by Vernon Loder
She trembled from head to foot with rage, but she replied in a venomous voice that she would prefer not to go to Scotland Yard.
‘Very well,’ said Devenish calmly. ‘Now please let me hear where you first met Miss Tumour.’
‘I was at school with her in the country. She was a farmer’s daughter, and had won a scholarship at the County School.’
‘You were friendly with her then?’
‘Yes. We were great friends.’
‘You came up to town. When did you meet her again?’
‘A month before Mr Mander opened the Stores.’
Devenish saw that this time, driven by fear of being involved in the murder, she was going to tell the truth.
‘She was then chief, or was it second-buyer, in the millinery department at a smaller shop from which Mr Mander got her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know if she had met Mander previously? I mean before he gave her this post?’
Mrs Hoe bit her lip. ‘Yes. He was studying the other shops before he opened, and he took a fancy to her.’
‘Did it go beyond that?’
‘She told me he took her out to dinner two or three times, and to the theatre.’
‘She confided in you. Was she given to confidences?’
‘To me, yes.’
‘Can you tell me if her appointment to Mander’s Stores was as much the result of her fascinating Mr Mander as her ability at her job?’
Mrs Hoe smiled sardonically. ‘He was madly in love with her if you want to know.’
He nodded. ‘I have to know. Now is it a fact that she told you all about their relations, and what they did?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she tell you that Mr Mander contemplated taking her abroad, and that she was going as a Miss Linkster?’
‘Yes, she did, or at least he wanted her to go, and had got the passports. She didn’t know he was thinking of bolting though.’
‘You knew then that she had allowed herself to be falsely represented on a passport, and also that Mr Mander had procured the passports?’
‘Of course. I have just said so.’
He shrugged. ‘Did she ever tell you why she allowed herself to become engaged to Mr Kephim when she was already associated with Mander?’
‘I suppose she thought she was in love with Mr Kephim,’ replied Mrs Hoe bitterly.
Devenish glanced at her. The bitterness in her voice, the look on her face, gave him a strong impression that she was in love with Mr Kephim herself, and had been jealous of the woman to whom he was engaged.
‘Why did you say Miss Tumour “thought of going” away with Mander?’
She pursed her lips. ‘Well, she was in two minds about it. She liked the things Mander could give her, and she hated to give them up, but she was—more fond of Mr Kephim. Lately anyway.’
‘You mean that she was really in love at the last with Kephim, and felt disinclined to go off with Mander?’
‘She didn’t know what love meant!’
‘You are a judge of the softer affections, no doubt,’ said Devenish acidly. ‘But what hindered her from breaking with Mander if she felt that she could not go on?’
‘She was afraid, she said, that Mander would sack Kephim. I don’t know if that was true.’
He nodded. ‘You have visited or have been visited by Mr Kephim two or three times since the murder?’
Her lips curled. ‘I suppose your spies told you that.’
‘We received information to that effect. Now, how long have you known Kephim?’
‘Don’t be a fool!’ she cried violently. ‘He had nothing to do with the murder. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘We will assume it for the present, but how long have you known him?’
‘Not many months. Before they were engaged Effie used to bring him to tea here sometimes.’
‘Then you did not know him well?’
‘Only as a friend of Effie’s.’
‘Why call on him so soon after the murder?’
She coloured up, and Devenish found his theories confirmed. Whatever she had done, and harpy as she was, she had fallen in love with the man she herself had previously spoken of as weak.
‘That is my business.’
‘I am waiting.’
‘Well, I can’t tell you anything more. I thought he had been very badly treated, and I went to sympathise with him. I wanted to make up to him for the bad time he had had.’
‘It didn’t occur to you that your calls might lead him to be suspected?’
She looked horrified. ‘Never! I should never have gone if I had thought that.’
He shrugged again.
‘You know, of course, that we examined Mr Mander’s flat, and went through all his papers,’ said Devenish.
‘I assumed you did,’ she replied. ‘The police always do, don’t they?’
He was bluffing again now, but from her expression he judged that Mr Mander had had some letters from her, and that she was not sure if they had been destroyed. As this was the effect he had been trying to produce, he was not ill pleased.
‘I am telling that so that you may be careful in your replies,’ he returned, dryly. ‘We don’t want to have any more mistakes in your evidence.’
She was cunning enough to see that the police did not intend to proceed against her on a blackmailing charge, and was now most anxious to clear herself of any implication in the murder.
‘No one could prove that I was at the flat that night,’ she said hastily. ‘I have a complete alibi.’
‘More convincing than your story of the Russian émigré, I hope. But I may as well hear it, and check it. Where were you on the Sunday night, from half-past seven in the evening until, say, seven next day?’
She replied at once: ‘I was staying with Mr and Mrs Jay at Sundymore, Redhill. Mr Jay is sub-editor of my principal paper—’
‘I know of him,’ said Devenish. ‘That sounds good enough. But when did you go there, and when did you leave?’
‘Mr Jay called for me with his car at five. I did not leave Redhill until the 9.05 train next morning.’
‘Right. We can confirm that at once. But to go back to Miss Effie Tumour. Can you form any idea why she went to see Mr Mander that night after she had spent the day with Mr Kephim? Did she see you in the interim, or did she by any chance ring you up to tell you she was going?’
Mrs Hoe reflected. She was well aware that the police could get a record of telephone calls, and another slip on her part would lead them utterly to discredit her evidence. At this stage it could do her no good to throw the blame of complicity in blackmail upon the dead girl, and she determined that frankness would pay best. After this last debacle she intended to go abroad, and she would not be allowed to do that if she fell foul of the C.I.D.
‘Yes, she rang me up on returning to her flat.’
‘What did she say to you?’
‘She said she had had a lovely day with Mr Kephim, and he was really an awfully good sort.’
‘Anything more?’
‘Well, she said she felt sure any of the other firms would jump at him, and it would not pay Mander to sack him.’
‘Did she use these names on a telephone?’
‘No, she simply called them by their Christian names.’
‘And then?’
Mrs Hoe reflected for a few moments. She was calmer now, and hoped she was making a good impression on the man who had it in his power to make things hot for her if he chose.
‘Well, I gathered that she thought she was in love really this time,’ she went on, and Devenish noticed with amusement how she hated using the word without qualification. ‘She said she was fed-up with the other business, and sorry she ever started it. She was going to see Mander to tell him that she was engaged to Kephim. I agreed with her that it was wiser from her point of view.’
Devenish nodded. ‘Then she was not a party to the blackmail?’
She bit her lip. It is extraordinary how s
queamish some rogues are about using the plain name for their plain profession.
‘Any money she had from Mander was because he was in love with her,’ she replied.
‘Frankly, did she blackmail him or not?’
‘No, she didn’t.’
‘That is what I want to know. Now, can you tell me if she mentioned that she was visiting Mander that night?’
‘No. She simply said she was going, not when she was going.’
Devenish got up. ‘Just a last question. Do you think Miss Tumour was in possession of a firearm, or any weapon?’
She shook her head. ‘I never heard of it. I don’t think so. Of course, she might have bought one lately without my knowing.’
He put away his note-book and pencil. ‘Now, will you please repeat that statement on paper, in your own words, sign it, and give it to me. Take your time.’
CHAPTER XXII
WHEN Devenish had made his report and left in the signed statement given him by Mrs Hoe, he went home, put on a pipe, and sat down to consider the general situation.
He began by getting out some sheets of paper, and trying to summarise the points for and against the suspects and witnesses in the case, taking them in the order in which they seemed more naturally to come.
He headed the first page MR KEPHIM, and wrote:
‘No alibi in this case, but its absence, considering the man, is rather in his favour; also my presumption that the murders took place prior to the time at which he admittedly left his flat. Mrs Hoe’s evidence, while possibly biased in his favour by the fact (presumption?) that she is in love with him, tends to convince me that he is innocent. The motive of jealousy, the only one for him, is strong, but no proof that he knew Miss Tumour was associated with Mr Mander.
‘MR CANE.—The only link here is some knowledge of aeroplanes, his claim that he is the inventor of the gyrocopter, stolen by Mr Mander, and his dislike (this may be partly Kephim’s fault) of the manager. The fact that some of the evidence tells against Kephim would not be known to Cane. How, for example, could he know that Kephim would be out alone late on the Sunday night? The use of a steel-jacketed bullet, if this was fired into the sandbank to involve Kephim, who was known as a rifle shot, the bullet which was fired on the roof would hint at manufactured evidence. But we have no proof that Cane manufactured it, or was on the roof at any time after the occasion when the gyrocopter made a forbidden landing earlier in the year.
‘WEBLEY.—This man is not very scrupulous, but there is no evidence that he did land on the roof on the dark of a Sunday night in November, but a great deal of technical evidence against the theory. Still, the man will require watching. If he did not fly to London that night, he lives in a cottage by himself, and may have travelled up to town without anyone being aware of it. He admits having been bribed by Mander to cheat Cane out of his inventor’s rights. Mrs Hoe may not have been the only one given a handle for blackmail by Mander’s double-dealing.
‘MR PEDEN-HYTHE.—A curious specimen of the man of education gone to seed, and now apparently trying to pull himself up. Childishly cunning in some ways, with a positively infantile way of substituting one story for another when the first is found out. His manner altogether convinces me that he is not the kind of man to commit a murder in cold blood. Against that, I must set the fact that he was to a certain extent under the influence of drink on the Sunday night, did actually turn up in the lane, and admittedly tried to get into Mander’s back door. His feeling against Mander is very obvious, though to be easily accounted for by the fact that (1) His mother was fascinated by the man. (2) That he had heard rumours that Mander was fooling about with the capital Mrs Peden-Hythe had supplied him with. As his mother’s heir, these facts would hit him hard. There is also the fact that (with the connivance of the watchman, who owes him a debt of loyalty and is in his pay), he could have gained access to the interior of the Stores.
‘MRS HOE.—She appeared to be a rather more complex type than the average blackmailer of her type, though she is like them in being remorseless, cowardly, and as easily bullied as her victims when it comes to a show-down. There is no doubt that she was confided in by the girl Tumour, and little doubt that Tumour was not aware to what use Hoe intended to put these confidences. She agrees that she heard of the false passports, and, inferentially, that she was beginning to use this knowledge to get money from Mander. (Memo.: Is it possible that Mander suspected Tumour of being in this game as well, and killed her to ensure her silence?) I have rung up Mr Jay at Redhill, and he confirms the woman’s alibi for that night.
‘MANN.—In some ways this is my most puzzling witness. He looks honest, but then he also looks a normal strong-minded man, though he is said to be nervous and cowardly. His service in the army does not count one way or the other, since the soldier of the old regulars did not necessarily expect to fight, and there were some few peaceful people among them. Obviously he could see little in a dark store, and with the microphone gadget cut off, he might not hear a soft foot, while the lifts work extremely noiselessly. In addition he admits that he neglected his duty at times, to work for Mr Peden-Hythe, accepting the latter’s view that, as his family were paying the piper, they might call the tune. This is natural enough reasoning for a simple man.
‘Against Mann’s complicity is the fact that Tumour’s coat and hat were new, and were returned to the department from which they came. It is quite possible that a watchman might amuse himself at night by looking at the various things in the store, but would the man who only came on duty at ten be aware that Tumour had bought the articles mentioned at Mander’s?’
Devenish finished his notes and his pipe at the same moment. He sat back in his chair, read the notes through slowly, then put them away, and allowed his mind to play about the various subjects the reading brought up.
One thing struck him forcibly, and that was an omission, if an intentional one. He had not mentioned the missing glove, because he associated it with the missing carpet square and did not wish to attach either object at random to anyone on his list.
If Mann had had a pistol, he had no doubt hidden it. The most ignorant of men is aware that searches will be made, and will make it his first duty to dispose of the incriminating object. If he was concerned in the murder, Mann would also dispose of the square.
The evidence of the expert called in by Scotland Yard with regard to the bullet found in the sandbank on the roof would not have been accepted without question by Devenish but for the corroborative evidence of this little square of thick pile carpet. But the carpet itself imported a new complication into the case. It would not have been removed, and the spare piece substituted for it, if it had not been extensively bloodstained. If it was so damaged, the inference was that at least one of the murders had taken place in that lift.
On the following morning, Devenish paid a visit to the expert who had examined the bullet. He was a Mr Green, a rather dogmatic and positive fellow, as men will be when they are used to giving expert witness on a subject they have made their own.
He listened to what Devenish had to say, then nodded, and looked interested.
‘That doctor of yours is like all amateurs,’ he said. ‘He has a ha’porth of knowledge and a ton of conceit.’
‘But I thought it was agreed that the bullet was a high velocity one?’
‘That was on the assumption that it had gone clean through the man, and vanished.’
‘What about the nature of the wound?’
‘That is a doctor’s job. I don’t worry about what is outside my own line, and it is a pity your doctor doesn’t do the same.’
‘Have you any idea what kind of bullet may have been used?’
The expert shrugged. ‘Well, it wasn’t a split-nose or a dum-dum. It is my opinion that it may have been caused by a—I mean the wound, of course—by a bullet from a pistol of say .32 calibre. As you suggest, the fact that the bullet was not found does not prove that it carried on out of sight. It would be slowed by impact w
ith the tissues and muscles, and perhaps deflected by striking a bone.’
‘It is possible, you would say, that it would be stopped on emergence by a thick pile square of carpet?’
‘That is quite possible, inspector. Put the high velocity idea aside for the present.’
‘Our surgeon was at the war, and he does know something of wounds.’
Green smiled. ‘You must allow for the influence of what looks like corroborative evidence upon any opinion,’ he said. ‘A young friend of mine, going in for a medical exam. and asked to diagnose the case of a patient, saw a splint and deduced a fracture. If he had seen nothing, he might have discovered the patient’s real complaint. Your surgeon saw a high-velocity small arm on the scene. He thinks he is telling you what he discovered from the wound—actually he was telling you what kind of wound that kind of weapon would cause, if it had been used.’
Devenish smiled too. ‘I find myself making just that sort of error at times. Well, you are quite sure the bullet I did find had not passed through a human body? My assumption, of course, was that its passage through the sand had cleaned it.’
‘It had only passed through sand,’ said Green, with conviction. ‘But what about making a test. I have a .32 cal. automatic here. We can go to the Store and try it out.’
‘We haven’t the necessary body,’ said Devenish.
‘We can get a sheep sent along,’ said Green. ‘How long is the Store to be kept shut?’
‘We can’t say yet. Our people have spoken to Mrs Peden-Hythe about it, or rather her solicitor. She is the real owner.’
Green nodded. ‘We’ll have to make the sheep do. It will give us a general line on the case. Can you have one sent in, carefully wrapped up, and I’ll meet you there with the gun and ammunition in an hour.’