Two Bottles of Relish: The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories. Lord Dunsany

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СКАЧАТЬ Linley. ‘That’s a preposterous threat. The man could never carry it out.’

      ‘Mr Cambell and Inspector Island are dead already,’ said Ulton.

      ‘Dead?’ said Linley. And I never saw him so flabbergasted.

      ‘Mr Cambell went to his club, the Meateaters, in Holne Street, the day that we got the letter, and was poisoned. And Inspector Island went to Piero’s next day to watch a game of billiards, and a piece of the wall above the door fell as he went in, and killed him.’

      ‘A piece of the wall fell?’ exclaimed Linley incredulously.

      ‘Yes,’ said the inspector. ‘It was in the papers, though very little about it, as they’ve not held the inquest yet. But we are working on the other case first, as we have a clue there.’

      ‘What is the clue?’ said Linley.

      ‘We’ve the finger-print of a waiter at the club, who disappeared on the night of the murder, before Mr Cambell was taken ill. Of course he must have given the poison, but we don’t know much about him or who he really is, and we don’t think he was the man who planned it all.’

      ‘Can I see the finger-print?’ asked Linley.

      And Inspector Ulton brought an envelope out of his pocket and took from it a sheet of paper, and on the paper was the finger-print, very completely in ink. It was one of two sheets of papers for members’ bills, and in the middle of it, very black, was the finger-print. Linley looked at it for a long time.

      ‘And Piero’s?’ he said at last.

      ‘That baffles us,’ said the inspector. ‘We have found out that the masonry that killed Island was dislodged by a small explosion that took place very effectively at a joint between two big stones. And the explosive was set off by a delicate mechanism that must have been inserted in the wall from the inside. We can find very little of the machine, not only because the explosion took place inside it, but because it was all mixed up with some stuff called thermite, which burns very fiercely, and which destroyed everything except a few small bars. Anyhow there was a machine that fired the explosive that brought down those pieces of masonry, but what we can’t find is any wires controlling it. The fire was soon put out, and the damage only local, and we have searched all round the door; both sides, above and below; but there’s no sign of a wire.’

      ‘Could one have been pulled away?’ asked Linley.

      ‘Not across the open without being seen by someone,’ said Ulton, ‘and there were plenty there. And not underground. We’ve searched; and we’ve made sure there’s no wire, or a channel that it could have run in. It must have been a time-fuse.’

      ‘Was Inspector Island as regular as all that?’ said Linley.

      ‘Well, he had regular habits,’ said Ulton, ‘and he got off duty at a certain hour and the game began at a certain time.’

      ‘To the very second?’ asked Linley.

      ‘Well, not to the very second,’ he said.

      ‘And it would have to be about half a second,’ went on Linley. ‘No, the time-fuse won’t do.’

      ‘I don’t suppose it will,’ said Ulton.

      And they were both silent awhile.

      ‘Well,’ said Linley after a bit, ‘I can tell you one thing. Whoever that waiter was …’

      ‘He called himself Slimmer,’ said Ulton.

      ‘Whoever he was,’ said Linley, ‘there’s something a bit deep about him. Deeper than you’ve had time to go yet, I mean. That finger-print shows you that. When did he make it?’

      ‘It was found after he’d gone,’ said Ulton. ‘What’s odd about it? We find thousands of finger-prints.’

      ‘Simply,’ said Linley, ‘that a man who is committing a murder doesn’t make a finger-print in ink right in the middle of a sheet of paper, quite so neat and tidy as that, and then leave it where the police can find it handily.’

      ‘What then?’ said Ulton.

      ‘Why, it’s not his finger-print. It’s some kind of fake. So that you are dealing with very queer people; people clever enough to forge finger-prints, which I have never heard of being done. Have you?’

      But Inspector Ulton would not say what they knew at the Yard and what they didn’t know.

      ‘I might have,’ he said.

      ‘It might be done on rubber by a good forger, I should think,’ went on Linley. ‘But the people that did that might be capable of carrying out their threats, which at first I hardly thought possible. Now about the explosion at Piero’s. That must have been controlled by someone who could actually see Island coming. He might have had warning that he was coming when he was fifty yards away, or any other distance, but that would never have been exact enough to kill him. He must have seen him go into Piero’s.’

      ‘And, if he did, how could he make the thing explode?’ said Ulton.

      ‘That’s what we’ve got to think about,’ said Linley. ‘What houses are there from which he could see the inspector going up to the door?’

      ‘There’s several,’ said the inspector.

      ‘And what about the third man?’ said Linley. ‘Holbuck, didn’t you say?’

      ‘Yes, Sergeant Holbuck,’ said the inspector. ‘He’s going to play football tomorrow. He won’t stop for the threat. None of them would. But we’re going to see that he’s safe. It’s on the Old Sallovians’ ground. Everyone playing on his side will be members of the Force, and we know every man on the other side. They are all right; and the whole front line of the crowd looking on will be our men, and we’ll have a few extra dotted about behind, all the way round the ground, not to mention the ones that will watch every man coming in at the gate. And then we’ll see him safe back when the game is over: we are not telling anybody how we are going to do that, but we shall not let Holbuck take any chances.’

      ‘Tomorrow,’ said Linley. ‘May I come?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Inspector Ulton. ‘This ticket will let you in, but you won’t be allowed to stand in the front row.’

      Mr Linley saw me looking at him. ‘Could I have a ticket for my friend?’ he asked. ‘You’d like to come and see what happens, Smethers, wouldn’t you?’

      Like to see what happened? Of course I would. And Inspector Ulton looked at me. ‘Oh, yes, he can have a ticket,’ said the inspector then. And he gave the ticket to Linley.

      ‘It’s really very kind of you,’ I said.

      ‘Not at all,’ said the inspector.

      After Inspector Ulton left Linley said nothing for a long time. He stood gazing hard, with the kind of gaze that doesn’t seem to see anything; nothing here, I mean. And I said nothing to interrupt him. And then he said, ‘Come and sit down, Smethers.’

      And we sat in front of the fire. It was СКАЧАТЬ