Inspector Stoddart's Most Famous Cases. Annie Haynes

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СКАЧАТЬ Murder in the West End! Bride found dead in flat. Disappearance of Bridegroom."

      "Good God!" Miss Lavinia uttered a sharp exclamation of horror, threw her copy of the "Daily Wire" on the floor, and sat back in her chair, her face for once noticeably paler in hue.

      Hilary looked up from her toast and marmalade.

      "What is the matter, Aunt Lavinia?"

      The two were at breakfast in the cosy little dining-room at Rose Cottage. They had come back to Heathcote the week before. Nothing had yet been settled with regard to Fee's cure, which seemed to become more expensive in prospect every time it was mentioned.

      Dr. Blathwayte himself had suggested the return to the country. Fee was in no condition to undergo his very strenuous treatment yet, a few months in the pure country air were needed to establish the boy's health before anything could be attempted. So that now a change had come over Fee. Instead of declining to go into the garden at all, he insisted on sitting on the lawn all day, and even on days which Hilary considered risky.

      Miss Lavinia was apparently too much overcome to speak for a minute; she pointed dramatically to the paper lying on the table in front of her.

      "It—it is the girl!" she ejaculated at last.

      "What is the girl? Who do you mean? Mary Ann Taylor—what has she been doing?" Hilary demanded.

      "Not Mary Anne Taylor—Iris Houlton. She has been killed—murdered—in her flat at Hawksview Mansions," Miss Lavinia gasped. "I—I never heard of such a thing! What are we coming to, I should like to know?"

      "What!" Hilary, who had been coming round to her aunt, caught the paper up from the floor. "She—she cannot be—"

      "Terrible Murder in the West End!"

      The headlines loomed large on the front page, and with a sickening feeling of dread Hilary read on.

      Late last night a terrible discovery was made in Hawksview Mansions, a fashionable block of flats in the West End. A maid, living with a young, recently-married couple named Wilton in a large self-contained flat on the second floor, found herself unable to get in or to make anybody hear on her return from her day out. She informed the porter who, while stating that he had seen nothing of Mr. and Mrs. Wilton going out or coming in, advised her to wait, as they had probably come down without his observing them, and gone to some theatre or dancing place. The girl took his advice, after stating that, as Mr. Wilton was more or less of an invalid, she should have thought they would have been more likely to spend a quiet evening at home. But as time went on and there was no sign of the missing couple, the maid, Alice Downes, began to get seriously alarmed. The porter went off duty at 10.30, and before leaving he went up to the flat with the girl. At the flat door nothing could be ascertained but that the flat was apparently empty, since there came no reply to their loud knocking and ringing. At last, the porter, putting his eye to the keyhole to try whether anything could be seen of the interior of the flat, made the discovery that the key was in the lock on the inside. The caretaker was at once summoned and the police were rung up. Without further delay the door of the flat was forced and in the drawing-room, a room to the right of the entrance, the body of Mrs. Wilton was found lying on the hearthrug. It was thought at first that death was the result of an accident, as the head was lying on the steel curb and blood had apparently flowed freely on to the tiled hearth, but the medical evidence showed that Mrs. Wilton had been shot twice, once from the front, the bullet from this passing through the body without killing the victim, who probably fell backwards, hitting her head on the curb. Seeing that his terrible work was still unfinished, the murderer appears to have deliberately shot her through the ear. Death, according to the reports, must have taken place soon after five o'clock, directly after the maid had gone out. An extraordinary feature of the case is that the husband, Mr. Basil Wilton, has apparently disappeared, and, at the time of going to press, no clue to his whereabouts has been discovered. Portraits of the victim and of the scene of the tragedy are on the back page.

      Then, lower down on the same page came another paragraph in the latest news:

      The maid, Alice Downes, on being interrogated, stated that her mistress and Mr. Basil Wilton had only been married about a fortnight, though for some weeks past the latter had been living at the flat. According to Miss Downes he was a delicate gentleman and Miss Iris Houlton, as she then was, had nursed him devotedly. The pair, so far as the maid saw, were on the best of terms, and Mr. Wilton's disappearance was a complete mystery to her. From their conversation she had gathered that they were old friends as they were often alluding to events that had occurred in the past.

      That was all. Hilary put down the paper and stared at her aunt.

      "It—it can't be true!" she gasped, her eyes wide with horror.

      "It looks remarkably as if it was," Miss Priestley said, her face beginning to resume its ordinary hue. "In fact of course it is true enough. But I never thought—" She did not finish her sentence.

      Hilary took up the paper again and stared at it unseeingly. She felt too dazed yet to take in all that the paragraph implied. At last she spoke slowly:

      "Aunt Lavinia, what can have become of Basil?"

      "It rather strikes me from that paragraph that a good many people, the police included, would like to know that," Miss Lavinia said grimly. "Heavens, Hilary! What does it matter to you where the man has got to? Though I am sure I should be glad to know he was out of the country. I have had enough in this past year of horrors to last me all my lifetime."

      "Aunt Lavinia! Do you know that you are speaking as if you thought that Basil did it—murdered his wife?" Hilary said in a tone of smouldering wrath.

      Miss Priestley stretched out her hand and took the "Daily Wire" from her niece.

      "Well, it is no use trying to evade the truth, child. It is easy enough to see what the paper means, reading between the lines."

      "I don't want to read between the lines, and I don't care what that wretched rag means," Hilary said indignantly. "It is always attacking somebody. I know Basil Wilton never murdered anybody—Iris Houlton or anyone else."

      "Well, it strikes me it will be a good thing if you can convince the world of that," Miss Lavinia said dryly. "Where has he gone to, anyway?"

      "Gone! I expect he has been murdered too," Hilary cried wildly.

      "Then where is his body?" Miss Lavinia inquired wisely.

      Hilary threw out her hands.

      "I don't know. How should I know? The murderer has disposed of his body somehow."

      "Not so easy as you think to dispose of the body of a strong young man of Basil Wilton's height and weight," Miss Lavinia argued shrewdly.

      "They always do," Hilary contradicted, twisting her shaking fingers together. "The murderers, I mean. They cut them up and put them in trunks or—or suitcases or anything. I dare say Basil is lying all mutilated in a trunk at Waterloo or—or—or Victoria."

      Miss Lavinia was not going to be worsted. "It will be a large trunk that holds Basil Wilton. Use your common sense, Hilary. Of course he got tired of the girl, whom he probably only married for her money, and no doubt she was aggravating—those sly-faced women that never look you in the face always are—and in a quarrel he must have shot her, the pistol might have been lying about handy, and then, frightened at what he had done, he ran away."

      "No!" СКАЧАТЬ