These Names Make Clues

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “He’s quite dead,” said Macdonald quietly. “It looks as though you might be right. He probably died within the last quarter of an hour—as the lights went out, perhaps. I think it’d be best if I telephoned for one of our own surgeons. It’ll be simpler in the long run.”

  Graham Coombe looked appalled. He mopped his lofty brow with his handkerchief as he replied:

  “Do just as you think best. My God! What a frightful thing to happen. Shall I go and tell the others to clear out?”

  “No. Not yet. There’s bound to be an inquiry, and it will be better if every one stays on for the time being.”

  Macdonald went to the telephone and dialled a number, adding to Coombe, “Don’t touch anything, sir. It may be quite simple and straightforward, but it’s better to leave everything as it is until the surgeon’s seen him. There’s glass on the floor there, he probably had a drink in his hand and dropped it… This is Chief Inspector Macdonald speaking. That Wright? I want you at Caroline House immediately. Three minutes from Harley Street. Know it? Good. Quickly, there’s a good chap.”

  Just as Macdonald replaced the receiver, some one opened the door, which was brought up short by Graham Coombe’s shoulder, and Laurence Sterne’s laughing voice said:

  “Sorry, am I butting in? My last clue is quite beyond me and the telephone seems indicated as the quickest way of cadging information.”

  “So sorry, old chap, just a minute,” stammered Coombe, but Macdonald, quick to make up his mind, put in:

  “Let him come in, sir. He may be a help.”

  Coombe stood away from the door, and the tall thin figure of Laurence Sterne slipped in through the door, and he closed it behind him.

  “Good Lord!” he ejaculated, his angular brows twitching oddly. “That looks bad. Fit? Heart? The poor chap looks a goner.”

  Macdonald nodded. “I’m afraid so. A doctor will be here inside ten minutes. You’re Ashton Vale, aren’t you? Will you help to keep things going up stairs? Say that Samuel Pepys had a tumble in the dark, but a doctor’s been sent for, and Mr. Coombe hopes that every one will carry on.”

  Ashton Vale—who carried the label of Laurence Sterne—looked back at Macdonald with a question in his keen eyes which he did not put into words. He gave another glance at the figure on the floor, and then put his hand on Graham Coombe’s shoulder.

  “Tough luck for you, old chap, rather than for him. We’ve all got to pass out sometime, and he got his call without knowing it, from the look of things.” Turning to Macdonald he added, “I get you. I’ll do my best. You’re the C.I.D. wallah, I take it? Thought so.”

  He slipped out again, and Macdonald knew that the Economist’s quick wits had taken in everything—the reason for his request that the party should “carry on,” and the possibility that “heart” was not the only explanation to account for that still figure on the floor.

  Turning to Coombe, Macdonald said:

  “I will stay here, sir. Would you be at hand outside when Dr. Wright comes? and if the electrician is still on the premises, get him to stay. It will save a lot of trouble if we anticipate questions by getting the facts in order.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course—but it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” said Coombe nervously. “I know that Gardien had some heart trouble, he mentioned it to me a short while ago.”

  “Quite,” murmured Macdonald, glancing at the door, and Coombe took the hint and hurried out.

  So Samuel Pepys was Andrew Gardien, author of a dozen detective stories. The “Master Mechanic” the reviewers called him, owing to his ingenuity in inventing methods of killing based on simple mechanical contraptions. “Heath Robinson murders,” another reviewer had styled them, involving bits of cord and wire and counterpoises, all nicely calculated to tidy themselves up when their work was done. Springs and levers and pulleys had been used with wonderful effect by the quick brain which had once animated that still body.

  Turning the key in the door, Macdonald bent over Gardien’s body. He covered the face with the man’s own silk handkerchief, and studied the hands with a frowning face.

  III

  Dr. Wright, attached to the experts department of the C.I.D., lived in Poland Court, W.1., and he arrived at Caroline House within twelve minutes of Macdonald’s call. Having briefly examined the body of Andrew Gardien, he said, “Heart failure apparently. Been dead about half an hour. No wound as far as I can tell. No signs of poison. Were you with him when death occurred?”

  Macdonald explained the circumstances, and Wright looked down thoughtfully at the dead man.

  “It looks as though you found him about ten minutes or so after he died,” commented the doctor.

  “If it had been poison, it would have had to be something of the nature of prussic acid, or one of the cyanide group. Nothing else would have acted quickly enough. It wasn’t one of those. No smell, no corrosion. You say he seemed perfectly fit an hour and a half ago, and you found him dead about ten minutes after the fuse occurred. He looks as though he might have been a heart subject. Any reason for supposing there was anything else to it?”

  “No. Nothing you’d call a reason. Have a look at the palms of his hands and see if you notice anything.”

  Wright bent and examined the dead man’s hands and then took a lens out of his pocket and peered through it.

  “Looks as though he’d scorched them a trifle. There’s a bit of a mark, nothing much though. What’s in your mind?”

  “Those marks showed much more plainly when I first looked at him,” said Macdonald. “It just occurred to me—probably a wild idea—but there was an almighty big fuse for no apparent reason, and if the chap was a heart subject, an electric shock might have finished him off quite easily.”

  “True enough, but why should he have monkeyed with the fittings? You don’t get an electric shock unless some of the fixtures are faulty.”

  The doctor looked inquiringly round the room. An electric fire stood in front of the fireplace and he made a move towards it.

  “Don’t touch it for the moment,” said Macdonald. “It’s still warm but only just perceptibly. It’s been turned off for some time. A stove that size keeps warm for the best part of an hour after the current has been switched off—warm to the touch that is, so that you can tell it’s been alight.”

  “I suppose it does. Are you assuming the stove leaked?”

  Wright had an inquiring mind. Having glanced at the stove, he followed up the flex which connected it with the point in the wainscot whence the current was derived. This point was not set in the wall close to the fireplace, but was in the adjacent wall, close to the mahogany bureau. The plug at the end of the flex was not now fitted into the point, but lay on the floor a little way from it, although the electric switch was still turned down to supply the current.

  “Oh ho! Do we see daylight?” inquired the doctor. “I remember that I once tripped over the flex of my own electric fire and jerked the plug out of the point when the fire—all three bars—was full on. The result was a blue flash a yard long and a complete fuse of everything in the house. The electrician told me that such a fuse would almost certainly occur when the wiring was bearing a heavy load if the plug was jerked out with the power full on. That what’s in your mind?”

  “Something of the kind,” said Macdonald, and Wright went on:

  “Let’s see. You imagine the flex got in the fellow’s way, and he tripped over it, came down on the stove and burnt his hands a bit, and staggered up and collapsed from shock a moment later? Short circuit in his own system as well as in the electric doings. Quite a possible explanation, though I don’t quite see how the flex got in his way. Still, at these Treasure Hunt dos, people grovel in corners and hunt behind pictures and all the rest. However, I suppose you’ll have a P.M. and work out probabilities after that.”

  He went to the table and bent and sniffed at the pieces of glass Macdonald had collected from the floor.

  “Nothing wrong there, so far as I can tell. Get them analys
ed to make a job of it. Liqueur glass, apparently. Cherry brandy. Shall I get him moved right away?”

  “I think so. I’ll go through his pockets to see if he’d got any of the Treasure Hunt clues on him. Coombe seemed to be surprised to find him here. There were no clues leading to that bureau and there doesn’t seem to have been any reason why he should have opened it.”

  “Oh, you’re trying to be too reasonable. If you ask people to a racket of this kind, it’s only to be supposed that they’ll look anywhere and everywhere.”

  Macdonald agreed. After a few moments further consultation, he rang up his own department to ask for a photographer to be sent at once, so that the body could then be moved to the mortuary, and left Dr. Wright in charge in the telephone-room until these matters were settled.

  Graham Coombe was walking up and down the lounge when Macdonald reappeared, and he hurried towards the chief inspector with an anxious look on his face.

  “Dr. Wright thinks death was due to heart failure following shock,” said Macdonald. “I think it would be a wise move to question all your guests and try to determine Gardien’s movements from the time the hunt started.”

  The publisher looked still more worried.

  “Is that necessary?” he expostulated. “Things are pretty wretched as it is. Every one will be upset, and if you get on the warpath it’ll put the lid on it. Devil take it, the man hasn’t been murdered, or anything like that.”

  The last sentence sounded much more like a question than a statement, but Macdonald avoided answering it.

  “It’s a bit puzzling, sir. You say that none of the clues given to Gardien would have caused him to go into the room where we found him.”

  “That’s true, but I told every one the telephone was there, at their disposal, that is. In a game of this kind, it’s quite legitimate to ring up your friends and ask for information.”

  “Yes. I see that, but I can’t see why Gardien should have opened the bureau in order to telephone if there was no clue to lead him to do so. I don’t want to worry you unnecessarily for I realise quite well how distressed you feel, but I do consider it’s important to get the facts established as fully as possible while events are still fresh in people’s minds. However it’s for you to decide. I’m not speaking as an official, only as a guest who happens to have first hand knowledge of the requirements of coroners. If you’d rather, you can ask Wright to report to the local authorities and let them carry on. I shall then be merely a witness among other witnesses, but it’s up to me to tell you what I consider the wisest thing to do, and the most likely to save people further trouble.”

  Coombe’s forehead puckered up unhappily.

  “I’ve no doubt you’re right,” he said. “Have it your own way. Make any arrangement you like.”

  “First, whom must you notify among Gardien’s people? His wife?”

  “He hasn’t got one, not to my knowledge. My dear chap, I don’t know the first thing about him,” groaned Coombe. “I don’t even know where he lives. In the country, I believe. I always send letters to his agent. I’ve talked to Gardien at my office once or twice, that’s all. Wife?—how should I know?”

  “It would be best to get on to his agent, then, and learn Gardien’s address,” said Macdonald. Coombe was beginning to get really agitated and evidently needed assistance.

  “Won’t be at his office now. Mardon-Elliott, that’s the man. A new agent. Lives in Surrey somewhere, God knows, I don’t.”

  Coombe ran his hand through his thinning hair with the gesture of one distraught, and then exclaimed, with an expression of sudden enlightenment:

  “What mugs we are! Of course Gardien will have a card on him. We must look in his pockets.”

  “I’ve tried that already. There’s a card-case, but no address, only his name. Don’t bother about that any more for the moment. I’ll see to it later. It might be as well to put Gardien’s overcoat in the telephone-room, there will probably be an address in one of the pockets. A man doesn’t carry much about in evening clothes. Meantime will you arrange for me to have the small library upstairs, and let me see people one by one?”

  “Yes. I’ll see to it. Good Lord, this is more than I bargained for! I undertook that there should be no publicity when I organised this stunt. Jam for the papers, that’s what this will amount to.”

  Macdonald went back to the men’s cloak-room and collected the hat and coat which Coombe had indicated as Andrew Gardien’s. A quick search produced gloves and handkerchief, rammed carelessly into the large pockets, a pipe and tobacco pouch, a small bottle of tablets, with Boots’ label—evidently made up to a prescription—several bus tickets and a few bills for cash purchases. In an inside pocket was a small bundle of letters, but those which were still in envelopes were all addressed to Gardien, care of his agent, Mardon-Elliott, Thavies House, Strand. Not a sign of a private address.

  “Odd,” thought Macdonald. “However, that can wait. It’s this house that matters now.”

  He left the coat in the telephone-room, where Dr. Wright was still looking down at the electric fire with a thoughtful air, and went up to the small library on the first floor. Here he found Jane Austen standing by the fire talking to Graham Coombe, and the publisher said:

  “I expect you’d rather I left you to it. I’ve explained to everybody more or less, and they’re quite willing to answer questions. This is Miss Valerie Woodstock.”

  The fair-haired girl smiled at Macdonald.

  “We guessed one another early on, didn’t we? I still feel as though this is all part of the game and believe old Graham’s doing a leg pull.”

  “I wish that were so, but it isn’t,” replied Macdonald. “The evening began as a farce and has ended in a tragedy. I want to work out the movements of the man who was labelled Samuel Pepys. You know his real identity I take it?”

  “No. I haven’t the least idea. Mr. Coombe’s been very careful not to tell anybody anything. Who is he?”

  “He was Andrew Gardien.” Macdonald used the past tense and left it at that. “Did you see anything of him during the evening?”

  “Yes. I saw him at the back of the lounge as the clock struck nine.”

  “What was he doing? Sitting? Standing? or just passing on his way?”

  “Do you want all the i’s dotted?”

  “Yes, please, and the t’s crossed.”

  The girl’s shrewd eyes met Macdonald’s full. Her appearance might indicate the society miss, interested only in clothes and a good time, but her expression showed a very different personality. Valerie Woodstock had recently leapt into fame for an erudite piece of historical research, and Macdonald knew that a first-class brain was hidden behind that frivolous exterior.

  “We’d better wash out the Samuel Pepys’ label and call him Gardien now,” she observed calmly. “I think he was slower off the mark than some of us. I had done up to clue four before he made a move from the drawing-room. I’d got to ‘Integrity is decorative and silicular’ and I was hunting round for a vase of honesty. There’s some on a table in the corner of the lounge under the stairs—honesty and Cape gooseberries in a big blue jug. I rescued my clue from the pot and sat down on a tuffet to read it. Gardien came round the corner of the stairs, and began being fatuous. Not feeling that way disposed, I removed myself from his vicinity and went back into the drawing-room where Miss Coombe was encouraging Madame de Sevigné. It was just after nine o’clock then. I heard the clock strike. I didn’t see Mr. Gardien again. He seemed quite well then.”

  “Did you see where he went when you left him?”

  “No. I wasn’t interested.”

  “Was there anybody else in the lounge at the time?”

  “Denzil Strafford—labelled Thomas Traherne—was there for a moment or two.”

  Once again their eyes met; Macdonald’s grey, expressionless, but very steady, the girl’s blue and bright, and very alert.

  “And Mr. Strafford observed that Mr. Gardien was—fatuous—to use your expres
sion?”

  “Is all this necessary?” Valerie Woodstock’s voice was indignant and a little impatient and Macdonald replied:

  “It’s not personal inquisitiveness on my part, Miss Woodstock. I happened to be here, and I can’t very well ignore the whole situation. My own opinion is that a preliminary clearing of the decks may eventually save trouble all round. You are under no obligation to answer questions, it’s purely voluntary—and of course unofficial.”

  “I never supposed that personal curiosity was your motive,” she said dryly, “but I think I am justified in showing a little impersonal curiosity too. If the man is dead, what killed him?”

  “Heart failure—so far as the doctor can tell.”

  Her arched eyebrows shot up. “A formula, isn’t it? Most deaths can be put down to heart failure finally.”

  “There were no indications to lead to any other reasoning,” replied Macdonald. “I asked you—or was about to ask you—if Mr. Strafford spoke to Mr. Gardien in your presence?”

  “Of course he did,” she replied. “You’ve shown me already that you’re quick at seeing things. You heard Denzil call out to me just after the lights went out, didn’t you. He was at Trinity when I was up at St. Elizabeth’s. Mr. Coombe didn’t know we were friends. However. There it is. Denzil ticked off Gardien good and strong—but I don’t imagine that Gardien had a heart attack on that account.”

  “Thanks. I see the general outline. Only one other question. Was there any one else in the lounge at the time?”

  “Not to my knowledge. In fact I’m sure there wasn’t. I was furious—with both of them. I’m quite capable of looking after myself. Is that all?”

  “That’s all, thank you.”

  Macdonald went steadily through his self-appointed job. He found that the party consisted of four “thriller” writers, four “straight” authors, in addition to Janet Campbell, one of Coombe’s readers who had the label of Mrs. Gaskell, and himself.

  The four thriller writers were as follows:—

  Ronile Rees (Fanny Burney)