The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar Wallace

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was disposed, according to the evidence of his secretary, to put off the interview which he had arranged with his nephew. A telephone message had been sent through to Mr. Carlin’s hotel, but he was out. Until nine o’clock his lordship was busy with the affairs of his numerous charities, Mr. Lassard being in attendance. Lord Sellington was working in a small study which opened from his bedroom.

      At a quarter-past nine Carlin arrived and was shown upstairs by the butler, who subsequently stated that he heard voices raised in anger. Mr. Carlin came downstairs and was shown out as the clock struck half-past nine, and a few minutes later the bell rang for Lord Sellington’s valet, who went up to assist his master to bed.

      At half-past seven the next morning, the valet, who slept in an adjoining apartment, went into his master’s room to take him a cup of tea. He found his employer lying face downward on the floor; he was dead, and had been dead for some hours. There was no sign of wounds, and at first glance it looked as though this man of sixty had collapsed in the night. But there were circumstances which pointed to some unusual happening. In Lord Sellington’s bedroom was a small steel wall-safe, and the first thing the valet noticed was that this was open, papers were lying on the floor, and that in the grate was a heap of paper which, except for one corner, was entirely burnt.

      The valet telephoned immediately for the doctor and for the police, and from that moment the case went out of Mr. Reeder’s able hands.

      Later that morning he reported briefly to his superior the result of his inquiries.

      ‘Murder, I am afraid,’ he said sadly. ‘The Home Office pathologist is perfectly certain that it is a case of aconitine poisoning. The paper in the hearth has been photographed, and there is no doubt whatever that the burnt document is the will by which Lord Sellington left all his property to various charitable institutions.’

      He paused here.

      ‘Well?’ asked his chief, ‘what does that mean?’

      Mr. Reeder coughed.

      ‘It means that if this will cannot be proved, and I doubt whether it can, his lordship died intestate. The property goes with the title-’

      ‘To Carlin?’ asked the startled Prosecutor.

      Mr. Reeder nodded.

      ‘There were other things burnt; four small oblong slips of paper, which had evidently been fastened together by a pin. These are quite indecipherable.’ He sighed again. The Public Prosecutor looked up.

      ‘You haven’t mentioned the letter that arrived by district messenger after Lord Sellington had retired for the night.’

      Mr. Reeder rubbed his chin.

      ‘No, I didn’t mention that,’ he said reluctantly.

      ‘Has it been found?’

      Mr. Reeder hesitated.

      ‘I don’t know. I rather think that it has not been,’ he said.

      ‘Would it throw any light upon the crime, do you think?’

      Mr. Reeder scratched his chin with some sign of embarrassment.

      ‘I should think it might,’ he said. ‘Will you excuse me, sir? Inspector Salter is waiting for me.’ And he was out of the room before the Prosecutor could frame any further inquiry.

      Inspector Salter was striding impatiently up and down the little room when Mr. Reeder came back. They left the building together. The car that was waiting for them brought them to Jermyn Street in a few minutes. Outside the flat three plainclothes men were waiting, evidently for the arrival of their chief, and the Inspector passed into the building, followed closely by Mr. Reeder. They were halfway up the stairs when Reeder asked:

      ‘Does Carlin know you?’

      ‘He ought to,’ was the grim reply. ‘I did my best to get him penal servitude before he skipped from England.’

      ‘Humph!’ said Mr. Reeder. ‘I’m sorry he knows you.’

      ‘Why?’ The Inspector stopped on the stairs to ask the question.

      ‘Because he saw us getting out of the cab. I caught sight of his face, and-’

      He stopped suddenly. The sound of a shot thundered through the house, and in another second the Inspector was racing up the stairs two at a time and had burst into the suite which Carlin occupied.

      A glimpse of the prostrate figure told them they were too late. The Inspector bent over the dead man.

      ‘That has saved the country the cost of a murder trial,’ he said.

      ‘I think not,’ said Mr. Reeder gently, and explained his reasons.

      Half an hour later, as Mr. Lassard walked out of his office, a detective tapped him on the shoulder.

      ‘Your name is Eiter,’ he said, ‘and I want you for murder.’

      ‘It was a very simple case really, sir,’ explained Mr. Reeder to his chief. ‘Eiter, of course, was known to me personally, but I remembered especially that he could not spell the word “able,” and I recognised this peculiarity in our friend the moment I saw the letter which he wrote to his patron asking for the money. It was Eiter himself who drew the five thousand pounds; of that I am convinced. The man is, and always has been, an inveterate gambler, and I did not have to make many inquiries before I discovered that he was owing a large sum of money and that one bookmaker had threatened to bring him before Tattersall’s Committee unless he paid. That would have meant the end of Mr. Lassard, the philanthropic custodian of children. Which, by the way, was always Eiter’s role. He ran bogus charitable societies-it is extraordinarily easy to find dupes who are willing to subscribe for philanthropic objects. Many years ago, when I was a young man, I was instrumental in getting him seven years. I’d lost sight of him since then until I saw the letter he sent to Lord Sellington. Unfortunately for him, one line ran: “I shall be glad if you are abel to let my messenger have the money”-and he spelt “able” in the Eiter way. I called on him and made sure. And then I wrote to his lordship, who apparently did not open the letter till late that night.

      ‘Eiter had called on him earlier in the evening and had had a long talk with him. I only surmise that Lord Sellington had expressed a doubt as to whether he ought to leave his nephew penniless, scoundrel though he was; and Eiter was terrified that his scheme for getting possession of the old man’s money was in danger of failing. Moreover, my appearance in the case had scared him. He decided to kill Lord Sellington that night, took aconitine with him to the house and introduced it into the medicine, a bottle of which always stood on Sellington’s desk. Whether the old man destroyed the will which disinherited his nephew before he discovered he had been poisoned, or whether he did it after, we shall never know. When I had satisfied myself that Lassard was Eiter, I sent a letter by special messenger to Stratford Place-’

      ‘That was the letter delivered by special messenger?’

      Mr. Reeder nodded.

      ‘It is possible that Sellington was already under the influence of the drug when he burnt the will, and burnt too the four bills which Carlin had forged and which the old man had held over his head as a threat. Carlin may have known his uncle was dead; he certainly СКАЧАТЬ