The Shop Window Murders

by Vernon Loder

  ‘Why the devil didn’t you tell me before, then?’

  ‘Because it only came into our possession early this morning.’

  Jameson glowered. ‘What do you make of that?’

  Devenish smiled. ‘It looks suspicious, sir.’

  ‘That’s rot! At the most it means I was behind his place.’

  ‘At the best, it means that, sir. But you see, you didn’t remember where you had been.’

  ‘Well I was in the lane behind.’

  ‘Your memory is improving, sir. Pity you didn’t say so before.’

  ‘That’s a silly remark! I didn’t say I was in here. I said I had been behind here.’

  ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘Because I wanted to have a row with Mander, if you want to know.’

  ‘You remember that too? Does it not strike you that in an inquiry your loss of memory would seem rather suspicious?’

  The young man bit his lip. ‘I rang his damn bell, and no one came. So I cleared out and went to my club.’

  ‘I am afraid, sir, that after these details I can hardly take your word for it that you were too drunk on Sunday night to know what you were doing.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to,’ was the surprising reply. ‘I don’t want my private business shouted over the bally town, that’s all.’

  ‘We do not disclose the evidence of witnesses, unless it is necessary. You mean to say that you were somewhere that evening that you do not wish known?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Sir William Lefort’s.’

  ‘With what object?’

  Peden-Hythe reddened and then looked sheepish. ‘Er—well, Sir William’s daughter and I—’ he stopped.

  ‘Am I supposed to believe this, sir? The butler said you had not been there.’

  ‘So he would. I told him to. Fact is, Sir William is a bit stuffy about it.’

  There was something so genuinely shamefaced and incoherent and awkward about the young man that Devenish smiled involuntarily.

  ‘Come along up to the flat, sir, and then you can sit down quietly and tell me about it,’ he said.

  Once in the flat, and ensconced in an easy chair, Jameson began. He spoke in his staccato fashion, and often repeated the same thing, in ever more clumsy words, but what he actually wanted to tell Devenish was that he had fallen in love with Miss Lefort, and there had been something on her side too, he thought. Then, at Goodwood, earlier in the year, he had met some old pals and got ‘squiffy’, and Sir William and his daughter had happened to see him.

  Sir William had forbidden him the house, and even the girl had appeared dubious about keeping the thing up after that. Being himself ‘simply potty about her’ he had not given up hope. On the particular Sunday of Mander’s death, he had rushed up to town when that ‘bounder’ visited Parston Court. He knew Sir William was out of town, called at his house in the evening, and was told Miss Lefort was seeing some private show of pictures and would be back for dinner. He had announced to the butler his intention of waiting till she came, and had in fact declared that he would stay whether the butler objected or not. A fiver had helped, with a promise to the man that, if there was any subsequent trouble about the visit, he would say that he had refused to go.

  But Miss Lefort did not return to dinner, and he suspected that the butler knew where she was, and had telephoned to her mentioning the name of the caller.

  If the rest of his story was true, it proved that he entertained a fatuous affection for a girl who had already decided that his habits made him an impossible husband. It also proved that he was certainly tipsy when he visited the house. Not even the keenest lover in his sober senses would sit down in somebody else’s house, and remain there till after ten o’clock in the hope that the girl would see him against her wish. A fiver had bribed the butler to silence about the visit, and no doubt the young man was soberer when he left the house than when he entered it.

  ‘You left the house in a pretty bad temper. Where did you go then?’ asked Devenish.

  Jameson scowled. ‘I ask you! Wouldn’t you have been rampin’ mad?’

  ‘That may be, sir. But where did you go?’

  ‘Go? I wanted to kick somebody, and Mander was the only fella I knew wanted kickin’ badly. I went over, and rang his bally bell. It was dark as Hades in that lane, and I lost my beastly match-box trying to find the way to the door.’

  ‘Did you keep on ringing?’

  ‘You bet I did.’

  Devenish looked at him thoughtfully. ‘As your memory for details seems to have improved, perhaps you can tell me about what time this was?’

  Jameson nodded. ‘’Bout eleven I should say.’

  ‘And you saw no one, and heard no one?’

  ‘Not a soul.’

  Devenish excused himself and rang up Sir William Lefort’s house. The butler replied, and asked who it was.

  ‘Inspector Devenish of Scotland Yard,’ snapped the other. ‘Why did you not tell me that Mr Peden-Hythe called on Sunday evening?’

  There was a short silence at the other end, then a chastened voice murmured that its owner hadn’t liked to make trouble, as he had seen that the gentleman was not quite himself.

  ‘How long did he stay?’ asked Devenish.

  ‘I couldn’t get him to go, sir,’ replied the butler. ‘Sir William was away, as I told you, and Miss Anita was out, and it was rather difficult. At ten, sir, Miss Anita rang up. She said I was to tell the gentleman that she had gone away for the weekend. He called again since, sir.’

  Devenish thanked him, and rang off. He knew now that there was some truth in the young man’s story, though there might have been time for him to kill Mander between his leaving Sir William’s and his arrival at his club.

  ‘Well, sir, if you have been put to any trouble,’ he remarked as he sat down again, ‘it is your own fault.’

  ‘I’m not blamin’ you,’ said Jameson, ‘but, I say, what a rotten job yours is. I shouldn’t care to spend my life spyin’!’

  Devenish shrugged. ‘Murder is a pretty foul affair. We don’t take it so lightly at the Yard, as some people do.’

  ‘No gyves for mine then?’ asked Jameson with an air of relief.

  ‘Not at present, sir,’ said Devenish, ‘but I should advise you to get rid of that pistol of yours, sir.’

  This was sheer bluff, but it worked. Jameson started.

  ‘It was the one I had in the jolly old war,’ he said hastily. ‘You think I had better sell it?’

  ‘Much better, sir. Now I have a lot to do, so I will wish you good-day. You can take yourself down in the lift.’

  When Peden-Hythe had taken himself off, Devenish went on the roof, and had a chat with the man on duty there.

  Before he had left Scotland Yard, he had arranged that the police-surgeon, who had first examined the bodies, should meet him on the roof over the flat. He was still talking to the detective when the surgeon came up the stairs and greeted him.

  ‘Well, inspector, what is it now?’

  Devenish went across. ‘You’ve heard that we suspect Mander was shot up here, tripped over that bank of sand, and provided the murderer with the means of temporarily covering up. That seems to work out all right, but the death of that girl bothers me—particularly the question of how that wound was inflicted. Did it seem to you one that required great violence?’

  The surgeon lit a cigarette while he thought it over. ‘Can’t say that it did,’ he replied at length. ‘The blade was long and sharp.’

  ‘Did it strike you that there had been any struggle between her and the murderer?’

  ‘It seemed to me that she had been subjected to a certain amount of compulsion. There were bruises, not very extensive or serious, on both upper arms. They gave me the impression that someone had held her.’

  ‘Standing behind or in front of her?’

  ‘Behind. That is quite certain. The marks show that.’

  ‘If a man wanted to kil
l her, why should he stab her in the small of the back?’

  ‘I don’t know. It would be a chancy business unless he knew his job. That kind of mark on both arms suggests someone pushing someone else before him, and taking care they went the way he wanted.’

  ‘Do you mind trying it on the dog?’ said Devenish, and motioned to the detective to come over. ‘The doctor here is going to pin your arms from behind,’ he told the man.

  The surgeon took the man by the upper arms and gave him a push forward. ‘Quick march, my good man! Where do we stop, Devenish?’

  ‘Now, sir, if you don’t mind,’ replied the inspector, ‘I’ll tell you what your attitude suggested. It might be that the murderer got hold of the girl below and pushed her up the steps before him on to this roof.’

  ‘That’s my idea.’

  ‘Or,’ said Devenish more slowly, ‘since we have to assume that she came here of her own accord, and was with her lover, it might be that she was used as a shield.’

  The surgeon started. ‘That sounds a posh idea, my dear fella. Only if you stab your human shield, you lose it! How do you get over that?’

  Devenish nodded, and moved away to look over the parapet. He stood there staring into vacancy for two minutes, then came back looking happier.

  ‘We’ll stage the scene if you don’t mind, doctor. Our friend here had better be Mander, as he can stand a fall better,’ the detective grinned at that, and the surgeon laughed, ‘and you will be the girl. Don’t object, do you?’

  ‘Not a bit, if it helps.’

  ‘Very well. You must get a pencil or something for the knife—yes, that will do. Jones here must have that. He’s Mander. And we’ll have to use the other bank of sand for the fall. Now I am the murderer. I have an automatic. My torch here will represent that. Mander and the girl have retreated to this roof. I am coming up after. Mander funks it. Either he counts on the chivalry of the intruder, or he is so mad with fear he doesn’t care who suffers as long as he escapes.’

  ‘I begin to see my cue, Devenish.’

  ‘At any rate, once up here, he gets hold of the girl by her arms, and presents her as a target for the enemy.’

  ‘But she wasn’t shot.’

  Devenish shook his head impatiently. ‘I know that. Mander, we’ll say, has the knife or dagger. He can’t hold the girl with that in his hand. He sticks it in his pocket temporarily. As he backs on to the sand, she wriggles free, and he whisks out the knife again. Let’s have that.’

  The detective promptly got behind the surgeon, dropped the pencil he held into his pocket, and gripped the man before him by the upper arms, and backed away towards the sand, while Devenish followed up with the torch presented like a weapon.

  ‘Now wriggle away, sir,’ said the inspector.

  The surgeon wriggled free, and stopped. ‘Stage directions please?’

  ‘It’s dark up here. You come forward a yard, and find me coming at you like this,’ he strode forward as the surgeon approached. ‘Now you jump hurriedly back—have that knife ready to defend yourself, Jones! As Mander, you have the knife in your hand. You trip on the sand. Then the doctor, representing the girl, falls over you, and is accidentally stabbed.

  ‘It’s just possible it did happen in that way,’ said Devenish, as the others rose and dusted themselves after the experiment; ‘our only trouble is the cry. They must have made the dickens of a noise, and no one seems to have heard it.’

  ‘This place isn’t residential,’ replied the surgeon, ‘and some people don’t hear cries when they get to sleep. Besides this is high up. I won’t swear it could not happen.’

  ‘Then there was that engine running,’ said the other. ‘If Jones here would cut down into the flat, and we made the deuce of a squeal, he could hear what it sounded like below. Also he might ask Mander’s butler to listen from the servants’ premises. But people listening for a sound are twice as sharp as those who are not listening for one and are asleep when it comes.’

  Devenish nodded. Jones went below, and the test was made. Jones came up again in ten minutes.

  ‘It didn’t sound very loud to me, and I couldn’t place the direction well either, sir,’ he said. ‘The butler heard it faintly, but he says he would have thought it the squeal of a brake.’

  ‘Well, it is a theory that I must try to work out,’ said Devenish. ‘She could have run back on the knife, or Mander fallen with the knife sticking up in his hand. Would her weight do it?’

  ‘It would,’ said the surgeon.

  CHAPTER XIII

  WHEN the night watchman turned up at ten, he found the indefatigable inspector waiting for him, and expressed some surprise.

  ‘I was only wondering if this sleepy trouble of yours still bothers you,’ said Devenish blandly. ‘You see, it is going to be rather awkward for you if we know that you were on the alert all night, and still insist that you saw nothing.’

  The man lost colour a little. ‘But I didn’t see anything, sir.’

  ‘Then you must have been asleep, that is all there is to it.’

  The watchman bit his lip. ‘What do you mean by my sleepiness anyway, sir?’

  ‘I heard you had been wounded in the head during the war, and it occurred to me that it might have left some unpleasant aftermath. But, of course, if it is not so, I need not question you on that point any further. I will go on to ask you a few more troublesome questions.’

  ‘Am I speaking to you in confidence, sir? This may be a serious thing for me.’

  ‘I hope you realise that. I can only say that I advise you to tell the truth. At the Yard we make it as easy as we can for people who tell what they know without frills. We deal with embroiderers in another way.’

  ‘Well then, you’re right, sir.’

  ‘I hope I am. Go ahead. Tell me what is your trouble.’

  The man licked dry lips. ‘I sleep badly, sir, and in daytime I can’t sleep at all. I can’t do nothing for it, though I’ve tried hard enough. A man can’t live without sleeping, sir.’

  ‘As a rule, no,’ said Devenish, ‘but it was a bit of impudence on your part to come here as a night watchman, knowing your disability. You mean to say that not being able to sleep during your off hours, you go to sleep here when you shouldn’t?’

  ‘I am afraid that is it, sir. I don’t want to sleep, but I do drop off, and can’t help it, when I sit down in my box between rounds.’

  ‘I see. But Mr Mander thoughtfully provided you with a means of helping to keep awake.’

  The man coloured. ‘Yes, I suppose he did, sir.’

  ‘You know he did. And you took a little pains to see that the gadget couldn’t do any harm. But you might have turned off the switch instead of cutting the lead, mightn’t you?’

  The watchman did not notice the trap in the question. ‘Suppose I had been startled and forgot to turn it on again, sir, and someone had seen it?’

  ‘Oh, quite so. So you did cut the lead? Well there is nothing like being honest when you have to. Come now! Who was foolish enough to suggest one of the sleepers of Ephesus for the job of night watchman?’

  He saw a startled look in the man’s eyes, and then that queer expression that suggests a man trying to think of some evasion.

  ‘I saw Mr Mander, sir, and got it. I have a good army record.’

  That betraying expression told Devenish that the man was not telling the truth. ‘Are you sure that the head of this big business himself engaged all the staff? Come now. Is it likely? I want to be told exactly what happened, and I have means of finding out, you know.’

  ‘Wait a moment, sir. Do you mean who recommended me?’

  The inspector knew it was always wise to let a man choose his own loophole of retreat so long as he got the information required.

  ‘Yes, who recommended you?’

  ‘Mrs Peden-Hythe, sir.’

  Devenish regarded him for a little with a thoughtful air. Why had he to screw this out of the man? Was there anything behind it? After a weighty pause h
e began again.

  ‘Any particular reason why she should have recommended you?’

  ‘Well, it was through Mr Peden-Hythe, sir. He wasn’t any too fond of Mr Mander, but he told his mother, and she helped, sir.’

  ‘I see. But how do you come to know Mr Peden-Hythe’s private views about the dead man? That strikes me as odd.’

  The watchman shuffled his feet. ‘Well, sir, I was his batman in the war, if you must know, and a better officer I never want to have.’

  Devenish repressed his surprise, and put on a grim look. ‘Now we are coming to the truth. But surely the war has been over a number of years? Mr Peden-Hythe’s dislike for Mr Mander is a matter of months, I had supposed.’

  ‘Longer than that, sir. Mr Mander was managing clerk to those lawyers down in the country.’

  ‘Grant that it was a year or two, or even three years. That is long after the war. Have you kept in touch with Mr Peden-Hythe?’

  The watchman nodded. ‘He used to send me a fiver every Christmas, sir, but there was no harm in that, though I ought to have done the giving if there had been anything to give.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘It was him rescued me after the building had been bombed, sir, and near lost his life doing it.’

  Devenish was getting to the inner wheels of the machine. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, sir, I was in a job steady till my master died, and his son gave up. I thought of Mr Peden-Hythe, and wrote to him. He spoke of me to the lady, as I told you, and I got the job.’

  Devenish pursed his lips. ‘Then you have seen Mr Peden-Hythe personally since you got the job?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I called to thank him, and a few times since I went to his club to tell him how I was getting on. He asked me to, sir.’

  The inspector looked graver than ever, and his intent stare made the watchman more nervous than before.

  ‘Now look here,’ he said. ‘You might have told me all this before, and your failure to be straight does not impress me greatly in your favour. You found it convenient to ignore some rather important details. How do you expect me to know that you are telling the truth now?’

  ‘I am, sir. I really am.’