So Many Doors, page 5
“Cloak-rooms,” Grace answered. “Some of it is shut up—dangerous. And two rooms Vea uses for herself. She lives here.”
“By herself?” Bobby asked. “Is she married?”
“Better ask her,” Grace said briefly. “If you want to look round, come along. I haven’t all night to spare.”
She led the way into the ballroom—a magnificent apartment with a first-class floor. It must, as Grace had said, have cost a very large sum of money. But then, in the early twenties many thought a kind of promised land of business had been entered wherein ever-increasing share values reflected ever-increasing dividends, so that all you had to do to grow rich was to buy a few shares, wait a few months, sell at an enormous profit, and then repeat as before. A dream of a kind of happy spiral of prosperity that has unfortunately turned into the reality of the vicious spiral now more familiar.
From the ballroom they crossed the spacious inner hall and came to the former dining-room. Grace went in first, turning on the electric light as she did so.
“There’s a window open,” she said, in a surprised tone. “I shut them all.”
It was a fine, spacious room, facing west, with great windows reaching to the ground and affording a fine view in day-time across the bend of the river. It was one of these windows that was now wide open, admitting a fresh evening breeze that blew softly across the room. At one end was a long table, laden with plates and dishes, knives and forks, glasses, and so on. About the rest of the room stood many chairs and small tables. One of these tables, near the window, had been overturned; and the long, laden table at the end of the room seemed to have been disarranged at one end. Some of the glasses had been knocked off and had broken in falling.
“Look at that now,” Grace exclaimed angrily. “I wish I knew who had opened that window. There’s been a cat in.”
“This is the room where you saw a man you say was a stranger to you go in?” Bobby asked. “Could he have left again by the window?”
“I suppose he could if he wanted to,” Grace said. “Why should he? Jerry won’t half create about those glasses being broken. I can’t help it if people go opening windows and letting cats in.” She went across to the scene of the breakage as she spoke, and suddenly she began to scream. “It’s all blood,” she cried—“all over everywhere.”
CHAPTER V
“A KILLING FOR SURE”
In a moment Bobby and the sergeant were by Grace’s side. There on the table-cloth, on the dishes and the plates near, were great, widespreading, crimson splashes, and on the floor beneath had collected a red and dreadful pool. At it the two men stared in horrified bewilderment, in appalled silence. Long spoke first. He said slowly:
“There’s been a killing . . . a killing for sure. Look at it, all that. There’s the knife.”
Bobby was stooping over it. He did not touch it. It seemed an ordinary dinner-knife. He said to Grace:
“It’s one of yours, isn’t it? It looks like the others on the table.”
Grace was in no condition to answer. She had collapsed on a chair near, and indeed seemed on the verge of fainting.
“An ordinary table-knife,” Long confirmed. “Not very sharp either.”
The door opened, and Vea came in.
“What’s the matter now?” she asked. “I heard some one scream.”
No one answered her. Grace, still pale and shaken, was muttering to herself over and over again: “Oh, my God! oh, my God!” Bobby picked up a woman’s handbag he saw lying near. On it, too, that sad stream of death had run and splashed. He opened it. The first thing he saw was an envelope addressed to a Miss Margaret Kerr in a Thameside. Village street. He put the handbag down, wondering who Miss Kerr might be and how her handbag came to be there. Long, seeing it, said:
“That’ll be the young lady’s you were looking for, sir. Forgot it, they did. She must have seen something. She tumbled to it, saw what was up. But they couldn’t let her go, and so they did her in—to stop her giving an alarm.”
Bobby made no comment, nor did he say that the bag seemed to belong to some one else. No need for Grace to know that as yet. He went across to the open window. Grim traces showed that a body had been carried thither. Outside was a border of soft earth, now much overgrown by weeds and grass, though once brilliant with flowers. In the clear moonlight it showed trampled and with broken plants. Beyond it was a paved path, and beyond that again a neglected lawn that ran down to the river. Long came across to join Bobby. Vea, nearly as pale and shaken as Grace, was standing by Grace’s side. She had just said something to her, but in a low tone, and Grace had not answered. Grace got unsteadily to her feet.
“I’m going to be sick,” she said.
Vea said, loudly and angrily:
“Don’t be a fool. That won’t do any good.” To Bobby she called: “We didn’t know, we had no idea. Had we, Grace?”
Without replying, Grace made a bolt for the door and vanished. Vea began to walk away, as if inclined to follow her example. Bobby said to her:
“Is there a ’phone here?”
He had to repeat the question before she answered. She shook her head then and said:
“No. No. We asked for one, but they only put us on the waiting list. What’s it all mean?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
“We’ve got to find out,” Bobby answered. “Don’t leave the house. We shall have to ask you some questions presently. Look after your friend.” Vea made no reply, but went away. To Sergeant Long Bobby said: “Find the nearest ’phone box. Report to Centre, and then get on to the D.D.I. Tell him to bring a doctor. I’m going to have a look outside.”
Long went off accordingly. Bobby shut the room door behind him. There was no key, so he couldn’t lock it, but he put one of the small tables with a chair balanced on top of it against the door so that it could hardly be opened without a noise being made that he would hear. He opened one of the other windows and stepped out. The sill was only a foot or two from the ground. He went round to the window that had been opened previously. It was here that plain traces of recent movements showed. Growing plants had been trampled on and the earth trodden. But also the earth where the footprints showed had been hurriedly—and efficiently—raked over, so that it did not seem likely any useful information would be gained from examining them. The paved path showed nothing, but on the overgrown lawn beyond car-tracks were clearly visible.
Some one, man or woman, dead or alive, had evidently been carried out by this window and then removed in a car, probably the one Sergeant Long had seen departing at speed. Bobby contented himself with a brief look round. Little chance of the body having been left anywhere here, or deposited in the river, as he had first thought might possibly be the case. The garden would have to be searched, of course, and the riverbank closely examined. Not likely that anything would be found.
An unpremeditated murder, Bobby thought. A blow struck in sudden passion, or possibly in fear. Impossible to say which or exactly what had happened. Something seen, something said, some flash of understanding that had revealed the truth, and then a knife snatched from the table and a blow, deadly, fatal, dealt with all the fierce energy that passion gives—or fear. So Bobby reconstructed in his mind what had happened, and then reminded himself that very possibly it was all quite wrong. Quite possible the whole thing had been planned and intended from the start and all that blood merely some sort of elaborate laying of a false trail. But that was hardly likely; and Bobby did not believe it for a moment, though he never forgot that even the most improbable hypothesis must be considered.
One thing was sure, though. It was going to be difficult. His thoughts turned to the parents waiting anxiously for news, and to the unhappy girl herself, so suddenly, so unexpectedly involved in what seemed a strange labyrinth of crime. Bobby went back into the house by the window he had used before, and almost at once Sergeant Long returned. Instead of bothering to look for a ’phone-box he had run back to the police station, done his ’phoning from there, and had now brought with him the sub-inspector in charge, a uniformed constable, and the police surgeon, who by good luck had been there on some routine piece of business or another. Bobby had heard them coming, and he went into the hall to admit them. The women were not visible. The sub-inspector introduced the police surgeon as Dr James. Dr James, unaware of Bobby’s identity, and taking him to be a resident of the house, said to him briskly:
“Where’s the body? I hope you haven’t touched it.”
“There is no body,” Bobby said.
“What? what’s that?” snapped the doctor indignantly. “I thought it was a murder case. Eh?”
“I don’t know what it is,” Bobby answered.
“I understood there was a girl been done in,” said the sub-inspector; and though he knew Bobby’s identity, and so had to be respectful, his tone was nearly as indignant as had been the doctor’s.
“Come and look for yourselves,” Bobby said. “Then you can tell me what you think.”
He led the way into the dining-room, and when they saw what he had to show them, tragic and strange in its contrast to the festive air the rest of the room displayed, they, too, stood staring and wondering in silence.
“Not much life left where all that came from,” the doctor said presently. “No body, you said?”
“There are traces of blood all the way to the window over there,” Bobby explained. “Outside there are car-tracks. Presumably a car was brought up, the body placed in it, the car driven off, and by this time can easily be fifty miles away. One was seen leaving. You don’t know the make, sergeant, do you?”
“I couldn’t say, it was going all out,” Long answered. “It might have been a Bayard Twenty. Looked like it, anyhow. I couldn’t see the number, either.”
“Well, I don’t know what I can do if there’s no body,” Dr James protested, and he sounded quite hurt, as if he felt he had been cheated.
“Do you think any one who lost so much blood could possibly survive?” Bobby asked.
“Hard to say,” answered the doctor, who hated giving any one outside the profession any definite information. “Can’t even measure the exact amount lost. I should doubt it. Prompt and efficient treatment might have saved the man’s life. Nothing of the sort is likely, I suppose. Death would result almost certainly, in my opinion. Is that the knife used? Looks as if it had been snatched up from the table, doesn’t it? It would hardly penetrate clothing, but a good hard jab at the throat might cut the interior jugular. If it was like that—and I don’t see how else to account for so much hæmorrhage—you wouldn’t live two minutes. That’s about all I can say. Don’t want me any more, do you?”
Bobby agreed that in the absence of a body there was no further help the doctor could give. He departed accordingly. Inspector Peate, the local C.I.D. officer, known throughout the Force as Daddy Peate because of a benevolent air and manner that was in fact slightly deceptive, now arrived, followed in quick succession by various specialists. Bobby told his story, and Mr Peate began to look more worried than benevolent.
“No body?” he said. “No proof what really happened? Nothing to show this Mark Monk fellow was here at all. Or the girl either, for that matter. And the man you saw in the road outside. Do you think he comes in?”
“Might,” said Bobby cautiously. “Where does this come in?” He showed the handbag he had found. “Another woman’s name in it,” he said. “It’s a Thameside address, so you can check up on her.”
“Do you think it can be her done in?” Peate asked. “It’s a good-class street—semi-detached.”
He meant the houses, not the street, and Bobby remarked that anyhow they could soon clear that point up, as the street in question was not far from Bexley House.
“As for the chap I saw outside,” he added, “at any rate he was on the spot. One of the women here says she saw a man she didn’t know. Her description and what she said about his voice sounded like this other fellow. Not much to go on.”
“He’ll have to be traced,” declared Peate. “If he’s O.K., he’ll come forward.”
“We can’t be sure of that,” Bobby remarked. “Some people really dislike the idea of being mixed up in police cases, and some people have their own reasons for keeping as far away from the police as possible. Or he may never hear his help’s wanted. Astonishing what some people never hear.”
“He’ll have to be traced, all the same,” Peate asserted—“if any way possible,” he added, in deference to one holding so exalted a rank as ‘Commander’, even if Peate was not yet quite sure what a Commander really was. “What about these two women in the house? They’re still here, aren’t they? Do you think they know anything?”
“I’m sure they do,” Bobby answered; “but I’m not at all sure they will say anything. They may start telling lies, though,” he added thoughtfully, “and that’s always useful.”
“I would rather have the truth,” Peate remarked, and Bobby regarded him sadly, and asked him if he really thought he was likely to get it.
Peate, now looking not at all benevolent, said that anyhow he would have a jolly good try, but thought the first thing to do was to carry out a thorough search of the house. The murderer, if there were a murderer, or the corpse, if there were a corpse, might be still here. Not likely, perhaps, but one had to make sure, and in any case something useful might be found. Bobby agreed, and he, Peate, and Sergeant Long, who had been attached to ‘O’ division on his recent promotion, began it accordingly. Also a uniformed man—the only one who could be spared—was sent to search the garden, and was told to pay special attention to the river-bank and the decayed landing-stage.
“If there was a stiff,” Peate remarked, “the river’s handy.”
Both searches were hasty and superficial, since there was so much to be done. Peate promised a much more thorough examination when time—and daylight—permitted. Vea Burden and Grace were found sitting together in one of the upstairs rooms. Grace wanted to know if she could go home. She was feeling ill, she said. Peate said they would appreciate it if she would stay for the time, as he thought she could help them in finding out what had really happened. He asked if either of them knew a Miss Margaret Kerr, a Thameside Village resident. They both denied it. The room in which they were sitting was one of three, including a small kitchen, occupied as a kind of flat or suite by Miss Burden, who lived on the premises. There were two very big front rooms in which, Peate told Bobby in a whispered aside, it was believed that poker, baccarat, and roulette were carried on at irregular intervals.
“They rather specialize in taking their chance when there’s a show or a dance downstairs,” he explained.
The whole of the upper floor of the house seemed both uninhabitable and difficult of access. A fire caused by incendiary bombs had destroyed part of the roof and most of the stairs leading up from the first floor. A couple of anti-aircraft shells had on a subsequent occasion completed the damage. Bobby and Peate agreed that a search of these upper regions could be put off till the morning. Nor did they attempt to search the cellars. A pile of caterer’s stuff in front of the only door leading to them gave proof no one could have been there since had happened whatever had happened in the supper-room.
“Next thing,” announced Peate, “is to look up this Miss Margaret Kerr and see what she has to say, if she’s there. If she isn’t, then perhaps it’s her been done in, and not the other one. What did you say her name was?”
“Isobel Winlock,” Bobby answered, and his thoughts turned again to the quiet little mouse-like girl he remembered sitting in her inconspicuous corner at Mrs Barrett’s party.
“Maybe they’re the same,” suggested Peate. “Isobel and Margaret using different names.”
CHAPTER VI
“A NIGHT LIKE THIS”
The hour was late by now, for all this had occupied much time. Bobby suggested that, as the distance was not great, it might be better to walk rather than take the car. No need to attract more attention than need be, he thought, and Peate agreed.
They set out accordingly on foot, pursuing their way through the silent, moonlit streets, the night more quiet by far here in town than ever it is in country districts. For here there were none of Nature’s busy children of the darkness, hurrying about their private concerns. It was a night of extraordinary beauty. Even Peate, little susceptible to such things as a rule, remarked on it. Bobby did not reply. There was a memory in his mind of those other nights of the full moon when other things had happened. Presently he observed as they walked along:
“There seems to be some sort of idea that the Isobel Winlock girl may have gone off with a man named Mark Monk. Ever heard of him?”
“Not that I remember,” Peate answered. “Any record?”
“It’s possible he may have something to do with the Bexley House place,” Bobby said. “Nothing much to go on. Only that Miss Winlock used to get ’phone messages from hereabouts, and told her parents once or twice that she was staying the night with a Thameside friend. This Miss Kerr may be the friend, though that wasn’t the name. For that matter, there’s nothing to show that whatever happened at Bexley House has any connection with Miss Winlock’s disappearance. Bit of a coincidence, though, if it hasn’t. Mark Monk has no record that I know of. Ever hear of Matt Myers?”
“Chap tried and acquitted for doing in his wife, wasn’t he?” Peate answered. “I remember the case. Made a big sensation some years ago. The papers called it ‘The Full Moon Murder’.” He stood still suddenly. “Good God!” he said. “A night like this.”
“Yes,” said Bobby.
“The same initials—Matt Myers and Mark Monk?”
“Yes,” said Bobby.
“You think it may be the same man?”
“Yes,” said Bobby for the third time. Then he said: “Here we are.”
They halted before a fair-sized, semi-detached house, standing back a little from the road. No light showed. Probably the inmates had long been in bed and asleep. Bobby and his companion walked up the short paved path leading to the front door. Peate said abruptly:
