Richardson Scores Again (3 page)

“This drawer was packed with clothes, inspector. It was a tight fit to get the drawer shut.” He lugged a bunch of keys from his trouser pocket. “I locked every drawer with this key, but you see what the man did—forced the locks of all three drawers! “

It was true. The chest, which purported to be solid mahogany, was a sham; the mahogany was thinly veneered on deal; the locks were cheap and were secured to the wood by inadequate little screws; a sharp jerk on the handles had sufficed to tear out the topmost screws, and the locks were hanging useless by their bottom screws. Symington cast an eye round the room and went to a cupboard. It was locked: nothing else in the room appeared to have been touched.

“Listen to me, Mr. MacDougal. How many people knew that the money was in that drawer? Did your servant know?”

“Certainly not. If I had given her a hint that there was so much money in the house, she would have refused to stay the night here. She was very independent, poor thing. She would have gone off to spend the night with her married sister in Hammersmith.”

“Did the farmer, Jackson, know?”

“No, I told him nothing. All he wanted was for me to count the money in his presence, get a receipt and be off.”

“But you told your nephew?”

“Yes, because I had to give him a good reason for coming up a day earlier.”

“Tell me exactly what you said in your letter.”

“I can't say that I remember the exact words I used. I told him that Jackson had called after banking hours on Monday and had paid over the money; I told him the amount and said that I should have to leave for the funeral in Redford before the bank opened on Tuesday, and that it wouldn't do to leave my maidservant alone in the house with such a sum lying in a drawer; that I had no safe in the house to put it in. I begged him to come up one day earlier so as to sleep in the house.”

“You didn't tell him the exact hiding-place?”

“No, I'm certain of that.”

“And you are quite certain that you didn't tell anyone else. Think before you answer.”

“I'm quite certain.”

A bell rang faintly in the basement. The inspector pricked up his ears. “What bell was that?”

“The front-door bell, I think.”

Symington went to the door to listen. He heard Porter go to the front door and the voice of the visitor, which sounded familiar.

“It is the police surgeon, Mr. MacDougal. I must go down, but you can stay here or come down with me, whichever you wish.”

“I would rather come down.”

Symington greeted the newcomer as “Dr. Macnamara.” He was a stout little man of about forty, with an air of business about him. He put his attaché-case on the hall table. “What have you got for me to-day, Mr. Symington?”

“If you'll look behind you, Doctor, you'll see.”

“Tck, tck!” clicked the doctor, going down on hands and knees beside the body and gently turning it over, giving special attention to the head. They let him work in silence for some minutes. Then he rose and faced Symington.

“This woman has been shot through the head from behind, and the bullet passed clean through the skull. The shot must have been fired at close quarters. You can see that from the clean point of entry at the back of the head and the mess it made of the forehead at the point of exit. If you look about you ought to be able to find the bullet.”

“The man who fired the shot got in through the kitchen window. He must have run after her up the basement stairs and fired at her from about where I am standing,” said Symington.

“Ah, then I should look for the bullet in that wall.”

“I think I see it, sir,” said Porter. “Here, where I am pointing, there is a hole in the plaster.”

Symington hurried over to him and pulled out his knife. After a few seconds' probing he prised out something that fell on the boards. It was a small bullet slightly flattened by its impact against the wall. Porter slipped it into an envelope and labelled it.

“Now, Mr. Symington, you can 'phone for the ambulance and get the body down to the mortuary for the post-mortem, while I get back to finish my lunch, if you don't mind.”

“Very good, Doctor: it shall be done. Ring up the station for the ambulance, Porter, and then come down with me to the kitchen. We won't trouble you any more for the present, Mr. MacDougal, but don't go out.”

When Porter reached the kitchen after sending his message he found the room empty and the back door open. His chief came in from the garden.

“I want you to get through to the Portsmouth Dockyard police on the trunk—Portsmouth 356 is the number. Ask them to send round to H.M.S.
Dauntless
and inquire whether Lieutenant Eccles is on board, and if not, at what time he left the ship. Tell them to telephone their report to our office.”

While his subordinate was wrestling with the trunk call, Symington betook himself to the garden again in the hope of finding some clue to the number of persons who had made a felonious entry overnight. It would be easy, of course, to compare the soles of MacDougal's boots with the booted footprints: it might be well to get a photograph of the others before a shower of rain obliterated their outlines. Symington walked round towards the entrance gate and made a cast into the laurel bushes on his left. His heart beat fast when five yards from the drive he came upon a laurel leaf, fresh-plucked, lying on the ground, and close to it a clear footprint.

He stepped back into the drive and looked towards the house. Porter had come out. He seemed to be looking for him. Symington waved an arm and the man came to him, almost at a run.

“Did you get through to them all right?”

“Yes, sir. They told me—”

“You can tell me that later. I want you to look at this.” He led his subordinate to the footprint. “A pretty clear print that, wouldn't you say? We'll take a cast from it presently, but in the meantime I want you to measure it carefully.”

“Very good, sir. I don't know whether you've noticed how thin the sole is. It looks like the kind of shoe that gentlemen wear in town. Oh, and here's another.”

“H'm! It's the same shoe all right, but I doubt whether it's clear enough for a cast.”

“I'm afraid not, sir, but the man who made it must have been walking away from the drive, because here's another. And look there, sir!” Porter was pointing to something lying on the ground: he pounced on it and passed it to his chief. It was a black leather pocket-book or note-case.

Symington opened it eagerly. The flaps were full of memoranda scribbled on slips of paper, a letter or two, and—biggest prize of all—three or four visiting-cards.

“Look at this, Porter.” He handed him one of the visiting-cards bearing the name “Mr. Ronald Eccles,” and in the left lower corner—“H.M.S.
Dauntless
.”

“This is something like a clue, sir.”

T
HERE WAS
a difference of opinion in high quarters at New Scotland Yard when Symington brought down the report of his visit to Laburnum Road. Charles Morden and Chief Constable Beckett did not see eye to eye on the question whether the inquiry should be put into the hands of one of the superintendents or left in the quite competent hands of Divisional Detective-Inspector Symington.

“He's begun quite well,” said Beckett. “Why take it out of his hands? I should let him go through with-it. They're having a quiet time in S Division just now.”

Morden fell back upon the tradition that whenever a case entailed work in several divisions of the Metropolitan area, or help was to be invoked from provincial police forces, a superintendent or a chief inspector from the Central Division was the man to undertake the case; and further, that if some public official was involved (and a naval officer came under the head of a public official), it was the immemorial practice for Central to handle the case. “You see,” he said, “this may grow into a big case when the newspapers get hold of the details. A naval officer's pocket-book found on the scene of the crime! The naval officer on leave at the time. How did the pocket-book get there? I've just been looking through its contents. Besides the visiting-cards and the letters in feminine handwritings, there is the very letter which the uncle sent by express to his ship. I don't suppose you've had time to read it. Just run your eye over it.”

Beckett went through the letter with knitted brow, murmuring its contents aloud.

Beckett handed the letter back and went to the window to think. “The captain of the
Dauntless
told the dockyard people that the nephew got leave on urgent private affairs and left the ship early on Tuesday morning. If he took the next train, he ought to have been in London by lunch-time. It's funny. And then his pocket-book is picked up in the garden on the morning after the murder! And no one has seen or heard of him since! But so far there's nothing in the case that Symington couldn't handle. He's started with the advantage of knowing MacDougal and the house and grounds, and he's a regular ferret for getting to the bottom of his cases.”

“He is, but when he comes to a sticking-point, as he's bound to, we shall be made to take over the case in Central, so why not begin now? Probably there'll be questions in the House, and the Home Office people will want to know who's in charge of the case. We shall have to get the inquest adjourned—”

“Oh, that needn't worry us. Symington is on the best of terms with the Hampstead coroner—”

“No doubt he is, but—well, talking won't make either of us change our opinion: we shall have to ask Sir William to decide.”

Morden touched his desk telephone and had an answering buzz.

“Are you very busy? Beckett and I want you to decide a point that has arisen in this Hampstead murder case…Right! We'll come.”

The two passed through the swing doors of the entrance hall to a room facing the granite staircase. The Office of Works, with a fine sense of the differences of rank in the hierarchy, had furnished it more lavishly than any other room on the ground floor. It had, for example, a Turkey carpet and mahogany furniture. On the big writing-table in the centre was a miniature telephone exchange, with private wires connected with the various Government departments. At this table sat Sir William Lorimer, the Director of Criminal Investigation, an intelligent-looking person of about fifty with an easy manner and a sense of humour.

“Good morning, both of you. I gather that you were on the point of coming to blows when you rang me up. What's the trouble?”

“It's about that murder in Hampstead,” explained Morden with a wry smile. “You've seen the telephone messages?”

“The murder of the servant in Laburnum Road?”

“Yes. We want you to decide whether the case should be taken over by Central. Mr. Beckett thinks that it should be left to the Division.”

“Didn't I see that a naval officer was somehow involved in the case?”

“Yes, but only to the extent that his pocket-book was picked up in the garden. There's nothing yet to show that he dropped it there.”

Beckett remained silent, being one of those men who are loath to give their opinion until it is asked for.

“What do you say, Mr. Beckett?” asked Lorimer.

“Well, sir, I'm in favour of leaving it to the Divisional Detective-Inspector. Mr. Symington is a very careful man and he knows his division inside out. He's already begun the case, and I don't see why he shouldn't go through with it. S Division is pretty free from crime at the moment, though of course at this season it's had its share of burglaries and house-breaking.”

“I'm afraid that I must rule against you, Mr. Beckett. It is just one of those cases in which I shall be pestered with questions, and I want to feel that I've only to ring the bell to get a quick answer; whereas, if the inquiry is going on in Hampstead—But please understand that I've every confidence in Symington, and that if it had been an ordinary case, however difficult, I should have said, “Leave it in his hands.' Which of the superintendents is free at this moment?”

“Only Foster can be spared at present, Sir William.”

“Very well, then, let Foster take it on. He may be a bit slow, but he's sure, and his Scottish accent gives one confidence somehow.” He turned to Morden. “You'd better send for him and put him in charge of the case. Let him choose the man to work with him.”