by Vernon Loder
‘It would be round about twenty past ten, sir.’
Devenish nodded. ‘Right. Carry on!’
Mann proceeded: ‘I thought it was just some little thing that I did not understand, sir, and it did not worry me, since I intended to report it next day and have it seen to. I didn’t think anything was likely to happen that night. But, later on, I remembered it and—’
‘Leave that till you come to it,’ said the inspector. ‘You found that the microphone attachment did not work, so that you would not hear any soft sounds in the more distant parts of the Stores. Now after that?’
‘Well, sir, my next round ought to have started at a quarter past eleven, but I had to speak to Mr Peden-Hythe here, and I went out to the back door and found him there. We was quite a time talking, as he was a bit excited, sir,’ he paused and looked at Jameson apologetically, ‘and rather angry. When I left him and locked up again, I started on my second round. I was near the lift coming down from Mr Mander’s flat at that moment, and heard it coming down very quiet.’
Devenish nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, sir, you may believe me or not, but I remembered that gadget being out of action, felt sure some burglar had done it, and got the wind up. I bent down and took my boots off, and then crept back to my box. I had left my pistol there, and I was sure someone had broken in and was going to rob the place.’
‘I can believe that, Mann, but what did you do then—go and tackle the fellow?’
‘No, sir,’ said Mann, with some hesitation. ‘While I was taking off my boots, I thought I heard someone open one of those window panels. I thought I had better go up to Mr Mander’s, ring his bell, and get him to help me. But I couldn’t get up my nerve to enter the lift on that floor I thought a burglar had come out of, so I took a goods lift as far as the floor below the flat, and then risked it. But when I got to Mr Mander’s front door, I found it was open, and it struck me that the burglar must have broken in by the back way. After a moment I went in, but there was no one there—’
‘Just a moment,’ interrupted Devenish. ‘Can the lifts be operated from below? I think they can. I mean you must have brought up the lift the man had used, and he couldn’t—’
‘He didn’t come up in that, sir, but in one of the other lifts. I wanted to go down again, thinking I must do something, and had my pistol, but I admit I was nervous, and didn’t go down by the lift he had gone down by.’
‘The one you first heard descending?’
‘Yes, sir. I only took it as far as the floor below, where I had got in, and then went to the next lift. I got the fright of my life when I heard it coming up towards me.’
‘What, the man coming up?’
‘Yes, sir, and as that stopped on the floor I was on, I had to make a stand. I am afraid I am a funk, sir, and always have been, but I did try to remember then I was there to guard the shop, and I got out my torch and my pistol in a flash and turned the torch on the lift as it was just coming up to my floor, pointing it down, sir, when the top was just knee-high to me. There was a man in it, and he had a black mask on, and I could see a splash of blood on his arm.’
Peden-Hythe started. ‘A splash of blood?’
Mann nodded. ‘The moment he saw the torch, sir, he touched the lift button, and it began to go down again. But I was so frightened and angry both, if you know what I mean, thinking he had perhaps got in and killed Mr Mander, that I fired down at him, and shot him. And that’s the truth, sir, if you asked me questions all day.’
He hid his face in his hands for a moment, and then removed them, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Jameson stared at him blankly. The detective seemed impressed.
‘Come. No harm done so far by telling the truth,’ he said reassuringly. ‘It was suppressing it that got you into this fix. You had shot the man in the lift, and the lift was going down. What did you do next?’
Mann seemed more surprised by the apparent credence given to his story than by anything else. ‘Why, sir, I went down another way, and had a look at him. Somehow the pistol had made me bolder, and I couldn’t leave him there, perhaps dying, without going to look. I went to the lift and opened it, keeping the pistol ready in my hand. Then when I turned my torch on him, it struck me he was dead, and I turned it off again and bolted back to my box. But I knew that was no good. I couldn’t leave him there without making sure. I went back and looked at him closer. It seemed to me they couldn’t hang me for killing a burglar, so I took off the mask he had on, and then I got the start of my life, for I saw it was Mr Mander.’
‘He was wearing a mask? You are sure you’re not inventing that?’ said Jameson.
Mann shook his head. ‘No, sir, indeed, though I couldn’t make out why he wore it. If he hadn’t had one on I should have seen who it was when the lift came up, and wouldn’t have fired.’
Devenish nodded. ‘If this story is true, Mr Peden-Hythe, it is natural enough. If Mr Mander killed the young woman, and did it in a premeditated way, as the cutting of the electric lead suggests, then he took some precautions to avoid meeting Mann here on his rounds, but wore the mask in case he was seen. He would be aware that the watchman, seeing him wearing it, would mistake him for a burglar, and would not believe for a moment that it was really his employer. Well, Mann?’
‘He would know when I went on my rounds, of course,’ said the witness eagerly. ‘Anyway, sir, I had such a shock that it sent me right off my balance for a while. I felt sure no one would believe me if I said I had killed him by accident. And if I had explained that he came down to the store wearing a mask I would have been laughed at, for at that time, sir, I did not know why he had come down.’
‘Did you discover it?’
Mann licked his dry lips again. ‘Yes, sir. I wondered and wondered what he could have been doing, and then I remembered that I had heard a sound like a window panel moving back. I wanted to get away from the sight of him, and I wondered if I could find what had brought him down from his flat so secret, so that it would help me with my evidence.’
‘You mean confirm your statement that he came down stealthily, and wearing a mask?’
‘Yes, sir. I had a general idea where the sound had come from, but there was only one sliding door-panel that let the window-dresser into the window space, and that was to the window they had fitted up as a fancy ballroom. I suppose Mr Mander must have been bleeding internal, for there wasn’t very much, and I left him in the lift and went to that panel. I switched on my torch and made a search. If I got a fright when I saw Mr Mander, I got a double one when I saw Miss Tumour near the back, sitting in a chair behind two dancers, with a mask on too—’
‘When had you previously seen Miss Tumour?’
‘Twice, sir. The wife and I came round to shop last month, when there was a particular sale on, and she was pointed out to me. I knew it wasn’t one of the wax dancers, because she was wearing street shoes, not satin ones like the others, and I slipped her mask up careful, and recognised her.’
‘You did not examine her more closely to see if she was dead, and how she had been killed?’ asked Devenish.
‘I was too frightened, sir, and upset. But I could see she was dead. There was no mistaking that. Well, I was in such a dither, sir, that I left her there too. I thought of giving the alarm, but who would believe what I said and wouldn’t they think it was just an excuse to kill Mr Mander? I was a fool, but what with one thing and another, I didn’t know what to do.’
‘But what did you actually do?’
‘I knew Mr Mander’s flat was left open, and I thought perhaps I could find how it had happened up there. I went up to have a look round. Then—’
Jameson interrupted. ‘I hope, Mann, you are really telling the truth. Inspector Devenish here may think you acted very strangely.’
Devenish smiled faintly. ‘If you had as much experience as I have of uneducated and nervous people when they get in a panic, it would not seem so strange to you, sir. They are far more frightened of us than any othe
r type of people, and they have a kind of idea that we twist facts to get convictions at all costs—carry on, Mann! What did you find in the flat above?’
Mann continued nervously: ‘Well, sir, I looked round and round, and I saw no signs of a struggle or any blood, the only things I saw being the lady’s coat and hat and a glove. Then I knew she had been up there, and I wondered how he had killed her and why. But I could make nothing of it, especially as I heard she and Mr Kephim were sweethearts. At last I came on the door opening to the staircase to the roof, and it was wide open. On a night at that time of year it seemed funny. And it seemed funny it had been left open and the cold coming in cruel.’
‘So you decided to investigate the roof too?’
‘I did, sir. I went up with my torch and had a look round, and then I saw where someone had fallen on one of the banks of sand and left blood there, and it gave me a start. I went over to one of the parapets and leaned against it till I felt better, then I got an idea. I wish I hadn’t, for it made this mess for me, sir, but it seemed clever to me at the time, and the sort of thing would prove I had nothing to do with it.’
‘What was that, Mann—the gyrocopter?’
‘Yes, sir. I knew one had landed on the roof, once, and I said to myself couldn’t I make it look as if some enemy of Mr Mander’s had bought one of these machines and landed there, gone down and killed him and the young lady. There were tyre tracks on the roof, and I thought the police would see them, and believe the murderer had flown off again.’
Devenish smiled. ‘Very nice, if it had come off.’
‘Well, sir, if I could make it out that a criminal could get there and away again, I thought they would not look for anyone below having done it.’
‘And having evolved this hair-brained scheme of yours, you thought you would go one better, and provide the kind of noise an aeroplane engine would make?’
Mann looked at the inspector with alarm. ‘I never knew you suspected that, sir, but so it was. Down below I had seen the engine on the bench, and I thought if I started it up, it would make a noise and be heard. So I went down from the roof and started the engine and let it run, while I tried to get the bodies out of the way—I mean Mr Mander’s out of the lift. The lifts was part of my round, and I would have had to give the alarm when I found the body, and I didn’t want to give any alarm but let him be found next day and know nothing about it, so to speak. I put on a pair of gloves I found in the workshop, knowing from the papers that burglars wear them, and I took down the blue overalls Mr Mander was found in. I thought if I could draw them on over the body I could keep my hands from getting stained and carry him away.’
‘The bleeding would have stopped some time before you reached the ground-floor again.’
‘It had, sir. I felt very sick over the job, but I managed to get him out of the lift, spreading two sheets of brown paper under him, and it took me twenty minutes to draw on the blue overalls without messing my hands.’
‘It was then that you saw the state the square of carpet in the lift had got into?’ asked Devenish.
‘Yes, sir. I left Mr Mander where he was, and thought and thought what I could do to hide the stain in the lift. I couldn’t take one of the carpets out of the other lifts, when I just remembered that I had seen a square upstairs in Mr Mander’s billiard-room. I went up for that, cut off the engine in the workshop when I was there—’
‘And removed three of the sparking-plugs from the engine?’
‘Yes, sir. You see, someone might say it was no flying machine, only Mr Mander tinkering with this engine on the bench. But if three sparking-plugs were missing, it would show the engine couldn’t have run.’
‘I see. I suspected that. But go on.’
Mann wiped his brow once more. ‘I felt a bit better then, for I had plenty of time to work before they opened next morning, and I was sure I could make it all like a murder done by an outsider, and I was going to explain that I couldn’t sleep, owing to wounds, at home, and fell asleep at my post, sir. I got a lot of ideas for taking suspicion off of me, and it wasn’t my fault, really, seeing I mistook him for—’
Devenish intervened. ‘Leave us to draw our own conclusions. You cut off the engine, and brought down the carpet square. You substituted it for the stained square on which Mr Mander had fallen when you fired at him, then—?’
‘Then, sir, I wondered what I could do with the body. I couldn’t take it upstairs to the flat and leave the other body in the window, and I wouldn’t have touched the other corpse for a fortune—one was bad enough to do with. The floor of one section of the Stores was on my rounds, but I wasn’t expected to open the window panels and look there. So I decided to put Mr Mander in the window, near the young lady.’
Devenish nodded. ‘Did it occur to you that you might make it appear like murder and suicide, with jealousy for a motive?’
Mann started. ‘How did you know that, sir?’
‘Very simply. You provided a pistol for the scene.’
‘Well, sir, when I had gone so far, I got worried again. But it wasn’t for myself this time. I kept thinking that, as Mr Mander might have been carrying on with Mr Kephim’s young lady, Mr Kephim might be suspected of doing them in. And then I remembered that they would have the names and addresses of the customers who bought these machines, and one of them might be suspected; or the man Webley, who flew the machine over that time there was a fuss about it. I may be a fool, sir, and acted hasty—me being in such a funk and getting the wind up proper when I saw the masked man come up in the lift—but I did not want an innocent person had up for what I had done accident-like. It seemed to me the only thing was to make everything as confusing as possible so no one would be proved guilty.’
‘You had that idea at the back of your mind, inspector,’ said Jameson to Devenish, when the man paused.
Devenish nodded and fixed his eyes again on the witness. ‘You forgot that the weapons which had killed the two people would have perforated in one case the blue overalls, and in the other the fancy-dress, worn by the victims. You simply imagined that we would accept the evidence of the pistol there, and the fact that Mander had been carrying on an intrigue with another man’s sweetheart, as proof that Mander had killed Miss Tumour in a jealous fit and then shot himself?’
‘Yes, sir. My mind was almost turned as it was. I never thought of all those things at the time. I managed to lift Mr Mander and stuck him up in the window, not so near the front. Then I thought I would get a pistol from the sports department, and I got one that was a small-bore, like the pistol I bought. I had a hunt for cartridges for it, but presently found some under a pile of boxes that hadn’t been much moved since they were put in, and I hid the sparking-plugs out of my pocket there in a box.’
Devenish pursed his lips. ‘But you had still to fire it, and for that purpose you went on the roof again?’
‘Yes, sir. I knew of the sand there, and I had heard how sand stops a bullet. I went to the bank where the blood was and fired the pistol into it.’
‘That seems what you did do, Mann, but the banks of sand were not disturbed when I came up, and there was nothing of an impression on them to show that anyone had fallen there.’
‘No, sir. I began to think again about those who had bought these machines, so I got to work careful, and smoothed it out again. I didn’t want you to think either was killed up there by someone who flew on to the roof that night.’
‘I see. You were thoroughly muddled, including your motives. You began to see that the more clues you laid, the more people you might involve.’
‘That is true, sir,’ said Mann, passing a hand over his forehead, and sighing, ‘but might I have a glass of water now, sir? I feel rather queer.’
CHAPTER XXVI
WHEN Mann had been given a glass of water, and rested for ten minutes, he professed himself able to go on, and Devenish put a further question.
‘Did you go to the flat below, after that excursion on the roof, and make sure that there
was no sand left in or on your clothes by using the vacuum cleaner?’
‘Using a vacuum cleaner, sir?’ cried the watchman. ‘I wouldn’t know where it was, sir. I was never in the flat before that night.’
‘But answer “Yes” or “No”, please.’
‘No, I did not, sir. I don’t know what that has to do with it.’
‘It may prove that Mr Mander did actually follow or thrust that young woman upstairs to the roof; for certainly someone did use the cleaner for that purpose.’
‘But suppose she only fell on the sands?’ said Jameson, who could keep silent no longer.
‘There is the possibility that both tripped over it in the dark,’ replied Devenish. ‘At all events, if Mann’s story is true, that is a point in his favour—Now get on with your story.’
Mann was a better colour now, and spoke more calmly. ‘I never supposed there was any harm in it, sir, so, often when I went my rounds, I had a look at the things in the departments. It passed the time, and I used to tell the missus what there was, and she used to like that—the fashions and all. Anyway, when I went down with the pistol I had fired to put it in the window, I took the young lady’s coat and hat and glove with me. I put the pistol down on the floor in the ballroom window—the one I had got from the sports department—and fired, sir, and then I went off to where the coats was.’
‘Oh, you did that?’
‘Yes, sir. I looked through a lot of cupboards that had sliding panels, and presently I come on one that has a lot of coats like the one I had over my arm. I hung it up with the rest, for it was very new looking, and then I went off to the Hats.’
‘The millinery department?’
‘I believe that is what they call it, sir. Anyway, I got rid of it there, and had another look round. There was the carpet in the lift, covering up the blood and looking all right, and those two in the window, but I just remembered then I had never found what killed Miss Tumour, and it wouldn’t do to leave that for anyone to find. I hunted high and low for it, and then I went last on the roof, and after a bit I saw a sharp-pointed dagger thing there, near the sandbank. I didn’t like to carry that off and I didn’t know what to do with it. It was still sticky, sir, and I dropped it on the floor of one of the goods lifts. I thought it would make the evidence still more confusing and that no one would think I had been up and down in the lifts, as anyone coming from the upper part of the building would do. By that time, it was getting on, sir. I went back to my box, and thought, and thought. Half a dozen times I made up my mind to wake his servants and tell them I had shot him by accident. And then I didn’t know what I would say about the young lady being dead too. The time to have told would have been the moment I fired the gun, but I was so upset that I began all that work, covering up, and I couldn’t undo that. At other times I thought I would let myself out and bolt. But I had the missus here, and I didn’t know where to bolt to, and I knew it would look like being guilty if I did.’