment than for literary work, with a door opening conveniently into the inner hall, by the left, as well as the main door into the lounge, so that the hotel staff had rapid access to it from the service quarters. There were, however, four rather uncomfortable writing-tables. Mr. Quirk had finished his correspondence, and had popped out suddenly from his quiet corner behind some elegant palms.

  The American did not recognise his visitor at first, and when he did was obviously surprised at the meeting.

  “Any fresh news ?” he enquired, rather anxiously.

  “No, sir. Not yet. I had to come in here, so I thought I’d just ask you if you’d any more impressions, you know.”

  “Nothing doing here, either,” he replied, with a smile. “In fact, I have spent the time since dinner in chronicling the tragic events of this afternoon.” And he glanced down at two bulky letters which he carried in his hand. Guest could only see the top one, but he observed that it had stamps to the value of 1½d., yet he was able to distinguish the mysterious “Inc.,” and he rightly concluded that Mr. Quirk had been reporting to the Association for World Harmony his impressions of the death of the Professor.

  The two men strolled together to the letter-box in the hall, and when the American had posted his letters they stood talking for a minute or two in the hotel entrance ; then the Superintendent said good night. The American grasped his hand with true American fervour and assured him once again of his anxiety to help in any way in his power. In evening dress he had lost the Transatlantic touch which subtly had attached to his afternoon attire, and with it everything which in any way singled him out from dozens of other wearers of horn-rimmed spectacles, whether English, American, or of any other nationality. But he was very much in earnest, and his Adam’s apple worked violently in his scraggy neck.

  As he walked home, Guest half smiled at the picture of the litt
le man on the top of the steps ; but, at any rate, he felt, he had found two potential helpers in the American and the butler if to-morrow’s work confirmed the strong suspicion in his mind that Professor Paley had not died by his own hand.

  CHAPTER VII

  CATALOGUES CLUES

  Good progress had been made in the detailed study of his “exhibits” when the Superintendent put in an early appearance at the station next morning.

  First and foremost the surgeon’s views had to be considered. They bore out the forecast of the previous evening. When Professor Paley was killed by the knife, he was under the influence of a narcotic, administered a short time before, probably about twenty minutes or half an hour. The narcotic did not cause and could not have caused his death ; for that the knife was responsible. And death must have been immediate.

  Guest drew a deep breath. Suicide was finally put out of court, as his instinct had told him it would be.

  Nothing could be added as to the time of death ; when the body was found, life had been extinct for more than one and less than six hours. “More than one hour” was the only matter of importance here ; it certainly limited the time within which the murder had been committed.

  Next, the Superintendent looked at the analysis of the jug of lemonade : there was nothing significant. But the dregs in the tumbler told a different story—this was where the narcotic had been.

  Who then had touched the tumbler and the jug ? Fingerprints seemed likely to promise help, but to Guest’s surprise none had been found on either piece of glassware. He sat and stared at the inkpot on his desk, puzzling over this. It could surely only mean that whoever put the narcotic into the tumbler had been at pains to wipe clean the tumbler and jug. Or had the tumbler been filled as well as the jug before the tray had been taken down to the summer-house ? No, Guest was sure the jug had been partly empty when it was found ; and, turning to the written report, he found that it confirmed his recollection. It seemed then that the tumbler had been filled from the jug, the narcotic put into the tumbler, and then tumbler and jug carefully wiped. Not only so : it seemed to follow they had been wiped after Professor Paley was dead—it seemed hardly credible that he had allowed someone to pour the doctored lemonade down his throat for him ; unless his niece—she, after all, had taken down the tray. The Superintendent had not seen her yet ; he did not know whether she was of the “playfully affectionate” type, nor yet on what terms she had been with her uncle. He must go warily when he questioned her later in the day.

  What about other finger-prints ? For example, the knife. Here the Superintendent had a brief note that the prints on the handle were those of the dead man. But there was also a photograph showing the position of the prints, and this he examined with infinite care. He shook his head doubtfully, and, picking up a paper-knife whose handle was much the size of the dagger’s, carried out one or two experiments. He decided that the prints corresponded fairly well with the position of the fingers of a hand grasping the dagger after it had been driven into the body ; but the photograph showed no sign of blur or movement—the set was almost a perfect specimen.

  He smiled grimly. Was this the explanation of the absence of finger-prints on the glass ? Had the murderer drugged the Professor, then murdered him, and then set to work to create the impression of suicide ? The leaving of those drugs in the tumbler must have been an oversight.

  What other finger-prints were there ? Naturally, the only ones which could be identified were those of the dead man ; and these were to be found in various places in the summer-house, notably on the edge of the writing-table. They were also on the safe, but this latter presented another and striking peculiarity. The dead man’s fingers alone had left their trace on it, but someone else had handled it—someone wearing gloves. In three places close to the keyhole the traces were unmistakable.

  Well, it all seemed to fit together : only it was strange that the gloves had left any mark at all.

  Guest went carefully through the report on finger-prints : he found that nowhere had a trace of any hand but the Professor’s been found, except for those glove-marks on the safe.

  Next, he turned to the contents of the safe. It had apparently contained nothing but papers, all of them bearing upon political matters. These presumably were the material for a book on the Professor’s special subject. There seemed nothing in them which bore upon his death, no will or——Guest made a note that he must discover where his will and similar papers were kept. That, however, was by the way. The papers in the safe had been in considerable confusion, and it seemed reasonable to assume that they had been turned topsy-turvy ; in other words, it might be conjectured (though it was no more than conjecture) that the murderer had looked for something in the safe. Whether he had found it seemed to be another question, and one which the police could not hope to answer unaided.

  But there were the two other objects found inside. The bunch of keys—why were they not left in the lock ? What purpose had the murderer to serve by putting them inside the safe, and closing, but not locking, the door ? Guest could make little of it ; he merely noted the need to enquire whether the Professor had been in the habit of carrying the bunch, including the safe key, on his person.

  Lastly, the bathing-dress, twisted into a small bundle, and stained with blood. Guest could only think of one way in which it could have been used—to wipe the murderer’s hand, or the handle of the dagger. For there had been no sign of its use anywhere else in the summer-house, as he clearly remembered, and as the photographers no less clearly showed.

  If he found it hard to imagine why the keys had been put inside the safe, he found it harder still to conceive why a murderer wearing gloves had found it necessary to use the bathing-dress to wipe the dagger with. Or could it simply be that he had meant to prevent any suggestion that he had worn gloves ? If so, the safe was the second oversight of which the murderer had been guilty.

  Resolutely the Superintendent turned to the next exhibit. He must see the case as a whole. To form theories, as he had been doing, could not lead to success ; he was being prejudiced by the mere order in which he examined the various things.

  There came, however, a slight interruption : a plain-clothes constable knocked at the door and brought in an envelope.

  “The photographs, sir,” he said.

  “What photographs ?” asked the Superintendent in surprise. “Aren’t they all here ?”

  “The film that was in the camera, sir,” the man answered.

  “The Sergeant thought it would be worth while to have it developed.”

  Guest nodded and dismissed him. He was inclined to smlie at the Sergeant’s notion. Still he remembered that, according to Mr. Trent, the Professor had meant to finish off the roll of films, so that they might conceivably afford a clue to his movements after he and Trent had parted company at the edge of the cliff.

  The order of the negatives had been carefully noted. The first three were of a girl bathing, apparently from the steps below the summer-house. What had Mr. Trent said about the results of the Professor’s photography being the reverse of flattering ? If so, thought Guest, the young lady must be pretty above the average, in face and in figure.

  “And a pretty good photograph, too, for an amateur,” he said to himself, looking at the second of the three, which showed the girl in the act of diving, her feet on the brink of leaving the edge of the granite platform in which the steps ended.

  The fourth photograph seemed to live up to Mr. Trent’s description. It showed a young man in flannels, apparently pirouetting on one foot, one arm flung straight above his head and seemingly grasping a short stick, the other weirdly and menacingly held in front of his face, and the face itself distorted by a look of fury and despair.

  Guest looked at the feet more carefully, and laughed. The white service-line of a tennis-court was plainly to be seen.

  “I should imagine it’s the niece diving and the young fellow—Shipman—serving,” he commented to himself. “Though I expect I’l
l need help in the identification : it’s not likely either of them will look like that when I see them.”

  The fifth print was very much less distinct, but it was unmistakably Mr. Trent himself, taken in a corner of the walled garden. He was apparently asleep, his mouth was wide open, and a squashy hat threw a hard shadow across the upper half of his face. One hand hung listlessly by one side, the fingers resting on a large volume which leant against the leg of the chair. The other hand was out of sight. The most prominent feature of the picture was a pair of shoes, apparently of a piebald description—either brown and white or black and white, and probably the former.

  It certainly was not nearly so good a photograph as the other four, for the camera seemed to have been moved. The angle of vision suggested that the Professor had knelt down to take it—perhaps that accounted for the shakiness. But however that was, the photograph was of the greatest interest to Guest, for he thought that it would be possible from it—and particularly from a shadow of a tall flower across the foreground—to gauge the exact time at which it had been taken. And that might be of the utmost importance.

  The sixth and last photograph was a disappointment ; it was a complete blank, as if the Professor had been filled with sudden ambition to photograph the sun at the height of his majesty.

  The Superintendent was no longer inclined to smile at the Sergeant. True, it had perhaps been a trifle officious of him to have the film developed, without a word to his chief about it, but the results were ample justification.

  The telephone rang, and Guest took up the receiver with an annoyed exclamation. He hated to be disturbed needlessly and—However, it was the Chief Constable, apparently in a state of some excitement.

  “That Superintendent Guest ?” he demanded, and, being assured that it was, continued : “Look here, what’s this about Professor Paley being found dead ?”

  “That’s right, sir,” Guest replied. “Last evening, sir. The report’s on its way to you, sir ; or I suppose you’ve had it.”

  “No, I haven’t. And——”