Читать книгу Invisible Weapons - John Rhode, John Rhode - Страница 8

As a direct result of Yateley’s telephone call, Inspector Waghorn, of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police, found himself in the superintendent’s room at Adderminster Police Station just before six o’clock that afternoon.

Inspector Waghorn, popularly known at the Yard as Jimmy, was a Hendon graduate who had already gained the approval of his somewhat exacting superior, Superintendent Hanslet. It was Hanslet who had suggested Jimmy as the fitting person to answer the call from the Adderminster Police.

‘Go down and see what you can make of it,’ he had said. ‘If it’s all plain sailing, you know well enough what to do by this time. If it isn’t you can get on to me and I’ll come down and bear a hand. Away you go.’

Yateley gave Jimmy a detailed account of what had happened.

‘Those are the facts,’ he concluded. ‘Now, I’m going to be perfectly frank with you, inspector. We didn’t call in the Yard because we wanted any help in tracing the criminal.’

Jimmy smiled. ‘That’s what the CID is usually called upon to do, sir,’ he replied.

‘Yes, I know. But now it’s rather different. In this case, there isn’t the slightest doubt as to the identity of the criminal. The only problem—and that’s a very minor one—is precisely how he did it. To put it crudely, we’ve only sent for you to wash our dirty linen for us.’

‘I appreciate your meaning, sir,’ replied Jimmy solemnly. ‘But perhaps you would be good enough to tell me exactly what you want me to do?’

‘I should have thought you would have guessed that. We don’t want to arrest Dr Thornborough off our own bats, so to speak. He’s made himself very popular while he’s been here, and if we were to take action without calling in the Yard, we should arouse local feeling against us. Whereas if the Yard applies for a warrant, the responsibility can’t be thrown upon our shoulders.’

‘I see, sir,’ Jimmy murmured respectfully. ‘There’s no doubt about Dr Thornborough’s guilt, I suppose?’

‘There’s no room for the slightest particle of doubt!’ Yateley exclaimed. ‘Take the motive, to begin with. Mr Fransham was a total stranger to Adderminster. By that I mean, that although he had visited his nephew and niece several times previously, they were the only people in the town he knew. Nobody else in Adderminster could have had the vestige of a motive for murdering him.

‘Now, had the doctor a motive for murdering him? Most emphatically he had. I happen to know that although he’s got a pretty good practice here as Dr Dorrington’s partner, he’s been living a bit beyond his means. Neither he nor his wife have any money of their own. He built that house of his with the help of a Building Society, and he buys his cars on the hire purchase system. I won’t say that he’s in actual financial difficulties, but I do know that the tradesmen who supply him sometimes have to wait a bit for their money.

‘There’s no doubt that Mr Fransham was a rich man. For one thing he’s just bought a new car which can’t have cost less than a thousand pounds. For another he lives in Cheveley Street, which, as you know better than I do, isn’t exactly an impoverished neighbourhood. Mr Fransham was Mrs Thornborough’s uncle, and there seems very little doubt that she’ll inherit his money. In fact, the motive’s so adequate that it’s almost enough to hang the doctor by itself.’

Jimmy made no comment upon this. ‘You told me just now, sir, that you considered the doctor’s statement unsatisfactory,’ he remarked.

‘I did, and that was the mildest word I could think of. It was definitely misleading. To begin with, he pretended that Mr Fransham’s visit was a complete surprise to him. He maintained this even to his wife, for Linton happened to overhear their conversation. But Mr Fransham told at least two people, Mrs Thornborough and his chauffeur Coates, that the doctor had written to him asking him to drive down to lunch today.

‘As it happens this is one of the very rare cases in which luck plays up on the side of the policeman. By a sheer fluke Linton was sent up to interview the doctor, and was in the house at the very moment the crime was committed. If he hadn’t been there the doctor would have had a chance of removing the most incriminating piece of evidence. That is the very letter of invitation, which Mr Fransham happened to have in his pocket. Here it is, and here is a sample of the doctor’s notepaper which I tricked him into giving me.’

Jimmy compared the two. ‘They seem to me exactly similar,’ he said.

‘Of course they are. There’s not a shadow of doubt about that. You see that the letter is dated yesterday. If it had been posted here yesterday evening, it would have reached London by the first post this morning, and, according to Coates’ statement it was by that post that Mr Fransham received it. Now, what’s your opinion of the typing?’

‘Pretty accurate, sir,’ Jimmy replied. ‘I’m not an expert, but I should guess that it had been typed on one of the smaller portable machines.’

‘Oh, that’s your opinion, is it?’ said Yateley grimly. ‘That’s another nail in the coffin. I happened to notice a Smith Premier portable in the doctor’s consulting-room. Now then, have a look at this.’

He picked up a printed form and threw it across to Jimmy.

‘That’s a medical certificate excusing one of my men from duty,’ he said. ‘It’s signed by Dr Thornborough. Have a look at the signature and compare it with the one on the letter.’

Jimmy did so. The certificate was signed ‘Cyril J. Thornborough, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.’ The writing of the Christian name corresponded very strikingly with the signature of the letter.

‘So much for the doctor’s pretence that his uncle’s visit was unexpected,’ said Yateley. ‘Now we come to another point which also proves the doctor to be a liar. He returned to his house at ten minutes past one or thereabouts. In his statement to me he said that as he turned in at his drive gate, he saw a certain Alfie Prince crossing the road some yards in front of him. The doctor’s house is about three-quarters of a mile from the centre of the town in an easterly direction.

‘Now this Alfie Prince is one of the thorns in our flesh. He can always earn a decent wage by getting work on one of the farms round about. Normally he does so and is perfectly well-behaved, though he won’t stay more than a few weeks in the same place. But every now and then he gets fits of being an intolerable nuisance. He goes round to people’s houses asking for threepence to buy half a pint, or for a handful of cigarettes, or anything that comes into his head. If he gets it, he says “Thank you” very politely. If he doesn’t he uses bad language and refuses to go away.

‘He seems to be in that mood just now, for Sergeant Cload had a complaint about him this morning. In fact it was because of this complaint that Linton was sent up to the doctor’s house. Cload, who knows Alfie better than I do, had come to the conclusion that he’s not all there. He sent Linton to see the doctor about it and ask him to have a talk with Alfie.

‘Now, what I want you to understand is this. This morning’s complaint came from Colonel Exbury, who lives three miles out of the town in a westerly direction. He rang up directly after he had got rid of Alfie, and the call was received here at a quarter to one. If, then, Alfie was seen in the vicinity of the doctor’s house at ten minutes past one, he must have covered three and three-quarter miles in twenty-five minutes. I may as well explain that there is no bus route between the two points and that Alfie has never been known to ride a bicycle.’

‘Mightn’t he have got a lift on a car or lorry, sir?’ Jimmy suggested.

‘He might, but it isn’t in the least likely. No, I’m pretty sure that we shall find that the doctor made a false statement about seeing Alfie for some purpose of his own. Alfie can be questioned, of course, but it’s very difficult to get any sense out of him, when he’s in these wandering moods.

‘Meanwhile I’ve had another report upon the wound. It struck me that it might be a trifle awkward if the only medical evidence at the inquest were given by the criminal himself. So I suggested that Dr Thornborough’s partner should be called in. He came to see me this afternoon and described the cause of the fracture in exactly the same terms as Dr Thornborough had done. Mr Fransham was struck a violent blow by something cubical in shape. That something may have been either the head of a weapon or a missile—it is impossible to say which on the evidence of the wound alone.

‘But we know that it can’t have been a missile. I’m going to remind you once more of the circumstances. Linton was in the house at the time and he is ready to swear to these facts. First, that the door of the cloakroom was not opened from the time when Mr Fransham locked it behind him until Linton himself broke it open. Second, that he and the doctor entered the cloakroom together. Third, that the doctor had no opportunity of picking up the missile unobserved. Fourth, that the room contained nothing capable of having caused the wound at the time of his search.

‘The remote possibility occured to me that a missile, having struck Mr Fransham’s head, might have bounced out again through the window. I therefore searched the carriage-way outside but without result.

‘The possibility of a missile having been employed is thus ruled out, and we are driven back to the theory of a weapon. The doctor must have crept up to the window while Mr Fransham was washing his hands, put his arm through the opening and dealt him a heavy blow with an iron instrument of some kind. That instrument can’t be very far away, and, once it is found, the evidence will be complete.

‘I’ve seen to the usual formalities, of course. I have been in touch with the coroner and he has ordered an inquest at half-past eleven on Monday. And I’ve arranged for the body to be taken to the mortuary this evening. Now, is there anything else you want to know?’

‘How long has Dr Thornborough been in practice in Adderminster?’

‘Seven years. Dr Dorrington took him into partnership then. They’ve got a surgery between them in the town here, and for five years Dr and Mrs Thornborough lived in the house next door. Then a couple of years ago, he built that new house of his in Gunthorpe Road. Why he gave it a ridiculous name like Epidaurus I can’t tell you. Anything else?’

‘Not at present, thank you, sir,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Have you any objection to my visiting the scene of the crime?’

‘Not the slightest. You can’t miss the house. Turn to the right at the bottom of High Street and keep straight on till you come to it. You can’t make any mistake, for you’ll find the name painted on the gate. You’ll find Sergeant Cload on duty up there. He’ll be able to tell you anything else you want to know.’

Jimmy left the police station and walked down the busy little High Street, noticing, as he did so, the brass plate on the surgery door bearing the names of Drs Dorrington and Thornborough. Following the superintendent’s instructions, he turned to the right and found himself in Middle Street, a narrow thoroughfare bordered with shops on both sides. After half a mile or so the pavements came to an end, at which point Middle Street became Gunthorpe Road.

A couple of hundred yards farther on, Jimmy came to an imposing gateway on his right. A notice board affixed to this informed him that it was the entrance to the Gunthorpe public gardens and the Adderminster and District Museum. On the opposite side of the road was a single building, a small house or cottage, apparently of considerable age, and surrounded by a succession of orchards and meadow-lands. Another couple of hundred yards beyond the gateway and on the same side of the road was the first drive gate of Epidaurus.

Jimmy did not turn in here, but walked on until he reached the second drive gate, from which he could see straight down the carriage-way to the garage at its farther end. Jimmy, wishing to acquaint himself fully with the local topography, did not stop here. As he proceeded he found a high but ragged hedge on his right, above which towered an enormous board bearing the words, ‘Building plots for sale.’ Finally, about a quarter of a mile beyond Epidaurus, Gunthorpe Road ended abruptly at a five-barred gate, beyond which a track led to a farmhouse in the distance.

As he turned back Jimmy wondered what sort of a man this Dr Thornborough would turn out to be. One thing was already certain, that he possessed a sense of humour. Epidaurus, the shrine of Aesculapius! What more suitable name could have been chosen for a doctor’s house? Jimmy wondered how many people in Adderminster appreciated the allusion. Certainly the superintendent didn’t. But then the superintendent’s mind was concerned more with material facts than with classical allusions.

This time Jimmy turned in at the gate and walked down the carriage-way. When he reached the cloakroom window he became aware of a rubicund face surveying him through the opening.

‘Good-afternoon, Sergeant Cload,’ he said quietly. ‘My name’s Waghorn, and I’ve been sent down from the Yard to see if I can give you a hand. I’m just going to have a look round, then I’ll come in and have a chat with you. You can let me in without disturbing the household, I dare say?’

‘Yes, sir, I can manage that,’ Cload replied. ‘You come to the window when you’re ready and I’ll open the garden door and let you in that way.’

Jimmy nodded, and went on towards the garage. The two cars were still standing at the end of the carriage-way—Dr Thornborough’s twelve horse-power Masspro outside the garage, and Mr Frasham’s big twenty-five horse-power Siddeley limousine inside. Of the doctor or Coates there was no sign.

Jimmy looked in at the open window of the doctor’s car and glanced swiftly round its interior. Except for a rug folded on the back seat it was empty.

At the end of the garage was a narrow bench upon which lay a few small tools. Nails driven into the wall supported a collection of miscellaneous objects. Three or four old tyres, a suit of overalls and a turn-cock.

Jimmy felt a thrill of excitement as he caught sight of this last object. He knew at once what it was. The key to the cock on the service-pipe by which the water supply to the house could be turned on or off. It was made of three-quarter inch iron rod with a T-shaped handle at one end. At the other end was a roughly cubical box, the hollow of which was designed to fit a square on the end of the cock spindle.

The key so exactly tallied with the superintendent’s description of the weapon which he had imagined, that Jimmy could hardly believe his eyes. He took out his foot-rule and measured the outside dimensions of the box. It was almost exactly an inch and a half either way. But even with a pocket lens he could find no trace of blood or hair upon it. However, that meant nothing, for there had been plenty of time and opportunity to clean it since the crime had been committed.

Jimmy carefully refrained from touching the turn-cock and after a careful inspection of the garage returned to the cloakroom window. A minute later Cload had opened the garden door for him, and the two entered the cloakroom together.

‘You’ve found nothing fresh, I suppose, sergeant?’ Jimmy asked.

‘No, sir, I haven’t,’ Cload replied. ‘I thought I might just as well have a good look round while I was here, but I haven’t found anything that could have made a wound like that poor gentleman’s got on his head.’

The body was still lying on the cloakroom floor and had by now been decently covered with a sheet. Jimmy drew this down and examined the wound. He could see for himself that it had been caused by the blunt edge of a cube with a side of about one and a half inches. Then he stood up and examined the position of the basin in respect to the barred window. He saw at once that no weapon of the size of the key could have been swung as a hammer is swung from outside the window. The opening was far too small for that. On the other hand, it could easily have been jabbed through the window, and the edge of the box would then have inflicted just such a wound as he had seen.

Staring out of the window Jimmy considered the implications of this theory. Whoever had wielded the weapon must have been standing close up to the protecting bars. But how could this be reconciled with Coates’ statement? The chauffeur had declared that if anyone had entered the carriage-way he could not have failed to have seen them. But could this statement be accepted? Jimmy already had experience of the fact that people were apt to declare impossible things which had actually happened. Not from any wish to mislead, but simply from natural conviction. Coates probably thought quite honestly that nobody could have reached the window unobserved by him. But his attention might well have been distracted for a few seconds. While he was lighting his cigarette, for instance. Or while he was looking round the car. He presumably went to the front of it, when the body would obscure his view of the carriage-way. On the whole Jimmy decided not to allow himself to be unduly influenced by Coates’ statement.

And then another idea struck him. It wasn’t necessary for the attacker to have been standing in the carriage-way. He might have been sitting in a car driven close up against the bars. He could quite easily have jabbed the turn-cock through the open windows of the car and the cloakroom. It was an established fact that Dr Thornborough had driven down the carriage-way. Had he paused for a moment outside the cloakroom window and delivered the blow?

There were obvious objections to this theory, but Jimmy thought that they might be overcome. Coates was the first of these. If the doctor’s car had stopped in its progress towards him he would surely have noticed it. Perhaps he had noticed and had his own reasons for saying nothing about it.

The second objection lay in the position of the wound. This showed, beyond question, that when Mr Fransham was struck, his head was bent over the basin. But surely if he had heard a car stop outside the window he would have looked up. Expecting the doctor’s return, as he was, he would have at least have glanced at the car to see whether or not its occupant was his niece’s husband. It was almost unthinkable that he would have continued his ablutions without taking any notice. Unless he was deaf, or had got his eyes full of soap, or something like that.

As Jimmy stared out of the window his view was bounded by the brick wall opposite. It was a good substantial brick wall eight feet high and obviously of the same age as the house. ‘What’s on the other side of that wall, sergeant?’ he asked.

‘Several acres of grassland, sir,’ the sergeant replied. ‘It’s been up for sale in building plots ever since Squire Gunthorpe died three years back.’

‘Squire Gunthorpe? This road’s called after him, I suppose?’

‘That’s right, sir. It was like this, you see. You may have noticed the museum and public gardens as you came along here? That used to be called the Hall when the squire was alive. He’d lived there as long as anyone could remember. There wasn’t any Gunthorpe Road then. Those entrance gates you may have seen, used to stand across the end of Middle Street. What is now Gunthorpe Road was the private drive leading up to the Hall.

‘When the squire died, he left the house and gardens to the town and they’ve been turned into what you see them now. The entrance gates were moved, and the drive was turned into a public road. You may have noticed that cottage standing on the further side a little way up. That used to be the gardener’s cottage standing at the end of the park. It was only the house and garden that was left to the town. The squire left the park to his family and they sold it to a speculator for building. But the only house that’s been built on it so far is the one we’re in now.’

‘How’s that?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Is there no demand for houses in Adderminster?’

‘There’s a demand for houses of the right kind, sir. Plenty of folk want houses that they can get for fifteen shillings a week or so. But that kind of house can’t be built up here. I don’t rightly understand it, sir, but the council stepped in with some sort of town-planning scheme. They won’t allow more than one house in every two acres, and then they’ve got to be built of a certain size. That sort of thing comes a bit too expensive for most folks.’

‘I see. Who lives in the old gardener’s cottage? It appeared to be occupied when I saw it just now.’

‘It was bought by a lady and gentleman from London. They pretty well pulled the inside to pieces and rebuilt it to suit themselves. But they aren’t very often there, for the gentleman has business abroad somewhere and usually takes his wife with him. They aren’t there now, I know for certain, but I did hear that it had been let furnished for the summer.’

‘Do you happen to know who it was let to?’

‘I can’t say that I do, sir. But I believe it’s a gentleman from London who comes down for the weekends. I don’t know that I’ve ever set eyes on him, sir.’

‘Is the vacant building land allowed to run to waste?’

‘No, sir. The farmer at the end of the road rents it for the hay. He should be cutting it any day now.’

Jimmy returned to his contemplation of the wall. Its presence definitely limited the area from which the murderer must have delivered his blow. The head of a normal man bending over the basin would be level with the opening in the window. This horizontal line, if produced, would meet the wall at a point about four feet above its base. Anything projected from or over the top of the wall through the opening would strike the ledge inside the window. It followed, therefore, that the blow, whether inflicted by a projectile or a weapon, must have been delivered from the carriage-way.

Missile or weapon, that was just the point. The theory of a missile involved obvious difficulties. It must have been hard and substantial to have inflicted such a wound. It could hardly have been thrown by hand with sufficient force and accuracy. Some means of projection would have been necessary. The shape and size of the missile precluded the idea of a pistol or gun. A catapult, perhaps. But what catapultist would choose a cubical missile in preference to a roughly spherical one?

Further, if a missile had been employed, what had become of it? After striking Mr Fransham’s head it would have lost its velocity and fallen. Directly beneath the point of impact was the basin, still half-full of soapy water and now quite cold. Jimmy fished through this with his fingers, only to find that the basin contained nothing but water.

Under the faintly amused eyes of Sergeant Cload, Jimmy proceeded to make a thorough search of the room. He did not desist until he had examined everything it contained, including the water-closet. No cubical object of any kind, or, for that matter, anything that could have been employed as a missile rewarded him.

There remained the possibility that the criminal had somehow retrieved the missile. But how? Constant observation had been kept on the cloakroom since Linton had broken down the door. From that moment the police had been either in the room or within sight of the door. It was practically impossible that anyone should have had an opportunity of removing anything.

Jimmy’s fertile mind reviewed other possibilities, only to reject them as impracticable. The criminal might have tied a string to the missile so as to recover it when it had done its work. Or he might have fished for it through the opening in the window with some instrument in the nature of a pair of lazy-tongs. But both these suppositions were ridiculous, for what would have remained an instant longer in the carriage-way, in full view of Coates in the garage only a few yards away, than he could help?

The missile was thus ruled out, leaving the weapon in the field. The turn-cock hanging in the garage fulfilled all the necessary conditions of such a weapon. The box at its end corresponded to the dimensions of the wound. It was so heavy and substantial that, thrust violently, it would inflict considerable damage. Finally, it was amply long enough to reach its objective if wielded by someone standing outside the window. It seemed to Jimmy that his first step must be to have the turn-cock expertly examined. He left the house, took it from its nail in the garage and returned to the police station. He explained his intentions to the superintendent, and caught the last train to London, carrying with him the turn-cock carefully wrapped up in several sheets of paper.