Читать книгу The Flirting Fool - Aidan de Brune - Страница 6

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"FAUGH! What a hell of mess!" Inspector John Pater swung round in his chair from the desk in Stanley Griffiths' study—a small room on the ground floor. The desk at which he had been working was covered with papers. Drawers of the desk stood wide open; and a tall steel filing cabinet in the corner showed signs of thorough search. Outside the open windows overlooking the long, wide well-tended gardens, the dawn was breaking, dimming the light from the electric globes in the room. The two Inspectors had waited until the dead man had been taken from the house in the ambulance and the house was quiet again, before commencing their search for evidence.

Now a constable sat in the kitchen; another sat in the hall outside the study door, and a plain-clothes man walked the pavement before the house. So far as Pater and Murmer know, the neighbours were in ignorance of the tragedy that had taken place in their midst.

Now they were engaged in a close examination of the dead man's papers and correspondence. As their quest proceeded one or the other gave some exclamation of disgust at the depths of sensual depravity revealed. Stanley Griffiths had made a business of seduction. Letters they had read showed that the man had sought to contaminate not only the bodies but the very souls of the girls he had drawn into his web.

John Pater was almost inclined to rejoice at the man's sudden death. It had led to the uncovering of a brutal and lascivious sensuality among a class of men the police had long had under suspicion, but against whom they had so far failed to gather any material evidence. Now they had evidence in plenty. The letters they had found in that room would make it possible to trace many of these girls. In the privacy of police headquarters they could be examined and statements taken from them. Those statements would result in many men of high standing in the social and business world standing in the dock.

But, as the detectives proceeded with their work they began to have serious doubts of any open action resulting from the disclosures they were making. Many of the men and women uncovered during the search were of high standing in the community. Big influences would be brought to bear to stifle court action. That might be true. The public might never know of the depraved cliques in the city and suburbs, but even without open action, the police could disperse these men and women. Under the threat of exposure these moral satyrs would scatter in frantic fear.

Inspector Murmer, seated in the most comfortable lounge chair he could discover, drawn beside the big desk, looked up at his comrade's remark, and nodded. He dropped the letter he had been reading on the pile on the floor beside the chair.

"What of this man, Skields, John?" he asked, levering himself to a more comfortable position in the chair. "Looks as if he'd be interesting to question."

"Sure!" John Pater consulted a list of names and addresses scribbled on a pad. "Arthur Skields, Altona Flats, Pattybourne road! That's not far from here. What's the time, Saul?"

"Rising six. Wonder what time the servants come to work?"

"Not too early, you bet," Pater grinned wryly. "Men of Griffiths' kidney don't want servants round their places too early in the morning. Lord! I'd just hate to hunt down that girl!"

"There isn't much doubt." The desk chair creaked as the Inspector swung it round, from before the desk. "Griffiths gets his girl here. Gives her supper, and possibly plenty of drink. You'll have noticed there are three empty bottles of wine one the dining-room table. That's a generous allowance for two people. Then he entices her upstairs. Tries to force her into his bedroom, and she resists; in desperation, she seizes the only weapon in her hand, the silver dagger ornament and strikes him blindly with it. By accident, I firmly believe, she hits him in the throat and inflicts a mortal wound."

"Dr. Angus states he died from a bullet wound," Murmer interposed.

"Dr. Angus is a sentimental old fool!" Inspector Pater shifted uneasily in his chair. "We—you and I—have got to put sentiment aside—that sort of thing's for the jury, and the more sentiment her counsel piles on them the better I'll be pleased. I don't mind saying that to you—and here."

Murmer nodded. "Well, what then?"

"Miss—what's-her-name—stabs Griffiths while he has her in his arms. The shock causes him to release her and she falls on the couch. Almost at the same moment the man in the doorway fires. Then he runs downstairs.

"Why did he go into the dining room?" asked Murmer. "If he rushed away in such a panic after firing the shot, why come into this dining room and fling his gun into that corner—why not have run straight out of the front door?" Inspector Pater shrugged. He turned to the desk and picked up a small box in which lay a bullet.

"You've seen this, Saul. We dug it out of the couch padding. There's a trace of blood on it—Griffiths' blood—and on it two threads of cloth."

"Well?" For the moment the Australian detective looked at his companion half angrily. Then he smiled.

"I hate to admit it as much as you do, Saul." His voice had taken a softer note. "But what I've said are facts, and you and I have only to deal in facts. A man shot Griffiths; that I'll admit. And I'll admit his bullet killed the brute. But the girl had stabbed him before the bullet was fired. We can't get over that. Think, man—" His voice rose a tone note, "—think man; if the girl had been in Griffiths' arms at the moment the bullet was fired we'd have found two corpses up there. That's a fact we can't deny. The girl stabbed Griffiths, causing him to release his hold on her. She fell back on the couch a fraction of a second before the bullet was fired—" He paused, and when he spoke again distress showed in his voice.

"You obtained from Dr. Angus an admission that the throat-stab might have been mortal. That means that even if there was sufficient life in his body to retain him upright for a second or two after the dagger-thrust, and, while the bullet was piercing him, he still was legally dead. You understand what that means.

"If two persons kill a man almost simultaneously—that is both a wounds are mortal—then the person who inflicted the first wound is accounted guilty a of murder."

"And the second person—the second murderer?" Murmer smiled grimly.

Inspector Pater shrugged.

"The Lord knows how the law will look upon that. I've never had such a case. But I do know that the Public Prosecutor will look to us for that girl—and we've got to find her."

"Dr Angus states that the bullet killed Griffiths—killed him instantly. That can only mean that he considers that there was life in him when the bullet struck home."

"I'll admit that." The Australian spoke quickly. He paused, then continued, impatiently: "Damn it, man! Don't make it too difficult for us. The prosecution will show that the wound in the throat was mortal. We know that was caused by the girl. If the bullet had been fired before the dagger-thrust, then the girl must have been wounded," and in all probability unable to inflict the dagger-wound."

Again he paused, to continue in a quieter tone. "Look at it how you will, Saul, the onus of murder is on the girl—and it's our job to find her."

"Dr. Angus states the man was alive when the bullet was fired." Inspector Murmer had risen to his feet and was pacing the room. "We have to acknowledge that the girl probably stabbed Griffiths and inflicted a mortal wound—but, all the same, the stab did not kill him. He was alive when the bullet pierced his heart—we can't get over that—and the bullet killed him instantly. That's shown by the absence of blood—what was on the door was probably drained from his veins by the stab during the few seconds before the bullet killed him. If the stab alone had killed him there'd have been oceans of blood on him and around him. I'll swear there was no blood on the girl."

The detective swung round angrily. "Damn it, John. Do you want to hang that girl—a girl, possibly a born fool—a flirting fool? But we can't forget that she was defending her honour against a carnal, sexual beast!"

Inspector Pater did not reply for some seconds, he was engaged with a letter he had taken from an open drawer.

"You're a good pleader, Saul," he said at length. "I feel like you feel. I'd go down to hell to keep that girl from what, after all, must be punishment for entirely natural acts. But, you know, we were sworn to defend and uphold the law—and the law will say that it was she who struck the first—the mortal blow—"

Again he paused, drawing the pad towards him and scribbling a few lines. He remained intent for some seconds on what he had written. Suddenly he pressed the desk-bell savagely, keeping his finger on the little knob until the a constable from the kitchen came on the run.

"Any of the servants turned up yet, Morton?"

"Not yet, sir. Shouldn't say they'd be here much before eight."

Inspector Pater stared at the man interrogatively, but the constable's face did not change.

"So you believe the servants will not be here much before eight o'clock?" he asked. "Is that a guess, or knowledge?"

"A guess, sir!"

Again Inspector Pater was silent. Suddenly he asked: "Any signs of life in the surrounding houses?"

"There's smoke from the chimney of next door, sir."

"Then there's someone about there. One of the servants, I suppose. Just slip across and ask the lady—it's a lady I presume—to favour me with her presence here for a few minutes. No need to tell her why. Perhaps you'd better infer there's been a bit of trouble here, though—but not murder. Understand?"

The man saluted and left the room. A quarter of an hour later he re-entered, ushering before him a startled, distressed girl.

"Come in Miss—er—" Murmer, stout and innocent-looking, faced the door, his portly form concealing the more severe, official-looking Inspector Pater.

"There's no need to be afraid of us, my girl. I don't look too frightful, do I?" A fat chuckle brought a smile to the girl's white lips "There's been a bit of trouble here and Mr. Griffiths—is absent. We're police inspectors and we want to get in touch with someone in the neighbourhood. Seeing you were up and about, by the smoke from your chimney, we got Mr. Morton to bring you here. See? Now, can you tell us where the maids here live? So far, there's no one but the police in this house."

The girl did not reply. Her eyes went past Inspector Murmer, taking in the long, official form of Inspector Pater seated at the desk.

"You're detectives!" she breathed.

"Clever guess that, miss. You should be a detective yourself." Again the fat chuckle, the broad, round face creasing with guileless mirth. "I knew you were a girl of sense directly you came in at that door. Of course you know the young ladies who work—"

"You wouldn't call Mrs. Gordon a young lady," the girl smiled. "Why, she's over fifty!"

"And I'm guessing you're not twenty, yet." Murmer patted the girl's shoulder in fatherly fashion while he urged her gently to the chair before the desk. "Sit there, my dear, and take your time. Of course you got a shock to find a brace of detectives here. But he ain't dangerous—" He indicated Pater with a nod, "—why, he's a bachelor with quite a fancy for the fair sex and the girl who hooks him—What did you say? Mrs. Gordon? Oh, she's housekeeper and she lives—"

"Mrs. Gordon lives at 1496A New South Head Road," the girl answered with some return of confidence.

"Number one, four, nine, six, A? That's good. Suppose there's three or four maids to a house of this size?"

"There's only Mrs. Gordon and Nellie Blythe." The girl hesitated, then continued with a rush. "Y'see Mr. Griffiths isn't often home in the daytime, and there's only him lives here—So the two of them—"

"And—Nellie Blythe?" Murmer interrupted gently.

"You haven't told us your name, miss?" interrupted Pater.

"I—I'm Alice Warren." The girl stared at the tall detective, her cheeks paling: "I—I don't know anything about this house."

"You haven't told me Nellie Blythe's address," suggested Murmer. "I—I don't know it." The girl jumped to her feet abruptly. "I don't know it. Mr. Browne says I'm not to have anything to do with Griffiths or—or anyone in this house. He'd be cross if he knew I was here now—"

"And Mr Brown is?"

"He's the gentleman I'm engaged to." Alice Warren flung back her head defiantly. "He saw Mr Griffiths speak to me one evening, when I went to the gate waiting for him, and he said he would break his head in if he saw me speaking to him again and that I wasn't to have anything to do with anyone in this house although Mrs. Gordon's a dear, and I've known her all my life since I was a little toddler, and—"

"Thanks awfully." Murmer's gentle voice broke on the girl's hysterical speech. "Now—"

"But I don't know nothing and I'm not going to be drawn into anything so there and if you want to know anything you'll have to ask Mrs Gordon when she comes and I'm going home at once and you can't detain me, or I'll tell Mr Browne and he'll—"

Incontinently the girl turned and rushed to the door, speeding through the hall and the front garden down to the street gate. Murmer looked after her, a grin on his well-turned lips. He turned to Inspector Pater.

"Afraid that's broken it, John. The young lady don't like the inhabitants of this house any more than you and I do—and we've yet to meet the living ones. Think we'd better send Morton to find this Mrs. Gordon. Don't Suppose she'll be able to tell us anything, though."

Inspector Pater nodded. He pressed the bell again and when Constable Morton came to the room ordered him to find Mrs. Gordon and take her to police headquarters.

He looked up at the Englishman, inquiringly.

"What about Skields?"

"Police headquarters," Murmer suggested after a moment's thought. "Who's left in the house, now? Saunders, eh? Well, he can stand guard here. Dawson's on the road? He can go and fetch Skields to headquarters. We'll question him there. That's right? Good! Just collect what we'll want and we'll get along home. I can do with a bath, if I can't have a sleep. Suppose we'll have to see Superintendent Dixon at once—" He stretched and yawned. "No good these all night affairs—and I guess we've got a stiff day before us."

Inspector Pater nodded and commenced to collect the papers scattered over the desk. Murmer went upstairs and after a little search found a couple of big portmanteaux. He lugged them in to the study and helped his companion pack the various exhibits they had decided to remove from the house.

"All set John?"

The desk telephone rang. At a nod from Pater Murmer went to the instrument and lifted the receiver.

"Hello."

"Who's that?" A surprised voice came over the wire.

"Dr Bastion." Inspector Murmer spoke without a moment's hesitation.

"Is Mr Griffiths there?"

"No."

The detective's voice was smooth and cultured. "Mr. Griffiths has met with a slight accident: I am attending him. Can I give him any message?"

"Is Mrs. Gordon there?"

"Who is speaking?"

"I want to speak to Mrs. Gordon."

"Mrs. Gordon has not arrived yet. There is no one in the house but myself."

"What's happened to Griffiths?" There was anxiety in the voice.

"You did not let me finish my sentence," Murmer reproved. "I was stating that only myself and Mr. Griffiths were in the house. Can I give him any message?"

"Yes!" A tense hardness came into the voice at the other end of the wire. "Tell him I've got to have those letters before midday—or there will be hell to pay."

"Letters? What letters? Mr. Griffiths will hardly understand a message so ambiguous. He will want to know who requires the letters?"

"Stanley Griffiths will understand. I don't suppose there's anyone else who wants letters from him at present. Later, perhaps—" A short hard laugh cut on the words. "Just tell him I want those letters immediately, if he wants to keep life in his rotten carcase!" A click announced to Inspector Murmer that the line had been disconnected.