Mystery at Olympia
Page 20
‘Well, yes, I did,’ replied Chantley sullenly. And then a bright idea struck him. ‘You see, I wanted to be on the safe side. I didn’t want to kill Pershore, only to frighten him.’
‘Then you admit having consulted the book? Perhaps, even, you turned the pages and found a piece of information which impressed itself upon your memory. This, I suppose, was before you took pains to ensure that Mr Pershore should attend the Motor Show alone last Monday week?’
‘I?’ exclaimed Chantley. ‘How should I know that Pershore would go to the Motor Show? I hadn’t spoken to him for months before his death.’
‘You knew that he had arranged with your wife to meet her there. And you had learnt that certain loose pieces of metal were displayed upon the Comet stand. Mr Pershore would naturally visit that stand, since his friend, Mr Sulgrave, is an employee of the Comet firm. With that passage from the text-book in your mind, you saw a means of killing Mr Pershore more certainly than by arsenic, and with the probability that the crime would never be traced to you.’
Dr Priestley paused, but Chantley made no reply. He stared at him with wide open and horror-stricken eyes, and his hand moved furtively towards one of the drawers of the desk.
‘You followed Mr Pershore to the Comet stand,’ continued Dr Priestley. ‘Being careful, of course, that he should not see you. You picked up one of the pressure-valves, and pretended to examine it. When a suitable opportunity occurred, you struck Mr Pershore with it in the pit of the stomach. In the confusion which resulted, you made your escape, disposing of the pressure-valve in one of the cars on the Solent stand. I think I have narrated the events correctly, have I not?’
There was a moment of tense silence. Then, with a sudden movement, Chantley wrenched open the drawer upon which his hand was laid. Hanslet leapt from his chair, and was about to hurl himself across the desk, but Dr Priestley rose at the same moment, and thrust him violently aside.
The moment’s delay enabled Chantley to achieve his purpose. He snatched an automatic pistol from the drawer, and held it to his temple. There was a report, deafening in the confined space. The pistol clattered to the floor, and Chantley sat for an instant, an expression of bewilderment in his face. Then he slumped forward, until his head struck the desk in front of him.
Hanslet turned savagely upon Dr Priestley. ‘Why did you get in my way?’ he demanded. ‘I saw what he was up to, and I could have stopped him.’
‘Exactly,’ Dr Priestley replied placidly. ‘And what then? You would have arrested him on a charge of murder. But you forget one thing. Could you have proved to the satisfaction of a jury that he was the actual murderer of Mr Pershore? That he, among the thousands assembled at Olympia at the time, struck the fatal blow, even if you could prove that such a blow had, in fact, been struck? I think you could not.’
‘Well, perhaps you’re right,’ said Hanslet, as he gazed reflectively at the motionless body. ‘There’s a hell of a difference between knowing a thing and being able to prove it.’
The murderer of Mr Pershore having thus died by his own hand, Hanslet did not press the minor charge against Philip Bryant. Micah Pershore was found to have left a fortune of several thousand pounds, which fell to Philip, as Nahum Pershore’s residuary legatee. But his career was at an end. With his attempt to poison his uncle known to the police, he could not continue his practice as a solicitor. He sold his partnership and went abroad, where he and Mrs Bryant spend their time wandering restlessly from place to place, the shadow of the house at Weybridge always upon their minds.
Betty Rissington spends a good deal of her time with the Sulgraves at Byfleet. A frequent visitor to the house is the salesman employed by the Solent Motor Car Co., who returned the pressure-valve to George Sulgrave on the evening of Mr Pershore’s death. Irene Sulgrave watches them with an indulgent eye.
Mrs Markle, in the enjoyment of her annuity, tried for some weeks the experiment of living in a cottage in the country. But the experience of having nothing to do threatened her with premature death. Mr Hardisen stepped in and offered her a position as his own housekeeper, which she accepted with alacrity.
Those familiar with automobile design will be aware that the rivals of Comet Cars Ltd have displayed a strange apathy. Not one of them has shown the slightest eagerness to adopt the Lovell transmission.
And, perhaps, on the whole, they are wise.
THE END
Also available
Death at Breakfast
John Rhode
‘One always embarks on a John Rhode book with a great feeling of security. One knows that there will be a sound plot, a well-knit process of reasoning and a solidly satisfying solution with no loose ends or careless errors of fact.’
DOROTHY L. SAYERS in THE SUNDAY TIMES
Victor Harleston awoke with uncharacteristic optimism. Today he would be rich at last. Half an hour later, he gulped down his breakfast coffee and pitched to the floor, gasping and twitching. When the doctor arrived, he recognised instantly that it was a fatal case of poisoning and called in Scotland Yard.
Despite an almost complete absence of clues, the circumstances were so suspicious that Inspector Hanslet soon referred the evidence to his friend and mentor, Dr Lancelot Priestley, whose deductions revealed a diabolically ingenious murder that would require equally fiendish ingenuity to solve.
‘Death at Breakfast is full of John Rhode’s specialties: a new and excellently ingenious method of murder, a good story, and a strong chain of deduction.’
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Also available
Invisible Weapons
John Rhode
‘John Rhode never lets you down. A carefully worked out plot, precise detection, with no logical flaws or jumping to conclusions, and enough of character and atmosphere to carry the thing along.’
FRANCIS ILES in the DAILY TELEGRAPH
The murder of old Mr Fransham while washing his hands in his niece’s cloakroom was one of the most astounding problems that ever confronted Scotland Yard. Not only was there a policeman in the house at the time, but there was an ugly wound in the victim’s forehead and nothing in the locked room that could have inflicted it.
The combined efforts of Superintendent Hanslet and Inspector Waghorn brought no answer and the case was dropped. It was only after another equally baffling murder had been committed that Dr Lancelot Priestley’s orderly and imaginative deductions began to make the connections that would solve this extraordinary case.
‘Any murder planned by Mr Rhode is bound to be ingenious.’
OBSERVER
Also available
Inspector French’s
Greatest Case
Freeman Wills Crofts
At the offices of the Hatton Garden diamond merchant Duke & Peabody, the body of old Mr Gething is discovered beside a now-empty safe. With multiple suspects, the robbery and murder is clearly the work of a master criminal, and requires a master detective to solve it. Meticulous as ever, Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard embarks on an investigation that takes him from the streets of London to Holland, France and Spain, and finally to a ship bound for South America …
‘Because he is so austerely realistic, Freeman Wills Croft is deservedly a first favourite with all who want a real puzzle.’
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Also available
Inspector French
and the Sea Mystery
Freeman Wills Crofts
Off the coast of Burry Port in south Wales, two fishermen discover a shipping crate and manage to haul it ashore. Inside is the decomposing body of a brutally murdered man. With nothing to indicate who he is or where it came from, the local police decide to call in Scotland Yard. Fortunately Inspector Joseph French does not believe in insoluble cases—there are always clues to be found if you know what to look for. Testing his theories with his accustomed thoroughness, French’s ingenuity sets him off on another investigation …
‘Inspector French is as near the real thing
as any sleuth in fiction.’
SUNDAY TIMES
Also available
Inspector French
and the Box Office Murders
Freeman Wills Crofts
The suicide of a sales clerk at the box office of a London cinema leaves another girl in fear for her life. Persuaded to seek help from Scotland Yard, Miss Darke confides in Inspector Joseph French about a gambling scam by a mysterious trio of crooks and that she believes her friend was murdered. When the girl fails to turn up the next day, and the police later find her body, French’s inquiries reveal that similar girls have also been murdered, all linked by their jobs and by a sinister stranger with a purple scar …
‘Freeman Wills Crofts’ crimes are solved with dogged diligence and attention to detail … they seem to have improved with age.’
INDEPENDENT
Also available
Inspector French
and Sir John Magill’s Last Journey
Freeman Wills Crofts
When Sir John Magill, the wealthy Irish industrialist, fails to show up at his home town on a well-publicised visit, neither his family nor the Belfast police can explain his disappearance. Foul play is suspected when his bloodstained hat is discovered, and Scotland Yard is called in. With his characteristic genius for reconstruction, Inspector French evolves a gruesome theory about what happened to the elderly man, but his reputation—and that of Scotland Yard—will depend on finding out who was responsible …
‘Nobody takes more trouble to get every detail absolutely correct. This most workmanlike of sleuths unravels a really satisfying puzzle.’
DAILY MAIL
Also available
Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper
Donald Henderson
‘I have a book called Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper which I have read half a dozen times and have bought right and left to give away. I think it is one of the most fascinating books written in the last ten years and I don’t know anybody in my limited circle who doesn’t agree with me.’
RAYMOND CHANDLER
Mr Bowling is getting away with murder. On each occasion he buys a newspaper to see whether anyone suspects him. But there is a war on, and the clues he leaves are going unnoticed. Which is a shame, because Mr Bowling is not a conventional serial killer: he wants to get caught so that his torment can end. How many more newspapers must he buy before the police finally catch up with him?
‘Henderson pursues a grim little theme with lively perception and ingenuity. His manner is brief, deliberately undertoned, and for the most part curiously effective.’
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
About the Author
John Rhode was a pseudonym for the author Cecil Street (1884–1964), who also wrote as Miles Burton and Cecil Waye. Having served in the British Army as an artillery officer during the First World War, rising to the rank of Major, he began writing non-fiction before turning to detective fiction, and produced four novels a year for thirty-seven years.
As his list of detective stories grew, so did the public’s appetite for his particular blending of humdrum everyday life with the startling appearance of the most curious kind of crimes. It was the Sunday Times who said of John Rhode that ‘he must hold the record for the invention of ingenious forms of murder’, and the Times Literary Supplement described him as ‘standing in the front rank of those who write detective fiction’.
Rhode’s first series novel, The Paddington Mystery (1925), introduced Dr Lancelot Priestley, who went on to appear in 72 novels, many of them for Collins Crime Club. The Priestley books are classics of scientific detection, with the elderly Dr Priestley demonstrating how apparently impossible crimes have been carried out, and they are now highly sought after by collectors.
By the Same Author
Death at Breakfast
Invisible Weapons
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East – 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com