Crime at Tattenham Corner (11 page)

“It all looked just the same, sir, just as if Mr. Ellerby had just got out of it.”

“Nothing disturbed?” the inspector queried.

“Yes, sir – no, sir.” Simmonds hesitated. “Oh, I just call to mind that over that side” – pointing to the door – “the rug was tumbled and tossed in a heap like, almost under the bed.”

“And you don't miss anything?” the inspector went on again, going over to the side of the bed she had indicated, and looking down at the carpet on the floor.

The girl glanced round again. “No, sir, I don't. Mr. Ellerby, he never was one to have many things about.”

The inspector lifted the lid of a trunk standing near the window.

“Locked!” he said laconically. “Ever seen it locked before?”

“Mr. Ellerby always kept it locked, sir. At least I believe so. Of course I am not in the habit of trying it,” she said primly.

“Of course not!” the inspector assented. “Now, Miss Simmonds, I should like a word or two with James. How can I get him here?”

“I will send him, sir.” The girl stepped hastily to the door, obviously delighted at this chance of escape.

In a few minutes James appeared. Like the butler, he was looking scared and worried.

“Come in, Mr. Plowman,” the inspector said genially. “We shall not keep you long. Just to give us a little bit of help. Now, I want you first of all to look at this coat. Can you tell me if it is the one Ellerby wore yesterday?” the inspector began, taking up the coat and handing it to the man.

James looked at it. “Oh, yes, sir, I can tell that at once. It's the coat he wore yesterday. And the trousers on that chair.”

“Now I want you to look in the cupboard, at the suits on the shelves, and the boots – and see if you think anything is missing.”

James took his time about complying with this request. He went to the cupboard and spent some ten minutes apparently examining the garments with meticulous care. At last he emerged considerably redder in the face from his exertions.

“There is nothing missing that I can see, sir. Boots, I am sure that they are not. That pair at the end, they were outside the door as usual this morning. They had been cleaned and brought up when I came to see whether there was anything wrong this morning.”

The inspector frowned. “Could you tell us anything about the underclothing in the chest of drawers?” James shook his head. “No, sir, I don't know anything about it.”

“Then,” the inspector said slowly, “so far as you can tell, Ellerby went out of the room in his pyjamas.”

“I can't see anything else for it,” James said, staring round him. “I believe that there are none of his clothes gone. We can't make it out, none of us.”

“I am not surprised at that,” the inspector said blandly. “Where do you sleep?”

“Sleep?” the man echoed stupidly. “Oh, I see what you mean – at night. Downstairs in the basement, sir.”

“Now, last night, try and remember whether you heard any unusual sound during the night.”

“I am sure I didn't. Nobody in the house did. That is what is puzzling us all.”

“I suppose you would hear if the front door opened or shut?”

“I don't see how I could help hearing it, sir. Not but what I am a sound sleeper,” he added with an obvious desire to be absolutely accurate.

“Then that is all we can do just now, thank you,” the inspector said politely. “I may want you a few minutes later on.” 

When the man had gone the inspector took a curious looking bit of steel out of his pocket.

“I think we must see what there is in this box of Ellerby's.”

“Whatever there is is extremely light,” Harbord observed, tilting up the edge.

The inspector's skeleton-key opened the lock at once. Then as he flung the lid back both men uttered an exclamation of surprise. Inside was nothing but brown paper, several large sheets, all of which had evidently been used for wrapping up parcels. The inspector's capable fingers turned them over quickly.

“Now, it is a curious thing that none of these papers have anything on them – no label with a shop's name or anything of that kind.”

“Is it curious?” Harbord questioned dryly. As he spoke he picked up a small tie-on label from the bottom of the box, from underneath a piece of paper that the inspector had not taken out. “Look at this, inspector.”

Stoddart read the name printed at the top – “‘Vidame & Green, General Outfitters, Passmore Street, Westminster.'”

“Ah, we must look up Messrs. Vidame & Green.”

“Yes, it was a mistake to overlook that,” commented Harbord quietly.

The inspector smiled. “It is pretty obvious that a man could not have been overpowered in this room and taken downstairs without anyone in the household hearing or knowing.”

“Quite. The impersonation theory frightened him, I fancy.” Harbord was examining every scrap of paper with meticulous care.

“It seems probable,” the inspector agreed. “And yet there are so many wheels within wheels in this extraordinary case. Ellerby might have been in the way. He might have been got rid of with the connivance of some one in the household. We must not overlook this possibility, remote though it seems. But, even if he were drugged or dead, a man of his weight could not have been got downstairs without anyone hearing.”

“Certainly not,” Stoddart agreed. “But I am not overlooking the possibility of Ellerby's walking downstairs, and then being overpowered in one of the rooms.”

“His clothes?” Harbord suggested.

Stoddart shrugged his shoulders. “I should say it is absolutely impossible for one person to be certain about the state of his wardrobe. Nothing was missing that James remembers having seen. That, I think, is as far as his testimony takes us.”

He went over to the narrow bed and stripped it, carefully feeling it all over, even smelling the bed clothes and pillow-cases.

“If Miss Annie Simmonds had kindly left the bed alone we might have known more. As it is, one can only say that there is not the faintest smell of any drugs, no slightest sign of any struggle. The carpet may have been tossed back, but there are no scratches on the paint beneath. No; I feel we may be pretty certain that Ellerby walked out of this room.”

“But what happened to him afterwards?”

“We cannot search the house tonight,” Harbord said doubtfully.

The inspector drew in his lips. “Plenty of time to get rid of anything that anybody wanted to get rid of, and was able to get rid of, before we came on the scene. Of course now the whole house is under the most rigorous observation and everybody, even the kitchen-maid, is shadowed every time they leave the house. But when the steed is gone, you know. At the present my inner man warns me that supper must be the next thing. First thing to-morrow a visit to Vidame & Green is indicated.”

The inspector came into his room at Scotland Yard and threw down his hat with an exclamation of impatience.

Harbord, who had followed him in, looked at him in surprise. It was not often that Stoddart was betrayed into showing any irritation.

“That pistol that was found in the ditch at Hughlin's Wood was not the one with which Burslem was shot.”

“Not! But I understood that the bullet fitted.”

“So it did – so it does.” Stoddart sat down and frowned heavily. “But this new system that they have discovered lately, of examining the bullet through a powerful microscope, which discovers small, almost invisible lines on the bullet, proves positively whether a bullet has been fired from a certain revolver or not, though one shot had been fired from the revolver, mind you, says in this case definitely not. Now we have to begin our search for the weapon used in the Burslem case all over again.”

“How then did that revolver with the initials ‘J.B.' come in the ditch?” cogitated Harbord. “It must have been Burslem's.”

“It may have been – most probably it was,” Stoddart corrected. “But so far we have not been able to prove it. None of the men at Porthwick Square identify it; the butler goes so far as to say that he feels sure it is not Sir John's; Ellerby alone could have been certain, and Ellerby has vanished. It is the same with the watch. Henry and James, both of whom occasionally valeted Sir John, do not recognize it. The utmost that I have been able to ascertain from them is that Sir John often wore a watch of that kind, not caring much for a wrist-watch. But the one they both remember is in its case in Sir John's room. Both of them say that they have no recollection of ever seeing the one found in the ditch. So that is as far as our discoveries of yesterday carry us. Heaven knows it is not very far!”

Harbord sat down heavily and leaning his elbows on the table rested his head on his hands.

“It is like a maze,” he groaned. “You get what you think is a clue only to find when you begin to follow it that it leads nowhere. To reconstruct the crime seemed fairly easy. The revolver drawn by Sir John to defend himself, seized by the assassin, and turned against its owner, then flung away into the ditch.”

“Reconstructing crime is easy enough, but it is a game in which it is possible to make a good many mistakes,” the inspector commented dryly.

“And why did that watch stop at 12.30 if it was Sir John's, when he must have been alive until after two o'clock?” Harbord pursued, ignoring Stoddart's interjection.

The inspector stood up suddenly. “I am not here to answer conundrums. You have just come in time to assist me at an interview which may be of interest to both. Harbord, a lady is anxious to claim the reward.”

“What lady?” Harbord inquired eagerly.

The inspector shook his head. “I know no more than you. All I can tell you is that I was rung up half an hour ago, and a voice, unmistakably a feminine one, inquired if the speaker could see the gentleman who offered the reward for the discovery of Sir John Burslem's assassin. I told her to come here, and if her information was worth anything the reward would be hers. She replied that she would be round directly, and I am expecting her any minute.”

“Where did the call come from?” Harbord inquired.

“Public office,” the inspector answered laconically. “Oh, there are not many flies on William Stoddart, my friend. Here she is!” as there was a knock at the door.

A constable in plain clothes ushered in a young woman dressed plainly in black, carrying a fair-sized parcel done up in brown paper.

Both men looked at her with a strange sense of familiarity. Then Stoddart exclaimed:

“It is Lady Burslem's maid!”

The woman's dark eyes glanced at him in an odd, sidelong fashion.

 “Yes, I am Lady Burslem's maid, certainly. But my name is Forbes – Eleanor Forbes.”

“I am much obliged to you, Miss Forbes,” said the inspector setting a chair for her.

Harbord knew by the tone of his voice and the look on his face that much was expected of the coming interview.

“I have come about this reward that is offered,” Forbes began. “Who offers it?”

The inspector smiled. “That we are not at liberty to say.”

“Well, if you don't tell me that I do not know that it is much use my going on,” the maid said in an aggrieved fashion.

The inspector made no reply. He stood looking down at her with an inscrutable expression on his dark face.

Forbes half rose, then sat down again. “Well, perhaps you will answer these two questions – is the reward offered by Lady Burslem?”

The inspector thought things over for a minute. “No,” he said, at last, “it is not.”

“Is it safe?” Forbes proceeded. “I mean, suppose I give you the information that leads to the discovery of the murderer of Sir John Burslem, shall I be sure to get the thousand pounds offered?”

“Certain,” Stoddart assured her. “You need have no doubt about the
bona fides
of the person offering the reward, Miss Forbes. If your information is worth it, you will get the money safe enough.”

“That is all I want to know,” the maid proceeded. “Well, then, I should like to show you something, but when you have seen it I shall have given the best part of my story away, and you –”

“You will have to trust us,” the inspector said more firmly. “The police are not allowed to take rewards, you know, so you have no rivalry to fear from us.”

“Oh, well, that is all right then.”

Forbes untied the string of her parcel. Then she looked up.

“I am going to show you the frock that Lady Burslem wore on the evening of June 2nd, when she went to Oxley with Sir John.”

She tore off the enveloping wrapper and held up to the astonished eyes of the two men the crumpled, stained, torn rag that had once been Sophie Burslem's evening frock.

The inspector put on the glasses he used for examining objects closely.

“You are sure?”

The maid tossed her head. “Of course I am, or I should not have made a fool of myself coming here. There's lots of others that can identify it as well as me if you come to that. I couldn't find it in the morning of June 3rd. And when we heard what had happened to Sir John it sort of took my breath away and then I remembered and began to look for it. At last I found it all crumpled up together, right down at the bottom of the well of the wardrobe and a lot of other things on top of it. I shook it out” – suiting the action to the word – “and I saw the front breadth had been all torn out, or cut out, I should say.”

“Cut?” the inspector said, bending over it.

“There is no doubt about that. Anybody can see it has been cut,” Forbes said scornfully, “but when I showed it to her ladyship, she said there were a lot of thorns about at Oxley and she must have torn it on them. Pretty green she must have thought me. I racked my brains to think what she had done with the piece she had cut out. Then all at once I remembered that on the morning of June 3rd, when I came to dress her after her bath, she was doing something at her dressing-case, and shut it up very quickly. There is a secret drawer in it, at least she calls it a secret drawer, but the secret of it is not difficult to discover, and of course I opened it, and there I found this.”