Murder! - Arnold Bennett (best fiction novels .txt) 📗

in the vast bustle of the compartments! She had her through ticket (which she had taken herself, in order to avoid possible complications), and she happened to be the only woman in the world who was never late and never in a hurry. She was certain to be in the train. But was she in the train? Something sinister might have come to pass. For instance, a telephone message to the flat that her husband had been found dead with a bullet in his brain.

The swift two-hour journey to Harwich was terrible for Lomax Harder. He remembered that he had left the unburnt part of the letter lying under the billiard-table. Forgetful! Silly! One of the silly things that criminals did! And on Parkeston Quay the confusion was enormous. He did not walk, he was swept, on to the great shaking steamer whose dark funnels rose amid wisps of steam into the starry sky. One advantage: detectives would have no chance in that multitudinous scene, unless indeed they held up the ship.

The ship roared a warning, and slid away from the quay, groped down the tortuous channel to the harbour mouth, and was in the North Sea; and England dwindled to naught but a string of lights. He searched every deck from stem to stern, and could not find Emily. She had not caught the train, or, if she had caught the train, she had not boarded the steamer because he had failed to appear. His misery was intense. Everything was going wrong. And on the arrival at Esbjerg would not detectives be lying in wait for the Copenhagen train? …

Then he descried her, and she him. She too had been searching. Only chance had kept them apart. Her joy at finding him was ecstatic; tears came into his eyes at sight of it. He was everything to her, absolutely everything. He clasped her right hand in both his hands and gazed at her in the dim, diffused light blended of stars, moon and electricity. No woman was ever like her: mature, innocent, wise, trustful, honest. And the touching beauty of her appealing, sad, happy face, and the pride of her carriage! A unique jewel — snatched from the brutal grasp of that fellow who had ripped her solemn letter in two and used it as a spill for his cigarette! She related her movements; and he his. Then she said:

“Well?”

“I didn’t go,” he answered. “Thought it best not to. I’m convinced it wouldn’t have been any use.”

He had not intended to tell her this lie. Yet when it came to the point, what else could he say? He told one lie instead of twenty. He was deceiving her, but for her sake. Even if the worst occurred, she was for ever safe from that brutal grasp. And he had saved her. As for the conceivable complications of the future, he refused to front them; he could live in the marvellous present. He felt suddenly the amazing beauty of the night at sea, and beneath all his other sensations was the obscure sensation of a weight at his heart.

“I expect you were right,” she angelically acquiesced.

VI

The Superintendent of Police (Quangate was the county town of the western half of the county), and a detective-sergeant were in the billiard-room of the Bellevue. Both wore mufti. The powerful green-shaded lamps usual in billiard-rooms shone down ruthlessly on the green table, and on the reclining body of John Franting, which had not moved and had not been moved.

A charwoman was just leaving these officers when a stout gentleman, who had successfully beguiled a policeman guarding the other end of the long corridor, squeezed past her, greeted the two officers, and shut the door.

The Superintendent, a thin man, with lips to match, and a moustache, stared hard at the arrival.

“I am staying with my friend Dr. Furnival,” said the arrival cheerfully. “You telephoned for him, and as he had to go out to one of those cases in which nature will not wait, I offered to come in his place. I’ve met you before, Superintendent, at Scotland Yard.”

“Dr. Austin Bond!” exclaimed the Superintendent.

“He,” said the other.

They shook hands, Dr. Bond genially, the superintendent half-consequential, half-deferential, as one who had his dignity to think about; also as one who resented an intrusion, but dared not show resentment.

The detective-sergeant recoiled at the dazzling name of the great amateur detective, a genius who had solved the famous mysteries of “The Yellow Hat,” “The Three Towns,” “The Three Feathers,” “The Gold Spoon,” etc., etc., etc., whose devilish perspicacity had again and again made professional detectives both look and feel foolish, and whose notorious friendship with the loftiest heads of Scotland Yard compelled all police forces to treat him very politely indeed.

“Yes,” said Dr. Austin Bond, after detailed examination. “Been shot about ninety minutes, poor fellow! Who found him?”

“That woman who’s just gone out. Some servant here. Came in to look after the fire.”

“How long since?”

“Oh! About an hour ago.”

“Found the bullet? I see it hit the brass on that cue-rack there.”

The detective-sergeant glanced at the Superintendent, who however, resolutely remained unastonished.

“Here’s the bullet,” said the Superintendent.

“Ah!” commented Dr. Austin Bond, glinting through his spectacles at the bullet as it lay in the Superintendent’s hand. “Decimal 38, I see. Flattened. It would be.”

“Sergeant,” said the Superintendent. “You can get help and have the body moved, now Dr. Bond has made his examination. Eh, Doctor?”

“Certainly,” answered Dr. Bond, at the fireplace. “He was smoking a cigarette, I see.”

“Either he or his murderer.”

“You’ve got a clue?”

“Oh yes,” the Superintendent answered, not without pride. “Look here. Your torch, sergeant.”

The detective-sergeant produced a pocket electric-lamp, and the Superintendent turned to me window-sill.

“I’ve got a stronger one than that,” said Dr. Austin Bond, producing another torch.

The Superintendent displayed finger-prints on the window-frame, footmarks on the sill, and a few strands of inferior blue cloth. Dr. Austin Bond next produced a magnifying glass, and inspected the evidence at very short range.

“The murderer must have been a tall man — you can judge that from the angle of fire; he wore a blue suit, which he tore slightly on this splintered wood of the window-frame: one of his boots had a hole in the middle of the sole, and he’d only three fingers on his left hand. He must have come in by the window and gone out by the window, because the hall-porter is sure that nobody except the dead man entered the lounge by any door within an hour of the time when the murder must have been committed.” The Superintendent proudly gave many more details, and ended by saying that he had already given instructions to circulate a description.

“Curious,” said Dr. Austin Bond, “that a man like John Franting should let anyone enter the room by the window! Especially a shabby-looking man!”

“You knew the deceased personally then?”

“No! But I know he was John Franting.”

“How, Doctor?”

“Luck.”

“Sergeant,” said the Superintendent, piqued. “Tell the constable to fetch the hall-porter.”

Dr. Austin Bond walked to and fro, peering everywhere, and picked up a piece of paper that had lodged against the step of the platform which ran round two sides of the room for the raising of the spectators’ benches. He glanced at the paper casually, and dropped it again.

“My man,” the Superintendent addressed the hall-porter. “How can you be sure that nobody came in here this afternoon?”

“Because I was in my cubicle all the time, sir.”

The hall-porter was lying. But he had to think of his own welfare. On the previous day he had been reprimanded for quitting his post against the rule. Taking advantage of the absence of the manager, he had sinned once again, and he lived in fear of dismissal if found out.

“With a full view of the lounge?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Might have been in there beforehand,” Dr. Austin Bond suggested.

“No,” said the Superintendent. “The charwoman came in twice. Once just before Franting came in. She saw the fire wanted making up and she went for some coal, and then returned later with some coal. But the look of Franting frightened her, and she went back with her coal.”

“Yes,” said the hall-porter. “I saw that.”

Another lie.

At a sign from the Superintendent he withdrew

“I should like to have a word with that charwoman,” said Dr. Austin Bond.

The Superintendent hesitated. Why should the great amateur meddle with what did not concern him? Nobody had asked his help. But the Superintendent thought of the amateur’s relations with Scotland Yard, and sent for the charwoman.

“Did you clean the window here to-day?” Dr. Austin Bond interrogated her.

“Yes, please, sir.”

“Show me your left hand.” The slattern obeyed. “How did you lose your little finger?”

“In a mangle accident, sir.”

“Just come to the window, will you, and put your hands on it. But take off your left boot first.”

The slattern began to weep.

“It’s quite all right, my good creature.” Dr. Austin Bond reassured her. “Your skirt is torn at the hem, isn’t it?”

When the slattern was released from her ordeal and had gone carrying one boot in her grimy hand, Dr. Austin Bond said genially to the Superintendent:

“Just a fluke. I happened to notice she’d only three fingers on her left hand when she passed me in the corridor. Sorry I’ve destroyed your evidence. But I felt sure almost from the first that the murderer hadn’t either entered or decamped by the window.”

“How?”

“Because I think he’s still here in the room.”

The two police officers gazed about them as if exploring the room for the murderer.

“I think he’s there.”

Dr. Austin Bond pointed to the corpse.

“And where did he hide the revolver after he’d killed himself?” demanded the thin-lipped Superintendent icily, when he had somewhat recovered his aplomb.

“I’d thought of that, too,” said Dr. Austin Bond, beaming. “It is always a very wise course to leave a dead body absolutely untouched until a professional man has seen it. But looking at the body can do no harm. You see the left-hand pocket of the overcoat. Notice how it bulges. Something unusual in it. Something that has the shape of a –- Just feel inside it, will you?”

The Superintendent, obeying, drew a revolver from the overcoat pocket of the dead man.

“Ah! Yes!” said Dr. Austin Bond. “A Webley Mark III. Quite new. You might take out the ammunition.” The Superintendent dismantled the weapon. “Yes, yes! Three chambers empty. Wonder how he used the other two! Now, where’s that bullet? You see? He fired. His arm dropped, and the revolver happened to fall into the pocket.”

“Fired with his left hand, did he?” asked the Superintendent, foolishly ironic.

“Certainly. A dozen years ago Franting was perhaps the finest amateur light-weight boxer in England. And one reason for it was that he bewildered his opponents by being left-handed. His lefts were much more fatal than his rights. I saw him box several times.”

Whereupon Dr. Austin Bond strolled to the step of the platform near me door and picked up the fragment of very thin paper that was lying there.

“This,” said he, “must have blown from the hearth to here by the draught from the window when the door was opened. It’s part of a letter. You can see the burnt remains of the other part in the corner of the fender. He probably lighted the cigarette with it. Out of bravado! His last bravado! Read this.”

The Superintendent read: “… repeat that I realize how fond you are of me, but you have killed my affection for you, and I shall leave our home tomorrow. This is absolutely final. E.”

Dr. Austin Bond, having for the nth