Inspector Stoddart's Most Famous Cases. Annie Haynes

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СКАЧАТЬ fingers. The murderer must have stood over here, the bullet entered in front and passed right through the body, by some miracle missing all the vital parts and went—where did it go, Harbord? That is one of the minor points that will have to be cleared up. But to-day the main issue is, to my mind, was there any third person in the flat on that fatal 12th of July? Or were there only Iris Wilton and her husband?"

      Harbord looked at his chief.

      "You have formed a definite opinion, I think, sir."

      The inspector raised his eyebrows.

      "It is facts, not opinions, that I am looking for now," he said shortly.

      "Finger-prints are pretty hopeless it seems to me," Harbord said slowly. "Unless the saucer—if the murderer had tea I suppose he would take that in his hand. Door handles are never much good—too many people hold them."

      "No, I fancy the saucer is our only chance," the inspector said, as he went towards the tea-table and gingerly lifting out the cups, sifted his powder over both saucers and blew it away. "We don't know which he used," he said, as Harbord looked across. "Ah! Just what I thought."

      Harbord peered forward. No finger-print of any kind was visible. A confused mark seemed to run all round both.

      "Shows you what sort of a criminal we're up against," the inspector said. "He has rubbed both saucers round. We shall find no finger-prints here, Harbord. Now I think we will have the maid up. When we have heard her story the flat must be searched and we may be in a better position to know what to look for."

      Harbord went to the speaking tube outside. While they waited for Alice Downes's appearance, he walked over to the window and stood perfectly still, his keen eyes glancing from one piece of furniture in the room to another as he mentally reconstructed the crime.

      The inspector had concentrated on the mantel-piece, going over it meticulously with a tiny microscope which he produced from some mysterious pocket.

      At last the maid, Alice Downes, appeared. Her hat was drawn down low over her brow, her eyes were swollen, and this morning they had a curious, sidelong, fashion of glancing here, there and everywhere. When the inspector beckoned her into the drawing-room she threw up her hands before her face.

      "Oh, sir, I can't—really I can't! I—I came in last night and saw—her—it. I couldn't speak a word, sir, if you make me come into that awful room."

      "I should be the last to do that. I would not hurt any lady's feelings," the inspector said politely. "But you will understand Miss Downes, that there are certain questions that must be put to you. Still, we can talk outside."

      He passed into the lounge as he spoke and put one of the two oak chairs that stood by the wall for the girl, taking the other himself.

      "Now we will hear what you can tell us of this dreadful affair," he said persuasively.

      "But I don't know anything, sir," the girl said, twisting her handkerchief about in her fingers, and casting furtive glances at the halfopen door of the drawing-room through which she could see Harbord as he moved quietly about. "Not a thing! I left Mrs. Wilton as well as you and me when I went out, and I came back to find her stretched out there—dead," with a dramatic gesture at the drawing-room door.

      "And she must have died within a short time of your leaving," the detective said quietly. "Tell me first exactly who was in the flat when you went out."

      "Nobody but Mr. and Mrs. Wilton, sir. I am certain of that."

      "Then, when you had your evening off, there was no one to take your place. Mrs. Wilton answered the door and did anything that was required in the way of getting a meal herself?"

      "There was not much to do," Alice Downes said. "I brought tea in before I left, and they would only have a cold supper. That is if Mr. and Mrs. Wilton did not dine out. Mrs. Wilton always did before she was married—at a restaurant."

      "But not after?"

      Alice Downes's eyes glanced at him in an oblique fashion from beneath their heavy lids.

      "Well, you see, Mr. Wilton was more or less of an invalid," she said slowly. "He was not often able to go out at all. Only now and again in a car."

      And now Alice Downes spoke quickly and volubly as if anxious to give all the information she could.

      "What was the matter with him?" the inspector inquired.

      "I don't know, I'm sure, sir. Mrs. Wilton she called it a nervous breakdown. She said he had been working too hard and that he had had some sort of shock, and it had been too much for him. He always seemed to me dull and halfdazed like. But Mrs. Wilton thought the world of him. She waited upon him hand and foot before they were married and after."

      "Who was his doctor?"

      Alice Downes paused.

      "I don't know, sir. No one ever came to the flat, but sometimes I have thought Mrs. Wilton took him to consult one when they went out."

      "I see!" The inspector glanced at his notes. "You say no one ever came to the flat. Do you mean that Mrs. Wilton had no friends?"

      Alice Downes gave him that odd, fleeting glance again.

      "None of them ever came to the flat if she had, sir. That is all I can say."

      The inspector stared at her.

      "Do you mean that she had no visitors—not even before she was married?" And all the time he had a strange, extraordinary feeling that Alice Downes was not speaking the truth. That in spite of her apparent anxiety to tell him all, she was keeping back something which might be of vital importance to him.

      She shook her head.

      "Never to my knowledge. Mrs. Wilton was not much at home before she was married. She had most of her meals out. And the only visitor I ever saw at the flat was Mr. Wilton. And when he came he stayed on until they were married."

      "No visitors at all for a young woman like Mrs. Wilton seems an extraordinary state of things," the inspector cogitated as if speaking to himself, though his keen eyes were watching her face. "Did she have many letters?"

      Again there was that odd, flickering smile.

      "Not many, sir. One now and again. And—and I think Mrs. Wilton mostly knew when they were coming. She was generally up and picked them out of the box as soon as the postman came. Once since I came here I took in a letter to her, and that was all."

      "Did you notice that one? Was the writer a man or a woman?" the inspector questioned quickly.

      The malicious glint in Alice Downes's eyes deepened.

      "I can't tell. The address was typed."

      For a moment the inspector was nonplussed. From the first he had felt certain that the girl was keeping something back; now what had been only suspicion became a certainty.

      "When did this letter come—lately?" he asked sharply.

      Then Alice Downes's face became curiously contorted. She tried to speak, but for a moment no words came; when they did it was with a loud indrawn breath.

      "It СКАЧАТЬ