"You seem to have got a lot of details," the doctor admitted. "But why all this manœuvring?"
"You’ll see immediately. I think I said already that whoever did the business was a very cool and competent person. When all was ready, X attracted the maid’s attention in some way. She came to the foot of the stairs, suspecting nothing, but probably wondering what X was doing, wandering about the house. It’s quite likely that X made the sick girl upstairs the pretext for calling and wandering out of bounds. Anyhow, the maid came to the foot of the stairs and moved the switch of the landing light. Nothing happened, of course, since the bulb had been removed. She tried the switch backwards and forwards once or twice most likely, and then she would conclude that the lamp was broken or the fuse gone. Probably she saw the reflection of the light from the room-door. In any case, she came quite unsuspiciously up the stair."
Sir Clinton paused, as though to allow the doctor to raise objections; but none came, so he continued:
"Meanwhile X had taken up a position opposite the door of the room, at the foot of the second flight of stairs. If you remember, a person crouching there in semi-darkness would be concealed from anyone mounting the first flight. The tourniquet was ready, of course."
Dr. Ringwood shuddered slightly. Apparently he found Sir Clinton’s picture a vivid one, in spite of the casual tone in which it had been drawn.
"The girl came up, quite unsuspicious," Sir Clinton continued. "She knew X; it wasn’t a question of a street-loafer or anything of that sort. An attack would be the last thing to cross her mind. And then, in an instant, the attack fell. Probably she turned to go into the lighted room, thinking that X was there; and then the noose would be round her neck, a knee would be in her back and . . ."
With a grim movement, Sir Clinton completed his narrative of the murder more effectively than words could have done.
"That left X a clear field. The girl upstairs was light-headed and couldn’t serve as a witness. X daren’t go near her for fear of catching scarlatina—and that would have been a fatal business, for naturally we shall keep our eye on all fresh scarlet cases for the next week or so. It’s on the cards that her scarlatina has saved her life."
Dr. Ringwood’s face showed his appreciation of this point.
"And then?" he pressed Sir Clinton.
"The rest’s obvious. X came in here, hunting for something which we haven’t identified. Whatever it was, it was in this drawer and X knew where it was. Nothing else has been disturbed except slightly—possibly in a hunt for the key of the drawer in case it had been left lying around loose. Not finding the key, X broke open the drawer and then we evidently arrived. That must have been a nasty moment up here. I don’t envy friend X’s sensations when we rang the front door bell. But a cool head pulls one through difficulties of that sort. While we were standing unsuspiciously on the front door steps, X slipped down stairs, out of the back door, and into the safety of the fog-screen."
The Chief Constable rose to his feet as he concluded.
"Then that’s what happened, you think?" Doctor Ringwood asked.
"That’s what may have happened," Sir Clinton replied cautiously. "Some parts of it certainly are correct, since there’s sound evidence to support them. The rest’s no more than guess-work. Now I must go to the ’phone."
As the Chief Constable left the room, the sick girl upstairs whimpered faintly, and Dr. Ringwood got out of his chair with a yawn which he could not suppress. He paused on the threshold and looked out across the body to the spot at the turn of the stair. Sir Clinton’s word-picture of the murderer crouching there in ambush with his tourniquet had been a little too vivid for the doctor’s imagination.
Chapter Five. THE BUNGALOW TRAGEDY
In the course of his career, Sir Clinton Driffield had found it important to devote some attention to his outward appearance; but his object in doing so had been different from that of most men, for he aimed at making himself as inconspicious as possible. To look well-dressed, but not too smart; to seem intelligent without betraying his special acuteness; to be able to meet people without arousing any speculations about himself in their minds; above all, to eliminate the slightest suggestion of officialism from his manner: these had been the objects of no little study on his part. In the days when he had held junior posts, this protective mimicry of the average man had served his purposes excellently, and he still cultivated it even though its main purpose had gone.
Seated at his office desk, with its wire baskets holding packets of neatly-docketed papers, he would have passed as a junior director in some big business firm. Only a certain tiredness about his eyes hinted at the sleepless night he had spent at Heatherfield and Ivy Lodge, and when he began to open his letters, even this symptom seemed to fade out.
As he picked up the envelopes before him, his eye was caught by the brown cover of a telegram, and he opened it first. He glanced over the wording and his eyebrows lifted slightly. Then, putting down the document, he picked up his desk-telephone and spoke to one of his subordinates.
"Has Inspector Flamborough come in? ‘’
"Yes, sir. He’s here just now."
"Send him along to me, please."
Replacing the telephone on its bracket, Sir Clinton picked up the telegram once more and seemed to reconsider its wording. He looked up as someone knocked on the door and entered the room.
"Morning, Inspector. You’re looking a bit tired. I suppose you’ve fixed up all last night’s business?"
"Yes, sir. Both bodies are in the mortuary; the doctor’s been warned about the P.M.’ s; the coroner’s been informed about the inquests. And I’ve got young Hassendean’s papers all collected. I haven’t had time to do more than glance through them yet, sir."
Sir Clinton gave a nod of approval and flipped the telegram across his desk.
"Sit down and have a look at that, Inspector. You can add it to your collection."
Flamborough secured the slip of paper and glanced over it as he pulled a chair towards the desk.
" ‘Chief Constable, Westerhaven. Try hassendean bungalow lizardbridge road justice.’ H’m! Handed in at the G.P.O. at 8.5 a.m. this morning. Seems to err a bit on the side of conciseness. He could have had three more words for his bob, and they wouldn’t have come amiss. Who sent it, sir?"
"A member of the Order of the Helpful Hand, perhaps. I found it on my desk when I came in a few minutes ago. Now you know as much about it as I do, Inspector."
"One of these amateur sleuths, you think, sir?" asked the Inspector, and the sub-acid tinge in his tone betrayed his opinion of uninvited assistants. "I had about my fill of that lot when we were handling that Laxfield affair last year."
He paused for a moment, and then continued:
"He’s been pretty sharp with his help. It’s handed in at 8.5 a.m. and the only thing published about the affair is a stop-press note shoved into the Herald. I bought a copy as I came along the road. Candidly, sir, it looks to me like a leg-pull."
He glanced over the telegram disparagingly.
"What does he mean by ‘Lizardbridge road justice’? There’s no J.P. living on the Lizardbridge Road; and even if there were, the thing doesn’t make sense to me."
"I think ‘justice’ is the signature, Inspector’ what one might term his nom-de-kid, if one leaned towards slang, which of course you never do."
The Inspector grinned. His unofficial language differed considerably from his official vocabulary, and Sir Clinton knew it.