Dictator's Way (6 page)

He was standing in the entrance to a wide passage, where now lay heavily the shadows of the coming night. The windows that once had admitted the day were now barred and shuttered so that no light entered. Bobby bent down and examined the floor. It was of boarding, covered with linoleum, and the dust on it did not appear to be sufficiently thick to show footprints. Keeping as close as he could to the wall, walking carefully so that his own should not interfere with any marks that might in fact be there, Bobby moved forward. On his right was an open door, by which some light entered, though already his eyes were growing accustomed to the gloom. He saw a spacious apartment that evidently had formerly been the kitchen but now was empty of any furnishing. At the further end were two closed doors, admitting probably to pantry or scullery, and there was an enormous, built-in cooking range, now red with rust. Further on were other doors, but all closed and Bobby did not open them. To search thoroughly a house of this size would take time and indeed could not be done effectively by one person. Besides, his first care must be to find out if there was anyone within. If so, some simple explanation might at once be offered. If there was no one to be found, then Bobby felt that the sooner he got on the telephone, reported, and asked for instructions, the better. In front, too, he could now see a door covered with green baize, probably the service door separating the part of the house occupied by the owner from that used by the domestic staff.

Walking as carefully as before, for who could tell what footmarks or other signs might not be visible to expert examination, Bobby reached the baize door. It was not fastened. He pushed it open and listened. All seemed perfectly still and quiet. Not even the scuffling of a mouse, the movement of a spider, disturbed the utter immobility that was here, as though here time was not and motion had for ever ceased.

At the top of his voice, Bobby shouted:

“Is there anybody here?”

Once again Bobby cried aloud his question. Again there was no answer, only the heavy silence that filled the house from floor to roof, as though there no one ever came.

He let the baize-covered door close behind him and walked on. It was difficult to see much at first, for little light penetrated through the closed and shuttered windows, but gradually his eyes were growing still more accustomed to the gloom and then he found the switches that controlled the electric lighting. He tried them, and at once a huge chandelier shone out overhead.

He was standing in a great hall. It was entirely empty. The only sign of recent use was that the parquet flooring showed traces of having been swept and polished at not too distant a date. Bobby saw also that the stairway rising at the back of the hall was carpeted. On either hand doors opened into various rooms. They were not locked and he looked into them all, in each case trying the switches but without result as all bulbs here had been removed from the fittings. The light entering from the hall was enough, however, to show him all the rooms were empty, except for one at the back where he found a few chairs and, piled against the wall, trestles and boards evidently intended for use as tables. In this room the bulbs were still in place in the lamp sockets and at one side was an elaborate electrical hot plate arrangement. Bobby guessed that when Mr. Judson gave one of his parties, this apartment was used by the contractors as the service room.

All that was without interest for him. He thought he might as well look through the rest of the house. If there was still a telephone here and he could find it, he had better, he supposed, ring up the nearest police station, report finding the back door open and ask them to let Mr. Judson know. Mr. Judson ought to be told, too, about those three one-pound notes lying near the back door. He might know to whom they probably belonged.

Bobby went back to the great lighted hall, his tread echoing heavily through the deserted spaces of the house. He found himself endeavouring to walk more lightly so as to make less noise. The silence, the brooding, patient stillness of the house, must be getting on his nerves, he thought, or why was it that there kept returning to his memory that red stain he had noticed on one of the pound notes. A cut finger, a slip of the razor when shaving, might easily account for it. Why then did it keep returning to his memory as if in some way it made an evil harmony with the silence of an empty house, with the heavy gloom these shuttered windows caused?

He made his way slowly up the wide, carpeted stairway, though not till once again he had sent a shout echoing before him:

“Is there anyone there, anyone up there?”

He expected no answer and none came. The carpet was in good condition and of fine quality, and he noticed that the stair rods were bright and polished. There was dust on the banister rail, and in the corners, and at the sides of the treads, but evidently some cleaning and sweeping was done from time to time.

At the top of the stairs was a wide landing, so wide that the American use of ‘hall' for ‘landing' would here have been fully justified. Opposite were double doors admitting to a fine, large, well-proportioned room, very comfortably and even luxuriously furnished. In the middle stood a long, mahogany table. At one end was a small round table. There were various armchairs, large and small, settees, a big sideboard, a carpet into whose soft pile the foot seemed to sink. A ribbon of light ran all round the walls behind the picture rail, and at intervals panels of frosted glass of different colours helped the general illumination, which, with all the lights on, was as bright and clear as that of direct sunshine. Nor was there any shadow anywhere. Warmth was evidently provided at need by electrically heated panels, and Bobby mused for a moment on this modern luxury by which light and heat lay dormant as it were, ready to be called into being by the pressing of a button, the touching of a switch. This room was, he told himself, the one where Mr. Judson received his guests when he gave parties here, and Bobby noticed that in one corner stood an elaborate radio gramophone. The room was big enough for dancing, since it ran nearly the whole length of that side of the house. The long table in the middle of the room would serve equally well for supper or for baccarat or
trente-et-quarante
, and the smaller round table for poker or any similar game.

But in all this there was nothing to interest Bobby, nor could he see any sign of a telephone.

He began to search the other rooms, going into them all in turn. In all, the electric bulbs were still in position so that he could light up as he entered. One apartment was a bedroom, luxuriously furnished with every imaginable modern fitting. Opening from it was a large dressing-room and a bathroom fitted up in the latest style, with all the complications modern civilization has added to the simple act of washing. Another room was apparently a store-room holding brooms, brushes, crockery, a vacuum cleaner, and so on. Two smaller rooms were more simply furnished with armchairs and small tables, as if for sitting in, and then Bobby entered one, at the end of the passage, with its windows facing east, that was evidently meant for a small dining or breakfast-room. Presumably it was where Mr. Judson took supper and breakfast when he came to spend the night here. There was a small sideboard, a small round table in the middle of the room, comfortable chairs, and in one corner, the telephone for which Bobby had been looking. He moved towards it, and as he did so he saw where there lay behind the table, between it and the electric stove, the body of a man.

It needed only a glance to tell the man was dead, had been dead some time. There is that about a body whence life has fled that once seen is not easily mistaken. No need for the testimony of the blood that had come from a wound in the head and that had formed a little pool near by.

For a minute or two Bobby stood very still under the shock of this discovery and yet he knew that ever since he had crossed the threshold of the house, it was something of this kind that he had in part anticipated. Very still he stood, and intently he gazed at the dead body, as intently as the staring, protruding eyes gazed back at him.

A thousand thoughts raced through Bobby's mind. Who was it, he wondered? Mr. Judson himself perhaps. Was this why Waveny had wished him, Bobby, to come here, but not now, not to-day?

Why not now, why not to-day?

Stepping carefully he went to the telephone and there when he put out his hand to pick up the receiver he drew it back again quickly. On the receiver were stains of blood marks; he thought, of a blood-stained hand.

Of murderer or of victim, Bobby wondered?

Using every precaution to avoid touching these stains, he rang up the Yard and reported briefly, asking them too, to let the local people know, since he wished to use the 'phone as little as possible.

There was nothing more he could do till help arrived. He locked the door of the room behind him and then went down to the back entrance to wait there.

The three one-pound notes were still where he had left them, to his relief for he had been afraid they might have vanished.

Help would come quickly, he knew, but all the same it seemed long to wait. His thoughts were busy with many speculations, many questions. Useless, though, to wonder, till more facts were known on which to build some theory of what had happened.

Names buzzed in his mind. Waveny. Waveny would have to be asked a good many questions. Was Waveny a murderer? That nose of his might contemplate murder perhaps, but would the small round mouth and chin ever carry it out? One never knew, though. Perhaps, in emergency, the nose might win. Or Clarence? Had that shout of his that you might as well swing for two as for one, now taken on a new significance? The pale, thin faced girl, too. What had she been doing here? Good thing he had taken a note of the number of her car. There had been something said, too, about a ‘horrid little man'. Who was he?

But it was no good asking questions at this stage of the investigation. He did not even know the identity of the dead man. Mr. Judson presumably, since the house was his and he was often there, but it might easily turn out to be someone else.

He wondered, too, if those ashes he had found in one of the disused dustbins had any significance. After burning, they had plainly been very carefully crushed and destroyed, as if for some reason it was important no possible effort at reconstruction should succeed. And then those three one-pound notes lying by the back door almost as if they had been placed there on purpose. Had they been left for collection by some person expected to come for them? If they had been dropped accidentally, one would hardly expect them to be lying so neatly together. Yet why should a murderer leave three one-pound notes behind? why indeed should anyone leave them lying about like that? Even a millionaire has a certain respect for pound notes. In modern life, pound notes have an extreme significance. But a general significance is one thing; the particular meaning of their presence here in this strange affair of death and violence was more difficult to guess.

Bobby was still deep in thought when he heard the sound of motor-cars approaching. He had suggested arrival by the back so that the front entrance might remain undisturbed, and now quite a procession swept into view.

Superintendent Ulyett himself was the first to alight. He had chanced to be still in his office when Bobby's message came through, and the case had seemed of sufficient importance and interest to require his personal attention. Then there was Inspector Ferris, one or two other of Bobby's colleagues, a photographer, a fingerprint expert, the Divisional Detective-Inspector, named Rose, and one or two of his assistants, and a couple of uniform men. From a smaller car alighted the police surgeon, Dr. Andrews, and from a large and imposing car that had brought up the rear of the procession emerged a tall, powerfully built man, smartly dressed, with an air of well being and authority. He came thrusting forward as if he meant to assert himself at once.

“My name's Judson,” he announced. “I got a message. What's it all about?”

Superintendent Ulyett turned to him.

“Mr. Judson?” he repeated. “Owner of these premises?”

“Yes. Well?”

“From information received,” said Ulyett with professional caution, “we have reason to believe that a dead man has been found here.”

“A dead man?” repeated Judson with every appearance of astonishment and incredulity. “Nonsense. There couldn't be. Why should there? Who is it, anyhow?” Bobby moved forward.

“I made no attempt to examine the body,” he said. “The back door was open and I thought it well to investigate in case of robbery or unauthorized entrance. I found a dead man in one of the rooms upstairs.”

Mr. Judson stared at him, but Bobby thought there was now a certain uneasiness in his eyes, as though he had not much liked that reference to the rooms upstairs.

“Well, I don't understand,” he muttered. “Why was the back door open? it's never used.”

“You live here, Mr. Judson?” Ulyett asked.

“I've a flat in town. Park House, Park Lane. Convenient, but a bit cramped. I have a few friends to spend the evening here sometimes. I sleep here too occasionally. It's hardly living here.”

“Is there a caretaker?” Ulyett asked.

Mr. Judson shook his head.

“I don't understand about the back door,” he repeated. “It was locked and bolted, no one ever used it.”

“There are three one-pound notes lying near the entrance,” Bobby said, pointing to them, though he knew they had been already noticed by his colleagues. Mr. Judson went across to stare at them. Bobby said quickly to Ulyett: “Papers have been burnt in that dustbin, the one to the right, lying on its side. I don't know if that means anything.”

One of the police chauffeurs was told to keep an eye on the pound notes and the burnt ashes in the dustbin, and the rest of the party entered the house and ascended the stairs. Bobby unlocked the door of the room and then waited outside with the rest of the party while Ulyett, the doctor and Mr. Judson went in. The doctor said at once: