Читать книгу Murder by Matchlight - Edith Caroline Rivett - Страница 11

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Macdonald stood and studied the dead face of the man whom Mallaig had called “the Irishman”—and the Chief Inspector admitted that he himself would have attributed the same nationality to the owner of that smiling whimsical face. He studied the long thin hands and the condition of the dead man’s skin and hair. A healthy, well-kept skin and carefully tended hands denoted a man of the professional class rather than an artisan. A writer or an actor perhaps, thought Macdonald, for there was something that suggested an imaginative faculty, or artistry, in that pale smiling mask of death.

Macdonald next turned his attention to John Ward’s clothes. His suit had been a very good one once, though it was old now. The tailor’s name had been cut away, but the workmanship of the suit denoted a good tailor. The linen was less good in quality, but was clean and fresh. The only markings on it were those stitched in by a laundry. The contents of the pockets told very little: there was a wallet holding Identity Card and Ration Book, some printed cards giving John Ward’s name but no address, and three letters. Each of these was written by a different woman: each was a love letter of sorts, and each had had the address torn off. Elspeth, Meriel and Jane all expressed their affection for “Johnnie” in the current idiom of young women of to-day. Apart from the wallet and its contents the pockets contained four shillings and sixpence, a packet of Players, a box of matches, a fine linen handkerchief, a fountain pen, a pencil and two latch keys. The preliminary surgeon’s report told Macdonald that deceased appeared to have been in good health, but that he had been slightly lame, due to a badly set fracture in the left femur. “That probably kept him out of the Services, but it didn’t save his life,” pondered Macdonald. Something about John Ward interested the Chief Inspector. Even in death the Irishman had an invincible charm.