Mystery at Olympia

by John Rhode

  ‘I did not. We should have been mutually surprised to see one another, I expect. But, a few minutes after my conversation with Bryant, I saw a commotion on one of the stands, and a little later a couple of men going towards it with a stretcher. My curiosity was not sufficient to make me want to see what had happened. In fact, I left the building almost immediately.’

  ‘After Mr Bryant parted from you, did he go towards this stand?’

  ‘It is quite possible. I really couldn’t say. I lost sight of him in the crowd.’

  ‘Mr Hardisen was also at Olympia on Monday. Did you happen to see him?’

  Mr Chantley shook his head. ‘The chances of seeing any particular individual in a crowd like that are very small, you know,’ he replied.

  After a little further conversation, Hanslet took his leave. The time spent in his visit to Surbiton had not been wasted. Mr Chantley had unconsciously given him a fresh outlook upon the case. And the superintendent felt that he would have to revise his theories in conformity with this outlook. One thing was quite certain. There must be no further delay in interrogating Philip Bryant.

  Hanslet returned to London, and took a taxi to the Bryants’ flat in Bayswater. He was fortunate in finding Philip at home, and it struck him that there was a certain uneasiness in his welcome. ‘This is an unexpected visit, Mr Hanslet,’ he said. ‘Have you made any fresh discoveries regarding my uncle’s death?’

  ‘I am still engaged in collecting facts,’ the superintendent replied. ‘It is for the purpose of verifying some of these that I have called upon you. In the first place, do you mind telling me where you were at nine o’clock last Saturday evening?’

  Philip seemed surprised at this question. ‘Where was I?’ he replied. ‘Yes, I can tell you that. I was at Harrow. A client of mine had asked me to dine with him and discuss a matter of business afterwards.’

  ‘Do you own a car, Mr Bryant?’

  ‘Why, yes. But I didn’t drive to Harrow. I went by the Metropolitan from Baker Street, and came back the same way. I reached home shortly before midnight.’

  ‘Did Mrs Bryant accompany you?’

  ‘No. It was a business appointment rather than a social one. She dined early and went to the theatre.’

  ‘What make of car is yours, Mr Bryant?’

  ‘A small Comet saloon. Being a friend of Sulgrave’s, I wouldn’t dare to buy any other make. Sulgrave is a very good salesman, at least as far as his friends are concerned. He sold me the one I now have last summer. And now he wants me to buy one of their new models.’

  ‘Is that why you went to the Motor Show on Monday afternoon?’

  ‘Partly. But I couldn’t get near the Comet stand. That’s why I knew nothing of the accident to my uncle. I didn’t stay at the Show long. I couldn’t afford the time. I was back at my office by four o’clock.’

  ‘Did you meet anybody you know at Olympia?’

  ‘Only a man called Chantley, who used to be a friend of my uncle’s. I can’t think what he was doing there. Or my uncle either, for that matter. Both of them professed a positive dislike of cars.’

  ‘You didn’t happen to see Mr Hardisen at the show, Mr Bryant?’

  Philip gave the superintendent a searching glance. ‘Hardisen!’ he exclaimed. ‘No, most certainly I didn’t. Was he there?’

  ‘So he informs me. He also says that he saw your uncle, but that they did not speak.’

  ‘Well, that’s extraordinary! Hardisen is a queer fellow, with sudden impulses. I’ve wondered whether he knew anything about this business of my uncle. And now you say that he was at the Motor Show that day. As I told you before, the two of them were at daggers drawn.’

  ‘I have not forgotten that, Mr Bryant. Does Mrs Bryant ever drive your car?’

  ‘Very often. In fact, if we are both out together, she nearly always drives.’

  ‘On Sunday you spent the afternoon at Firlands. After lunch, your uncle took you into the study. Did he leave you alone in the room at any time?’

  ‘Yes, for a minute or two, while he went to the lavatory across the passage.’

  ‘And, of course, you went up to your uncle’s dressing-room to wash your hands?’

  Hanslet could have sworn that Philip Bryant’s eyes shifted at this question. ‘Why, yes, of course,’ he replied coldly. ‘Where else should I go? There’s no wash-basin downstairs.’

  ‘Did you by chance go through into Mr Pershore’s bedroom while you were upstairs?’

  ‘Into his bedroom!’ exclaimed Philip violently. ‘Why, whatever put that idea into your head, Mr Hanslet? Why should I do that? I had everything I wanted in the dressing-room.’

  ‘You are quite sure of that, Mr Bryant?’ said Hanslet insistently.

  ‘Perfectly certain. The idea of going into the bedroom didn’t even occur to me.’

  There was a pause, during which Philip fidgeted uncomfortably about the room. And then, suddenly, Hanslet put his next question.

  ‘Do you know the cause of the disagreement between your uncle and Mr Chantley?’

  Philip’s relief at the change of subject was obvious. ‘I don’t know for certain,’ he replied. ‘But I gather that Chantley said something to upset him. My uncle never mentioned the matter to me, but Chantley once hinted that it had something to do with Mrs Markle. It probably began with some trifle, like that ridiculous quarrel with Hardisen. You had a long talk with him after the funeral yesterday, by the way.’

  ‘I had a most instructive conversation with him, Mr Bryant. But we need not discuss that now. You were aware of the clause in Mr Pershore’s will, cancelling the mortgage on High Elms. Did you ever mention this to either Mr or Mrs Sulgrave?’

  Philip frowned. ‘That question amounts to an insult, superintendent,’ he replied. ‘As a solicitor, I am not in the habit of disclosing my client’s confidences.’

  ‘I merely wanted your assurance upon that point. Mrs Markle was no doubt aware that Mr Pershore had made some provision for her?’

  ‘I really can’t say, but I should think it extremely probable. Betty knew, and she is almost certain to have given Mrs Markle a hint. You know what women are.’

  ‘You do not think that your uncle is likely to have told Mrs Markle himself?’

  ‘I should think it very unlikely. So far as I know, he never discussed anything with her beyond ordinary domestic affairs.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather curious, considering the intimacy which existed between them, at one time?’

  Philip shrugged his shoulders. ‘You really can’t expect me to criticise the relations which existed between my uncle and his housekeeper,’ he replied. ‘You’d better talk to Betty. She practically lived in the house, and I didn’t. But this I can tell you. Mrs Markle had nothing to complain of. She benefits by my uncle’s death, which I most certainly don’t. I shall have to put my hand pretty deeply in my pocket to make up the deficiency in the estate.’

  ‘Mrs Markle may have nothing to complain of now,’ said Hanslet. ‘But don’t you think it possible that she resented the way she was treated during your uncle’s lifetime?’

  A curious expression came into Philip’s eyes, as though with the dawning of an entirely new idea. ‘It wouldn’t have struck me to explore in that direction,’ he replied.

  ‘I am bound to explore all directions in search of the truth, Mr Bryant. Whatever may have been the immediate cause of your uncle’s death, the inquest on his body showed that previous attempts to murder him had been made. The only alternative is that he had endeavoured unsuccessfully to commit suicide.’

  Philip shook his head at this. ‘My uncle would have been the last person I should have suspected of anything of the kind,’ he replied.

  ‘Then, we are driven to the theory of attempted murder. Now nobody attempts murder without some strong motive for desiring the death of their victim. Who, among your uncle’s friends and acquaintances, can we imagine to have had such a motive?’

  ‘Well, there are the beneficiaries under the wil
l, to begin with,’ Philip replied.

  ‘I have not overlooked them, Mr Bryant. But I feel that other, less obvious motives may have existed. You probably know more about your uncle’s affairs than anybody else. Can you offer any suggestions?’

  Philip considered this for some time before he replied. ‘I didn’t know, until you mentioned it just now, that Hardisen was in London on Monday. Have you any idea how long he had been there?’

  ‘Since about midday on Saturday, by his own account.’

  ‘Indeed? As I have already told you, Hardisen and my uncle had quarrelled. From intimate friends they had developed into bitter enemies. And Hardisen is the sort of man who might perform any reckless deed, on the impulse of the moment.’

  ‘I have already formed that opinion,’ Hanslet replied, with an inward smile. ‘But I find it difficult to understand access to the interior of Firlands prior to your uncle’s death. And whoever was responsible for attempting murder certainly had that access.’

  Philip frowned, and drummed with his fingers upon the table in front of him. ‘You will understand that it is most distasteful to me to discuss these matters,’ he said. ‘Suspicion must necessarily fall upon my own friends and relations. Has it occurred to you that Hardisen may have had an accomplice already within the house?’

  ‘I have considered that possibility,’ Hanslet replied solemnly. ‘It has not escaped my notice that Mr Hardisen and Miss Rissington appear to be greatly attached to one another.’

  ‘Betty?’ exclaimed Philip. ‘That’s rather a horrible idea, isn’t it? Perhaps you have also noticed that Hardisen is the only person now living who calls Mrs Markle by her christian name?’

  ‘He knew her when she was a child, I understand.’

  ‘Yes, that is so,’ Philip replied deliberately. ‘But my uncle didn’t like it. And I believe that he had his reasons.’

  Hanslet scented mystery in the other’s manner. ‘What reasons, Mr Bryant?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, reasons that would probably not influence you or me. However my uncle really treated Mrs Markle, he thoroughly appreciated her value to him. He had never been so comfortable before she took over the management of his establishment. And he was desperately jealous of any attempts to lure her away from his service.’

  ‘Had anybody made such an attempt?’

  ‘I don’t know. My uncle believed that Hardisen had designs upon her. He mentioned it to me, once, after Hardisen had been staying at Firlands. Hardisen’s a widower, you know. My uncle actually suspected him of a desire to marry Mrs Markle. What grounds he may have had for this suspicion I cannot tell you. But I feel pretty certain that it was this idea at the back of his mind which made him ready to quarrel with Hardisen upon such a ridiculous pretext as his letter.’

  ‘Then you consider that if Mr Hardisen had an accomplice in the house, Mrs Markle was the most likely person to fill the rôle?’

  ‘That is my opinion. Mrs Markle’s opportunities for attempting to poison my uncle were unlimited. I suspect that Hardisen supplied the means, and that she carried out his scheme.’

  Hanslet rose from his seat. ‘Well, I’m very much obliged to you, Mr Bryant,’ he said. ‘You’ve given me quite a lot to think about. By the way, do you happen to know the present whereabouts of Mr Micah Pershore, your uncle’s half-brother?’

  Philip stared at him, and then laughed queerly. ‘Micah Pershore,’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, he’s no more than a name to me. He left the country before I was born, so I’ve always been told. Cut himself off from his family. You can’t expect me to know where he is.’

  ‘I thought perhaps you might know,’ he replied. ‘Well, I needn’t waste your time any longer. Good-evening, Mr Bryant.’

  He left the flat, and, in spite of the lateness of the hour, took a taxi to Scotland Yard.

  CHAPTER XI

  The day following Hanslet’s conversation with Philip Bryant was Saturday. And on Saturday evenings Doctor Oldland had a standing appointment to dine with Dr Priestley. This particular evening was no exception.

  ‘I had a visit from Button today,’ Oldland remarked, as they established themselves in the study after dinner. ‘You remember the fellow who carried out the post-mortem on the body of the ill-fated Nahum Pershore. He came to see me in connection with that very matter. Wanted to know if I had any fresh suggestions to offer, in view of the resumption of the inquest next week.’

  ‘Were you able to help him in that respect?’ Dr Priestley asked.

  ‘I wasn’t, then. Medically speaking, the man’s death is a puzzle. All we know is that his heart stopped functioning, for no apparent reason. In the case of death by syncope, the post-mortem reveals the cause. You find some disease of the heart, for instance. Or, at all events, some indication of the heart’s failure. In Pershore’s case there was nothing of the kind. And whatever effect the discoveries may have had upon his health, neither separately nor together were the indications such as would lead to sudden stoppage of the heart’s action.

  ‘Button and I discussed this at length. I needn’t trouble you with the details of a highly technical conversation. And, in the end, we were driven to the conclusion that Pershore’s death must have been due to what the law calls natural causes. In this case natural is an absurd term. It merely means that no other person was responsible. We decided that the actual cause of death lay in the realms beyond our present knowledge.’

  ‘Not a very satisfactory conclusion,’ Dr Priestley remarked.

  ‘A most unsatisfactory one. It worried me, and after Button had gone, I looked up the text-books, to see if I could get any hint there. And, quite by accident, I came across something that I would like to discuss with you. You’ve got a copy of Dixon Mann, I know.’

  He got up and crossed the room to the bookcases with which it was lined. From there he extracted a stout volume, entitled Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, by J. Dixon Mann, M.D., F.R.C.P. With this in his hand he returned to his chair.

  ‘I’m going to read you a passage, without comment, if you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘This is it.

  ‘“Death may suddenly result from a blow delivered by a blunt weapon on the pit of the stomach; in such cases it is probable that reflex paralysis of the heart is the cause of death. Maschka records two such cases—in one, a boy was struck with the fist over the stomach; in the other, a strong man was struck over the same region with the flat part of a shovel; both died at once, and in each case the result of the necropsy was negative. Beach records the case of an intoxicated man who was arrested in the street by the police; he resisted so violently that one of the officers struck him a blow with his club in the epigastric region, when he suddenly became quiet and powerless, and on arrival at their destination he was found to be dead; not the least trace of injury could be discovered, neither externally nor internally.”’

  Oldland laid the book aside. ‘As I say, it was only by the merest accident that that passage caught my eye,’ he continued. ‘But it gave me forcibly to think. The similarity between the cases mentioned and Pershore’s death are extraordinary. The sudden collapse and immediate death, for no apparent reason. Dixon Mann says emphatically that the result of the necropsy was negative. That means that the post-mortem revealed nothing which suggested the cause of death. And he goes on to say that in the last case not the least trace of injury, external or internal, could be discovered. And all that forms an exact parallel to our experience in the case of Pershore.’

  ‘That is deeply interesting,’ said Dr Priestley. ‘It appears to indicate the possibility that Pershore may have died as a result of a blow from a blunt weapon in the pit of the stomach. The possibility from the medical point of view, that is. But surely, in this case, there are certain practical difficulties. I understand that Pershore collapsed in the heart of a dense crowd?’

  ‘Yes, I know. But I don’t think that’s an insuperable difficulty. The crowd was certainly dense. I had fought my way through it myself, and I know. The book mentions a fist, the flat
part of a shovel, and a club. Nothing of the kind could have been used in this case. There simply would not have been room to swing it. But what if in this case the blunt weapon—useful term, that—was exceptionally heavy? Get me?’

  Dr Priestley leant back in his chair and fixed his eyes upon the ceiling. ‘I understand the trend of your ideas,’ he said. ‘The intensity of a blow delivered by any object depends upon two factors. These are the weight of that object, and its velocity at the time that the blow is delivered. A light object moving at a high velocity will deliver a blow of the same intensity as a heavy object moving with low velocity.

  ‘In the case of a blow delivered by an object held in the hand, the necessary velocity is obtained by swinging the arm. The objects mentioned in the text-book would require a swing of appreciable length in order to deliver a blow of the requisite intensity. But a very much heavier object, one weighing several pounds, that is, would produce the same result after a swing of only a few inches. Is that your meaning?’

  ‘Exactly. I’ll put it this way. A short jab in the tummy from a naked fist is a nasty thing. But I don’t think it would be likely to have fatal results. Now, you remember that the Roman gladiators used a thing called a cestus, which was a sort of glove heavily loaded with metal. The idea was to increase the weight of the fist, and so to deliver a more powerful blow with the same length of swing.

  ‘Now the Comet people have decorated their stand at Olympia with lumps of metal of all shapes and sizes. They are, I am told, the component parts of this new transmission of theirs. Suppose that somebody had picked up one of these—they are there for the inquisitive to handle, and some of them are remarkably heavy. A very short jab with such a thing, involving a swing of not more than six inches, would inflict a very severe blow.

  ‘The action might have been intentional, or unintentional. But I can see no practical objection to the theory of this having happened. The crowd was dense, but its very density would have prevented such an action being noticed. They were all standing like tailor’s dummies, goggling at the fellow on the stand …’