The Z Murders

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  Yes, that was important! Because, if he had been snoring, then he must have been alive when the lady left.…He racked his memory. He tried to dispel the hateful impression of utter silence. He failed.

  “I—I can’t remember,” he muttered.

  The inspector shook his head gravely.

  “I think you would have remembered, Mr. Temperley, if he had snored,” he said.

  “Well, even if he wasn’t snoring, he may not have been asleep,” Temperley parried.

  “That’s true,” admitted the inspector. “But, subsequently, no snoring kept you awake?”

  “No.”

  “There was no movement that you can recall?”

  “No.”

  “In fact, the last time you can swear you saw him alive was when you passed him in the passage at about thirteen minutes past five?”

  “Yes. That is so.”

  As he spoke, the clock in the distance clanged six. The chimes came in through the half-open window, and all at once the inspector looked towards the window and rose. “Now what’s he up to?” wondered Temperley.

  An instant later, another matter occupied his mind. His right hand, resting against the crevice between the arm and the seat of his chair, had come into contact with a small, soft object.

  His heart started thumping. He darted a glance towards the inspector. The inspector had his back turned, and was poking his head out of the window. Surreptitiously, and trying unsuccessfully not to feel guilty, Temperley secured the small soft object and slipped it into his pocket. It was a lady’s bag. The inspector’s hand followed his head out of the window. For a moment he remained poised. Then the head and the hand were withdrawn.

  “What do you make of this?” asked the inspector.

  He held out a small piece of enamelled metal. Its colour was crimson, and it was in the shape of the letter Z.

  Chapter III

  The Contents of a Bag

  The discovery of the crimson Z introduced a new note into the grim business. It suggested deliberation rather than impulse, and a murder that has been planned is doubly sinister. But Detective-Inspector James did not imply, as he continued quickly with his investigations, that he had relinquished his interest in earlier clues through the introduction of this later one, and the metal symbol failed to divert him from returning to Richard Temperley to conclude their conversation.

  A fellow-creature had been done to death, and for the protection of other fellow-creatures who still enjoyed life the murderer would have to be found and brought to justice. For that purpose, no line of thought could be ignored; and if the line embarrassed an agreeable young man or cast an ugly shadow over an attractive young lady, that could not be helped. The excuse lay, huddled, in an arm-chair.

  The conclusion of the conversation, however, was not illuminating. Temperley had little to add to his story, and the one item of real news he had just acquired remained hidden in his pocket.

  “Then that’s all you can tell me?” said the inspector, at last.

  “Afraid so,” replied Temperley. “I don’t think I’ve done so badly.”

  “No. But there’s one important thing we’ve forgotten.”

  “What’s that?” asked Temperley, as his heart missed a beat. The inspector’s eye was on his pocket.

  “Your address,” came the answer. “I’m afraid you’ll be wanted at the inquest.”

  The answer was a relief, but it was also disturbing. Inquest? Good Lord! Was there to be no end to it all?

  “My address is 22 Wellingley Grove, N.W. 3,” he said, “but I won’t be there for a week. It’s let.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “At my sister’s, I think. She lives at Richmond—18a, Hope Avenue.”

  “You think?” queried the inspector, as he jotted the two addresses down.

  “Make it ninety-five per cent. sure,” suggested Temperley. “I’ll keep the odd five for accidents. After all, I suppose unless you actually arrest me, I’m still a free man?”

  “Certainly. But you’ll justify your freedom by letting us know if the—five per cent. wins?”

  “I’ll let my sister know,” smiled Temperley, “and she can pass on the news to whomever it may concern.”

  “That will be the coroner,” Inspector James smiled back. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Does that mean I can go and have a bath?” exclaimed Temperley, as the inspector rose.

  “If you want, you can go to Madame Tussaud’s,” answered the inspector, and, with a nod, he turned and walked towards a quiet little man with a camera.

  Feeling like a released schoolboy, Temperley cast a final glance towards the arm-chair of death, and then hurried from the room. The constable on guard at the door had evidently received his cue, and was no longer a gate.

  “Morning, sir,” he said, as Temperley went by.

  With difficulty Temperley refrained from the frivolity of wishing him a happy Christmas.

  The fact was, Richard Temperley was suffering from reaction. Reaction from a long and tiring journey. Reaction from the shock of seeing dead a man whom he had so recently seen alive. Was that helpless, silent thing the same flesh that had irritated Temperley in the train, that had spoken, and grumbled, and snored? And would he, Richard Temperley, so full of vigour and of life, one day be as helpless and as silent?…Reaction from the strain of a long cross-examination. Reaction from the confusion of a contentedly-guilty conscience, for which a small purse was responsible. Reaction from the greater confusion set up by the owner of the purse, and of the ridiculous emotions her vision inspired.

  “Richard Temperley,” he said to himself, reprovingly. “You are an ass!”

  Some one directed him to a swing-door. Beyond the swing-door was another door, and beyond this was a bath. As he turned on the tap and the steam rose up from the bath bottom, a sense of selfish happiness began to pervade him. What, at that moment, did anything matter beyond the warmth that would soon be around him? In the grip of perfect comfort, we are dulled to the discomfort of others. From steaming water we can think dispassionately of the Arctic. From a cool sea, the Equator is a theory. In a woman’s arms, the loneliness of others has no power to chill. And so Richard Temperley, regaining his vigour beneath the rippling warmth of a hotel bath, must not be censured for his temporary inability to share in the tragedy that lay so near at hand. He was merely accumulating, in his callousness, new strength to deal with it, as you or I might have done in his place.

  After the bath, he dressed thoughtfully. Already his sense of responsibility had returned to him, and his resuscitated mind was grappling with its problems. The immediate problem was the lady’s bag in his pocket.

  Amazed that he had not done so before, he suddenly took the bag from the pocket of his hanging coat, and opened it. Suppose, after all, it contained nothing but money? It would be of small use then to either himself or a detective!

  The bag contained six objects. The first was a pound note. The second was a half-crown piece. The third was a small handkerchief. Temperley lifted it to his nose, praising the scent before he smelt it. It was Houbigant Bois Dormant, but he did not know that; all he knew was that it was good. The fourth was a tiny gold vanity-box. The fifth—his heart gave a leap—was a visiting card, bearing the words:

  Sylvia Wynne, Studio 4, Tail Street, Chelsea.

  He stared at the fifth article so long that he nearly forgot the sixth, but the sixth was equally interesting. It was a Yale key.

  “By Jove!” he murmured. “Her latch-key!” And then, an instant later, “How will she get in?”

  He completed his dressing quickly. Of course, studios sometimes had maids, and there was no reason to suppose that Sylvia Wynne’s had not. Still, the possibility that she might be shut out of her studio, and striving at that moment to get in, gave Temperley all the excuse he needed to hurry, and he wa
s out of the bathroom by a quarter to seven.

  In the corridor, he paused. Glancing along the passage to the left, he caught sight of the constable on duty at the smoking-room door. Beyond the door investigations were still being made, and a patient inspector was still plying questions. The answer to the most urgent question was in Temperley’s pocket. “Sylvia Wynne, Studio 4, Tail Street, Chelsea.” In a moment of strength or weakness—for the life of him he couldn’t determine which!—Temperley took a step towards the constable. Then he retracted. No—he would see Sylvia Wynne herself first. And, afterwards, use his discretion.

  Reaching this decision, he turned to the right, and nearly bumped into Detective-Inspector James.

  “Hallo! Just off?” queried the inspector genially.

  “Yes,” replied Temperley, catching his breath. “That is, unless you want me?”

  The inspector shook his head. More at ease, Temperley asked whether he had found out anything fresh.

  “A few details, yes, but nothing really illuminating,” said the inspector. “The dead man is John Amble. He lived over his shop in King’s Cross. I believe we shall find he was in debt, so it doesn’t look as though he was murdered for his fortune.”

  “Perhaps he wasn’t murdered,” answered Temperley, “but committed suicide on account of his misfortune?”

  “If you shoot yourself, you drop the pistol,” observed the inspector, rather dryly. “We haven’t found any pistol. Besides—”

  “Besides what?”

  The inspector regarded Temperley for a moment, as though weighing him up. Then he remarked,

  “John Amble was shot from the window.”

  “Why, then—in that case—” began Temperley, eagerly, but the inspector interrupted him.

  “We can only judge the direction of the bullet,” he said, “not the exact distance it travelled. The bullet may have started from outside or inside the window.”

  “I see,” murmured Temperley.

  “But even that may be cleared up later,” went on the inspector, “after the bullet is extracted. Meanwhile, I’ve got on to the shop, and his assistant is coming along. P’r’aps he’ll help. There’s absolutely no clue as yet as to motive. Well—enjoy yourself at Madame Tussaud’s, and give my love to W. G. Grace.”

  Then the inspector vanished.

  “Queer fellow!” thought Temperley. “Is he really a humorist—or is he playing some game with me? I don’t know much about detectives, but he was rather confidential!”

  However, the “queer fellow” was now back in the smoking-room, so Temperley was free to make his exit without hinderance.

  “Wonder what he was doing out here?” he wondered idly, as he went along the passage to the entrance hall. “Perhaps he’d been across to the station—or was telephoning. They were both wrong guesses.

  The night commissionaire was back at his post. His face lit up as he saw Temperley. For the last quarter-of-an-hour he had felt rather out of it.

  “Luggage, sir?” he asked briskly.

  Temperley nodded, and felt for a good tip.

  “Shot from the window, so they’re saying,” said the porter. “God—I’m glad I wasn’t sitting in that there chair!”

  Temperley paused. If he hadn’t returned and questioned this fellow about the luggage, he might have sat in the fatal chair.…Yes, but…He doubled the tip. The night commissionaire thanked him very much indeed. “Call you a taxi, sir?” he asked.

  A taxi was waiting outside.

  “Where to?” inquired the commissionaire.

  Suddenly Temperley caught his breath. In another second he would have handed the whole show away! He visualised the inspector demanding of the commissionaire: “What address did he give?” and the commissionaire responding, “Studio 4, sir, Tail Street, Chelsea,” and, as he visualised the inevitable scene, he responded to an uncontrollable impulse.

  “Madame Tussaud’s,” he said.

  Two minutes after the taxi had started on its journey, however, he put his head out of the window and changed the address to Baker Street Station. The occupant of another taxi, twenty yards behind, did the same.

  Chapter IV

  Behind the Blue Door

  Tail Street, Chelsea, is not one of London’s chosen thoroughfares. It is short and insignificant, and perhaps it derives its name from the fact that it forms a dead end. Or perhaps, again, the name was inspired by the road’s curly shape. But whatever theories are advanced concerning its origin, there can be no two theories concerning its atmosphere, which is one of unrelenting, brooding gloom; and possibly this explains why the four studios which comprise the road are so frequently untenanted.

  No. 4 is at the end of the tail. Right round the curve. You think you have come to an end with No. 3, but proceeding beyond the final violent bend you suddenly see the deep blue door of No. 4, glowing out of the gloom to reward your enterprise. Not far off are buses and taxicabs. Vaguely, incoherently, their metallic music percolates through the intervening, interrupted space, droning of people. But here, in this spot, there are no people. There is no sense of company, saving in the incongruous, rather unexplainable promise of that deep blue door.

  Richard Temperley paused abruptly when he saw the door. Dismissing the taxi at Baker Street and storing his luggage, he had reached Tail Street by a circuitous route, for although he was unconscious that his taxi had been followed he did not permit himself the dangerous assumption of security. Thus, he had zigzagged from north-west to south-west, using various conveyances, and leading shadows the devil of a dance.

  Had he realised that one shadow had preceded him to Tail Street, he would have approached his doubtful goal even more gingerly than he did.

  “Whew! What a hole!” he thought, confessing his surprise. “What on earth made her choose it?”

  The blue door itself was certainly attractive, but there was nothing else to recommend the spot. Glancing backwards, he noticed for the first time that the curve had cut him off visually from the beginning of the road, short distance away though it was. This increased the sense of imprisonment. Yet somewhere in this prison was a delicious, disturbing creature who used Houbigant scent! “Well—here goes!” decided Temperley. “After all, I have found her purse, haven’t I?”

  He advanced to the door and pressed the bell. The ringing responded, muffled, from its source. He waited half-a-minute. Then he rang again. The bell sounded louder this time, but there was no joy in it. It seemed indignant.

  The grudging light of a grey morning was filtering into the cul-de-sac. He turned and contemplated the inclement dawn. Above the curving bricks of a wall peeped the eaves of a sloping roof. There was a large window in the roof, and a crooked chimney near the window. The window was like a big inquisitive eye; in fact, the entire roof reminded Temperley of a head rising cautiously out of a large brick collar. But no face appeared at the window, and no smoke issued from the chimney. “And twenty-four hours ago,” reflected Temperley, “I was waking up to the beauties of Windermere!”

  It occurred to him that he was not being quite fair to Tail Street. If he had not come to it straight from the spectacle of a dead man—if he had called on a sunny afternoon instead of a chilly grey morning—if he had alighted in evening dress from a car, with a couple of tickets for a Cochran revue in his pocket—

  “It would still be a godforsaken place!” he concluded grimly, as he pressed the bell a third time. “The sort of place that any knight worth his armour would rescue a fair lady from!”

  He kept his finger on the button for ten seconds this time, and the noise the ringing now made seemed loud enough to awaken the dead. It unnerved him a little. Ten seconds is a long while to have your finger pressed against the button of a bell, as a test with your watch will prove to you. But if there were any dead about they showed no sign of waking, and the window in the roof of Studio No. 3, towards which Temperl
ey glanced more than once, revealed no curious or indignant eyes.

  “Now, what?” he wondered. He knew very well, but he had to argue himself into it.

  “Sylvia Wynne is not at home,” ran the argument, “and the reason is that she has no key. Nor, apparently, has she any maid. As I have the key I cannot possibly go away and ignore her predicament. I must do something. Now, what would a girl do on arriving home and finding that she’s lost her key?”

  As soon as he had asked the question, which had slipped into his thoughts and interrupted his argument without premeditation, he wished he had not done so. The answer was too startlingly obvious. The average girl would return to the spot where she had probably lost the key. Sylvia Wynne had not returned to the spot.

  “Well—p’r’aps she doesn’t know yet that she’s lost it,” he growled, striving against odds for a defence. “P’r’aps she went off to a friend’s house.” Another rather startling thought occurred to him here. “P’r’aps the visiting card was a friend’s card—and this isn’t her place at all! Well, in that case—let’s test the key!”

  Thus, by a circuitous but not unreasonable route, he reached the point he had been aiming for, and found his excuse. Bringing the purse out of his pocket, he opened it and extracted the key. It was a Yale key. The blue door had a Yale lock. The evidence was all in favour of a fit. “Still, you never know, you know,” argued Temperley.

  He wasn’t going to be cheated of his glimpse by circumstantial evidence! There were millions of Yale keys and there were millions of Yale locks. These before him might not fit. Without more ado, he slipped the key in the hole. It went in easily. But would it turn? It turned. He pushed the door gently. It swung back over a width of soft blue carpet…

  Upon the carpet lay a small crimson object, in the shape of a letter Z.

  Chapter V

  The Girl

  Temperley stared at the crimson Z for a moment without comprehension. It might mean so many things that, at first sight, it meant nothing. Then the moment of astounded stupor passed, and was followed by a reaction so swift and violent that it sent a pang of definite pain through him. Whatever might be the precise significance of this ominous token, one thing was glaringly clear; it brought the menace of the hotel smoking-room direct to Studio No. 4, Tail Street, and coupled Sylvia Wynne with the mystery of John Amble’s murder.