Death at Breakfast

by John Rhode

  ‘And did you greet Mrs Slater when she returned?’ the superintendent asked.

  ‘Well no, to tell the truth, I didn’t. I began to feel sleepy and thought I’d just have a nap on this sofa before she came in. And when I woke up it was after four o’clock, the fire had gone out, and it was infernally cold.’

  ‘What did you do then, Mr Slater?’

  ‘Oh, just crawled upstairs. I didn’t want to disturb Winifred, who I knew must have been in bed long ago. So I went into my dressing-room, lay down, and was very soon asleep. Since you make such a point of it, I don’t mind confessing that I had a devilish thick head when I woke up again.’

  ‘When was that?’ asked the superintendent sharply.

  ‘When they brought me a cup of tea. About eight o’clock, I suppose.’

  ‘Now, Mr Slater, I want you to be very careful how you answer this question,’ said the superintendent impressively. ‘Did you see Mr Knott again after he had gone to bed about eleven o’clock?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t,’ replied Gavin indignantly. ‘What should I want to go barging into his room for?’

  ‘You are perfectly sure of that?’ the superintendent persisted.

  At this the limits of Gavin’s patience seemed to be exhausted. He rose to his feet and stood there for a moment or two confronting them. ‘Do you think I’m a liar?’ he exclaimed wrathfully. ‘If you do, you can get on without any more help from me. I’m not going to stay here to be bullied by any damned policeman.’

  He limped to the door and banged it behind him. They heard his halting step pass through the hall and then another bang as the front door closed behind him. Jimmy glanced apprehensively at the superintendent, but the latter only chuckled.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, divining Jimmy’s thoughts. ‘I’ve already told off one of my chaps to keep an eye on him. He won’t go very far, don’t you worry. No further than the nearest pub that will serve him. And, now that we’ve got this room to ourselves, it might pay us to have a look round.’

  But before carrying out this suggestion, Superintendent Latham sat down on the sofa which Gavin had just vacated. ‘Let’s get our ideas in order, Inspector,’ he said. ‘We’ve both got at the back of our minds that Gavin Slater may have murdered this man Knott for the money he is said to have about him. He seems to have had plenty of opportunity and the money is the obvious motive. They may have quarrelled, of course. Gavin Slater, as you may have noticed, is a very easy person to quarrel with. Do you know of any other reason why he should have wanted to kill Knott?’

  ‘I don’t,’ replied Jimmy. ‘If he did kill him, it was very short-sighted policy on his part. Knott is, or was, his father’s partner, and his death would very seriously upset the business which is, indirectly, Gavin Slater’s sole support.’

  ‘A drunken man wouldn’t think of that,’ the superintendent replied. ‘That sum of money, £750, I think you said, would obscure the perception of everything else. I imagine him sitting here after Knott had gone to bed, drinking glass after glass of whisky, and thinking of the money. The first questions to ask ourselves are these. If he killed him, how and when did he do it? The blood on the sheet and the missing pillow case seem to stare us in the face, don’t they?’

  Jimmy, while listening, had been examining the room with more attention than he had yet devoted to it. He caught sight of an unfamiliar object hanging on the wall among the canvases. Upon closer examination, he found it to be a curved knife, apparently of Eastern origin, with a jewelled handle and enclosed in a sheath. There were several objects of various kinds hanging on the walls. They had probably been used at various times by Gavin as models for his artistry. But this, Jimmy noticed, was the only weapon among them.

  He pointed it out to the superintendent. ‘Do you think we ought to examine that, sir?’ he asked.

  The superintendent chuckled. ‘Go ahead, Inspector, this is your case, not mine,’ he replied. ‘I’m only here to give you countenance. Have a look at it by all means.’

  Thus encouraged, Jimmy set to work. He took out his handkerchief, and, wrapping it round his fingers, unhooked the knife from the wall, holding it by the extreme tip of the sheath. He then laid it upon the nearest table. ‘I wonder if you’d mind lending me your handkerchief, sir,’ he asked.

  ‘Scotland Yard performing its duties according to text-books,’ the superintendent replied. ‘Yes, here you are.’

  With two handkerchiefs, Jimmy was able to grasp the tip of the knife with the other. As he drew his hands apart, the knife came out of the sheath.

  ‘I’d like you to have a look at this, sir,’ said Jimmy in a tone of suppressed excitement.

  The superintendent got up from the sofa and strolled across the room. In silence the two of them gazed at the blade of the knife. Nearly the whole of its surface was covered with a dark incrustation. The superintendent’s face darkened.

  ‘I don’t altogether like the look of that,’ he said significantly.

  ‘It’s suspiciously like blood,’ Jimmy replied. He returned the knife to its sheath and then looked round the room. He caught sight of the half empty glass of whisky which still stood on the floor beside the sofa. This he picked up, still using the handkerchief, and poured its contents into a convenient flower-pot. Then he put it on the table beside the knife.

  The superintendent nodded approvingly. ‘Good dodge, that,’ he said. ‘The glass is pretty sure to show a good imprint of Gavin’s fingers. If you find the same print on the hilt of the knife, things will look a bit ugly for him. You’ve done pretty well, so far, Inspector. But I shouldn’t rest on your laurels yet. You may make further discoveries.’

  Jimmy laughed. ‘I’ll try, sir,’ he replied. He walked round the studio examining carefully every inch of it. He stopped before an oak chest and raised the lid. It was full up to the brim of garments of various shapes and gaudy colours. Jimmy lifted them out one by one, examining them as he did so. They were all of exotic origin, and Jimmy recognised some of them from the figures in the canvases. He laid them in a pile on the floor until the chest was almost empty. And there, right at the bottom, he found a pair of striped silk pyjamas. He took out the lower half first and examined it. Upon it was sewn a tape embroidered with the name E. Knott.

  Then he proceeded to examine the top half. He held it out by the sleeves for the superintendent’s inspection. In the left breast, just above the pocket, was an incision about an inch long. And round this incision the silk was stained with blood.

  Neither Jimmy nor the superintendent made any comment. The former put the pyjamas aside and piled the rest of the garments back into the chest. Then he continued his examination of the studio. But no further discovery rewarded him.

  ‘You’ve found enough to be getting on with, I should think,’ the superintendent remarked. ‘If you like to take these exhibits up to the Yard, I’ll keep an eye on things this end. Of course, the next thing to do is to search for the body. It’s not in this room, that’s pretty obvious. And I don’t suppose it’s lying about anywhere inside the house. But there’s a pretty big garden outside. I think that’s where we ought to start. I’ll get a squad of men on to it straight away.’

  ‘I’d like a word with Lizzie before I go back to the Yard,’ Jimmy said. The superintendent nodded.

  ‘Quite right,’ he replied. ‘If you ring that bell over there, she’ll probably appear.’

  Jimmy tried the experiment with success. Lizzie came in and looked inquiringly from one to the other. Jimmy picked up the lower half of the pyjamas. ‘Do you recognise these by any chance, Lizzie?’ he asked.

  Lizzie’s face brightened immediately. ‘Oh yes, sir,’ she replied. ‘They’re the pair I took out of Mr Knott’s suitcase and laid on his bed the night he was here.’

  ‘You’re quite sure of that, Lizzie?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. You see they’re silk and such a lovely colour I shouldn’t be likely to forget them. Neither Mr Slater nor Mr Gavin wear silk pyjamas.’

>   ‘What sort of a suitcase did Mr Knott bring with him?’

  ‘Quite a big one, sir. And it was one of that kind you can make bigger if you want to.’

  ‘A Revelation, I expect. Quite a big one, you say. Can you give me any idea how big?’

  Lizzie looked about her. ‘About as big as the top of that table, sir,’ she replied at length.

  Jimmy took a tape-measure from his pocket and measured the table she pointed out. The top of it proved to be twenty-eight inches by eighteen. Quite a sizeable suitcase for a man to bring with him for only one night.

  ‘Did you unpack this suitcase, Lizzie?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lizzie replied. ‘I unpacked it before Mr Knott went up to dress for dinner.’

  ‘What did you find in it?’

  ‘Nothing beyond what he wanted for the night, and his evening clothes, sir.’

  ‘Did you call Mr Gavin on Friday morning?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I took him up his cup of tea as usual at eight o’clock. But he wasn’t in bed, sir. That is, he wasn’t undressed.’

  This sounded a more promising line of inquiry. ‘Tell us exactly what you saw when you went into Mr Gavin’s room,’ Jimmy said.

  Lizzie tittered. ‘Well, sir, I saw that he’d had one of his bad evenings. He was lying on the bed with the eiderdown thrown over him. He’d taken off his coat and boots and hung them on the floor. I picked up the coat and put it on a chair, and took the boots down to be cleaned. And they were all wet, as if he’d been out in the rain.’

  Superintendent Latham looked up sharply.

  ‘There was no rain here on Thursday night,’ he said. ‘And the ground was quite dry.’

  But Lizzie stuck to her point. ‘Mr Gavin’s boots were soaked through, sir,’ she replied. ‘And cook will tell you the same for I showed them to her.’

  ‘Where are those boots now, Lizzie?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘I put them back in Mr Gavin’s room after I’d dried them, sir. I expect they’re there now.’

  ‘Run up and see, there’s a good girl. And if you find them bring them down here.’

  ‘I’d like to know how those boots got wet,’ said the superintendent when Lizzie had departed on her errand. ‘It was dry as a bone here all last week. She’s an intelligent girl, is Lizzie. I expect there are plenty more questions you will like to ask her.’

  Before Jimmy could reply Lizzie returned with the boots. They were an old, rather heavy pair, and as Jimmy took them from her he uttered an exclamation. ‘Why, they’re still damp.’

  ‘I noticed that, sir,’ Lizzie replied. ‘I can’t understand it, for they were quite dry when I put them up in Mr Gavin’s room.’

  ‘Has he used them since?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, sir. At least he hasn’t put them out to be cleaned.’

  ‘Sea-water, perhaps,’ said the superintendent. ‘The sea is quite close to this house, you know. And if anything is soaked in sea water, it takes a long time to get the salt out of it. And while the salt is there it’s bound to feel damp.’

  ‘I expect that’s it, sir,’ said Jimmy. Then, turning to Lizzie, ‘Mr Gavin had dressed for dinner on Thursday evening, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. And he still had his evening clothes on except the coat when I called him.’

  ‘Then he certainly wasn’t wearing these boots. He would have been wearing a pair of light shoes. What became of them, Lizzie?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Now I come to think of it, I haven’t seen them since that evening.’

  ‘You were the first person about the house on Friday morning, Lizzie,’ said Jimmy. ‘You went into the hall, I expect. Did you notice if the front door was bolted on the inside?’

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t, sir. But it never is. I did notice though that there were some wet patches leading from the front door to the foot of the stairs. I could see them on the polished floor.’

  ‘What sort of patches, Lizzie?’

  ‘Why, as if someone had walked across the hall in wet boots, sir. I got the mop and rubbed them off at once.’

  Jimmy smiled. Lizzie’s mind was that of a housemaid rather than that of a detective. Not that it made any difference. The marks would have disappeared by this time in any case. ‘Did you come into this room at all?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. I came in here to dust round while the family were at breakfast. And there was a broken tumbler lying on the floor.’

  ‘You cleared that away, of course,’ said Jimmy. ‘I think that’s all we want to know for the present, thank you, Lizzie.’

  She left the room and Jimmy turned to the superintendent. ‘I’d like your opinion on this, sir,’ he said.

  The superintendent shook his head. ‘Too early to give an opinion yet,’ he replied. ‘All I’m prepared to say at the present is that it seems unlikely that Knott left this house alive. I’ll have a look round here and see what I can find. Meanwhile you’d better take those exhibits up to the Yard and get the experts’ opinion upon them. You needn’t be afraid of anything happening to Gavin Slater while you’re gone. I’ll make myself responsible for him.’

  4

  Jimmy reached Scotland Yard that afternoon. He had brought with him from Torquay a parcel containing the bloodstained sheet, the knife and sheath, the tumbler which Gavin Slater had used, and the pair of boots secured by Lizzie. These he handed over to the experts for examination. Then he sought out Hanslet and gave him a detailed account of his adventures.

  Hanslet listened attentively, and when Jimmy had come to an end he gave him a nod of approval. ‘You seem to have managed that business pretty well,’ he said. ‘What is your theory on the facts at present available?’

  ‘I tried to reconstruct the affair as I came back on the train,’ Jimmy replied. ‘I’m inclined to accept as correct the statement of Mr Slater senior and of Lizzie. I’m not so sure of Mrs Slater, and I don’t put the slightest reliance upon what Gavin Slater told us.

  ‘According to Mr Slater, Knott arrived at the house on Thursday, shortly after I left it. He and Mr Slater had a conversation before dinner. In the course of that conversation it was revealed that Knott had in his pocket a sum of money amounting to £750 in notes. Mr Slater actually saw these notes. He and Knott were alone at the time. Knott had an important appointment in London at three o’clock on Friday afternoon. That is confirmed from other sources. I have found by looking at the timetable that if he left Torquay by the ten-thirty he would have arrived in London in time to keep that appointment. This was apparently his intention, since he said nothing to Mr Slater about leaving earlier.

  ‘After dinner Mr Slater retired to bed early, as is his usual custom. He is an old man. His eyesight is very bad and, as I noticed in talking to him, he is slightly deaf. He would not be likely to hear or see anything unusual which might happen in the house after he went to bed. Mrs Slater states that she was out that evening and did not return till about midnight. Her statement in this respect can easily be verified.

  ‘Mr Slater having retired, Knott and Gavin Slater went into the studio. For what happened after that we have only Gavin’s statement. It is probably correct that they sat and talked and had a few drinks together. But I do not believe for a moment that Knott expressed his intention of leaving by the seven-twenty next morning. That, I feel pretty sure, is an invention of Gavin’s to account for Knott having left the house before he was called by Lizzie.

  ‘What happened in the studio on Thursday evening I can only conjecture. But I imagine that Knott made some reference to the money he was carrying about with him. What else may have passed between them I don’t know. But eventually, I think, Knott went upstairs, leaving Gavin in possession of the studio. His wife states that she found him there extended on the sofa when she returned about midnight.

  ‘But I don’t think that on this occasion Gavin was as drunk as he pretended. I think he waited where he was until his wife was safely in bed. Then he prepared to act. He removed his shoes and then took down the
knife from the wall. Having unsheathed it, he crept upstairs to Knott’s room.

  ‘Now, we have to remember the state of that room when Lizzie entered it next morning. She found a patch of blood on the upper sheet and the pillow-case missing. I found Knott’s pyjamas subsequently in the chest in the studio. The gash in those pyjamas, and the blood on the upper sheet, suggest to me this. When Gavin entered the room, Knott was asleep and lying on his back. Gavin stabbed him with the knife he was carrying, in the region where he imagined the heart to be. Upon withdrawing the knife blood spurted from the wound. This accounts for the stain on the upper sheet and on the pyjamas. Gavin understood that he must prevent any further flow of blood. He took off the pyjamas and threw them aside. He then whipped off the pillow case, made a wad of it, and placed it over the wound so that it would absorb the blood. Then he searched the room until he found the envelope containing the money.’

  Jimmy paused and looked inquiringly at Hanslet. ‘Does that sound right so far?’ he asked.

  Hanslet nodded. ‘It doesn’t sound far wrong,’ he replied. ‘But at this point your friend Gavin is confronted by the murderer’s bugbear. He had to dispose of the body. How did he manage to do that?’

  ‘Superintendent Latham had an idea that he may have buried it in the garden,’ Jimmy replied. ‘I’m not sure that he’s right. We have the wet boots and the wet marks in the hall, both found by Lizzie. These certainly suggest that Gavin went out some time during the night and got his feet wet. But how? The weather was quite dry that night. Even though there was dew on the grass in the garden, that would not have made the boots as wet as all that. The only explanation I can think of is that Gavin went down to the sea and perhaps waded into it for a short distance.’

  ‘Carrying the body with him?’ remarked Hanslet incredulously.

  ‘Carrying the body with him, but not in its original state. Knott had brought with him an unusually big suitcase. Gavin may have found that it exactly suited his purpose. I think he must have carried the body downstairs and out of the house. Here, in some secluded spot in the garden, he dismembered it, perhaps with the knife he had already used. And that was where the suitcase came in. He packed the parts of the body into it and carried them down to the sea. He may have made two or even more journeys. He threw the limbs and trunk into the water and finally the suitcase as well. Then he returned to the house to tidy up. And it was on this occasion that he made the marks in the hall noticed by Lizzie.