Murder Will Speak

by J. J. Connington

  “He had a meal round about seven o’clock,” the inspector said. “Perhaps his food made give you a tip in the P.M., doctor. It’s not very important, really. No doubt about the cause of death.”

  “Carbon monoxide poisoning, as plain as print, apart from the circumstances,” the doctor declared. “See the colour of his lips, and the foam about the mouth. And his sphincters have all gone slack, of course. I’ll do a Kunkel test and have a look at the blood spectrum, but that’s really supererogation, merely to show zeal.”

  “No marks on him, or anything of that sort?” asked Craythorn in a tone which showed he expected nothing of the kind.

  “Nothing much. There’s a bruise on the point of his chin which might have been caused by his head dropping when he became unconscious and hitting the floor of the oven. We may find more when we get him stripped at the mortuary, but there’s no reason to expect it. It’s just another of these gas suicides by the look of it.”

  “They’re getting too common,” the inspector grumbled. “What with running a motor in a closed garage or putting your head in a gas-oven, suicide’s easier than winking, nowadays.”

  “If they’d put some of these sternutatory gases in the domestic supply,” suggested the doctor with a smile, “it might do some good.”

  “Make ’em sneeze so much that they couldn’t poison themselves, eh? No thankee, doctor. I don’t want to be sneezing my head off every time the gas-ring’s turned on in the kitchen. Think up something else. By the way, doctor, when you do the P.M., keep a look-out for an incurable disease, will you? I haven’t struck a motive for this affair, yet, and every little helps. Must be some reason for his putting his head in the oven, surely.”

  “Oh, temporary insanity,” suggested the doctor sardonically. “That’s what the jury will say out of kindheartedness.”

  “Makes the burial arrangements easier,” Craythorn pointed out. “Well, thank the Lord our coroner isn’t one of those fussers who mistake themselves for a sort of Holmes-Hanaud-Thorndyke syndicate. He does his job and leaves other people to do theirs.”

  “Sound man,” agreed the doctor. “He’s a medical,” he added slyly, “and he’ll know a gas-poisoning case when he sees it.”

  Craythorn nodded.

  “Well, I’ve got to look over the house,” he explained. “We’ll see about removing the body in due course. I’ll be up all night over this business, curse it.”

  He went out into the hall, and as he passed along it his glance caught a letter in the wire cage of the letter-box. Without much interest, he lifted it out and laid it on the hall table for later examination. All he wanted now was some hint of a motive for this suicide, just to clear the whole thing up. Suicide it obviously was, even down to the fact that the dead man had left the lights on in the drawing-room and the kitchen. No one commits suicide in the dark.

  He entered the drawing-room and glanced about him, but failed to notice anything amiss. An escritoire in one corner of the room was open and going over to it he found an unfinished letter addressed to a firm of London stockbrokers, giving some instructions about selling certain stocks. As he read it, Craythorn wondered if he had chanced on the motive behind the suicide.

  “Got into a money muddle, maybe. Speculating, and got nipped. This might represent a last hope. And then, in the middle of it, he may have seen he was too deep in to get out again. Chucked the idea and went off next door to settle it another way. It’s on the cards. Worth looking into, anyhow.”

  He put the unfinished letter into his pocket and made a further examination of the room, without unearthing anything suggestive.

  “Suicide it is,” he concluded finally. “And it’ll be easy enough to find if there’s been any financial hanky-panky. I may as well go through this desk and see if his papers throw any light on that.”

  He sat down before the escritoire, pulled open a drawer, and was about to begin his search when he heard a car reversing into the gate and coming up to the garage.

  “That’ll be his wife back home,” he reflected. “I’ll have to break the glad news. Dirty job.”

  Chapter Ten

  A False Alarm

  INSPECTOR CRAYTHORN was an adept at breaking bad news. He met Linda Hyson at the front door, took her into the drawing-room, and laid the situation before her with far more tact and gentleness than might have been expected from his normal robust and staccato manner of speech. Having gained from Cissie a shrewd opinion of how matters had stood between Hyson and his wife, the inspector avoided showing too much sympathy for her at the loss of her husband. She reacted as he had expected. It was a terrible shock to her, naturally; but not so painful as it would have been if she had been fond of Hyson. The few details which Craythorn gave were apparently sufficient. She asked for no others, nor did she suggest seeing her husband’s body.

  “Now, Mrs. Hyson,” Craythorn said, when he had finished his tale, “I know this is very hard on you in the circumstances; but we just have to trouble you, and it’s better to get it all over at once. So you won’t mind if I bother you with a question or two?”

  “Ask anything you like,” Linda answered. “But I really can’t hold out much hope of being useful. I may as well be quite frank. My husband and I lived almost separate lives and I know very little about his doings.”

  Craythorn nodded sympathetically. He had trained himself to note, almost subconsciously, the main characteristics of anyone he met and now he took in at a glance the tallish graceful figure, corn-coloured hair, long-lashed dark grey eyes, straight nose, clean-cut lips. No jewellery of any sort, except a wedding-ring. Pretty hands and well-shaped feet, he added to his catalogue. A rum creature Hyson must have been to neglect a wife like this! Then, with a jerk, he pulled himself back into a more professional attitude of mind. Handsome is as handsome does. The question was: What had handsome been doing that day? He had no suspicions about Linda, merely a desire to be thorough in his work so as to be able to satisfy the coroner at the inquest.

  “You can throw some light on to-day’s affair, at any rate,” he pointed out. “I’ve talked to your maid. She was in the house till three o’clock. You were still here when she left, she told me. You rang up someone on the phone before she left?”

  Linda, rather to Craythorn’s surprise, did not answer immediately. She seemed to be considering something. Then she made up her mind.

  “That’s quite true,” she admitted after a moment or two. “I rang up a friend of ours, a Mr. Barsett.”

  Barsett? The inspector pricked up his ears. That was the man who used to drop in of an evening, the fellow who was a friend of Mrs. Hyson but not of her husband. And this was Thursday, the maid’s night out. Had Mrs. Hyson rung up Barsett to ask him to drop in? No, not that, since Hyson was expected home to supper, as the table had shown. More likely that she rang up Barsett to put him off that night. Better get this cleared up. Every little helps.

  “Any objection to telling me what your message was?” he asked.

  Linda Hyson gave him a stare of obvious surprise at such prying.

  “Oh, none whatever,” she answered, with a certain chilliness in her tone. “I rang him up to remind him of an appointment next Tuesday, a golf appointment which was left indefinite.”

  “I see,” Craythorn hastened to say, with the consciousness that he had antagonised her a little by this line of questioning. “What I’m anxious to find out is whether your phone was in proper order when you used it, that’s all. When did you ring up Mr. Barsett?”

  “About half-past two, I think, but I can’t be quite sure. Why are you interested in the phone, may I ask?”

  “Because it’s out of order now. Our man had to go to the kiosk along the Avenue to get through to us at the station.”

  “Oh! Then that accounts for our not being able to get on this evening when my sister rang up.”

  Craythorn noted the point, but held up his hand.

  “Let’s take one thing at a time, please,” he suggested. “We’ll come t
o the phone by and by. Now what did you do with yourself after the maid went out?”

  “I wrote a letter or two and did some sewing. Then I made myself some afternoon tea, about half-past four. Then I did some more sewing. That’s all I can remember. I had the wireless on part of the time. No one came to the house, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I see. Now when did Mr. Hyson come home?”

  “It must have been shortly after half-past six, I think,” Linda answered. “I didn’t hear him come in. I’d gone upstairs to change into this dress. That would be about half-past six, I think. When I came down again, he was in the drawing-room here, reading an evening paper.”

  “Did you notice anything peculiar about him?” Craythorn demanded.

  Linda seemed slightly surprised at the question.

  “I? No, he seemed much as usual. I didn’t pay any special attention to him.”

  “What did you talk about when you met?”

  Again Linda looked somewhat surprised.

  “We didn’t talk about anything,” she declared. Then, seeing the incredulity on the inspector’s face, she decided to explain more clearly. “Evidently you didn’t understand me when I said that my husband and I lived almost independent lives. We had next to nothing in common, so when we were alone we hardly spoke to each other.”

  She gave the information in such a matter-of-fact tone that Craythorn found himself forced to accept it, though it made him wonder still more as to the kind of man Hyson had been.

  “You had supper together?” he inquired.

  “Oh, yes. He read his paper and I took up a book while we ate.”

  “And after that?”

  “We came in here again,” Linda explained. “My husband sat down at the desk there and began to go through some papers. I went on with my book. There it is over yonder, on the chesterfield.”

  “And then you went out to some appointment or other?”

  “Not exactly. This is rather a queer affair, Mr. Craythorn. As I was sitting reading, the phone rang.”

  “What time was that?” interjected the inspector.

  “Shortly before eight o’clock, I imagine. Ten to eight, perhaps. I didn’t look at my watch, you know. I went to the phone and a man’s voice spoke at the other end. It didn’t give the name of the speaker, but said there was a message for me from my sister, Miss Errington. There had been a burglary at her flat and she felt rather nervous, being alone there. Would I go over and stay with her for a while? Then the connection was cut off abruptly before I could ask who was speaking.”

  “You didn’t recognize the voice, did you?” questioned Craythorn.

  Again he noticed a momentary hesitation before the reply came.

  “No . . . I can’t say I did. It reminded me of someone, but it was very hoarse and not really like the voice I was thinking of. Just a chance likeness, and not very close at that.”

  “Still, it might have been that person with a cold, perhaps?”

  “Unless it was a trunk call, it couldn’t have been that voice. He lives at least a couple of hundred miles away.”

  “Whom did you take it for?”

  “Is that really necessary?” Linda demanded. “There’s nothing in it. The only explanation would be a practical joke, and Mr. Telford isn’t inclined for practical jokes at present, I’m sure. He’s just lost his wife. And I never knew him to play a practical joke on anyone. It was just my imagination.”

  “Very well,” Craythorn said, since she was evidently quite positive on the point, “what happened after that?”

  “Naturally I was rather worried by the message. My sister has a flat at 29 Sperling Road. You know where that is? On the other side of town. It’s a service flat, but she lives alone in it. She’s not a nervous person, really; but I could quite imagine that she might feel a bit worried if anyone had got into her flat, even if they’d been chased out again. I shouldn’t feel very happy myself, in a case of that sort. So naturally I decided to go off at once.”

  “Yes?”

  “I went up and put on a coat. Then I came down again, opened the door of this room, and said to my husband: ‘I’m taking the car.’ He was still busy with his papers and didn’t look up, but he made a sort of sound which meant that he didn’t mind. So I shut the door and went off in the car to my sister’s flat.”

  “And that was the last time you saw him this evening?”

  “Of course it was,” Linda said rather sharply. “You saw me come back yourself, a few minutes ago.”

  “Well, go on with your story, please,” begged Craythorn.

  “When I got to Sperling Road I walked straight in. The door’s not locked and if you want the maids you have to ring. There’s no lift. It’s an old house converted into flats, and I don’t think they had space to put in a lift. I went upstairs. My sister lives on the third floor, right at the top of the house. When I got there, I rang the bell and my sister came to the door. I could see she was surprised to see me, and that struck me at once as queer, after the telephone message.”

  “Obviously,” the inspector confirmed.

  “Of course I questioned her at once. And that made it queerer, for it turned out that she’d never asked anyone to ring me up. Of course I should have thought of that before. She’s got a phone in her flat and wouldn’t need to ask anyone to take a message. Then I asked about this burglary, and it turned out that there hadn’t been anything of the sort at all. It must have been somebody playing a silly practical joke on us.”

  “If it was,” the inspector put in, “it must have been someone who knew something about you and your sister. A stranger, taking your number from the directory, wouldn’t have known about her or her flat.”

  “I dare say,” Linda agreed, “but why they should think of such a stupid thing I can’t imagine. It isn’t in the least funny or clever.”

  “Well, what did you do after that?” asked Craythorn.

  “We talked it over, of course, and then Joan — my sister — had an idea. ‘Suppose someone wants to break into your house,’ she said. ‘They ring up and get you to go out on this wild-goose chase. Then they ring up again and get Ossie’ — that’s my husband — ‘to go out as well. And there’s the place empty for them.’ It didn’t seem very likely to me; but after all I had been sent off myself on a fool’s errand. There might have been something in the idea. So my sister suggested ringing up this house, just to put my husband on his guard in case.”

  “No harm in that, certainly,” Craythorn agreed. “So you rang up?”

  “I did. But I couldn’t get through.”

  “No, your own phone’s out of order, so we found. About what time did you try to ring up?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. About nine o’clock, perhaps.”

  “And after that?”

  “Oh, after that, I spent the evening with my sister. Since I was there, it seemed the best thing to do. I had nothing to do at home here.”

  Craythorn reflected that even incidentally Linda Hyson gave a dreary account of her married life. “Nothing to do at home” though her husband was there. Both of them reading at meals rather than go to the trouble of talking to each other. It all hung together.

  “The phone must have broken down, then, shortly after you left this house,” he commented. “I sent word for a man to come up first thing to-morrow to put it in order.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now just finish off your story, please. Did anyone call at your sister’s flat while you were there?”

  Linda shook her head.

  “Or ring up?” Craythorn persisted. “There was no further attempt at practical joking or anything of that sort?”

  “No, nothing whatever.”

  “And you came straight home?”

  “No,” Linda explained, “I happened to pass a friend of mine — Miss Dagenham — and I stopped to pick her up. She’d been visiting an old nurse of hers who’s sick. Her car is being overhauled just now, so she had to go by bus out to her nurse’s
house. Of course I gave her a lift; and when we got to her house she asked me to come in for a few minutes.”

  “About what time did you pick her up?”

  Linda thought for a moment or two.

  “I can’t say exactly. I didn’t look at my car-clock. But it must have been shortly after ten. Then it took me about a quarter of an hour to get to Miss Dagenham’s. She lives in Cadogan Drive.”

  “And you stayed with her how long, roughly?”

  “Perhaps three quarters of an hour; then I came back here.”

  “Right! We have to ask a lot of useless questions, you know, Mrs. Hyson. You mustn’t mind that. Now another thing. Have you any idea whether your husband had money troubles or not? That’s a matter he’d be almost bound to mention to you, if it meant cutting down household expenditure and so on.”

  “He never spoke of anything of the kind to me,” Linda declared in a positive tone. “Certainly the house expenses have not been cut down lately. As for my personal bills, I pay them out of my own income. He had nothing to do with that.”

  Craythorn was not convinced by this testimony.

  “We’ll have to go through his papers, you know,” he pointed out. “He may have been speculating beyond his means, or something like that; and we must find out definitely.”

  “I’ve no objection to your going through his papers,” Linda volunteered at once. “I quite see your point, Mr. Craythorn, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t examine anything, so far as I’m concerned. Do exactly as you think best.”

  The inspector acknowledged this with a nod of thanks.

  “Your husband was in a stockbroker’s office, I think? A Mr. Lockhurst’s. We shall have to make inquiries there too. Can you tell me anything about the staff?”

  “I’ve never been in Mr. Lockhurst’s office,” Linda explained, “and I really know nothing about his staff. The only name I remember is Mr. Forbury’s. He was cashier, or something like that, I think. I’ve never met him. Mr. Lockhurst himself I’ve met casually, once or twice, but he’s only the merest acquaintance. He’s ill, just now. Probably you’d better try Mr. Forbury.”