MURDER MYSTERY Boxed Set – Dorothy Fielding Edition (12 Detective Cases in One Edition). Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ but don't tell me that photo's a good one. We landed July 20th. I've been in Paris most of the time since with some friends, got lonely when they left, and came to London. Arrived this morning by the boat train—Calais-Dover—and found everything full. Worked my way around to the Enterprise, and was told that here, too, every room was taken. Threw myself upon the manager's breast with my credentials in both hands, and begged him to take pity on my grey hairs and save me from a bench in the park. He thought awhile, and, taking me by the hand, with a heavenly smile, led me to a room, explained that it really belonged to a man who was spending the weekend in the country, but that if I would let it go at that for one night he would fix me up something better in the morning. I accepted with tears of gratitude, and after dinner in their restaurant settled myself down before a gas-fire with a cup of coffee. It was pouring, as you know, and I sat warming my toes and putting down my expenses. A shilling rolled under the wardrobe and I fished for it with my umbrella. Couldn't get it, then I tried to move the wardrobe out. Its weight surprised me. However, I got it away from the wall at last and recovered my shilling. As I straightened up, the light from the little electric torch I was using fell full into the knot-hole, and I caught a glimpse of what certainly looked like a piece of human skin,—bit of a cheek. I touched it. There's only one thing in the world that feels like that, and that's a dead body. That was enough for me. I went off post-haste for the manager, found him by good luck just outside in the corridor, and brought him back. He sent for you. That's all."

      "Thank you, sir." The Chief Inspector handed back the passport. "May I ask the names of your friends in Paris, though I don't suppose for a moment that there'll be any need to use the addresses."

      "I only stayed part of the time at private houses. Part of the time I put up at the Crillon. I'm afraid I don't just see my way to giving you my friends' names. You ask about me at the Embassy, Chief: they'll set your mind at rest."

      "Thank you, sir, but my mind isn't uneasy. All these questions are only part of the routine." The Chief Inspector smiled that cheery smile of his which the London underworld dreaded more than any frown. "And now, this afternoon—let me see, where did you say you were?"

      "The boat didn't get in till about five. The rest of the time till I arrived here about half-past six I spent in taxis driving from hotel to hotel. Anything else, Chief?"

      The Chief Inspector assured him that there was nothing else, and suggested that he might like to try one of the very comfortable chairs in the lounge, and that should he meet the manager would he mind asking him to step into his own sitting-room again.

      The manager's story was brevity itself. He told of Beale's arrival "about half-past six," his appeal to him to get him some sort of a shelter on such a night. "I believe he offered to share the dog's kennel provided the beast didn't bite. Incidentally, he told me who he was. Of course, I wanted to do my best for such a client, and thought of the only vacant room in the house,—No. 14. It was fresh in my mind, for I had been talking to the booking clerk when the 'phone came through saying that Mr. Eames would be away over the week-end. Of course as a rule we shouldn't dream of letting anyone else occupy a room under such circumstances, but—"

      "One moment: who answered the 'phone?"

      "The booking-clerk."

      "Thank you, sir. Well, so you took Mr. Beale to No. 14. Did you have the room freshly done up for him—I mean, fresh towels and so on?"

      "Of course."

      "And then?"

      "I saw him at dinner in our restaurant, and said a word to the head waiter, then I saw no more of him till he stopped me in the corridor and told me that there was a dead man in his wardrobe."

      "Could you repeat his exact words?"

      "'Excuse me, Mr. Manager, but do you know that someone's left a dead man in the wardrobe of that room you let me have?'"

      "How did he look? Excited? Frightened?"

      The manager thought a moment. "Excited, I should say, and trying not to show it."

      "And now you, sir, where were you this afternoon?" The manager sat up.

      "But look here, Inspector,—why, good God,—I thought it was as clear a case of suicide—" The manager's eyes were almost out of his head.

      "Bless you, sir, ten to one this is all only a matter of form. We always do it. Police routine, you know."

      "I see. Yes, I see." But obviously it took the manager some effort to focus his mental gaze. "Well, I was all over the place." He named his various movements.

      The Chief Inspector's pen flew over the paper.

      "That's all, thank you, sir. Will you send me the booking-clerk—unless I'm taking up this room?"

      The manager's one desire was that the Chief Inspector should stay in seclusion. Once let a suspicion get about in the hotel that the police were turned loose in it—he thought of them as he might have of the elements of fire or water—and gone would be the hum and stir as of a prosperous hive which rose from all around them.

      The story told by the booking-clerk was equally simple.

      "Eight days ago—on July twenty-fifth,—about noon, a young man carrying a bag had come into the hotel and asked for a single room on the first floor facing the front. None of these were free for the moment. He had refused to take another, had deposited ten shillings, and asked them to keep him the first one that should be free, giving his name as Reginald Eames. He was back about six o'clock. Meanwhile one had fallen vacant—number fourteen. He took it without looking at it, and registered."

      "All your rooms are the same price, I believe?"

      "Yes, all. Here's his entry."

      The Chief Inspector read, "Reginald Eames. Dentist. Manchester." He compared the writing carefully with the letter found on the dead man.

      "I shall want to have that signature photographed," was his only comment. "Well?"

      "Well, that's all. I saw him about a bit. He spent all his time in the lounge. This morning I met him at lunch in the restaurant. Seems funny that a man should bother with a meal a few hours before he intends to chuck the whole thing."

      The Chief Inspector was not interested in philosophic abstractions. "When did he lunch?"

      "I entered at half-past one, just as he was leaving. That's everything I know about the chap except that someone 'phoned up at five o'clock to say that Mr. Eames, of room number fourteen, wished to let us know that he wouldn't be back till Monday morning, as he was spending the week-end in the country with a friend."

      "Are you sure of the time?"

      The clerk shook his head. "Only there or thereabouts. It wasn't much past, for the five o'clock post hadn't come in, nor much before, for I come on duty at five after my tea, and I had just got back."

      "The manager was talking to you when the message came, I understand?"

      "Was he? Possibly. I don't remember."

      "You think he wasn't?"

      "I thought he came up after the post got in. But, of course, I may be wrong. One day's so like another."

      "But I understand that he, too, heard the 'phone?"

      "He СКАЧАТЬ