The Shop Window Murders. Vernon LoderЧитать онлайн книгу.
while he was still in a subordinate position. To a poorer woman under him, he might assume the aspect of a little god.’
Devenish bit his lip. ‘The evidence tends that way, sir, but—’
The butler knocked and came in, to apologise for his tardiness. Melis told him to sit down, then bent, picked up a despatch-box, and took from it a slender weapon, the handle covered with tissue paper, and laid it on the table.
‘I suppose there is no chance that this came from your master’s flat?’
The butler suppressed a slight shudder. ‘Excuse me, sir. May I look at it closer?’
Melis nodded, and gently exposed the handle, being careful not to touch it with his fingers. ‘Well?’
I remember it, I think,’ said the butler. ‘I do believe it was the sample Mr Winson showed him one evening at dinner.’
Melis pressed for details, and the butler gave them. A famous Birmingham manufacturer had dined at the flat one night. He and Mander had discussed a contract for a half a million ‘Eastern daggers’, to be made in Birmingham, and sold in the Oriental department for trophies, and paper-knives. The manufacturer had brought a sample with him, and laid it on the table. Mr Mander had kept it, and—
‘Then run up, and see if it is still there,’ said Melis.
‘I’ll go up with him, sir,’ said Devenish. ‘I have locked that part of the flat up. Evidently this telephone connects with the servants’—’
‘With my pantry, sir,’ said the butler, getting up.
‘Where did Mr Mander keep the dagger?’ asked the inspector, as they ascended a minute later.
‘On the ormolu table in the drawing-room, sir.’
Devenish nodded, took the keys of the flat from his pocket, and the lift stopped.
The butler led the way into the drawing-room a few moments later, crossed to the ormolu table, and gave a little cry: ‘It’s gone, sir! It was here yesterday, when I came in after lunch to see that the fire was lit.’
‘You are sure you recognise it?’ said Devenish.
‘I am sure I do, sir. I had an oppportunity to see it on the table, and I saw those curly marks on the blade, and the odd-shaped handle.’
Devenish nodded, and let the man out, telling him he could go back to his quarters. Then he relocked the flat, and went back to the assistant-commissioner.
Mr Melis raised questioning eyebrows, was told that the knife, or dagger, had indeed gone from the flat above, and rose. ‘Well, Devenish,’ he said, ‘I have an appetite for lunch, and an engagement afterwards. Come along and report this evening, will you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the inspector replied. ‘I sent the sergeant to inquire at Miss Tumour’s flat. I think I shall go round myself, after I have had something to eat.’
‘Do!’ said Melis, with his best amateur actor’s air, picked up his gloves and hat—he never wore an overcoat—and walked out.
For some time after he had gone, Devenish sat drumming his fingers on his knee, and thinking hard. He was still at it when his sergeant came in, saluted, and approached.
‘Miss Tumour went out last night at a quarter to ten, sir,’ he told Devenish, ‘but she didn’t say where she was going, so the porter at the flats told me.’
‘And Mr Kephim?’
‘Mr Kephim, they think, left after eleven. But no one heard him come in again.’
‘Any night-porter at those flats?’
‘Yes, sir, but he did not notice Mr Kephim return. I thought it would be best to come back and tell you, without waiting to make any more inquiries.’
Devenish nodded. ‘Quite right. The times are important—one of them, anyway. I am going over myself this afternoon, so don’t trouble again. I want you to go carefully over the ground here, and make me a plan of the route which the murderer might have taken if he carried one, or both, of the bodies into the front window space from the lift.’
‘The goods-lift where the dagger was found, sir?’
‘That’s it. After you have done that, I want you to make inquiries about the night watchman. Go to Mr Crayte for the address. I don’t want the man to know. By the way, have you seen Mr Kephim anywhere in the building?’
‘No, sir. I think he did not come back.’
BETWEEN the Victorian shop and the twentieth century modern store there is a great gulf. It is widest perhaps in the matter of salaries paid to the higher staff. So Inspector Devenish was not much surprised to find that the late Miss Tumour occupied a rather luxurious little flat in a very nice quarter. It is true that she had only moved in there since she got the post at Mander’s.
It was to the porter that the detective first applied for information, and before he could come to grips with the problem he had to endure a small instalment of the man’s curiosity with regard to the crime. He cut that as short as he could, and asked if there was anyone in the flats who had an acquaintance with the dead woman.
‘No one, yet, sir, and aren’t likely to have now,’ said the porter, with rather mordant humour. ‘You see, sir, this was the first time they had anyone like her here. I don’t know who it was blew the gaff, but the others—’
‘I see,’ said Devenish, who knew very well that the man was referring to a certain snobbishness on the part of the other tenants. ‘So it’s no use my asking any of them about her. But you may have seen some of her visitors come in from time to time.’
‘She hadn’t many, and that’s a fact,’ said the man, ‘but one came regular lately, and another used to come with a car.’
He described the regular visitor, and Devenish recognised him as Mr Kephim.
‘Now what about the man in the car?’ he said.
The porter approached a wink. ‘I never saw him, sir. He used to come late sometimes in a closed car, and always sat back.’
‘But I should have thought you would go out to open the car door for him.’
‘It wasn’t ever necessary, sir. His chauffeur used to get out and stand in front of the door, till she came out and got in. I had always to speak up the tube to tell Miss Tumour a car had called for her.’
‘So you have no idea of the visitor’s appearance?’
‘Not a bit. He never went in neither. I’d have got into trouble if I’d gone and looked in at him.’
Devenish looked thoughtful. ‘It won’t have any bearing on the case, I am afraid,’ he said, ‘but could you tell me how long the second man has been coming?’
‘Came first a week after she had been in here, sir.’
‘Thank you. Did all her furniture come in from her former house?’
The porter blinked reflectively. ‘No, not all of it. Two lots came from Warungs ten days after she come, and then some went out to a sale room.’
‘I suppose the two visitors never came on the same day?’
‘No, they didn’t. When Miss Tumour went out with the other one she was always togged up gaudy—regular swell.’
Devenish procured the master-key and visited the flat itself after that.
In a search through Miss Tumour’s papers and correspondence, of which there was no great abundance, he found nothing in the nature of a clue. He finished up with her telephone, and took a note of the numbers in pencil on the pad. There were just five.
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