by Vernon Loder
Devenish beamed. This was the kind of helper he liked. ‘Good! Davis take those four coats into the flat above and lock them up. Now, Miss Doren, we’ll see if the hat is where we should like it to be.’
‘I don’t know that I should like it in my department,’ said she, as they moved off, accompanied by Miss Gay.
Again they made a find. The hat Miss Tumour had worn was put away in the place from which it had been taken. Devenish put it in a hat-box, impounded it, and dismissed the women with thanks for their help. Then he sent for a finger-print expert to look for finger-prints on the sliding panels, and to photograph them if found. Finally, he went up in the lift, carrying the hat in its box, and joined Sergeant Davis, who was taking a look at the four coats.
‘You got a bull’s-eye, sir,’ the latter said admiringly. ‘It does show this was an inside job, for what could Mr Peden-Hythe know about these departments?’
Devenish laughed. ‘But why should anyone try to fake a landing up above, apparently to try to involve Webley? Webley would know even less about the interior of this Store than Peden-Hythe; for the latter, for all we know, may have visited this store many times with his mother.’
‘That is true, sir. But if Miss Tumour was killed up above on the roof, why take the trouble to put the hat and coat down here?’
‘Unless Mander killed her, which seems unlikely as things stand at present, Davis,’ said Devenish. ‘By the way, we are still short of a left-hand glove!’
CHAPTER XV
WHEN Devenish had examined the hat and coat thoroughly, he had them packed up and despatched to Scotland Yard. Then he looked at Davis.
‘Obviously she was quite at home here. She arrived, took off her coat and hat to make herself comfortable, and was later killed, either on the roof or in the lift. Now which was which? If one of the two was killed in the lift, was it Mr Mander or Miss Tumour?’
‘Was either killed in the lift, sir? If it was Mr Mander, then where is the bullet mark? We found that in the sand, as you told us to look there, so you must have thought—’
‘I have too many thoughts, my dear fellow, for my own comfort. I am afraid I shall have a great many more too. This find of mine today unsettles me. That lift, for example, is worth our attention.’
They left Mander’s private portion of the flat, locking it up again. The square of heavy pile carpet was still in position on the floor of the lift, and Devenish removed it gingerly and examined the bloodstains on the place beneath.
‘It was, the doctor says, largely an internal hæmorrhage,’ he murmured, while the sergeant hung on his words. ‘The tiny spot in the goods lift, where the dagger was found, might have come from the dagger itself. There was not enough to suggest that anyone had been actually stabbed there.’
‘No, sir, there wasn’t.’
‘But here, granting what the doctor said to be true, there was.’
‘But not enough to soak up into the mat, this square, sir.’
‘And in any case, would the murderer take up the mat, ask his victim to stand inside while he shot him, or the girl while he stabbed her, and then replace the square?’
‘He would not, sir?’
‘Where does this square come from?’
‘I can ask, sir.’
‘Presently. But, in the meanwhile, get me all the squares out of all the lifts, will you, and bring them here?’
Davis was puzzled, but went about his business. When he returned with the first three squares, he found Devenish telephoning to the man who was head of the carpet department, and asking him to come along.
Finally, the lot of carpet squares from the lifts in that section of the Stores was brought in and laid down on the floor of a corridor.
‘Notice anything about them, Davis?’ asked Devenish, contemplating the long row with an air of great satisfaction. ‘When you see a lot of objects separately they look much alike as to condition if they are all pretty new.’
‘Yes, sir, but I see it now.’
‘That there is a shade of difference?’
‘Yes, they are all pretty clean, but the one out of the lift we examined just now is cleaner than the others; looks new in fact, sir.’
‘We must wait till the carpet manager comes along,’ said Devenish. ‘We’ll hear from him if they have duplicates.’
It was nearly half an hour before the manager of the carpet department arrived, but when he came, he agreed at once that the square they had picked out looked very new. As he turned it over, he dropped it.
‘But it can’t be,’ he added. ‘Surely this is the one where—?’
‘Absolutely,’ interrupted Devenish, ‘but the underside was stained with blood from the lift floor, and that means nothing.’
The manager pursed his lips. ‘If it wasn’t there, I should certainly say this was not the square laid down when the Stores were opened.’
‘Have you duplicates of these, to replace them when worn out?’
‘No, not duplicates. But there may be an odd square of this lot that was sent as a sample when the squares were chosen.’
‘Let us see that.’
The manager made a movement as if to go to his department, then pulled up short, and scratched his head. ‘Wait a moment—let me see. Oh. Mr Mander chose that. He had the last word with regard to most of the fittings and carpets. He was very particular in small points.’
‘You mean the sample went to him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then where would it go?’
‘I could not say. It may be in his flat.’
‘We’ll go there now, and I shall be glad if you will accompany us,’ said Devenish.
But this time when they entered the flat, Devenish rang for the butler, after unbolting the communicating door. The butler came in, and asked what he could do for them.
The inspector had brought the square from below. ‘Do you remember this?’ he asked, holding it up.
The man stared at it, then nodded. ‘That’s out of the—out of Mr Mander’s billiard-room, sir. He put the stand for cues on it.’
The manager of the carpet department stared. ‘No, this is from one of the lifts below.’
Before he had finished his sentence, Devenish was striding off to the billiard-room, and the others followed him hurriedly.
‘There is no mat or square under the stand for the cues.’
The butler, who had come in last, wrinkled his brows. ‘It was there, sir.’
‘We had better look all over the flat to see if there is one like it,’ said Devenish.
‘There isn’t,’ said Davis. ‘I searched the flat, and saw nothing like that square. I should have noticed it, being like those on the lift, if it had.’
‘Oh, well, it’s of no importance,’ remarked Devenish, winking furtively at his sergeant. ‘I need not detain you longer, sir,’ he added to the manager, and also dismissed the waiting butler with a gesture.
When they had both gone, he and Davis stared at each other in silence.
Devenish broke the silence first. ‘Now we know that one of the two was killed in that lift, Davis. The murderer must have removed the damaged square, and come up here for the one in the billiard-room.’
‘Then it must have been someone who knew the flat well, and was aware that the square up here was a duplicate of those below in the lifts.’
‘Absolutely, it would seem. But who was killed here? Could there have been two murderers as well as two murdered? Is it possible that the murders were done by two working in collaboration, or independently? Finally, is it possible that there was first a murder, and another in retribution?’
‘How do you mean that, sir?’
‘I mean was Miss Tumour murdered, and the man who killed her shot in his turn to avenge her?’
‘That would be by Mr Kephim?’
‘We can’t say. I do not see why Mander should murder the girl, but of course I cannot ignore the possibility.’
‘And if it was Mr Kephim who killed Mander, he m
ight be so bitter, finding out about them, that he made up his mind to make a show of them in the window.’
‘Quite. Well, look here, Davis, I want you to go down to Gelover, and make quite sure that Webley could not have taken out the gyrocopter without anyone hearing it. As you know, it is one of those that you can fold up and wheel into a large garage. Gelover is not a very populous place, and we cannot swear that the plane was not wheeled out of the hanger and pushed along for some distance, where the engine would not be so audible from the manor. That would account too for the muddy tracks. One of the points that Webley made was that the taking-off ground was laid out with hard material, as it is. But if he took the machine to a field and started there, it would be a different matter.’
When Davis had gone Devenish sat down and took out his note-book and pencil.
‘Let me make out the hours on Sunday night that the various suspects admitted being out and about,’ he said to himself, and promptly wrote them down.
Mr Kephim.—A quarter to eleven to two o’clock, a.m.
Miss Tumour.—Left her flat at a quarter to ten.
‘But she isn’t a suspect, by the way,’ he added, and erased the entry.
Mr Cane.—Half-past nine to half-past eleven.
Peden-Hythe.—Left Lefort’s about ten, back at club midnight.
He stared at these times and reflected. ‘That would make the murder occur between ten and two next morning—if one can believe the men’s statements. I am not sure that I can, with the exception of Peden-Hythe, who was seen by the club porter.’
On the whole he thought that he had better go to worry Peden-Hythe again, and promptly rang up the young man’s club. He mentioned his name and business to assure a direct reply, and was told that Mr Peden-Hythe was not in the club, but would be back before dinner—at half-past six to be accurate.
So Devenish spent a little time examining the position of the lift, and remarking more significantly on a detail which he already knew but to which he had attached little importance.
This was the fact that, while in each of the three sections of the store, and on all floors, except the top one in the particular section where the crimes had been committed, there was access through the departments, or by means of corridors, from one end of a floor to the other.
On the top floor, where Devenish now was, it was different. Mr Mander had been so anxious for privacy that, save for the one door, he was cut off from the servants’ quarters, and the servants’ quarters were cut off from the remainder of the top floor by a wall in which there was no door whatsoever.
The space in the remainder of that top floor was taken up by store-rooms, and from it the goods lift descended, but a man in Mander’s flat could only reach the store-rooms by descending to the floor below and walking along till he came to the goods lift.
Having made a little sketch, very rough but adequate to his purpose, of this particular feature, Devenish left the Stores and had some food. Then he went to Scotland Yard, had an interview with Mr Melis, who agreed that it would do no harm to frighten Peden-Hythe a little, then left for Jameson’s club.
His greeting was subdued, and Peden-Hythe’s resentful, but he was invited up to the young man’s bedroom again, and sat down to begin his provocative campaign.
‘I am not here to worry you this time, Mr Peden-Hythe,’ he said in a conciliatory voice. ‘I should not have troubled you but for the fact that some evidence has come into our possession which affects a—shall I say protégé?—of yours.’
This innocent remark produced an unexpected result.
Peden-Hythe’s eyes almost started out of his head, and his colour ebbed rapidly. ‘What the devil do you mean?’ he cried.
‘I refer to the watchman who was on duty that night.’
This did not appear to reassure the young man, though he tried to look nonchalant. ‘What has that to do with me?’
‘I understand you recommended him for the post.’
‘I believe my mother did, inspector.’
Devenish replied dryly: ‘Then I presume that is why he came to thank you for it! Come, sir,’ he added severely. ‘It does you no good to equivocate. We know that he was your batman in the war. He told us so himself, and also that you had really been behind his appointment.’
The young man pulled himself together. ‘Well, that’s right enough. But I don’t see where I come in yet.’
‘I only thought, sir, as you took an interest in him, and his conduct on the night of the murder is so inexplicable that we are very suspicious—’
‘Oh, rot! Mann’s a good fellow. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, and there was no reason for him to hate Mander. In fact, I should say he was a funk; nervous as a cat.’
‘And an old regular?’
‘Quite, but soldiers years ago didn’t expect to be caught up in a big war. Lots of them joined for occupation.’
‘The point is this, sir. Not only were there two murders in the Stores that night, but one of them, we have reason to think, was committed in a passenger lift. Then a man either went down or—at any rate used—a goods lift. Now we cannot believe that two lifts were used that night without anyone being seen or anything heard by the watchman.’
‘Then why don’t you ask him, not me? What excuse does he give?’
‘He admits that he suffers from insomnia during the day, and says he is drowsy at night—a serious thing in a man who goes on duty then.
He added an explanation of the gadget installed in the watchman’s box, and the fact that the lead had been cut.
‘And he says he did that?’ asked Peden-Hythe with a look of utter scepticism.
‘He would hardly admit it if he didn’t do it unless—’
‘Unless what, inspector?’
‘Unless he invented the insomnia to account for his hearing and seeing nothing.’
‘Then you believe he is guilty of the murders—without any motive?’
‘We cannot say yet, sir. There is another possible explanation. In a sense that brings me here.’
The young man bit his lip, and looked very much on his guard. ‘That he did hear something?’
‘And denied it. Yes.’
‘But if he hadn’t committed the murders, inspector, why should he deny it?’
‘It is possible that he is trying to shield somebody,’ said Devenish, more dryly than ever. ‘I can imagine a case where a man has been befriended and well treated by someone. He sees that someone, but does not like to give him away.’
The sweat broke out suddenly on Peden-Hythe’s forehead, and he stared at the detective as if hypnotised.
‘I don’t like your tone, inspector,’ he stammered.
‘I am sorry, sir, but there it is. You obtained this job for Mann. Your match-box was found outside in the laneway.’
‘But, good heavens! I never got in. I told you I rang the bally bell till I was sick.’
‘We have only your word for it, sir.’
Peden-Hythe gasped, then shrugged. ‘Wait a moment. I see what you mean. It’s all right from your point of view, I see. But I swear I was not in the building. I was a damn fool to go near it.’
‘But since you did go near it, sir, it will look very awkward for you if you have to give evidence.’
A drop of sweat splashed on the young man’s cheek. ‘It looks rotten. I admit that. But what am I to do about it? I can’t get any witness to prove I was not inside.’
Devenish fixed him with his eye, and put as much gravity into his look as he could.
‘Well, sir, you have to explain it in some way, or stand fire. If Mann was not drowsy, and was not attending to his duties, what was he up to? If he refused to say that he saw something, it is either that he is lying, or speaking the truth. If he is speaking the truth, where was he when the lifts went up and down? I suppose, sir, he did not go to the back door opening on the lane and speak to you?’
Peden-Hythe licked his dry lips. ‘No, he didn’t.’
Devenish rose.
‘Well, sir, since you can’t throw any light on these inconsistencies in Mann’s explanations, I am afraid I must report to the Yard to that effect. It will then be for them to decide if your evidence will be required at the resumed inquest.’
Peden-Hythe looked at him despairingly, then he hastily volunteered a statement.
‘I don’t care so much for myself,’ he said, ‘but I don’t want that poor chap to get into trouble if I can help it.’
Devenish sat down again. ‘Then, sir, let me hear what you have to say.’
CHAPTER XVI
‘LOOK here, inspector,’ began Peden-Hythe, looking very embarrassed, ‘I feel sure you are sportsman enough to leave my mother’s name out of this. When I say “Mrs X” perhaps you will understand who I mean.’
‘I follow you, sir, go on.’
Jameson licked his lips again. ‘Well, er—there’s a Mrs X who had pots of money, don’t you know. She’s a jolly good sort, and so on, but we’ve all got a weakness. She was a bit impressionable, and she met a bounder—a man who, well, took her fancy. He was a glib blighter, buttered her up no end, and generally looked like getting his nose in front for the matrimonial stakes.’
Devenish nodded. ‘I see, sir.’
‘The trouble was that she had a son,’ went on Jameson, squirming a little in his chair. ‘He didn’t mind Mrs X having a second husband, but he jolly well did hate the idea of her getting married to a rotten cad.’
‘Very natural, sir.’
‘I should say so. Anyway, this son did his best to put her off about the rotter, but it was N.G. all the time. I don’t know if Mrs X thought he was a bally Galahad, but it looked like it. If she had found him out, you know, she’d have been pretty wild. You see, you don’t throw a fortune at a fella’s head when you’re older without expecting value for it, and exclusive rights, if you take me.’
‘Mrs X would have been jealous, no doubt.’
‘Absolutely. Well, this son of hers was hoppin’ mad about it, what with the idea of the bounder tagging on to his family, and wasting the petty cash in the meantime as well. You wouldn’t blame him for wanting to forbid the banns, if you know what I mean.’