Читать книгу The Murder Germ - A. O. Pollard - Страница 7

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London’s latest murder had taken place in the neighbourhood of the tangled maze of streets that lies between Maida Vale and the Harrow Road. The victim was a Jewish money-lender named Reuben Isaacs, who carried on a profitable business in a small suite of offices over a greengrocer’s shop.

The tragedy was discovered by the woman cleaner, Mrs. Hewlett, whilst she was engaged in preparing the rooms for the day’s business. According to her story, she entered the suite as usual about eight o’clock in the morning, letting herself in by a key through a door at the side of the shop which led direct to a flight of stairs. When she reached the outer office she noticed that the lower window was not quite closed.

At the time she did not attach any importance to such a trivial detail, and, taking her pans and brushes from the cupboard in which they were kept, she set about her work.

Having swept and tidied the outer office she crossed to the door of Isaacs’ private sanctum. But no sooner had she turned the handle than she realized something was wrong. The curtains were drawn, the electric light was burning, and there was, as she put it in relating her sensations to the policeman who took down her statement, “a queer sort of stillness that give me the creeps right down me blinkin’ spine”.

But despite her fears Mrs. Hewlett was not a woman to run without cause. Intuitively aware of what she was about to see she boldly entered the room and looked behind the desk.

Isaacs was lying on his side on the floor. The back of his head had been beaten to a pulp with repeated heavy blows. One stiff arm was raised as if to offer futile protection from the attack.

Mrs. Howlett was gazing at the corpse in horror-stricken fascination when something lying on the blotting-pad on the desk sent her screaming from the room. It was the victim’s tongue, and it had been roughly cut out with a penknife which lay beside it.

The officer who arrived in response to her shrill cries of “Murder!” and “Police!” was a man of action. There was a telephone in the greengrocer’s shop, and within a few minutes of lifting the receiver a patrol car, warned by wireless from Scotland Yard, brought reserves to his assistance.

Shortly afterwards an inspector arrived to take charge and under his direction the hunt for clues which would lead to the arrest of the murderer began along the well-ordered lines evolved by experience. Photographers, finger-print experts, and other skilled tradesmen came and went, each attending to his duties with the meticulous care which symbolizes modern criminal investigation.

It was the divisional police surgeon who first suggested that it was a case for Detective Inspector “Kitch” Dunthorne. His examination was very brief at this stage. Isaacs had so obviously been killed by blows on the head that he contented himself with taking the temperature of the body and other customary tests in order to fix the approximate time of the crime. A detailed autopsy would be carried out later.

“This job reminds me of the le Maitre case,” he observed grimly whilst waiting for his thermometer to register. “You know, the fellow who broke out of Broadmoor a month or two back. If I were you, Saunders, I should get Dunthorne to have a look at it; medically, it might have been done by the same man.”

Inspector Saunders duly reported the doctor’s opinion to the Yard, and later in the day Kitch Dunthorne drove round to the offices with the Deputy Commissioner’s instructions to take over the case.

He found that a great deal of spade-work had been completed. A list of Isaacs’ clients had been made and was being examined with a view to picking out any characters known to the police; everyone who had called at the offices during the day had been asked to account for his subsequent movements; inquiries had been made in the neighbourhood as to whether any suspicious character had been noticed loitering near the building.

“Hum!” commented Kitch when Saunders showed him such reports as had come in. “Nothing doing along these lines so far. You know the man we want is a homicidal lunatic, of course?”

“Oh yes, that seems plain enough anyhow. There isn’t a thing missing, as far as I can see.”

“Nothing touched?”

“No, nothing. There was over £50 in his wallet and nearly £200 in hard cash in the safe. As the key was on his chain the killer would have had no difficulty in lifting it. It’s all in one-pounders too.”

“That rules out robbery, then—unless he was disturbed. How did he get in?”

“Through the window in the other room. There’s a ladder in the yard which he probably used. It was quite easy to get into the yard, which backs on to the canal tow-path.”

“He took a risk, all the same, if there was anyone about; there might have been a pair or so of lovers out there.”

Saunders shook his head.

“It would be too late for lovers, I should say; the doctor gives the time as midnight or a little after.”

“You’ve missed your opportunities if you think midnight’s too late for love, Saunders,” chuckled Kitch. “However, perhaps something will turn up through one of the men making inquiries round the district. What about the weapon now?”

“They found a good set of prints on it as well as on the knife. They’ve both gone to the Yard. They don’t belong to anyone we’ve had through our hands, though.”

“I’m not surprised; this job wasn’t done by any ordinary criminal or there wouldn’t be any finger-prints. We’ll have to look for a man who had a deep grudge against Isaacs—or thought he had.”

He based his deduction on something more than the obvious evidence of brutality. Ever since he entered this death-chamber he had been reminded more and more of that earlier case the details of which le Maitre’s sensational escape had revived.

The smashing of the skull, the weapon carelessly abandoned, the ghastly mutilation of the tongue were such outstanding features in both instances. Had he not known beyond any shadow of doubt that le Maitre was dead and buried he could have sworn that the two crimes were the work of the same individual.

How did it come about that this murder was committed so closely to the pattern made notorious by le Maitre? It might be, of course, that the murderer, in perpetrating his crime, had been subconsciously influenced by the details of the le Maitre case which had been republished following his breakaway from prison.

Such an imitation was psychologically possible, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary it provided a working hypothesis from which to deduce the motive for the murder.

According to the brain specialist who examined him, le Maitre had killed his wife because he conceived the fanciful notion that she was an enemy spy working against the country he loved. His intense uncontrolled patriotism had caused him to hate her in the same way he had come to hate Dunthorne when the detective suggested to him ironically, “You’ll be mistaking me for one next.”

Isaacs’ murderer might not possess the same degree of patriotism or any love of country whatever, but the fundamental motive which governed his deed remained the same. He killed the money-lender because, for some as yet unknown reason, he hated him.

There would be little difficulty in finding a person who detested and loathed a professional money-lender, thought Dunthorne gloomily. The trouble was that there would be too many of them. Unless he could light on some feature in the case which reduced the circle of possibles, it looked as though the investigation would string out into a lengthy process of elimination.

Seating himself at Isaacs’ desk—the body had been removed to the mortuary before his arrival—he tried to visualize the scene as it must have been set when the murderer entered the room.

One thing was obvious from the start—Isaacs could not have been taken unawares. He had a clear view of the door, and whoever paid him such a late visit must have been well known to him, or, at least, expected by him.

A glance at the cash-book lying open on the desk revealed that the last entry was in the name of Miss Elsie Delaney, who had been loaned the sum of four pounds to be repaid, with interest, at the rate of ten shillings per week. There was no mention of security, and Dunthorne wondered.

“What about this one?” he asked, his forefinger underlining the name.

Saunders was ready with his answer.

“She’s a chorus-girl working at the Clarion Music Hall. She came here to see Isaacs at eleven-thirty last night, after the show. She says she rang him up at half past seven and he promised to be here to meet her.”

“Hum! She must have needed the money badly.”

“Blackmail,” declared Saunders tersely. “Agent’s commission. Her agent, a man named Herbert Lane, informed her, so I understand, that unless the money was paid to his office by nine o’clock this morning she would lose her job.”

“Someone must look into the rights and wrongs of that in due course. What sort of girl is she?”

Saunders shook his head.

“Apart from the fact that the probabilities are against it, she couldn’t have done this job. She’s only a fluffy little thing, and she wouldn’t have had the strength. Besides, as she came here for money, she would undoubtedly have taken his pocket-book.”

“Was she alone?”

“No, a friend waited for her in the street. She was here twenty minutes. I’ve questioned the friend, who saw nobody near the building except a few ordinary passers-by.”

Dunthorne pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.

“Well, she establishes the fact that Isaacs was alive at approximately ten minutes to twelve, and the doctor says death occurred about midnight. It must have been a close thing that she wasn’t present when the murderer entered. What about Lane?”

“I haven’t done anything about him yet. His name is not in any of the records here, and there’s nothing to suggest that he knew of Isaac’s existence.”

“How did Delaney hear about it? Is she an old client?”

“No, this was her first visit. I understand she asked the theatre door-keeper if he could put her on to a good money-lender, and Isaacs was his recommendation.”

“Well, I suppose I had better interview the two of them, although it looks as if we’ve got all we are likely to get from that quarter. You might like to come along with me, Saunders.”

Taking Dunthorne’s car, the two policemen drove to the address off the Edgware Road where Elsie Delaney shared a bed-sitting-room with her girl friend.

She received them in an elaborately trimmed dressing-gown, and it was plain that the description of a “fluffy little thing” given by the detective who interviewed her earlier in the day was decidedly apt. But it did not apply to her mentality.

“I don’t know why you’ve come round to see me again,” she greeted her visitors suspiciously. “But you’re unlucky. I’m not saying another word about anything, except in the presence of my solicitor.”

It was evident that she had been discussing her position with someone who knew the ropes. Dunthorne smiled disarmingly.

“In that case, Miss Delaney, there’s no more to be said. I’m sorry you feel unable to help us, and I promise to see that your name is kept out of the papers.”

He nudged Saunders surreptitiously and turned to leave the room.

“Here, not quite so fast.”

Miss Delaney had no wish to be left out of the news, whatever the outcome of the affair. There was a nice comforting feeling about having one’s name in the paper, and if a photograph went with it, so much the better.

Dunthorne waited politely, with his hand on the door-knob.

“Yes, miss?”

“Well, you may as well tell me what you’ve come about, as you are here. Then I can talk to my solicitor about it and have my reply ready for later on.”

Dunthorne shook his head and turned the handle.

“I’m afraid we haven’t time for such an elaborate procedure. If we find we want you, we’ll send for you to come to the Yard.”

The door was open now.

“No, no, you’ve misunderstood. I want to help—really I do. It’s only that I thought——”

“That we suspected you of complicity? Not yet, my dear young lady.” He closed the door again. “As a matter of fact, this case may do you more good than you realize. This agent of yours, Herbert Lane, he’s blackmailing you, isn’t he?”

Her eyes flashed with sudden anger.

“I’ll say he is, the dirty rat! I’ve paid him his commission once already, only I haven’t got a receipt to show. Now he’s made me pay again, or I should have been out of the show on my ear.”

Dunthorne nodded understandingly.

“Just as I thought. Well, now, I’ll see that Mr. Lane gets his desserts without you being brought into it. In exchange, I want you to answer just one question. Who was it gave you Mr. Isaacs’ name?”

“Alfred Paget, the door-keeper at the theatre. I told your—the gentleman who called earlier. But I’ve learnt something about that since. It’s a ramp, that’s what it is. Lane put him up to it.”

The full story came out in a spate of words from which the experienced Dunthorne picked out the facts.

Lane and the dead Isaacs had a working agreement which was highly profitable to both of them. In his capacity as a theatrical agent, Lane put the screws on the girls who passed through his hands. Faced with the alternative of paying up or being thrown out of employment, they had to find the money he demanded from somewhere.

That was where the stage door-keeper came in. In return for a monetary consideration from Lane, he gained the girls’ confidence and recommended Reuben Isaacs as an easily touched money-lender.

No wonder Isaacs did not have to bother about security, thought Dunthorne grimly. He got his money back twice over, and, in case of default, his dupes were deprived of their earning power.

“I think we’ll go along and have a word with Lane right away,” he declared when he and Saunders had pumped Elsie Delaney dry. “I should very much like to know where he was round about twelve o’clock last night.”

Lane was not in his office in Shaftesbury Avenue, and they hurried to his private address at Brixton. His wife opened the door and stood back without a word, in mute invitation for them to enter. White-lipped, she pointed to a room at the back of the house.

Minus coat, collar, and tie, Herbert Lane was slumped before an untasted breakfast. As the detectives entered the room, he sprang to his feet. His expression was pitiably cowed.

“I knew you’d come!” he cried hoarsely. “Yes, I did it, I did it! Something came over me like madness, and I thought he’d given us away; I felt I had to stop him. I went round there——”

“Just a minute,” interrupted Dunthorne sternly.

“Before you say any more, I must caution you that anything you tell us will be taken down and may be used in evidence at your trial. I formally arrest you for the wilful murder of Reuben Isaacs. Now come along with us.”

As Lane struggled miserably into his coat, Dunthorne noticed a small inflamed rash on his prisoner’s forearm. But at the time it did not occur to him that it had any bearing on the case.