by John Rhode
The date of the occurrence in the flat was at least definitely established. The car had been seen standing at the door on the afternoon of the 26th. The scrap of paper found by Hanslet, so obviously the remains of a newspaper or periodical, bore the same date. It did not follow from the paper alone that the murder had been committed on that date. But one cannot buy a newspaper before the date of publication. The murder then must have been committed on or after that date.
Hanslet had shown Jimmy the scrap of paper. There could be no doubt whatever about the date. At one extremity of the paper was printed January 26th. As the other was printed Saturday. And, as though to make perfectly certain of the date, the same words were printed on either side of the paper.
This seemed as conclusive to Jimmy as it had to Hanslet. And in addition, Jimmy felt that the type and its arrangement was somehow familar to him. Where had he seen it before? He racked his brains over this for some few moments. Then suddenly he remembered. And, as he did so, he laughed aloud. The scrap of paper so carefully cherished by the superintendent was valueless as evidence of date.
Jimmy recognised it now clearly enough. It was part of the heading of a page of the Radio Times. Now the Radio Times is on sale on Friday. It contains the programmes for the ensuing week from Sunday to Saturday. If this particular copy had contained the programme for the 26th, as the heading seemed to show, it could have been purchased as early as the 18th. Was this another false clue? Had this scrap of paper been left behind in order to indicate a false date? And there was some slight significance to be attached to the 18th. This was the day upon which Fernside had been heard in his flat apparently moving the furniture about. But had those sounds been really those of the struggle?
For the moment Jimmy was tempted to consider this as a possible solution, until the manifest impossibility which it involved appealed to him. If Fernside had been murdered on the 18th, how could he have come into possession of the notes drawn by Mr Knott on the 24th? Fernside must have been alive on the 24th, so much at least was certain.
The maddening thing was that Fernside, alive or dead, had disappeared. His evidence might have solved the mystery of Mr Knott’s murder. Now, that murder seemed to be involved in greater mystery than ever. Jimmy felt himself confronted by a series of trails which faded out before they reached their conclusions.
The whole chain of circumstances, as he reviewed them, was completely baffling. It began with the death of Victor Harleston. That at first had seemed difficult to explain. But Jimmy himself by dint of perseverance had found the clue. The discarded safety razor had revealed the manner of Victor Harleston’s death. But it had not led to identification of his murderer. Whatever Hanslet might think, Jimmy was convinced that neither Philip nor Janet had had anything to do with it. His conviction was based upon psychological rather than logical grounds. He would not commit himself so far as to deny that they might be potential murderers, though his mind revolted at the idea so far as it concerned Janet. But neither of them possessed sufficient ingenuity of mind to plan and carry out a murder of such skill and subtlety.
Then came the disappearance of Mr Knott, following so shortly upon the death of his clerk. Jimmy agreed with Dr Priestley that there must be some connection between the incidents. Mr Knott had so obviously been murdered during his visit to Torquay. The only person who could have murdered him was Gavin Slater. That is, unless a whole series of improbabilities were to be admitted. Everything pointed to Gavin Slater’s guilt, whatever Dr Priestley might say. He had certainly committed some amazing blunders. But then he was notoriously addicted to drink, and, when under its influence, he would be incapable of clear thought. Unfortunately, he had succeeded in the most difficult portion of his task. He had disposed of the body so effectually that no trace of it could be found. For that reason, although his guilt was practically certain, there were grave difficulties in the way of bringing him to justice. Finally, this last exasperating development. Dr Priestley, with an almost uncanny prescience, had suggested a search for the missing notes. Quite unexpectedly this search had been successful. But it had led not to the elucidation of Mr Knott’s murder, but to the discovery of yet a third crime. The existence of Stanley Fernside had been revealed. But the man himself had vanished, leaving only his wrecked and bloodstained flat behind him.
Puzzle his brain as he might, Jimmy could find no rational explanation of the sequence of these events. The only theory that he could form was utterly fantastic. Harleston, Knott and Fernside had been associated in some mysterious affair. This had been known to a gang of crooks who had exterminated them one after another in quick succession. A melodramatic theory, certainly, but to Jimmy wholly improbable. For what had the murderers gained by their wholesale slaughter? Certainly not Fernside’s fortune, which was still safely deposited at his bank. And, more puzzling still, that deposit had existed before the first murder, that of Victor Harleston. Was there anything to be gained from a consideration of the hints which Dr Priestley had let drop? The suggestion about the notes had certainly proved profitable, up to a point. The other suggestion, that Harleston might have been about to invest a sum of £20,000, seemed fanciful. And yet Dr Priestley’s explanation of those scrawled figures had been certainly plausible. £20,000, of which £100 had been subtracted. Dr Priestley had particularly stressed that transaction. Was there any hidden significance in the sum of £100? Victor Harleston had received that sum shortly before his death. That had been the amount of the much disputed bonus which he had received from his firm. But he could not have expected that bonus to be increased to £20,000 in the near future. That would have been purely ridiculous. Jimmy went home to bed at last almost convinced that the problem which confronted him was insoluble.
As it happened, he did not see Hanslet again until the following afternoon. And then the Superintendent sent for him. ‘I’ve just rung up the Professor,’ he said curtly. ‘You and I are to go round and have a chat with him this evening.’
Hanslet’s tone was not encouraging but Jimmy ventured a question. ‘Have there been any fresh developments?’ he asked.
The Superintendent scowled. ‘Developments!’ he exclaimed. ‘I haven’t time to talk to you now. You’ll hear all I’ve got to say this evening. But if you find me sticking straws in my hair before we’re through with this case you mustn’t be surprised.’
3
When Hanslet and Jimmy reached Westbourne Terace that evening, they found that Dr Oldland had been invited to join the party. After a few preliminary remarks Dr Priestley turned the conversation to the subject at issue.
‘You wish to consult me, I understand, Superintendent?’ he said.
‘I do, Professor,’ replied Hanslet fervently. ‘Perhaps you can make some sense out of what I’m going to tell you. I can’t. To begin with I took your tip about the numbers of these notes. I circulated them and found that £500 worth had been paid into his deposit account at the West-End Branch of the City and Suburban Bank by a man called Stanley Fernside.’
Dr Priestley nodded. ‘That does not altogether surprise me,’ he said quietly.
‘Possibly not, but the sequel will. I got hold of this man Fernside’s address, and went round to his fiat. And, if you’ve the patience to listen, I’ll tell you exactly what I found there.’
Hanslet gave an exact description of what he had found in Banbridge Road. Dr Priestley listened to the details with a faint smile, but asked no questions. ‘The condition of the flat suggested a certain theory to you,’ he remarked when Hanslet had finished.
‘It did, Professor. The evidence seemed as plain as though a written description had been left behind. But, of course, I didn’t leave it at that. I put in the experts, and their report came in this afternoon. And what to make of them I’m blest if I know.
‘First of all the safe. I had hoped that they would find fingerprints on that. But they didn’t. They report that there are no traces of fingerprints anywhere about the room, even on the stick. It seems as though everybody co
ncerned in the affair must have worn gloves. The sale of gloves ought to be forbidden in the interests of justice.
‘The absence of fingerprints is bad enough, but there’s worse to follow. I asked the experts to examine and report upon the various stains about the place. These included the marks on the wall, on the floor, on the curtain, and in the wash-basin in the bathroom. All these were identified as bloodstains. Each set of stains was examined and tested in turn. But, if you’ll believe it, those confounded experts declare that the marks on the walls, the floor and the curtain were not made by human blood. They were made by the blood of some animal of the cat tribe.’
Oldland laughed. ‘That seems to admit all sorts of possibilities,’ he said. ‘An animal of the cat tribe would include anything from a tiger to a newborn kitten.’
‘So the experts have explained to me,’ Hanslet replied tartly. ‘But I’ve no reason to suppose that Fernside kept a menagerie in his flat. The fourth stain, that on the inside of the wash-basin, was undoubtedly human blood. The basin had undoubtedly been used by somebody to wash his or her hands. Although the water had been run off, the soap and blood had left an incrustation which made identification possible.
‘Now we come to the stick. I’ve already described it to you. I was careful not to handle it overmuch when I found it. But the experts have examined it very carefully. They found first of all that it was badly cracked, as though a heavy blow had been dealt with it. The knob at the end, which isn’t gold by the way, but some form of pinchbeck, was badly dented. The incrustation I found is human blood, and the hairs sticking in it human hair. The experts point out that those hairs were apparently torn out by the roots.’
‘Suggesting of course that somebody had been knocked on the head by the stick,’ Oldland remarked.
‘Exactly. That’s the only common-sense point about the whole affair. Finally we come to the bullet. I told you that it was flattened at the end and had something that looked like blood upon it. It was blood, and human blood at that. You’ll say, doctor, that this suggests that it had been fired at somebody and wounded him. But it doesn’t.’
‘Why doesn’t it?’ Oldland asked.
‘Because the experts swear that the bullet had never been fired at all. Oh, I know. It doesn’t make sense, but I can’t help that. At least, if it has been fired, it wasn’t from the weapon for which it was intended. I’ll explain.
‘The bullet has been identified. It was intended to fit an old-fashioned type of revolver of .45 calibre. The bullet itself shows signs of having been manufactured many years ago. Now the rifling of the pistol for which this bullet was intended is very deeply cut. A bullet fired from such a pistol shows unmistakable signs of grooving. But this particular bullet shows none and its diameter has nowhere been diminished. Therefore, it was not fired from the revolver. If it was fired at all, it must have been some smooth-bore weapon of the same or slightly larger calibre than the bullet.
‘Now I can make no sense whatever of all this. If the animal blood had been on the stick and on the bullet one could have formed some sort of idea, however fantastic, of what had happened. One might have supposed that Fernside, on returning to London, had found that a tiger had somehow strayed into his flat. First of all he attacked it with his stick, and then he produced a duelling pistol, or something of the kind, from his pocket and shot it. But even that nightmare won’t account for the facts. It must have been Fernside who was hit on the head. And I absolutely refuse to believe in a tiger which uses sticks and pistols with which to defend itself.’
Dr Priestley glanced benevolently at the exasperated superintendent.
‘I find the facts not altogether inexplicable,’ he said. ‘I imagine that you have made inquiries concerning this man Stanley Fernside?’
‘I’ve spent the whole day doing nothing else. I can’t hit upon any trace of him. I’ve sent men round to make inquiries of all the American importers that I can hear of and none of them have any knowledge of any such person. You remember that he told the bank manager that he was going abroad. It struck me that I might get on his track that way. If he were going abroad, he would have to have a passport. So I went to the passport office and made inquiries there. They have no record of any passport existing in the name of Stanley Fernside. Jimmy has also been making inquiries following out an idea of his own.’
‘I started with the fact that Mr Knott had introduced Fernside to the bank,’ said Jimmy. ‘I went round to the offices of Slater & Knott and made inquiries there. Nobody had ever heard of Stanley Fernside. And Grant, the chief clerk, is convinced that if Mr Knott had known him for many years he would at least have been acquainted with the name. I even made inquiries of Novoshave, just on the off-chance, but I’ve had no luck there either.’
‘At my request the Manchester police have made inquiries,’ Hanslet resumed. ‘They have found the certificate of posting of a registered letter in one of the smaller post offices. It is dated January 25th and the letter is addressed to the Manager, the City & Suburban Bank, West-End Branch. As it happens the clerk remembers the posting of the letter. On the afternoon of the 25th, about six o’clock, a man came into the post office and bought a registered envelope. The clerk noticed that he had a pale face covered with spots and was carrying a dark red stick with a gold knob. He took the envelope to a desk, inserted something in it, sealed it up, and handed it in for posting.
‘That proves, I think, that Fernside was in Manchester on the afternoon following the murder of Mr Knott. There is no record of his having stayed at the Midland Hotel, but that is not altogether surprising. He could have secured the notepaper without staying there. And that’s the only trace of him I can find so far. There’s only one hope left so far as I can see. His pimply face and that stick he carried seems to have made him rather conspicuous. I shall circulate a description on these lines.’
‘I fear that if you do so your trouble will be wasted,’ Dr Priestley remarked dryly.
‘Well, if he’s dead, it will be,’ Hanslet replied. ‘Is that what you mean, Professor?’
‘No I think that the man who calls himself Fernside is still alive. But it would be useless to seek for him under that description. Does the appearance of the flat, coupled with the expert’s report, suggest nothing to you?’
‘Nothing that makes any sense, Professor,’ Hanslet replied moodily.
‘Because you allowed yourself to be misled by the appearance of a struggle. Suppose that a struggle had never taken place, and that the bloodstains and the other phenomena were capable of a simple explanation?’
‘Then all I can say is that I should very much like to hear that explanation.’
‘Then I will attempt to formulate a theory which might account for the facts. Fernside, for some reason of his own, wished to create the impression that he was no longer alive. Now there are obvious difficulties in the way of creating such an impression. The most convincing evidence of all, that of the dead body, cannot be produced. It is very unlikely that Fernside was acquainted with anybody sufficiently like him to serve this purpose. He was therefore driven to make appearances as convincing as he could in the absence of the body.
‘Unfortunately for him, he under-estimated the ability of the experts. He did not realise that they could distinguish between human and animal blood, for instance. And he overlooked the fact that it is easy to tell whether a bullet has been fired or not. And his dispositions were made, I think, not on the 26th, but on some previous date.’
‘But everything goes to prove that the events in the flat happened on the 26th,’ Hanslet objected.
Dr Priestley glanced at Jimmy. ‘Do you agree with that, Inspector?’ he asked.
‘Well, sir,’ replied Jimmy with an apologetic glance in Hanslet’s direction. ‘It occurred to me that that scrap of paper might have been part of the Radio Times. And if so it might have been put in the fireplace as early as the 18th.’
Dr Priestley nodded approvingly. ‘That is a very good point,’ he said. ‘Th
en we have the evidence of the sounds heard in the flat on the 18th. This, I think, is when the furniture was disarranged and broken. And I have very little doubt that the bloodstains were produced at the same time. If that is the case then Fernside himself created these appearances since he was seen to leave the flat on that date.’
‘But why should he want to create a false impression as to the date, Professor?’ Hanslet asked.
‘Because it was essential to his scheme that he should be thought to have been alive on the 25th. But we can return to that point later. For the moment let us consider how he could have created the appearances which have so greatly puzzled you. He had provided himself with the necessary instruments. Among these were included an ordinary domestic cat, an old revolver bullet extracted from its cartridge case, and the current copy of the Radio Times. His first action, I expect, was to kill the cat and pour its blood into the wash basin. With this source of supply in hand, he made stains on the floor and the trail of drops leading to the door. He dipped his hand in it and then touched the curtain. He sprinkled some of it on the wall and with his finger traced the pistol design of which you speak. What did you make of that curious decoration on the wall, Superintendent?’
‘I put it down to the work of some gang or other,’ Hanslet replied. ‘That sort of thing is not altogether uncommon, as I dare say you know.’
‘Fernside may also have known this, and drawn the likeness of the pistol to mislead you. But I am inclined to think not. I believe the design had a definite purpose. You were, I feel sure, intended to find the bullet. But Fernside realised that it would not do to leave it in too obvious a place. Your suspicions would have been aroused if you had found it, for instance, standing in the middle of the mantelshelf. Therefore it had to be hidden, and the fireplace was a very suitable place for the purpose. But you might not have raked out those ashes, and so the bullet might have escaped you. Fernside’s problem was to indicate to you the existence of a hidden bullet. He did this by drawing the pistol on the wall. This would have suggested to you that the blood in the room came from a wound caused by a firearm. You would then naturally have searched for the bullet, and sooner or later you would have found it.