The Clifford Affair (Musaicum Vintage Mysteries). Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ He or this captain Brown can be seen in it therefore. If need be. One of the two is Etcheverrey. Almost certainly he would be Brown. The Unseen. Now is Tourcoin the man to whom the summoning letters were sent? Is he the man who killed Etcheverrey? Is he, in fact, Mirza Khan, who speaks French—and English too for that matter—like a Frenchman?" There was a short silence broken by the Chief Inspector, who had been standing looking down at the toes of his shoes, hands loosely clasped behind him. He looked up now.

      "Those papers found in the basket"—he spoke thoughtfully— "are they in Etcheverrey's writing?"

      "He had some thirty different kinds of writing."

      "And on the blotter," Pointer went on musingly, "there are no marks except from the two notes we found torn up..."

      "None. Why should there be?" Tindall asked, with a faint smile. "You police always want so much for your money."

      There was another pause. Tindall eyed Pointer whimsically. Pointer looked back at him with his tranquil, steady gaze. The detective officer had fine dark gray eyes, pleasant, though at times rather enigmatic in expression.

      "To stake the effect of a political crime would be a capital red herring, wouldn't it, to drag across the trail of a private murder."

      Tindall smiled still more. A smile of real amusement at this doubt on his own reading of the case from a man young enough to be his son.

      "We're like two Harley Street specialists, Pointer," he said good-humouredly, "each reading a case according to his own special lines. I say heart. You say liver. You're welcome to treat the case for liver, of course. But it's a heart case. Believe me, it's heart. In other words, I've been studying Etcheverrey so long that I have no hesitation in saying that this murder belongs to me. Don't waste your valuable time in hunting for this poor chap's head. I see that search being organised already."

      Pointer laughed a little. Tindall was right. He was already charting his course.

      "It's on its way to distant Ispahan," Tindall continued. "Pity Mirza Khan has such a start. Well, he knows my methods. They're lazy, compared with yours, but they're quick."

      "They often lead to splendid results," Pointer said honestly. In what might be called society crimes, thefts, stolen letters, the finer shade of blackmail, Tindall had done wonders, besides winning many a triumph in his own field—the political field.

      "I leave the details of the flat to you." Tindall despised hunting for clues. "The exact spot where the murder was committed...which way the man faced...and so on."

      Pointer nodded, let him out of the flat, telephoned to Scotland Yard for their expert locksmith, and then rang for the head porter. That worthy was asked to institute a sort of house-clearing. Fortunately he was at one with the Scotland Yard officer in wanting to make sure that the missing head was not hidden somewhere on any premises for which he was responsible.

      "I'll see to my part of it. Every nook shall be turned out. Every cupboard moved, or I'll know the reason why," Soulyby promised, "and every parcel opened."

      "As soon as the doctor has examined the body we shall have a rough idea of about what time the murder was committed. As it is, we know that it must have taken place between seven on Friday evening, and eight this morning. Ask cautiously about whether any one was seen coming into, or going out of, this flat during that time."

      Pointer dismissed him and telephoned to Lloyds. Marshall had been with them for fifteen years, he learnt. Came straight from London University. His present address was Bastia in Corsica. But as he had spoken of mules and guides...Yes, the man answering the telephone was a friend of his and quite willing to act as his reference if necessary. The firm would act as another. But he believed the flat was taken. The inquiry was about Marshall's furnished flat, of course?

      "Just so," Pointer murmured, as he turned away. "Of course!"

      He now began his own patient investigations. The bathtubs, he had learnt, were cleaned with Sapolio. The little smear of white under this one seemed to him to be plaster. He scraped it into a stoppered bottle and labelled it before putting it into his attaché case. Then he bent over some mark on the tiled floor— marks such as a dull lead pencil might make if it had been rubbed with a broad, circular motion over the spot. Pointer decided that a tin had been placed there, and been pressed hard down while it was moved round and round.

      Then he turned his attention to the fitted basin beside the bath. The taps had been turned off and on with a towel, he thought. Unfortunately the hall porter could not say, nor could the housekeeper, how many towels had been left in a warm cupboard just by the basin. Pointer looked about him for a pail. But failing that, he took a bronze jar from the living-room and set it beneath the basin. With a spanner he unscrewed the trap in the outflow pipe, and let the contents run into his receptacle. A thickish, reddish mixture came out. Ammonia told him that the reddish colour was blood, the whitish part he took to be more plaster. It looked to him as though the murderer or murderers had washed their hands here. He bottled some of this mixture too, and turned away after replacing the fixture. He started on the bedroom. Here he found nothing except proofs that the room had not been used last night. He passed on to the sitting-room. At that moment the doctor arrived.

      "Going to have your work cut out this time, Chief Inspector," he grunted. "Even you must be up a tree with this body."

      "Any help to give me?"

      "The man was probably about forty. Good condition. Nails show he's had no operations, is no victim of any chronic disease. A gentleman, I take it."

      "And the head was severed?"

      "With two or three hard, downward blows." He gave some medical details. "As to whether the man was dead or alive first—can't be sure till I've examined the lungs, but probably dead."

      "Had the man who cut off the head any knowledge of anatomy?"

      "None whatever. A sixteenth of an inch lower would have made the job half as easy again. Tremendous violence was used. Must have been a strong chap, and used something on which he got a good purchase which had a very firm edge."

      "How long would it have taken do you think?"

      "To cut off the head?" The doctor meditated. "About fifteen minutes, I should say."

      "And the death occurred, at a rough guess?"

      "Some time last night, I should judge. That cut's about twelve hours old. Certainly not more."

      He left at that, and Pointer went on with his work. There were no signs of any bullet having entered a wall or piece of furniture. Nor did the man seem to have been shot in a line with any of the windows, supposing him to have been shot—as Pointer did, partly from the size of the blood stain, chiefly from the fact that the chair down which a rivulet of blood had run was the only one in the room that had a very high, spreading back. It was the last kind of a chair to choose had a blow been intended.

      Feeling the carpet, going by the stain, Pointer replaced the chair as it had probably stood. The bedroom door was to one side and a little behind it—an ideal position for a shot. This bedroom door had odd pin-marks in the wood near the handle, two on one side, two on the other, about the same distance apart.

      Pointer finally decided that a strip of some thin but strong material such as tape had been fastened with drawing pins taut across the tongue, so as to prevent the rather noisy latch from acting, and let the door be opened by a touch, though it might look closed.

      He СКАЧАТЬ