by Vernon Loder
She seemed surprised now. ‘Of course. After dinner I had people in for bridge, and we did not stop playing until one o’clock.’
‘Mr Jameson Peden-Hythe did not return?’
She drew herself up. ‘I beg your pardon—I don’t quite see what my son has to do with this.’
‘I am making no suggestions, madam. But I have heard it hinted that your son had a hearty dislike for Mr Mander. The chauffeur said he “bolted” when Mr Mander arrived at your house.’
‘I am afraid I cannot accept a strange chauffeur’s word about my son’s prejudices,’ she countered. ‘There was no reason why he should like or dislike Mr Mander. Our relations with him were strictly those of business.’
Now why did she think it necessary to say that, or to stare him hard in the eyes as she said it? Devenish wondered, as he went on. ‘I see that, madam. But may I hear with whom Mr Peden-Hythe spent the night?’
She shrugged, and bit her lips again. ‘He said he was going to see Sir William Lefort. But all this is beside the point. While the Stores are shut up, very serious damage is being done to the business. I do not blame you for that, of course, but I should much like to know when it will be possible to open again.’
Devenish reflected. Mrs Hoe might be a too facile character-reader and have made a mistake here. Was Mrs Peden-Hythe greedy, but for money, not sensations? She had a vast fortune, but that said nothing. Those who have one fortune are often apparently avid for two, and no doubt the audacious lawyer’s clerk had not lured her into risking a million without proving to her that proportionate or disproportionate profits would be made.
‘They are holding the inquest today,’ he said. ‘I shall have to go there just now. But I see no reason why the premises should not be put at your disposal—or shall we discuss that with your solicitor?’
‘Mr Hay will communicate with you about it,’ she said. ‘At our disposal, when?’
‘Tomorrow,’ said he. ‘Of course we may have to pay further visits, and I suggest that the flat above should be kept locked up until we conclude our investigations. Otherwise, tomorrow.’
‘Have you any clue?’ she asked composedly.
‘The hearing today will be purely formal,’ he replied. ‘There is nothing to go upon so far.’
She nodded, bit her lip again, and then frowned a little. ‘Who was the young woman? Mr Mander always struck me as wrapped up in business. Was she very attractive?’
Devenish rose. ‘She was decidedly pretty.’
‘I suppose the motive was jealousy?’
He smiled dryly. ‘If we knew the motive, madam, we should get the man.’
‘Then you think it was a man?’
He did not think she was frightened or upset, but wished he could be sure. Her questions might be merely curiosity made manifest, or they might have a more personal spring.
‘I am afraid our people discourage loose thinking,’ he said. ‘A little evidence is more important. So we may expect to deal with your solicitor in the matter of the Stores.’
‘With Mr Hay—yes. I’ll telephone to him now.’
She dismissed him with a nod, and he went out.
‘If Mrs Hoe hadn’t been so attractive, I mightn’t have thought her so clever,’ Devenish said to himself as he made his way to a telephone call-box, en route to the inquest. ‘Mrs Peden-Hythe is greedy, but I am beginning to wonder for what.’
He rang up Scotland Yard a minute later, and gave instructions to a detective-officer. ‘I want you to find out where Mr Jameson Peden-Hythe was on Sunday night. I hear he went to stay with Sir William Lefort. Go round there and find out what you can.’
CHAPTER VIII
THE inquest had been a brief and formal business. Evidence of identification had been put in with regard to the dead man and woman; the doctor had given the results of his examination; and then the police asked for a fortnight’s adjournment, which was granted.
After a late lunch, Devenish went to the Stores.
At two, punctually, the manager entered. He looked less haggard and overcome than on the previous day, but his mouth was hard and his eyes grim. Devenish got the impression that the man was now more bitter about the revealed connection between Miss Tumour and Mr Mander (whatever the nature of it might be) than grief-stricken at his loss.
He made the manager sit down, and then asked him if he had announced his engagement to Miss Tumour to his employer.
‘No,’ said Kephim, dourly. ‘I did not.’
‘No doubt you meant to do so?’
‘Of course, but it had nothing to do with him; or I thought it hadn’t.’
‘So that, as far as you are aware, Mr Mander did not know that you were engaged to the dead woman?’
‘So far as I know, he did not.’
Devenish looked down. ‘Are you aware that Miss Tumour had been visited by Mander for some time before his death? I mean that he called for her, and took her out in his car?’
‘I know it now. I went round to her flat yesterday after I had left you.’
‘She never told you about it?’
‘It is not,’ said Kephim, with a fierce look, ‘the kind of thing she would tell me about.’
‘Can you account for her visiting Mr Mander on Sunday night? I mean would there be any business explanation of it?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Devenish looked him in the face. ‘Have you any .303 ammunition in your possession, Mr Kephim? You can answer that or not as you like.’
Kephim did not look surprised. ‘I have perhaps twenty cartridges of that calibre,’ he replied dully. ‘If you care to come round to my flat, you can see them, and my match-rifle.’
‘I shall go with you at once, if it is convenient. You use match-rifle ammunition, not the ordinary Service issue?’
‘That is right. But you shall see for yourself.’
Devenish rose, and they went out together. A taxi took them to the flat. It was large and well-furnished, though not luxurious. Kephim made Devenish sit down in the drawing-room while he went upstairs and returned with a match-rifle, fitted with a telescopic sight, and a box containing some ammunition.’
‘These are all the cartridges I have,’ he said quietly.
Devenish examined the rifle closely, and then the cartridges, one of which he kept. ‘I want this one to examine more carefully,’ he said. ‘By the way, would you mind shouldering the rifle and allowing me to make some measurements?’
If Kephim was the guilty man, he showed no signs of discomposure. He got up, and levelled the rifle.
‘Just point it a trifle below the level of my groin, sir,’ said Devenish. ‘Mr Mander was about five feet seven. I should say you were five feet nine.’
‘Ten, inspector.’
Devenish took out a tape-measure and made several marks on the wall while Kephim lowered the rifle and watched him. He asked the manager then to aim at the marks in turn, and took perpendicular and lateral measurements, and once went behind the man with the rifle to look down the sights over his shoulder.
‘You need not assist me with these experiments unless you wish,’ he explained as he worked. ‘I want you to understand that.’
‘I have not the slightest objection, inspector,’ replied Kephim.
‘The point is this,’ said Devenish, rolling up his tape at last. ‘You do not need to be a tall man to shoot a man in the groin so that the bullet takes a slanting course downwards. But the police-surgeon in this case says the slant was more or less vertical, which hints at an assailant of more than average height.’
Kephim put down the rifle. ‘I should say, inspector, that you have not only to look for a tall man but also for the kind of man who was able to carry Mander some distance,’ he remarked. ‘Anything else?’
‘Do you object to my making a search of your flat here? I have no warrant.’
‘I have no objection to your doing anything in reason. It is not amusement to you any more than to me.’
For the next hour h
e was busy going over the flat. He found nothing with the slightest bearing on the case, however. Kephim was helpful throughout. When the inspector had finished, he offered him tea, but Devenish refused.
‘No, thank you, sir. I must get on with the job. I am much obliged to you altogether.’
Kephim shrugged wearily. ‘That’s all right. Good-day, inspector.’
When he left the flat, Devenish decided to take Mr Cane next. He had heard from the men at work at the Stores that Cane had not turned up, so went off at once to the young man’s rooms in Caister Street.
Cane happened to be in, and having tea. But he did not invite the inspector to join him; only offered him a cigarette, and appeared quite cheerful and at ease.
‘Still barging round on the quest?’ he said. ‘Anything fresh?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ said Devenish. ‘May I ask, sir, where you spent the evening of Sunday last?’
‘Sunday last?’ Cane drank some tea, and nodded. ‘Yes, rather. But am I supposed to be the villain, inspector? Mustn’t answer that, eh? Oh, on Sunday afternoon I went out in my little car, and had a good drive round. Covered a hundred and twenty miles before half-past five. On my way back I found myself near Gelover, so I turned in there and renewed my acquaintance with the mechanic pilot of our Hopper. Brainy boy for his type, but I still contend that it is only in one line. He was quite shirty with me because I said I wondered if he was the inventor.’
‘You think he was?’
‘He’s quite capable of it. Anything more?’
‘What time did you get back here, sir?’
Cane pushed his cup away and sat back. ‘Let me see. It was half-past nine I think. I had left my jigger in the garage. I have to put it up with Bale’s, for there’s nothing nearer here. But, wait a moment, did you say when I returned here?’
‘I meant to town, sir.’
‘Then that’s right. Then I turned in at a cinema near there, and was home here about half-past eleven.’
Devenish noted that. ‘And did your people here (I see you have rooms, not a flat), did they hear you come in, or let you in?’
Cane laughed. ‘Good old alibi, eh? No, they did neither, as far as I know. But I had better make sure if they heard. Old Haines and his wife here were servants with my people in the old days. I’ll have Haines up.’
Devenish sat silent till Cane had got up and pressed a bell.
‘You have a latch-key, then?’
‘They trust me with one!’ Cane smiled as he resumed his seat. ‘They were country people, and they aren’t used to late hours yet.’
A minute later, an elderly man with the look of a retired butler entered the room.
‘You rang, Mr William?’
‘I did Haines. This gentleman wants to know if you heard me come in on Sunday night, and if so when.’
Haines gave the inspector the sort of half-suspicious, half-resentful glance reserved by trained servants for dubious callers.
‘No, Mr William, we did not either of us hear you come in. You said at breakfast next morning that it was about half-past eleven.’
‘Wonderful memory for facts,’ said Cane. ‘All right, Haines, that will do.’
There is always the possibility that a man who mentions the times of his goings and comings after the event is anxious to impress those times on his hearer. But Devenish made no comment one way or the other.
Cane smiled at him quizzically, and went on, as Haines left the room. ‘English law and order, they say, are achieved by the wonderful and unique co-operation of police and people, inspector,’ he said. ‘As one of the people happy to be able to collaborate with you, I invite you to have a look over my rooms. I can’t promise you the sight of a hidden armoury, or anything romantic like that, but we may as well get it over.’
Devenish remained unmoved by this banter. ‘Very well, sir, since you suggest it, I will.’
He made his search, found nothing, and returned with Cane to the sitting-room. ‘Do you remember, sir, anyone who sat next to you at the cinema?’ he asked. ‘Anyone next, or near you?’
‘I don’t clearly, my dear fellow. I go to the cinema to look at the horrors on the screen, not those next to me. I have a vague idea of peppermints on the right and chewing-gum on the left. The man with gum might be a soccer professional. I believe they are addicted to it.’
Devenish shrugged. ‘Ah, then that is all I wish to ask you at the moment, I think.’
‘Don’t worry on my account. I am interested,’ said Cane. ‘By the way, someone said the police-surgeon swore the Mauser could not have fired that bullet. Now what the dickens does he know about it?’
‘He appears to be an amateur in ballistics, sir,’ said Devenish, dryly.
‘Ne sutor ultra crepidam,’ quoted Cane. ‘I hate to see perfectly good surgeons posing as experts. My own theory is that Mander stabbed Miss Tumour, and then shot himself with that pistol.’
‘Where did the bullet go?’
Cane frowned. ‘Oh, that is the trouble, of course. But suppose someone else was in the flat; I won’t say whom. Suppose he came to polish off Mander, and found that the deed was done already. Not liking to be found in the flat with two bodies, he carried them down to the ballroom below, to make it appear the murder and suicide took place there.’
‘Why didn’t he make himself scarce in any case?’ asked Devenish. ‘If he could enter the flat, he could get out again.’
‘I don’t believe he went out again by the way he got in,’ said Cane. ‘It’s my idea that the murder was committed by Mander when he heard Miss Tumour was engaged to Kephim. I think she came up the stairs to the flat from the back, which opens off the lane only used by us for vans and loading-banks. No one would be about there on Sunday.’
‘And this hypothetical man who also entered?’
‘By the same way. When he found the bodies, he might believe that the servants had heard the shot and would look out into the lane. I think it’s quite likely he hid in the shop, and went out when the shoppers crowded in on Monday morning.’
‘Rather fantastic, when you remember, sir, that there was no sign of the bullet in the flat either. And why should two bodies worry the man more than one? If he was tried and convicted wrongly, he could be hanged for a single murder.’
Cane laughed. ‘I am really afraid I should not make a good detective. I forgot those points. Will you have a drink?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Devenish. ‘I must go now.’
He had all along suspected that the surgeon was attempting a too hasty diagnosis in the matter of the Mauser pistol, but naturally he had not considered the matter carefully. Scotland Yard does not accept expert conclusions from anyone save experts, and the Mauser had been submitted already to a rifle-maker.
When Devenish left Cane’s room, he went straight to this man and asked him if he had come to any conclusion about the pistol.
‘Absolutely,’ said the other. ‘Your surgeon wouldn’t give a verdict on a case without studying it scientifically, but he seems to have glanced through the gun and then fired away.’
‘They say famous fiddlers always want to be composers, and authors want to pose as business men,’ remarked Devenish, smiling.
‘That’s about the size of it, inspector. We inspected the rifling under a brilliant light, and it shows undoubted signs of having fired a bullet.’
‘Oh, good. But not a lead one, or soft-nosed?’
‘No, steel-jacketed sure enough. But you may take it from me that it was the gun used—that Mauser.’
‘We can’t find the slightest sign of the bullet. I take it that the pistol was held by a taller man than Mander, or else Mander was in a crouching or sitting position. Unless it was deflected by a bone or something, as does not seem to have been the case, it ought to have entered a wall, or flown out through some aperture about eighteen inches from the floor.’
‘Have you examined all possible ventilators?’
‘Yes. The only hope we have is a window that wa
s open in Mr Mander’s drawing-room. But unless Mander was sitting on the sill, I don’t see how it could have gone out that way. If he was sitting on the sill even, as people do sometimes—though rarely in November—the murderer would have had to be about seven-foot six in height for the bullet to have struck at the angle it did.’
‘I can see you have a job before you,’ remarked the other.
Devenish nodded. ‘A nasty one. But there is always this to remember. A bullet goes somewhere. If it is not found to have penetrated any surface in a building, then it was not fired in that building. It’s like a man telling you how a crook escaped from a locked room without going through the door, the walls, the floor, or the ceiling; or up the chimney. You know he did go by one of those ways, however it may appear to the narrator. Once my men have cleared up that point, I shall be able to narrow things down.’
‘That’s right. But they’ll have a devil of a business in that vast place.’
CHAPTER IX
INSPECTOR DEVENISH had had a man shadowing Cane, and another Mr Kephim, while a third had gone down to Gelover to keep an eye on Webley. Assistant-Commissioner, Mr Melis, had apparently gone down on his own to the vicinity of Parston Court and interviewed a couple of friends of Mrs Peden-Hythe’s. Both had independently stated that they had been members of that Sunday bridge party and that their hostess had not left them for more than ten minutes during the evening.
Remained Mr Jameson Peden-Hythe. Devenish had dinner and returned to the Yard, anxious to know something of that young man’s movements on the Sunday. The detective-officer he had detailed for this duty came in a little later to communicate his discoveries.
‘The gentleman did not go to Sir William Lefort’s,’ he said. ‘I heard that from the butler, as Sir William has gone to Scotland. I looked Mr Peden-Hythe up in a book of reference, and found he had two clubs. I went to one of them, but no trace of him there. At the second, they said he had a bedroom, and stayed there Sunday night. He came in at twelve o’clock and went to his room.’
‘Has he gone back?’