Читать книгу The Bird Cage - Eimar O’Duffy - Страница 4

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A DEATH IN THE NIGHT

The Grand Hotel, Spurn Cove, is not what is called a hotel de luxe–that is to say, a sham palace, all glare, glitter, and jazz music, where everything costs about fifteen times what it is worth,–but it is a very good hotel, with an atmosphere of solid comfort about it, and something of a tradition in cooking. When you enter it on some blustering day after a tramp along the coast, as the swing door cuts off the last wild clutch of the wind at your tingling ears, and you pass over thick-piled carpets to the generous fire burning in the lounge, a sort of heavenly calm seems to lap you round; in the security of which, sunk deep in capacious armchairs, you will have no thought but for tea and muffins.

The hotel is of a piece with the town it belongs to; for Spurn Cove is a resort which has not yet been what is called “developed”; which means that the sea and the hinterland are still its most prominent features, and that it has been sadly neglected by the speculative builder and the entertainment contractor. The main street has a certain individuality; there are few picture palaces, and only one small theater; the promenade is old-fashioned and of no great extent. Altogether it is not the sort of place to attract really go-ahead people, though the excellent bathing and scenery of the neighborhood bring a sufficiency of visitors whose chief requirement on a holiday is rest. It is very prettily situated on a sickle-shaped sweep of coast, backed by wooded hills, looking out over the North Sea.

One summer’s morning, Mr. Latymer, the manager of the Grand Hotel, was sitting at his desk at work on some accounts, when the telephone bell rang.

“Miss Philpot speaking,” came a voice along the wire. “Will you come down at once, sir? There’s something wrong with number twenty-two. The gentleman hasn’t come down to breakfast, and the chambermaid can’t get an answer from him. The door is locked on the inside.”

Mr. Latymer glanced at his wrist-watch. It was five past eleven. Something must be wrong indeed, and horrible imaginings chilled the discreet soul of the manager. “I’ll come down,” he said.

A moment later he stood at the bureau in the hall.

“Whose room is it?” he asked.

“Mr. W. Wilson,” replied Miss Philpot. “He only arrived last night.”

“Give me the master-key,” said Mr. Latymer, and, turning, called to a passing waiter: “Stubbs, I want you to come upstairs with me.”

With the man following, he hurried to the bedroom marked 22, and knocked at the door. There was no answer, He knocked again. Still no answer. He waited a moment, and knocked a third time, much louder, but with no more effect.

Mr. Latymer paled visibly, for he had made enough noise to waken the heaviest sleeper. After a brief hesitation he inserted the key in the lock, and walked into the room, followed by his subordinate. He had steeled himself for a shock; but even so the spectacle that confronted him wrung a cry of horror from his lips, and made him recoil against the stalwart figure of Stubbs behind him. Upon the bed lay the motionless form of a man, his limbs stiffened in a hideous contortion, his face a ghastly ruin, beaten and smashed out of all semblance of humanity, and masked with clotted blood.

The two men stood, half-stunned by the terrible sight. The manager was the first to recover.

“Look here, Stubbs,” he said. “We must get the police at once. Meanwhile, don’t say a word about this to anybody. We don’t want to create a sensation. Do you understand?”

Stubbs having promised compliance, Mr. Latymer locked the door, and went to the telephone in his private room.

“Is that the superintendent?” he inquired when the police station answered his ring.

“No, sir. The superintendent is away on sick leave. This is Inspector Cranley.”

“Well, look here. A dreadful thing has happened.” He told the story in quick nervous tones. “You must come round at once,” he concluded.

“I’ll be over in ten minutes,” promised the voice in the telephone.

“One moment.” Already, in spite of his recent shock, the manager in Mr. Latymer had risen above the man. “Come in mufti,” he said. “Above all things, I don’t want a sensation.”

In due course arrived Inspector Cranley, an alert young man in a gray flannel suit. Mr. Latymer wanted to hurry him at once to the scene of the crime, but he preferred to begin by taking a survey of the outside of the hotel.

“It’s a pretty easy crib to crack,” he remarked as they strolled past the south front. And so it was, for along the whole of this side of the hotel there ran a veranda, the roof of which formed a balcony to the first-floor windows, and which offered ample hold to an active climber.

Mr. Latymer agreed ruefully with the detective’s observation, and pointed out the window of number 22. Cranley at once went down on his knees to examine the geranium border which lay between the path and the verandah.

“By Jove!” he said. “A careful customer. He stepped on a board or something in getting in, but he must have slipped in getting out again, for he’s left us a trace of his heel. There it is. And you see how the earth has been pressed down here by something flat.” The young man rose to his feet. “Now what about the grounds? Are they as easy to get into as the house?”

“I don’t think anyone could climb our railings,” Mr. Latymer replied. “But the main gate isn’t shut till midnight. It would be quite easy to slip in unobserved before that, and hide in the shrubbery.”

“How about getting out again?”

“Well, the gate is opened at six, and he might slip out then; but it would be risky, as the gardeners are about. Another way would be to climb the gate leading to the beach. It isn’t very high.”

“Let’s have a look at it.”

The two men walked down a winding yew-hedged path, which led to a gate through which the sea could be observed dashing in miniature rollers on the beach. It was a perfectly feasible climb, but there were no traces, the path inside being flagged, and the sand without, where it had not been washed clear by the tide, trodden by dozens of feet.

“Nothing to be learned here,” said the detective. “Let’s go back. I must have a look at the bedroom at once.”

The manager led him to a side door, and then by a back stairway to the scene of the crime. But Mr. Latymer did not enter. One view of what was on the bed had been more than enough for him. Inspector Cranley went into the room alone.