Inspector Stoddart's Most Famous Cases. Annie Haynes
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Название: Inspector Stoddart's Most Famous Cases
Автор: Annie Haynes
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Книги для детей: прочее
isbn: 9788027219544
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"How was it you got it?"
"Well, I don't think Mrs. Wilton expected it. And I heard the man put it in, so I got it out and took it to the dining-room where Mr. and Mrs. Wilton were having breakfast."
"Did you see Mrs. Wilton open it?"
"No. She put it in the black satin bag she always carried, without opening it or saying anything about it."
The inspector looked at his notebook again.
"Now, Miss Downes," he said after a pause. "I am taking it that you have your share of your sex's failing—curiosity. Now, have you no idea who that letter came from? I am asking you in the interests of poor Mrs. Wilton—in the interest of us all, for we must all wish her murderer to be discovered. Did you see nothing of this letter or of any former letters in the waste-paper-basket or elsewhere?"
Again the maid shook her head.
"Never was there a bit of one in the waste-paper-basket. Never a bit of one anywhere—unless you could call a few ashes on the hearth a bit of one. There was not much Mrs. Wilton didn't know. She had been a secretary herself, she told me, and it wouldn't have been any good trying to take her in."
"Her name before she was married was Houlton—Iris Houlton," the inspector said. "Do you know where she came from, or anything about her friends or relatives?"
"Nothing at all!" The girl raised her eyes openly enough now. "And there is not a photograph or anything about the flat. I have often said to my mother it seemed very queer."
"Ah! You must give me your mother's address, please," the detective said, scrawling an indecipherable hieroglyphic in his notebook. "I presume you will go there for a time anyway when you leave here."
Alice Downes flushed darkly red.
"Now what has my mother's address to do with you?" she demanded wrathfully. "She knows nothing about this—this affair. Never set foot in the flat, nor saw Mrs. Wilton in her life, she didn't. And I can't have the police going round there again, nor yet worrying her, and I won't, so that's flat."
The inspector looked at her over the top of his glasses. That one little tell-tale word which he felt sure Alice Downes had let fall accidentally had explained something that had been puzzling him ever since he came into the flat.
"You must know that you will have to keep in touch with the police, Miss Downes. Your previous experiences must have taught you that."
Alice Downes turned from red to white.
"Previous experiences!" she repeated. "I'd like to know what you mean! I have never been mixed up with murders, anyway."
"Ah, no! Shoplifting is a very different thing, is it not?" the inspector assented blandly. "Now, Miss Downes, don't upset yourself. Your mother needn't know anything about it, if you are a sensible girl and keep in touch with me. But your evidence may be wanted at any time. You will most certainly have to give it at the inquest, and at the trial should there be one."
"Trial!" Alice Downes echoed. "And who is going to be tried, I should like to know? Mr. Wilton never did it, I'll swear to that. A kinder-hearted gentleman never breathed. He wouldn't have hurt a fly."
"Quite possibly not," the inspector assented, thinking that flies would probably not have offered much inducement to Iris Houlton's murderer.
Chapter XV
"And now we must have a look at the poor thing's room."
The inspector unlocked the door of the largest bedroom. Poor Iris Wilton's body had been taken to the mortuary. The bedroom remained as it was when she left it. Both men instinctively stepped quietly as they went in, and lowered their voices when they spoke.
"If there is any clue to be found, I rather fancy we shall find it here," the inspector said, as he looked round.
The furniture was very modern and obviously new. The bedstead stood against the wall near the door that opened into the dressing-room, which had evidently been occupied by Basil Wilton. The wardrobe door was half open, and the bright-coloured frocks hanging inside were a pathetic reminder of their murdered owner.
The inspector moved them to one side.
"No good looking for pockets. Women don't wear anything so sensible nowadays. They stick all their belongings in these stupid little handbags they are always leaving about and losing."
"You never know where they put their things," Harbord observed. "I had a girl out with me the other day. She wanted her purse and where do you think it was? In her stocking. Just at the top poked in between those things—what do you call them?—suspenders."
"My sister keeps hers there," the inspector said, diving to the bottom of the wardrobe and emerging very red in the face. "And when she goes out with her young man she tells him to look the other way while she gets it out."
"Mine didn't bother about that," Alfred Harbord said in an abstracted fashion, while his eyes wandered appraisingly over poor Iris Houlton's dressing-table. "Just the usual things here, sir, powder, rouge, lipstick, and what is this dark stuff? Oh, what they put round their eyes, I suppose."
The inspector's capable fingers were sorting and arranging the contents of the wardrobe.
"I never saw a woman who had so few personal belongings."
"It is extraordinary!" Harbord said in a puzzled tone.
Both men worked on in silence for some time, then the younger uttered an exclamation.
"I have got it, sir, I believe." He held up a flat russia leather case. "There will be something in this, I reckon."
The inspector took it from him.
"Where did you find it?"
Harbord pointed to the bed. "Between the mattress and the bolster. Rather cunningly tucked in the bolster-case—it is flat and I might easily have missed it."
"Ay! But you don't miss much, my lad," the inspector said approvingly. "Locked this is, and I suppose she thought it was safe. I dare say she has hidden the key. But it won't take us long to get it open."
He took something that looked like a thin, twisted piece of wire from his pocket and, putting it in the tiny lock, turned it and had the case opened in a minute.
"Ah, I expected this," he said as he looked at the contents.
There was a cheque-book of one of the well-known Joint Stock Banks and a pass-book. The inspector opened this first.
"Tells its own story, if we could only understand it," he said as he handed it to Harbord.
The younger man turned over the leaf. The book was a comparatively new one and only dated back, as the inspector noticed at once, to the time of Dr. Bastow's death. The first entry showed that five hundred pounds in cash had been paid in to open an account for Iris Houlton. Another СКАЧАТЬ