Читать книгу Sir Adam Disappeared - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 6

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Martin Mowbray had played Rugby football for England and cricket for his county. He was thirty years old and in as good condition as a man can be who spends a portion of each day in an office. Nevertheless, after the Inspector had completed his investigations and the body of the dead man was lifted and carried up the stairs into Sir Adam's office, he felt the perspiration wet upon his forehead and a nasty inclination towards sickness as he turned away with a shudder from the hideous spectacle. The police surgeon stopped to speak to him after the ambulance men had passed out with their burden followed by the Chief Constable.

"Dead, I suppose?" Martin asked.

"Stone dead," was the prompt response.

"No chance of it being accidental?"

The surgeon raised his eyebrows.

"The wound at the back of his head might have been accidental," he replied, "but the bullet which passed through his shoulderblade and into his heart was murder right enough."

"Murder! In the vault there?" the young man exclaimed incredulously.

"Looks like it. I'll tell you more about it, Martin, after I have completed my examination up at the mortuary. I have lost a quarter of an hour already whilst the Inspector was busy. I'll tell you anything you want to know later in the evening. So far as I have gone at present," he added a little more deliberately, "I should say that he had been shot first and then thrown down, but that is all speculative."

"He didn't look like a burglar--his clothes, I mean, and that sort of thing," Mowbray observed.

"His clothes are as good as yours or mine," the surgeon answered. "A good deal better than most of mine. That is the Inspector's job, of course, but I did just turn down the collar--couldn't see the name, but it was Savile Row."

"A stranger, of course?"

"A stranger to me, at any rate," the surgeon acquiesced. "Everything up till now is speculation. I must get off with the ambulance. I am leaving the Inspector and sergeant behind. Gilson is there, too, searching for fingerprints. See you later."

He hurried out. Martin glanced down into the vault where the Inspector was standing with folded arms looking curiously up the flight of steps.

"Want any help, Inspector?" he asked.

"Not at present, sir. One or two curious things here if you'd like to come down."

"I'll be there in a moment."

Mowbray turned round and crossed the office to where Groome was sitting, his face covered with his hands, moaning slightly to himself.

"Horrible affair, Groome," Martin remarked.

The cashier's reply was inaudible. He slowly removed his hands from before his face, however, and a little exclamation broke from Mowbray's lips. The man seemed to have aged a dozen years. There were black lines under his eyes, his lips were twitching and in the eyes themselves horror still lingered.

"You didn't recognise the poor fellow, I suppose?"

Groome shook his head feebly.

"They had covered up his face with an ambulance cloth when they crossed the room," he confided. "Thank God they had! I had to look. There was nothing but white cloth. I have never seen a dead man, Mr. Mowbray."

"I have--several," the young lawyer told him, "but I have never seen one that has been left like that. You caught a glimpse of the body before the police came?"

Groome covered his face once more with his hands.

"I don't remember," he groaned. "It was a vision. I have a book at home--a volume of Dante--Doré's illustrations. There is a face there like it."

"It was not like anyone you have seen in life?" Mowbray persisted.

"No man's face in life could have looked like that," Groome muttered.

"It did not remind you of anybody?"

The man lurched sideways in his chair. Mowbray was just in time to break his fall. He laid him on the floor and called down to the Inspector.

"Fanshawe, could you spare your sergeant for a moment? The old man here, Groome, has fainted. Send him across the way for Dr. Jonson and let him get some brandy."

"Up you go, Bob," the Inspector ordered. "Come right back, mind."

The sergeant came running up the stairs, passed across the gloomy bank premises and into the street, pushed his way through the little knot of curious people who were being kept back by the policeman on duty and crossed the road. Mowbray did his best at first aid and opened the window slightly. Then he made his way to the top of the stairs leading down to the vault. The place was fairly well lit by the various electric lamps, but it presented a drear and dismantled appearance. Two sides were occupied entirely by what seemed to be a row of black steel lockers, the other two were piled with packing cases and reams of paper and in a corner was a rough table, three or four balls of string, a bracket lamp, some ink and pens and a chunk of sealing wax. Exactly opposite the staircase from the bank parlour was a screen.

"What is behind there, Inspector?" Martin enquired.

The former crossed the floor and pulled the screen on one side.

"What do you think of that, sir?" he asked, pointing to another flight of stairs.

"The devil!" Mowbray exclaimed. "Where do they lead to?"

"I have not yet investigated the matter, sir. The Captain will be back in a few minutes. I thought it best to wait. I am wondering if they may not lead to the premises occupied by Sir Adam Blockton. They say he lived here."

"Seems queer if they do," Mowbray remarked. "Groome, the cashier, assured us only an hour or so ago that he had been over the three rooms occupied by Sir Adam and he said nothing about a private entrance from the bank. Did you look at the stairs?"

"I did not, sir," the Inspector replied. "That is to say, I did not examine them closely. What with Captain Elmhurst being on his way back and the rumour I heard of Sir Adam's disappearance, I thought it better to point them out to him personally before I commenced anything on my own account."

"Better send for your fingerprint man again," Mowbray told him, "and don't let anyone get playing about with that handle."

The Inspector nodded approval.

"That's all right, sir," he said, "but the fingerprint man was disappointed with what he found in Sir Adam's office. That's why he went off so quickly."

"I know where you can get some more recent ones," Mowbray confided. "Over at the club. If you stay here I will drop in there myself and tell them not to touch the chair Sir Adam sat in. I will telephone, too, to the Town Hall for Gilson to come back. First of all I'd better go back and have a look at poor old Groome."

He remounted the staircase and stepped into the bank parlour. The doctor had arrived and was bending over the cashier. He glanced round at the sound of footsteps.

"Ordinary faint," he reported. "The fellow's heart is weak. He will be all right as soon as we can get him home. I have sent for a taxi They all seem to know where he lives."

"Look after him well," Mowbray begged. "There are several very important questions the police will want to ask him."

"Let him alone for to-night," the doctor advised. "I'm not saying there is any particular danger but he might slip off at any time."

The young man nodded and passed on out of the bank premises. The door was standing ajar but with two police constables now guarding it. The little crowd outside had partially dispersed or been moved on. Martin crossed the street to the club and made his way to the steward's room. Lawford was writing out menus for dinner.

"Any news, sir?" he asked anxiously.

"None at all. I stepped across to ask you not to have any of the furniture touched in the reading room, especially the armchair in which Sir Adam was seated."

Lawford rose to his feet, evidently disturbed.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said. "The room has been put to rights within the last half-hour."

"The devil!" Mowbray muttered. "I thought no one ever went in there, Lawford."

"They don't very often, sir," the man admitted. "As a matter of fact," he went on, "I'm afraid it is my fault. I happened to go in this afternoon and I noticed the chair was out of line with the rest of the furniture and I put it back in its place. I hope there was nothing wrong in that, sir."

"Nothing wrong, but it may be unfortunate. Let's have a look."

Martin Mowbray led the way across the hall into the reading room. The furniture was all in strict order. He bent over the chair.

"Looks as though someone had been polishing the mahogany sides here," he remarked.

"That is very likely, sir," Lawford answered. "I often carry a duster with me when I go round in the afternoon. I believe I did give it a rub-up. Sir Adam is not as careful as he used to be and he sometimes drops a little of his wine about."

The woodwork and the leather arms of the chair had obviously been cleansed. Mowbray looked at them thoughtfully.

"I suppose," he asked, "that glass--"

The steward smiled at him reproachfully.

"The glass has been washed long ago, sir."

"And the bottle?"

"If it is anyone else's fingerprints you are thinking about, Mr. Mowbray," Lawford pointed out, "it would be of no use looking upon the bottle for them, as I served the wine myself and refilled Sir Adam's glass. Still, the bottle is down in the cellar."

Mowbray tapped a cigarette upon his case and lit it.

"Sir Adam did not read a newspaper, I suppose?" he asked.

"I have never seen him look at one or an illustrated paper in my life," the man replied. "If you will come this way, sir, I will show you where the bottle is, if you would like to see it."

Martin Mowbray followed the steward into the back premises. The empty bottles of the day were all in a partitioned case. The steward indicated a half-bottle standing in one of the compartments.

"That is the one, sir," he pointed out. "I know because it is the only pint of champagne we served to-day."

Mowbray wrapped his handkerchief around his hand and lifted up the bottle gingerly by the top of the neck. He turned it round and looked at it from all angles for a moment or two. Then he replaced it.

"I see, Lawford," he muttered. "Well, you can get me a whisky-and-soda. I don't think that bottle will be much use to Gilson or any of us."

The steward seemed a little distressed as they left the place. He brought Mowbray his whisky-and-soda a few moments later and the look of concern still lingered on his face.

"If I had had any idea, sir, that there might be a question of fingerprints, I should have been careful not to touch anything," he said. "You will pardon my suggesting it though, sir. There must be fingerprints in Sir Adam's parlour,--he came directly here as usual this morning,--and perhaps on the car."

"Quite so, Lawford," Mowbray assented. "But can't you understand that it isn't Sir Adam's fingerprints alone that we are looking for? I don't suppose they would be of the slightest use, anyhow. What the Inspector would like to get hold of are the fingerprints of someone who might have come into personal contact with Sir Adam in the club here."

"I'm afraid there was no one anywhere near him except your uncle, sir," Lawford reflected. "There would have been no time for anyone to have entered the room and got away again without being seen during the two or three minutes that I was away."

"I don't suppose there would," Martin agreed. "Yet, on the other hand, if we accept that fact we are face to face with another impossibility. If Sir Adam was not assisted or hustled or carried out of the room he must have left it of his own accord. It is certain that he is not in the club. It is certain also that he did not leave the club, as those two men were talking upon the steps during the period of time when it might have been possible for him to have done so. What about that, Lawford?"

The steward shook his head.

"For the moment, sir," he admitted, "I can think of no explanation whatsoever. You will excuse my mentioning the fact, though," he went on diffidently, "but Sir Adam was not quite himself this morning. I had occasion to go into the reading room once and he was sitting looking at the statue and talking to himself."

"Talking to himself, eh? Bad sign."

"It almost appeared as though something had upset him, sir."

They had reached the steps of the club. Martin Mowbray lingered there with his hands behind his back.

"You will excuse me, Mr. Mowbray," the steward ventured. "I noticed that the letter you were speaking about with the other gentlemen, as being the only one which Sir Adam had not opened, was upon the table whilst you gentlemen were talking in the Committee Room. After you had left it had disappeared."

"Quite a gift that of yours, Lawford," the young man remarked. "Quick at observation, aren't you? However, in this case it doesn't seem important. The letter was from Lady Diana's mother and she took it away with her. I am going over to the bank for a few minutes now. Something pretty terrible seems to have happened over there, although I do not see how it could be connected with Sir Adam's disappearance. You will know where to find me if you want me. I shall probably drop in here again."

The steward made his little bow.

"I do hope you will let us know, sir, if there is any news of Sir Adam," he begged. "Somehow or other he was not what you might call popular amongst the servants here but we seemed all to have got used to him. At his age, too, one cannot help feeling a little anxious."

"You shall have the news as soon as we have any," Martin promised with a farewell nod.