Death of a Beauty Queen (30 page)

The news, too, had spread in the neighbourhood, in spite of the lateness of the hour, so that a little crowd of curious onlookers had gathered to watch the coming and the going of the detectives, and to be thrilled by the occasional arrival of motors. And, at the windows of the houses adjacent, lights were showing and heads appearing as people roused themselves from their beds to stare at these new happenings.

Two burly constables in uniform guarded the entrance to the front garden of the house, permitting only those to pass who were engaged in the investigations, or who were connected with the Press, for this sensational sequel to recent events had already reached the newspaper offices, and every crime specialist of Fleet Street was either on the spot by now or hurrying to it at his best speed.

To one of these guardians of the door, with whom he chanced to have been on duty during his days in uniform, Bobby said, in passing:

‘What's happened? Do you know?'

But the constable, to whom all this was the mere dull daily grind of duty, signifying only extra work and no more pay, shook his head:

‘Someone done someone in,' he answered vaguely. ‘Stand back, sir, if you please,' he added, to an enterprising youth who had tried to slip by. ‘Can't help it if you are a friend of the family – and if you're Press, show your card.'

Bobby went on up the path to the house, where now, in the dark night, lights flared at every window. No blinds had been drawn, and behind the windows could be plainly seen the figures of men moving to and fro, intent on their grim business of discovery and pursuit. Another constable was stationed at the door of the house itself, yawning ferociously, for he had been called from bed after a long day's duty. But he no more than his colleague at the garden gate could tell Bobby exactly what had happened.

‘It's murder,' he said morosely. ‘A fellow gets no time off – nothing but work, work, work, duty, duty, duty – when there's murder done.'

It was a point of view, Bobby thought, as he entered that sad house of tragedy, and in the hall saw Inspector Penfold, who nodded a greeting:

‘Mitchell was asking for you,' he said.

‘I came along as quickly as I could,' Bobby answered. ‘What's happened?'

‘Old Mr Irwin done in,' Penfold answered. ‘Housekeeper did it.'

‘Mrs Knowles?' Bobby repeated incredulously, utterly bewildered. ‘But surely that's... impossible.'

‘Well, there it is,' retorted Penfold. ‘House was under observation, back and front, by two of my best men, and both of them swear no one has been in or out since Mr Irwin got back from his office. He can't very well have smashed himself up the way he is, and there's no one else, not a living soul in the whole place, except Mrs Knowles, with the poker in her hand and blood all over her – and every door and window fastened on the inside so tight the first men here had to break in. So there you are. It was either her, or it wasn't anyone.'

‘But an old woman like that?' Bobby protested.

‘When a woman gets going, even an old woman,' Penfold said, ‘it's an all-in job. I remember, when I was a sergeant, having to tackle an old girl of seventy who had just laid hubby out with a flat-iron. Took four of our men to get her to the station, and two of them went on the sick list next day.'

‘How was information received?' Bobby asked.

‘She rang up herself. Went off her head after doing it – or before doing it, very like. Yelled something about murder, and help, and come quick, and when we got here – we had to smash in the back door – Mr Irwin was in the study, all knocked about, and so near dead as doesn't matter, and she was in a faint near the phone. Called us up, and then collapsed. Had the poker she did it with in her hand, and not another living creature in the house, so it was a clear case, every door and window fastened, and my two men on watch outside. So there you are. Sounds impossible, but no getting away from it.'

‘But ' began Bobby, and paused.

‘Can't get away from facts,' Penfold repeated. ‘If there's no one else it could be, seeing there's no one else in the house, then her it must be. Sort out all the impossibles, and what's left must be the truth. Not that there's much sorting out required this time. The old boy didn't do it himself – impossible he could have. There was no one else to do it, except her. Well, it can't have been no one, so it must have been her, and good enough to hang anybody. And there's something else.'

‘What?' asked Bobby.

‘Just this. It's her who did the other cases, too.'

Bobby didn't answer. He only stared. With a touch of complacency in his voice, Penfold continued:

‘A bit of a staggerer, eh? It was to me, when I tumbled to it. Just think, though. She wasn't going to have her precious Leslie marrying a Carrie Mears, so she outed the girl to save the boy. I've been doing a bit of investigating in my own time, and I've got a letter Mrs Knowles wrote to her sister about Mr Leslie mustn't be let marry the girl, and it would be the ruin of him, and she would stop it herself to save him in both worlds, this and the next one. And then Leslie began to suspect what she had done, and tackled her about it, and let her see what he thought, and she got scared of the hanging she saw getting near and put a bullet in him, knowing no one would ever think of her.'

‘But–' repeated Bobby; and then: ‘Claude Maddox ran for it?'

‘Panic,' explained Penfold. ‘They do at times... silly, and gives us a lot of trouble, same as this time, but it's just panic. Panic, and their one idea is to bolt for it, anywhere to be safe; and I don't wonder so much in his case, for it looked bad against him till this came up.'

‘But Mrs Knowles wasn't in the house when Leslie Irwin was shot,' Bobby objected.

‘I know,' answered Penfold. ‘Alibi, she had all right. Who checked up on it? No one. No one ever even thought of suspecting her, and so they never troubled. House wasn't properly searched, either. No one thought of looking under beds or in cupboards. Told you I had done a bit of investigating on my own. Supposed to be spending the night with a sick sister, wasn't she? Well, that night she was out late. Said she got in the wrong train on the tube. That's as may be, and she may have been lost on the tube, or she may have been hidden here. No one thought of searching here – not what you would call searching.'

‘Has a search been made to-night?' Bobby asked.

‘It has,' Penfold answered. ‘I saw to that. Every room. Under the beds and all – even the cistern in the roof, and every cupboard. Not a mouse could have escaped us. Not a sign of a trace of any living creature anywhere about, and two of my best men to swear it's impossible for anyone either to have entered or left since it happened. So there you are. When there's only two people in it, and one's murdered, then the other did it.'

‘Yes, but... but...' muttered Bobby, a little dazed. He put one hand to his head. ‘That old woman...' he muttered.

‘Ah,' answered Penfold. ‘Never thought of her, eh? The most unlikely person, you know. Good rule – only we forgot it. The most unlikely person; got to remember that another time,' he said, with a touch of complacence in his voice.

‘Where is she?' Bobby asked.

‘Hospital. Ambulance took her off. She was having hysterics 
when she wasn't fainting, and fainting when she wasn't in hysterics. I don't wonder, either – three murders one on top of another; bit of a nervous strain for an old party like Mrs Knowles.'

Bobby was still gaping, unable to find words. Penfold gave him a little satisfied nod. The C.I.D. might think a lot of themselves, but sometimes the uniformed branch could show them a thing or two. From one of the adjoining rooms, where till then he had been busy, Mitchell came quickly into the hall. He had, with him a finger-print expert, who was looking very gloomy.

‘Nothing to help us so far, sir,' he was saying. ‘And I don't think the poker will be any help – it's smothered in blood. No prints on it we can find to recognize, except those of the woman herself – where she was holding it.'

‘Now, I ask you,' Penfold muttered, ‘how could there be, when there wasn't another living creature in the house?'

‘Ah, there you are,' Mitchell said, noticing Bobby. ‘Stand by till I want you.'

Bobby waited accordingly, taking while he did so an opportunity to glance within the study. It was not a pleasant sight, for the attack had been delivered with an almost maniacal fury, and, feeling a little sick, Bobby went back to the hall to wait. It was not long before Mitchell returned.

‘ Bad business, Owen,' he said, signing to the young man to join him. ‘What do you think of it? Penfold been telling you?'

, ‘Yes, sir,' Bobby answered. ‘Only...'

‘Well, there it is,' Penfold interposed. 'Cut out the impossible, and what remains must be. The house has been gone through from top to bottom, from cellar to attics. Not a sign of another living soul, and Mrs Knowles said herself there was no one here but her and the old man, and couldn't be. So there you are,' he repeated.

‘We'll have another look round,' Mitchell said.

Penfold shrugged his shoulders, though not till Mitchell had turned away, and put on his most patient smile. Still, 
the whims of superiors have to be tolerated. They began with the cellars, and soon assured themselves afresh there was no possibility of anyone being hidden there. Then on the ground floor and on the first floor the same careful search was continued, with the same result. Modern drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, bedrooms, offer small chances of concealment, and even modern chimneys offer small facilities for escape or hiding. Examinations proved, too, that, even without the evidence of the police on watch without, any escape by door or window was impossible, since all were securely fastened on the inside.

They went on to the attics.

‘Is there any space under the roof?' Mitchell asked.

‘I've been up there; had a good look round,' Penfold answered. ‘There's dust and dirt enough to show no one's been there before us for donkey's years.'

They went into the attic at the back – the one Mrs. Knowles had used for her bedroom – and Penfold said musingly:

‘Funny to think of that old creature planning it all here and then creeping out about the job.'

Mitchell made no comment. There was obviously no possible place of concealment in the room, and once again Mitchell assured himself of the security of the window fastening. Thence they went into the front attic, a large, bare, gaunt apartment, furnished with a few chairs, a table, a work-bench, and two chests of tools.

‘Where Claude Maddox and Irwin used to play about, when they were youngsters, I suppose,' Mitchell remarked. ‘Someone told me they did real good work; young Claude Maddox in especial had a real knack.' Then he turned his attention to the wallpaper, that somewhat remarkable effort in early cubism which already Bobby had noticed and wondered at. ‘Where on earth did they find it?' he remarked. ‘Enough to make you dizzy.'

‘Picked it up cheap, I expect, sir,' Penfold suggested, ‘and thought it wouldn't matter up here.'

‘Might be that; might be that; mightn't be that,' muttered Mitchell, staring at it with an attention so concentrated and so prolonged that even Bobby wondered why his chief should spend so much time upon what was after all merely an eccentric development of an eccentric and now half-forgotten art theory. Penfold could not prevent himself giving a discreet cough, an even more discreet shuffle of his feet. There was far too much to be done, in his opinion, for time to be wasted in staring at wallpapers. But Mitchell still remained lost in contemplation, as if wallpaper patterns were the one thing in all the world that interested him, as if in comparison with them murders were but trifles; and Penfold said, in a loud whisper, to Bobby:

‘Notice how clean and tidy it all is – not a speck of dust anywhere.'

‘Mrs Knowles told me it was part of the housework to tidy up here every so often,' Bobby remarked.

‘Well, anyhow,' observed Penfold, ‘no hole or corner here where even a mouse could hide.'

Mitchell seemed to come out of his trance of contemplation.

‘Bit nightmarish,' he remarked. ‘Wonder who chose it – and why!'

‘Why?' repeated Bobby, puzzled by something he seemed to detect in his chief's voice.

Penfold wandered, a little ostentatiously, towards the door. Discussions on wallpaper patterns did not interest him, and all creation knew there was enough hard work waiting, and no chance of rest or sleep till it had been attended to.

‘You know,' he remarked, over his shoulder, ‘what I say, sir, is they'll bring it in homicidal mania.'

‘Not so sure of that,' Mitchell answered.

‘Oh, well, sir, an old lady like her,' protested Penfold, ‘three murders one after the other... it's not natural.'

‘No more than a wallpaper like this in an attic,' observed Mitchell. ‘And what is not natural should always be explained.'

Penfold looked as if he thought the superintendent was suffering from some sort of mania himself. Bobby was inclined to make a little joke about such a pattern being above all explanation, but then told himself that neither the time nor the circumstances nor yet Mitchell's manner invited pleasantry.

‘There's a recess on one side of the fireplace,' Mitchell was saying, ‘but not on the other.'

Penfold cast one uninterested glance towards fireplace and recess, and another, much more alert, towards the door. Bobby gave a little gasp. Dimly he groped for what was coming, and dimly guessed. Mitchell went on:

‘Both boys had the knack of handling tools – first class professional work they turned out. Boys often have a fancy for secret hiding-places, hidden dens – all that kind of thing. Old Mr Irwin kept them under strict discipline, and perhaps it was handy, too, to have a safe place to keep things – or themselves – away from him. I can imagine, for instance, Maddox hiding up here ready to join Leslie in secret excursions at night, or perhaps when returning from them.'