Читать книгу Seven Dead - J. Jefferson Farjeon - Страница 5

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“H’m! Passed out,” said the doctor. “You won’t get anything more from him for ten minutes!”

“We can’t wait ten minutes,” answered Kendall; “and we’ve already got quite enough from him to go on with. Stand by him, constable. Take down his statement when he comes back to earth, and see he doesn’t give you the slip. A cup of tea may help the situation. Get through to Millingham, and tell ’em to send half a dozen men to Haven House at once. Maybe I’ll just turn ’em back when they arrive, but it’s pretty scenery. Now, then, doctor! Come along, sergeant!” He turned to the yachtsman. “And what about you?”

“You know my views,” replied the yachtsman. “I’d weep if you left me out.”

“I see. You want a prize for running?”

“I think I deserve it.”

“You like this sort of thing?”

“It’s my bread-and-butter.”

The inspector shot him a swift glance. They walked as they talked.

“That’s bad news,” remarked Kendall. “I had a journalist trying to beat me on my last job.”

“Yes. Bultin,” murmured Hazeldean.

“Oh! You know that?”

“You mentioned your name. There are plenty of Kendalls in the world, but I remember one who did pretty good work recently at Bragley Court, in the case of the Thirteen Guests. What I liked about him was that he didn’t play the violin, or have a wooden leg, or anything of that sort. He just got on with it.”

“And there’s another point you may remember, if you followed the case closely,” said Kendall, with a dry smile. “He didn’t give away any presents in exchange for compliments. Are you as bad as Bultin?”

“Not nearly,” Hazeldean smiled back as they got into the waiting car. “But I’m bad.”

The car darted forward. In three minutes it had shed the little town of Benwick and reached the spot where Ted Lyte had toppled into the arms of a policeman. In another three, a narrow, twisting lane had brought the party of four to the old gate swaying on its worn hinges. “Don’t drive in!” ordered Kendall. Sergeant Wade, who was driving, pulled up sharply. The four men jumped out.

“Steady—just a moment!” came Kendall’s next order.

He wanted the moment in order to register his first impression. Once this invasion began, fresh footprints would be on the rough, untidy gravel, and new incidents would mingle with old ones, confusing clues. Those clues had already been threatened by two intruders who—apparently—had no connection with the main object of the present visit. A silver fork, gleaming incongruously from the gravel, was the first evidence of this.

Swinging gate. Wanted oiling. Letter “O” almost rubbed out from words “Haven House” on gate. Gravel circling round grass plot. Gravel untidy. Grass plot ditto. Silver fork on right side of gravel. Disturbed spot near silver fork. Somebody tumbled? Small damaged bush near disturbed gravel. Somebody tumbled. Right lower window shuttered. Front door open...

“Which way did you come?” Kendall asked Hazeldean.

“Through a wood at the back,” answered Hazeldean. “I was on that side lawn when I spotted my man—”

“Who was coming out of the house?”

“Well, that was an obvious deduction. Actually, he’d just reached this gate.”

“Right! Come along! Keep to the left and stick to the edge—and when we get in, don’t touch anything.”

“Hey! What’s that?” jerked the sergeant.

Something was happening in the house. As they darted towards it, an unearthly noise issued from the hall, and the sergeant admitted afterwards that it “fair went up his spine.” The sound grew venomously. It was like a hive of bees that had gone mad. There seemed no rhyme or reason in it, unless it had been designed as a macabre overture to what was to follow. Even Hazeldean, whose nerves were exceptionally good, felt his heart accelerating, while the doctor’s eyes became two little startled pools.

But Kendall smiled with ironic grimness as he dashed into the hall. He made for a small table on which was a telephone with the receiver off. Seizing the receiver, he bawled into it: “All right, all right—police speaking—stop that row!” He replaced the receiver, and the “howler” died away.

Then he swung round to a wide-open door. He was the first to look into the room and to see what Ted Lyte had seen. The others, their eyes on him, watched him grow rigid.

“My God!” he murmured.

“What—is it?” asked the sergeant.

“Come and see,” answered Kendall. “Some work for you, doctor. Not that you can...”

They joined him in the doorway. The drawing-room they stared into might have been a morgue. Seven dead people—the doctor knew they were dead before he examined them—were in that shuttered chamber, revealed with a cruel starkness by the unnatural artificial light. Six of the people were men and one was a woman.

The nearest figure was on its face, head towards the door, and right arm extended. It was so close that the fingers almost touched Kendall’s foot. A tall figure, with untidy dark brown hair. Across its legs, like the top part of a capital T, was a shorter man. His hair was black, and also untidy. Near the shutters of the front window were two men who looked something like sailors. The impression was conveyed by their coarse hands—one had tattoo marks on the back—and their jerseys. Probably the jerseys had been blue once, but now they were black with grime and age. Against the other shuttered window—the french window in the wall opposite the door—was an old, grey-haired man. He had a bald spot on top, and that also was grey. The sixth man was on a couch. His mouth was open, and one leg dangled. He might have been asleep, but for the grim implication of his silent companions. He looked the youngest of the company, though like the rest he was unshaven.

The woman was in a chair, her head resting against a blue cushion. It would have been easy at first glance to mistake her sex, for she was wearing a man’s clothing—jersey, trousers and heavy boots—while her features, framed in short dark hair, were coarsened by exposure. She might have been attractive once. She was not attractive now. Her unseeing eyes were open...

Doctor Saunders ran forward.

“Be very careful, please,” said Kendall, quietly. “I’ll want photographs.”

The doctor nodded as he bent over the first victim.

“Go over the house, sergeant, every inch of it,” continued Kendall, “and report anything important you find the instant you find it.”

The sergeant vanished with alacrity. Kendall turned to Hazeldean.

“Well, you’re getting your scoop,” he remarked. “Come round the room with me, but don’t touch.”

“Wouldn’t I be more useful if I finished this floor while the sergeant does the top?” suggested Hazeldean.

“If you want to be useful, of course you would,” answered Kendall. “Carry on.”

The doctor, working rapidly, looked up as Hazeldean left the room after the sergeant.

“Stone dead,” said the doctor.

“You’re telling me,” replied Kendall. “What I want to know is how he died.”

The doctor continued with his examination, with a gloomy lack of confidence.

“Not going to be so easy, eh?” asked Kendall.

“We’ve both got nuts to crack,” grunted the doctor.

“You’re right. What’s that on the back of his head?”

“An old scar. That didn’t do it—though, from the look of it, it’s a wonder it didn’t do it at the time.”

“How long ago?”

“Can’t say.”

“What can you say?”

“At the moment, Kendall, about as much as you.”

“Which is nothing,” smiled Kendall grimly. He gazed around. “This has Madame Tussaud’s beaten. I expect they’d like it for their Chamber of Horrors. Can you see to-morrow’s headlines?”

“Yes—I suppose our young friend is working them out now,” replied the doctor.

“Well, its his job, and you and I are doing ours.”

“Ours are more useful!”

“That’s merely our opinion. Something’s in your mind. Let’s have it.”

Doctor Saunders glanced towards the door.

“Do you think he may have had anything to do with this?” he asked, lowering his voice.

“He may have,” answered Kendall. “So may you and I. I once arrested a coroner just after he’d adjourned the inquest.” He sniffed. “Get anything?”

The doctor sniffed.

“Not more than I expect.”

“Can you say the same about their complexions?”

The doctor raised his eyes and stared round the room. He became unprofessionally human for a moment.

“I think we deserve medals for coolness,” he said.

“It’s our business to be cool,” responded Kendall. “This isn’t the first time you and I have seen death.”

“I’ve never seen seven in a bunch like this!”

“No, and to my thinking seven’s easier to stand than one. You can sympathise with one. Seven beats you—like the little boy in the Guitry film who lost all his family at once and didn’t know which member to grieve for. I’m still waiting to hear what you’ve got to say about their complexions.”

“And I’m still waiting to have something to say,” retorted the doctor.

“Well, how’s this, to go on with? When you’ve found what killed one, you’ll have found what killed the lot... Hallo!”

He darted towards the fireplace and stooped. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he used it while picking up a small revolver to preserve fingerprints. With the same care he opened the weapon, examined the barrel, and closed it. Then he replaced the revolver on the carpet in the exact position in which he had found it.

“That didn’t kill them,” said the doctor, now shifting to the second body lying across the legs of the first.

“No. But what did it kill?” answered Kendall. “One chamber’s empty.” He added: “And who emptied it? We’ll have to take seven fingerprints.”

On the point of turning, he suddenly fixed his eyes on the mantelpiece. In the centre, conspicuously separated from the nearest ornaments, was a slender silver vase, designed for a small spray of flowers or a single bloom. There were no flowers in the vase now. Instead, incongruously supported on the top, was an old cricket ball. Like the jerseys of the seamen, it had lost all its original colour. It was green-yellow with age.

“Why’s that there?” murmured Kendall.

He drew closer to it and examined not only the vase and the ball, but the spot where they stood. He noticed four little marks on the mantelpiece, two on each side of the vase. His eyes travelled along the mantelpiece to a clock at one end.

“Doctor, this mantelpiece is very interesting,” said Kendall.

Saunders did not answer. He was moving to another body.

“Here is a clock with four legs,” went on Kendall, “that has been moved from a perfectly good spot in the middle of the mantelpiece—its usual spot—the leg-marks are there—to make room for a ridiculous vase bearing a prehistoric cricket ball. The clock isn’t going, but you don’t put clocks in a corner for that.”

“Here’s something more interesting,” replied Saunders. He was by the grey-haired man near the french window. “These shutters aren’t merely bolted—they’re nailed.”

“Yes, I’ve already noticed that,” nodded the inspector. “They’re nailed at both windows.” His eyes were busy all the while he talked. “But that doesn’t undermine the importance of my cricket ball. I’d like to know its story.”

“I’d rather know why the shutters were nailed up. The door wasn’t locked.”

“Not when we came in; but don’t forget we weren’t the first. That scamp at the station’s going to tell us something presently.” He moved to the doctor, who was now kneeling by the old man. “This poor chap looks a cut above the others, though his clothes aren’t much better. Gosh, doctor—these people have been through something!”

“Through hell.”

“But—before this, too! Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, undoubtedly. Emaciated, most of them. This chap’s condition is terrible.”

“And plenty of will-power to endure it, I should say. Interesting face. I imagine we’ll find that—hallo, there’s something in his hand!”

He knelt down by the doctor and gently opened the fingers. The stump of an old red pencil rolled on to the floor. He picked it up and then stared again at the closed eyes of the man who had held on to the pencil while he died.

“My God, Saunders,” muttered Kendall, “I’m going to find out who’s done all this! If there’s any after-life, this fellow’s watching us!”

“There’s someone else who’s watching us, in a chair,” murmured the doctor unhappily. “I’ll go to her next.” But before he moved away a look of despair entered his face. “I suppose you know, Kendall, I’m not getting anywhere?”

“No?”

“All I can tell you is that their hearts have stopped.”

“Can you tell me how long ago they stopped?”

“I can only make a guess at that—so far. You see, rigor mortis varies, according to the cause of death, so if you don’t know the cause of death, you don’t know what to expect. We’ve no rigor mortis here. That gives us a range of from half an hour to twenty or thirty hours. You want something closer than that to work upon.”

Kendall glanced at his watch. It was six minutes to eleven.

“Yes, I certainly want something closer than that,” he said, “and I’m sure when you’ve finished here you can give it to me. There are other signs, aren’t there, to an experienced doctor’s eye—?”

“Well, yes, of course—”

“Have a guess. You’ll be expected to, you know!”

The doctor studied the old man intently, then made a quick tour of the other bodies.

“I won’t stake my reputation on it,” he announced, at the end; “but—at a guess—I should say that death occurred not less than six hours ago or more than sixteen.” He threw up his hands suddenly. “And that is assuming that they all died at about the same time.”

“There’s nothing definite to indicate that there was any great difference of time?” asked Kendall.

“No, no. Nothing.”

“Then that will do, to go on with. We guess they were dead by five o’clock this morning, and alive at seven o’clock last night. I’ll carry on with that, and maybe we can improve upon it later... Ah, sergeant!” He turned as his subordinate came into the room. “Any luck?”

“Not much, sir,” replied the sergeant. “Nobody upstairs—dead or alive.”

“I thought you were dead yourself, you’ve been such a time!”

“Well, sir, I made a job of it. Looked in every room and the cupboards.”

He had also looked under the beds, but he did not mention that. He felt a little hurt at the inspector’s attitude.

“You said, ‘Not much luck,’ ” commented Kendall. “It doesn’t sound as if you had any.”

“One of the bedrooms was a bit untidy.”

“Form any conclusion?”

“Well, sir, someone might have left it in a hurry. There’s a pair of shoes—lady’s—in the middle of the floor, like they was kicked off and no time to put ’em away.”

“Anything else?”

“A dress half off a chair, like it was thrown there quick and they hadn’t stopped to fix it.”

“That the lot?”

“Barring no brush and comb on the dressing-table, like they’d been packed.”

The sergeant thought this piece de resistance was a particularly smart bit of observation, and was disappointed that the inspector’s face did not register admiration. However, he’d been in the force long enough to know that praise from a superior was rarer than currants in a bun.

“I’ll go up in a minute,” said Kendall. “Where’s Hazeldean?”

“Adsum,” came Hazeldean’s voice as he appeared behind the sergeant; “and I’ve got something for you.”

“What?”

“In the dining-room. Can you come and see?”

As Kendall followed him across the hall, he went on, half-apologetically:

“I ought to have found this before, but I explored the kitchen quarters first. Someone’s got in through a back window; but that was probably our spoon-thief. He’s left a lot of cheese crumbs. Here we are. This door was ajar.”

Entering the dining-room, the inspector glanced swiftly around, and his eye rested on the overturned chair.

“Yes, but that’s not what I mean,” said Hazeldean. “That picture on the opposite wall. Damn’ shame to treat a charming child like that.”

The charming child was a girl of about eleven, painted in oils. She had soft brown hair and demure brown eyes, but there was a glint of hidden mischief in the eyes which the artist had effectively caught. The dress was white, with a blue belt, but there was something on the dress that the artist had not put there. A little hole.

“So that’s where the bullet went,” murmured Kendall, frowning. “Right through the heart!”