Читать книгу The Three Snails - Aidan de Brune - Страница 4
II
Оглавление"THREE snails!" Paull murmured the words, a grim smile playing around his lips. "The three snails! Now, what the devil are they doing here—in a common-place commercial office. A market garden—and a fellow would understand! Even an ordinary garden would help—or a window box, but—" He pursed his lips in a low whistle—then laughed, noiselessly.
Picking up a pencil he flicked the little round objects until they rolled down the cardboard to the edge of the desk. He took a powerful magnifying glass from his pocket and carefully scrutinised the shells. So far as he could see they were innocent of any foreign marks.
"No fingerprints! No marks!" He shook, his head sadly. "Now, what's a fat policeman going to do if crooks forget to leave their 'cards' about? T'isn't fair! All this scientific stuff is hampering the police. What's it all going to come to? Why, they'll want the police to attend University lectures soon—same as they do journalists—and then—Lord! We'll not only, do our detecting work but we'll be writing our own account of the crimes for the newspapers. Oh hell!"
Emptying out a match-box he swept the three snails into it and stowed the box: in his pocket. Again he let his attention revert to the sketch. A careful scanning of the drawing, and he half-turned in the swivel chair.
"Miss Anstey!" He waited until the girl came to the dividing door. "Oh, come on in, there's nothing here to bite you—or I wouldn't be here, myself. Have a look at this. Mr. Delaney's work? 'Course! Jolly good eh? Seen it before?"
"Yes, Mr. Paull," the girl replied promptly. "It's for a story. I—"
She bent to the desk and from a drawer pulled out a bundle of printers' proofs.
"Here it is. Mr. Delaney asked me to read the story and mark the places where I thought it would illustrate."
"So!" Paull was surprised. "In a story, eh? Well, Well! So Mr. Delaney illustrates a story and—and dies the same way, sitting looking at his work. That's a newie. Hm! There's something in this. Now, let's see—?"
He sat back in his chair, pondering deeply, the girl standing beside him, curiosity in her eyes. The Inspector was acknowledging himself frankly puzzled. During his service he had solved many problems—some of them bringing to him great credit and promotion—mainly by an inability to acknowledge defeat. But here, in this office he had a case where none of the ordinary methods of detection would serve.
David Delaney had been murdered while illustrating a story of a murder! The murder had been committed in a manner exactly similar to that depicted by the artist. Then the murderer had been acquainted not only with the story but with the actual lines that the artist had decided to illustrate—or there had been a coincidence far out of the common. Again, the murderer had known that David; Delaney had been commissioned to illustrate the story. Paull shook his head. Here was a situation bizarre to an absurdity! With a shrug Paull pulled the proofs of the story before him and scanned the heading:
THE ATELIER MURDER!
By Austin Farnborough.
With nervous fingers, he turned the long slips of paper, watching for the heavy double pencil marks on the margin that indicated the words the artist was to illustrate. In a few minutes he found the lines:
The door opened slowly. Into the darkened room crept a shadow. For some seconds it hovered behind the chair on which the artist sat; then moved swiftly. A strangled cry; a throaty gurgle, and the man fell back in his chair—dead.
"Humph!" Paull leaned back in the seat scowling. "Couldn't have described it better: myself." He pushed back the chair and turned his attention to the drawers of the desk. There was nothing of consequence in them. He turned to the desk-top. Under a pile of papers he found a thin copper plate—blank. "Interesting!" The detective turned to where the girl had stood, but she had disappeared.
A little chuckle came from his lips, immediately suppressed. He struggled to his feet and wandered to the door, expecting to find the artist-apprentice 'in the outer office, but she was not there.
"Feelings overcame her, eh?" Again he chuckled, wandering over to the high table on which the girl worked. There was nothing on it that interested him; only the usual paraphernalia of the studio. "Ah, well!"
He heard the click of the door-lock but did not turn.
"Miss Anstey!"
"I beg your pardon!" The strange voice caught his attention. In spite of his bulk he whirled round, quickly.
"Sorry!" He surveyed the pretty girl on the other side of the counter, quizzically. "I'm not used to keeping office, y'know, and—"
"Mr. Delaney in?" Without waiting for a reply the girl lifted the counter-flap and passed into the outer office, making for the inner room. Paull quietly interposed between her and the door.
"Sorry, Miss—er—"
"Again?" A bright smile flashed on the girl's face. "Is being sorry a habit of yours?"
"Always—when I have to disappoint a charm—"
"Thanks!" A moue pursed the girl's lips. "Then Mr. Delaney is not in?"
"I'm afraid—he's out—right out!" Paull spoke slowly, looking restlessly towards the outer door for the girl artist. "I'm afraid he'll be out for quite a time."
"Dear me!" The girl paused, undecided, for a moment: "Perhaps if I wait?"
"You may; have to wait a long time, Miss—er—"
"And you are busy, Mr.—er—" The girl mimicked, laughingly.
"Paull, Walter Paull," The Inspector interposed hurriedly. "Of course, I shall be delighted if—"
"Mr. Delaney's partner, Mr.—er—Walter Paull?"
"Well—hardly that. I'm—er—sort of interested in him at the moment. Not attached here—nor anywhere else. Just drop in when anything happens, y'know."
Where the devil had the girl got to?
"Miss Anstey's out for the moment—"
He tried to remember if the girl-artist had told him the name of Delaney's fiancée. No, he hadn't asked that question. What the—
"Have you an appointment?"
"No, Mr. Paull. Do you suggest that I should have rung up Mr. Delaney and asked for an interview? It's not very usual between—" she hesitated and swung round at the opening of the office door. "Why—Bill! Fancy you coming here! Have you come to see David? Mr.—er—Paull says he's out—and he's so rude—he won't let me into David's private room."
"Sorry, miss." A couple of strides brought the detective to the door of the inner room. He flung it open with a flourish. "If I'd thought—"
"Thank you!" The girl gave a little mocking curtsy as she passed into the inner room. The young man was about to follow her when Paull tapped him on the shoulder significantly.
"Just a moment. Mr.—er—"
"Sinclair! Bill Sinclair!" The young man looked puzzled. "I don't recognise you here. Has anything happened to David?"
"A bit." Paull nodded suggestively towards the other room. "There's been an acci—"
"Bill!"
"Yes, Dora."
"Come here! I want you."
"If you don't mind a moment, miss, it's a matter of business."
"Oh!" The girl rose and came to where Paull stood.
"Now I thought—I may have been mistaken—but I really thought that I—"
"Dora!"
"Bill!" They both laughed. Paull looked from one to the other somewhat amazedly. The girl glimpsed his face, and laughed anew. "The joke's on me!"
The detective made a gesture of resignation. "Mr. Sinclair, if you'll explain."
"Explain Dora!"
"Impossible!" The girl mocked. "No one has succeeded in that, so; far—even mother couldn't, David tried; then Bill?"
The Inspector threw up his hands. "I'm beat! Mr. Sinclair, will you please introduce me to this young lady. I suggested to her some little while ago that I would like to know her name, but—"
"Miss—er—" the girl laughed.
"Delaney." The young man concluded.
"Miss Delaney?" The detective was staggered. "And I thought you were—"
"Miss Anstey!" Sinclair turned towards the outer door as the apprentice artist entered the studio. "Will Mr. Delaney be long? This gentleman says he's out. I come to—"
"Meet me, Bill." Dora Delaney dimpled wickedly. "Now boy, don't deny it. You know I 'phoned you just before I left home and said I was coming here." She turned to the detective. "I'm rather worried about my brother, Mr. Paull. He never came home last night. Brothers—modern brothers—are really awful! So trying to real sisters. They go out and no one can guess when they will come home again—"
The detective nodded, a worried frown on his brows.
"And the modern girl, Dora—" commenced Sinclair.
"Is no lower than an angel," Dora concluded. "But that doesn't answer my question. David didn't come home last night—so I came here for an explanation—and I'm going to have a good one!" She paused, then continued: "There are but two of us, Mr. Paull—David and me. He's a great boy, my brother, but of course, I have to look after him, carefully."
"Women always do." Paull remarked, ponderously. "It's a habit they acquired from an ancestress—looking after men—"
"Mr. Paull!"
"They look after their brothers—until they think they want a change, then they take on the job of looking after some other girl's brother. If they want a change after that there's a special court of law to oblige them—but then—the public knows they didn't do their job properly! Looking after the other girl's, brother—I mean."
"Well!—"
"Well, Mr. Delaney's out." The detective assumed command of the situation. "There's been a bit of trouble here. I'm going to ask you to go into, the inner room, Miss Delaney, with Miss Anstey, and let her explain."
Paull carefully avoided catching the girl-artist's eyes. "While she's talking to you I'll have a word with Mr. Sinclair here."
There was something in the Inspector's voice that sobered the mocking retort on Dora's lips. Without a word she went into the private room. As he closed the door behind the girls, Sinclair looked significantly at the detective, raising his eyebrows.
Paull nodded.
"Trouble? Bad?" The young man queried.
"Worse than that. I'm Inspector Walter Paull. That his sister?"
"Yes."
"And you?"
"Well—not quite his—his brother-in-law."
"So!" For the moment the detective hesitated. "Perhaps I'd better tell you quick, before Miss Anstey blurts, it out to her. Delaney's dead!"
"Dead?"
"Murdered."
"Good God! Strangled while working at his desk." The Inspector spoke in almost a whisper. "Strange, but he had just finished a drawing of a man sitting at his desk, with a strangler creeping on him from behind and—"
"What do you mean?" Sinclair clutched the detective's arm. "Strangled!"
"Just as it was described in the story," Paull nodded. "A story by a writer named Austin Farnborough—"
"My story!"
"Yours!"
"Yes. Oh, I understand—but I write under the name of Austin Farnborough. That story was for the Critic and I persuaded Manning to get Delaney to illustrate it. You say—?"
"It was just as you wrote it in the story." Suspicion deepened in the detective's eyes. "The man who killed Delaney must have read that story—or—"
"Written it!" Sinclair 'completed the detective's accusation. "But, I didn't strangle David. I—"
"If you didn't, who did?" Paull shot the question at the young man. "There he sat, just as he had pictured! the man in the story sat, with, the assassin creeping up behind him. There's not an iota, of difference between the two scenes. Why Delaney had even drawn in his office setting. He drew the story—the scene—then someone acted it. Who could: have done that but the man who, wrote the story?"
A look of dumb despair grew on the young man's face. He glanced about him; as if seeking some means of escape. Paull's eyes hardened. He took a step forward, his hand outstretched towards Bill Sinclair' shoulder.
"William Sinclair, I arrest you—"
"No!" The door of the inner room, was flung open and Dora rushed in. "No, no!" He never did it! "Bill! Bill! Why don't you speak. Tell him—tell him—"
"Tell me what the three snails, arranged along the top edge of the drawing mean?" Paull spoke in hard, level tones.
"The three snails?"
With a moan of despair Sinclair turned and threw himself into a chair. "The three snails."
With a quick motion Paull produced the match-box and tilted the three round black objects into the palm of his hand, holding them under the young man's eyes. "Look! I say, look! What do those three dead snails mean?"
