Читать книгу Bodies from the Library 2 - Группа авторов - Страница 9

Mr Verity had gone. Inspector Swallow mopped his brow as he climbed the steps of the police-station.

‘Say, Inspector—’

‘Why, Harry!’ Swallow positively beamed at the local reporter. ‘I want some information from you.’

‘Me? I just came for the latest—’

‘I know, I’ll give you something later. Look, you’re in the newspaper business. Supposing an advertising agency wanted to insert an advertisement in a national newspaper, how long before publication would they have to get the pictures and things ready?’

‘The way clients change their minds and alter the ads, I’d say a month or so.’

‘No, seriously. What’s the shortest time?’

‘Well, let’s see. The national papers close for press for advertisements the evening of the second day previous to publication—earlier, some of them. Then the agency would need a day for their layout men to draw the ad out and so on, another for making the illustrations, especially if they’re half-tones, another for casting the block. About four days. It has been done in less time, of course, in emergencies and with top-level pushing.’

‘The photo of the old woman was posted at six,’ Swallow was murmuring to himself, ‘to reach London next morning. I say, Harry, could it be done in under a day?’

‘Not on your life. Now, Inspector—’

But Swallow had hurried in.

Robert Carmichael and Nurse Stephens were still very angry and considerably on their dignity. Swallow beamed at them a little nervously.

‘I’m terribly sorry about all this.’

‘We want—’

‘Oh, Carmichael,’ said the Inspector hurriedly, ‘that photo you took of Mrs Carmichael the afternoon of the tragedy, what was it for?’

‘I tried to tell you. Mrs Carmichael is—was—being featured in a “Toneup” advertisement, “Before and After”—you know the sort of thing.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen it.’

‘Have you? Then you’ll have noticed how terrible she looks in the “After” shot. The “Toneup” people wanted to use the advertisement again next month, and they asked for a more cheerful photograph. I was taking it, that’s all.’

‘Quite. Sergeant, have you got those interviews with the servants at Delver Park? Can’t think why Verity ignored them so completely.’

‘Yes, sir; it’s all sorted out now. The person you suspected is inside here.’

‘Confession?’

The sergeant nodded.

‘Nurse Wimple, the night-nurse,’ he said, ‘confirms now that the maid came up about 10.30. Very tired she was and complained about running up and down stairs for invalids all day. “There now,” said the maid, “I’m so tired I’ve been and forgotten your cocoa, Nurse. And the water’s all on the boil.” Nurse Wimple said she looked so done in that she offered to go down and get it herself. I quote: “I’ll go down, dearie. You just stay here a minute.”’

‘Time enough,’ Swallow commented.

‘See, where my slave, the ugly monster Death,

Shaking and quivering, pale and wan for fear,

Stands aiming at me with his murdering dart.’

‘Verity would appreciate that. Persepolis, indeed!’ Inspector Swallow snorted.

‘Yes, sir. And we’ve got the motive. Neurotic hatred of the invalid, built up over the years—’

Nurse Stephens nodded in sympathy: ‘She could be hard. Look at her treatment of Sandra, Logan’s a good man.’

‘—and there was a good fat legacy. She knew—at least, it was common gossip according to the cook. But we didn’t get anything on the burn.’

‘On Mrs Carmichael’s hand?’

‘I know about that,’ said Nurse Stephens. ‘She used to sit in her room sometimes in her chair. She tried to poke the fire a day or so ago and nearly fell in it—caught her finger on a coal.’

The sergeant looked a little worried. ‘I thought Verity said it showed in the photograph in the paper?’

‘Verity’s imagination,’ Swallow smiled. ‘The fingers had come out dark, the nicotine stains probably—you could never identify that burn smudge on a newspaper reproduction. Coincidence, though.’ Inspector Swallow sighed. ‘So it was just another simple tragedy, after all.’

Robert Carmichael had simmered down now. He smoothed back his thinning hair.

‘There’s just one thing, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Why did you let that Verity fool make such a nuisance of himself, upsetting everyone?’

Swallow paused a moment. ‘I feel I owe you some sort of apology, but it’s strictly in confidence. We had orders from the Yard to let him have his head—they’re suspicious because he happens to be around when so many murders crop up. But he had nothing to do with this one.’

‘Nothing at all. Ah!’ said the sergeant as a constable brought in a tray of tea mugs.