CHAPTER IV
When Rolfe had finished questioning Police-Constable Flack and joined hischief upstairs, the latter, who had been going through the private papersin the murdered man's desk in the hope of alighting on a clue to thecrime, received him genially.
"Well," he said, "what do you think of Flack?"
Rolfe had obtained from the police-constable a straightforward story ofwhat he had seen, and in this way had picked up some useful informationabout the crime which it would have taken a long time to extract from theinspector, but he was a sufficiently good detective to have learned thatby disparaging the source of your information you add to your ownreputation for acumen in drawing conclusions in regard to it. He noddedhis head in a deprecating way and emitted a slight cough which was meantto express contempt.
"It looks very much like a case of burglary and murder," he said.
He was anxious to know what theory his superior officer had formed.
"And how do you fit in the letter advising us of the murder?" asked theinspector.
He produced the letter from his pocket-book and looked at it earnestly.
"There were two of them in it--one a savage ruffian who will stick atnothing, and the other a chicken-hearted specimen. They often work inpairs like that."
"So your theory is that one of the two shot him, and the other was sounnerved that he sent us the letter and put us on the track to save hisown neck?"
"Something like that."
"It is not impossible," was the senior officer's comment. "Mind you, Idon't say it is my theory. In fact, I am in no hurry to form one. Ibelieve in going carefully over the whole ground first, collecting allthe clues and then selecting the right one."
Rolfe admitted that his chief's way of setting to work to solve amystery was an ideal one, but he made the reservation that it was adifficult one to put into operation. He was convinced that the only wayof finding the right clue was to follow up every one until it was provedto be a wrong one.
Inspector Chippenfield continued his study of the mysterious messagewhich had been sent to Scotland Yard. It was written on a sheet of paperwhich had been taken from a writing pad of the kind sold for a few penceby all stationers. It was flimsy and blue-lined, and the message itcontained was smudged and badly printed. But to the inspector'sannoyance, there were no finger-prints on the paper. The finger-printexpert at Scotland Yard had examined it under the microscope, but hissearch for finger-prints had been vain.
"Depend upon it, we'll hear from this chap again," said the inspector,tapping the sheet of paper with a finger. "I think I may go so far as tosay that this fellow thinks suspicion will be directed to him and hewants to save his neck."
"It's a disguised hand," said Rolfe. "Of course he printed it in ordernot to give us a specimen of his handwriting. There are telltale thingsabout a man's handwriting which give him away even when he tries todisguise it. But he's tried to disguise even his printing. Look howirregular the letters are--some slanting to the right and some to theleft, and some are upright. Look at the two different kinds of 'U's.'"
"He's used two different kinds of pens," said Inspector Chippenfield."Look at the difference in the thickness of the letters."
"The sooner he writes again the better," said Rolfe. "I am curious toknow what he'll say next."
"My idea is to find out who he is and make him speak," said theinspector, "Speaking is quicker than writing. I could frighten moreout of him in ten minutes than he would give away voluntarily in amonth of Sundays."
Again Rolfe had to admit that his chief's plan to get at the truth was anideal one.
"Have you any idea who he is?" he asked.
Inspector Chippenfield had brought his methods too near to perfection tomake it possible for him to fall into an open trap.
"I won't be very long putting my hand on him," he said.
"But this thing has been in the papers," said Rolfe. "Don't you think themurderer will bolt out of the country when he knows his mate is preparedto turn King's evidence against him?"
"Ah," said Inspector Chippenfield, "I haven't adopted your theory."
"Then you think that the man who wrote this note knew of the murder butdoesn't know who did it?"
"Now you are going too far," said Inspector Chippenfield.
The inspector was so wary about disclosing what was in his mind in regardto the letter that Rolfe, who disliked his chief very cordially, jumpedto the conclusion that Inspector Chippenfield had no intelligible ideasconcerning it.
"If it was burglars they took nothing as far as we can ascertain up tothe present," said Inspector Chippenfield after a pause.
"They were surprised to find anyone in the house. And after the shot wasfired they immediately bolted for fear the noise would attractattention."
"What knocks a hole in the burglar theory is the fact that Sir Horace wasfully dressed when he was shot," said the inspector. "Burglars don'tbreak into a house when there are lights about, especially after havingbeen led to believe that the house was empty."
"So you think," said Rolfe, "that the window was forced after the murderwith the object of misleading us."
"I haven't said so," replied the inspector. "All I am prepared to say isthat even that was not impossible."
"It was forced from the outside," continued Rolfe. "I've seen the marksof a jemmy on the window-sill. If it was forced after the murder themurderer was a cool hand."
"You can take it from me," exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield withunexpected candour, "that he was a cool hand. We are going to have a bitof trouble in getting to the bottom of this, Rolfe."
"If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can," said Rolfe, whobelieved with Voltaire that speech was given us in order to enable us toconceal our thoughts.
Inspector Chippenfield was so astonished at this handsome compliment thathe began to think he had underrated Rolfe's powers of discernment. Histone of cold official superiority immediately thawed.
"There were two shots fired," he said, "but whether both were fired bythe murderer I don't know yet. One of them may have been fired by SirHorace. Just behind you in the wall is the mark of one of the bullets. Idug it out of the plaster yesterday and here it is." He produced from awaistcoat pocket a flattened bullet. "The other is inside him atpresent." He waved his hand in the direction of the room in which thecorpse lay.
"Of course you cannot say yet whether both bullets are out of the samerevolver?" said Rolfe.
"Can't tell till after the post-mortem," said the inspector. "And thenall we can tell for certain is whether they are of the same pattern. Theymight be the same size, and yet be fired out of different revolvers ofthe same calibre."
"Well, it is no use theorising about what happened in this room untilafter the post-mortem," said Rolfe.
"You'd better give it some thought," suggested the inspector. "In themeantime I want you to interview the people in the neighbourhood andascertain whether they heard any shots. They'll all say they did whetherthey heard them or not--you know how people persuade themselves intoimagining things so as to get some sort of prominence in these crimes.But you can sift what they tell you and preserve the grain of truth. Tryand get them to be accurate as to the time, as we want to fix the time ofthe crime as near as possible. Ask Flack to tell you something about theneighbours--he's been in this district fifteen years, and ought to knowall about them. While you're away I'll go through these private papers. Iwant to find out why he came back from Scotland so suddenly. If we knewthat the rest might be easy."
"I haven't seen the body yet," said Rolfe. "I'd like to look at it.Where is it?"
"I had it removed downstairs. You will find it in a big room on the leftas you go down the hall. By the by, there is another matter, Rolfe. Thisglove was found in the room. It may be a clue, but it is more likelythat it is one of Sir Horace's gloves and that he lost the other one onhis way up from Scotland. It's a left-hand glove--men always lose theright-hand glove because they take it off so often. I've compared itwith ot
her gloves in Sir Horace's wardrobe, and I find it is the samesize and much the same quality. But find out from Sir Horace's hosier ifhe sold it. Here's the address of the hosiers,--Bruden and Marshall, inthe Strand."
Rolfe went slowly downstairs into the room in which the corpse lay, andclosed the door behind him. It was a very large room, overlooking thegarden on the right side of the house. Somebody had lowered the Venetianblinds as a conventional intimation to the outside world that the housewas one of mourning, and the room was almost dark. For nearly a minuteRolfe stood in silence, his hand resting on the knob of the door he hadclosed behind him. Gradually the outline of the room and the objectswithin it began to reveal themselves in shadowy shape as his eyes becameaccustomed to the dim light. He had a growing impression of a big loftyroom, with heavy furniture, and a huddled up figure lying on a couch atthe end furthest from the window and deepest in shadow.
He stepped across to the window and gently raised one of the blinds. Thelight of an August sun penetrated through the screen of trees in front ofthe house and revealed the interior of the room more clearly. Rolfe wasamazed at its size. From the window to the couch at the other end of theroom, where the body lay, was nearly thirty feet. Glancing down theapartment, he noticed that it was really two rooms, divided in the middleby folding doors. These doors folded neatly into a slightly protrudingridge or arch almost opposite the door by which he had entered, and werescreened from observation by heavy damask curtains, which drooped overthe archway slightly into the room.
Evidently the deceased judge had been in the habit of using the dividedrooms as a single apartment, for the heavier furniture in both halves ofit was of the same pattern. The chairs and tables were of heavy,ponderous, mid-Victorian make, and they were matched by a number ofold-fashioned mahogany sideboards and presses, arranged methodically atregular intervals on both sides of the room. Rolfe, as his eye took inthese articles, wondered why Sir Horace Fewbanks had bought so many. Onesideboard, a vast piece of furniture fully eight feet long, had a whiskydecanter and siphon of soda water on it, as though Sir Horace had servedhimself with refreshments on his return to the house. The tops of theother sideboards were bare, and the presses, use in such a room Rolfe wasat a loss to conjecture, were locked up. The antique sombre uniformityof the furniture as a whole was broken at odd intervals by severalarticles of bizarre modernity, including a few daring French prints,which struck an odd note of incongruity in such a room.
The murdered man had been laid on an old-fashioned sofa at the end ofthis double apartment which was furthest from the window. Rolfe walkedslowly over the thick Turkey carpets and rugs with which the floor wascovered, glanced at the sofa curiously, and then turned down the sheetfrom the dead man's face.
At the time of his death Sir Horace Fewbanks was 58 years of age, butsince death the grey bristles had grown so rapidly through hisclean-shaven face that he looked much older. The face showed none of thewonted placidity of death. The mouth was twisted in an ugly fashion, asthough the murdered man had endeavoured to cry for help and had beenattacked and killed while doing so. One of Sir Horace's arms--the rightone--was thrust forward diagonally across his breast as if inself-defence, and the hand was tightly clenched. Rolfe, who had last seenHis Honour presiding on the Bench in the full pomp and majesty of law,felt a chill strike his heart at the fell power of death which did noteven respect the person of a High Court judge, and had stripped him ofevery vestige of human dignity in the pangs of a violent end. The face hehad last seen on the Bench full of wisdom and austerity of the law wasnow distorted into a livid mask in which it was hard to trace anysemblance of the features of the dead judge.
Rolfe's official alertness of mind in the face of a mysterious crime soonreasserted itself, however, and he shook off the feeling of sentiment andproceeded to make a closer examination of the dead body. As he turneddown the sheet to examine the wound which had ended the judge's life, itslipped from his hand and fell on the floor, revealing that the judge hadbeen laid on the couch just as he had been killed, fully clothed. He hadbeen shot through the body near the heart, and a large patch of blood hadwelled from the wound and congealed in his shirt. One trouser leg wasruffled up, and had caught in the top of the boot.
The corpse presented a repellent spectacle, but Rolfe, who had seenunpleasant sights of various kinds in his career, bent over the bodywith keen interest, noting these details, with all his professionalinstincts aroused. For though Rolfe had not yet risen very high in thepolice force, he had many of the qualities which make the gooddetective--observation, sagacity, and some imagination. Theextraordinary crime which he had been called upon to help unravelpresented a baffling mystery which was likely to test the value of thesequalities to the utmost.
Rolfe looked steadily at the corpse for some time, impressing a pictureof it in every detail on his mental retina. Struck by an idea, he bentover and touched the patch of blood in the dead man's breast, then lookedat his finger. There was no stain. The blood was quite congealed. Then hetried to unclench the judge's right hand, but it was rigid.
As Rolfe stood there gazing intently at the corpse, and trying to formsome theory of the reason for the murder, certain old stories he hadheard of Sir Horace Fewbanks's private life and character recurred tohim. These rumours had not been much--a jocular hint or two among hisfellows at Scotland Yard that His Honour had a weakness for a pretty faceand in private life led a less decorous existence than a judge ought todo. Rolfe wondered how much or how little truth was contained in thesestories. He glanced around the vast room. Certainly it was not the sortof apartment in which a High Court judge might be expected to do hisentertaining, but Rolfe recalled that he had heard gossip to the effectthat Sir Horace, because of his virtual estrangement from his daughter,did very little entertaining beyond an occasional bridge or supper partyto his sporting friends, and rarely went into Society.
Rolfe began to scrutinise the articles of furniture in the room,wondering if there was anything about them which might reveal somethingof the habits of the dead man. He produced a small electric torch fromhis pocket, and with its light to guide him in the half-darkened room, heclosely inspected each piece of furniture. Then, with the torch in hishand, he returned to the sofa and flashed it over the dead body. Hestarted violently when the light, falling on the dead man's closed hand,revealed a tiny scrap of white. Eagerly he endeavoured to release thefragment from the tenacious clutch of the dead without tearing it, andeventually he managed to detach it. His heart bounded when he saw that itwas a small torn piece of lace and muslin. He placed it in the palm ofhis left hand and examined it closely under the light of his torch. Tohim it looked to be part of a fashionable lady's dainty handkerchief. Hewas elated at his discovery and he wondered how Inspector Chippenfieldhad overlooked it. Then the explanation struck him. The small piece oflace and muslin had been effectually hidden in the dead man's clenchedhand, and his efforts to open the hand had loosened it.
"Well, Rolfe," said Inspector Chippenfield, when his subordinatereappeared, "you've been long enough to have unearthed the criminal orrevived the corpse. Have you discovered anything fresh?"
"Only this," replied Rolfe, displaying the piece of handkerchief.
The find startled Inspector Chippenfield out of his air of banteringsuperiority.
"Where did you get that?" he stammered, as he reached out eagerly for it.
"The dead man had it clenched in his right hand. I wondered if he hadanything hidden in his hand when I saw it so tightly clenched. I tried toforce open the fingers and that fell out."
Inspector Chippenfield was by no means pleased at his subordinate'sdiscovery of what promised to be an important clue, especially after theclue had been missed by himself. But he congratulated Rolfe in a tone offictitious heartiness.
"Well done, Rolfe!" he exclaimed. "You are coming on. Anyone can see thatyou've the makings of a good detective."
Rolfe could afford to ignore the sting contained in such faint praise.
"What do you make
of it?" he asked.
"Looks as though there is a woman in it," said the inspector, who wasstill examining the scrap of lace and muslin.
"There can't be much doubt about that," replied Rolfe.
"We mustn't be in a hurry in jumping at conclusions," remarked theinspector.
"No, and we mustn't ignore obvious facts," said Rolfe.
"You think a woman murdered him?" asked the inspector.
"I think a woman was present when he was shot: whether she fired the shotthere is nothing to show at present. There may have been a man with her.But there was a struggle just before the shot was fired and as Sir Horacefell he grasped at the hand in which she was holding her handkerchief. Orperhaps her handkerchief was torn in his dying struggles when she wasleaning over him."
"You have overlooked the possibility of this having been placed in thedying man's hand to deceive us," said the inspector.
"If the intention was to mislead us it wouldn't have been placed where itmight have been overlooked."
As the inspector had overlooked the presence of the scrap of handkerchiefin the dead man's hand, he felt that he was not making much progress withthe work of keeping his subordinate in his place.
"Well, it is a clue of a sort," he said. "The trouble is that we havetoo many clues. I wish we knew which is the right one. Anyway, it knocksover your theory of a burglary," he added in a tone of satisfaction.
"Yes," Rolfe admitted. "That goes by the board."