Kitabı oxu: «The Grell Mystery»

CHAPTER III

FOYLE caressed his chin with his well-manicured hand.

‘H’m!’ he said reflectively. ‘Don’t let’s jump to conclusions too quickly, Mr Bolt. There’s a doctor here, I suppose? Take this man to him, and when he’s a bit calmer take a statement from him. I’ll leave Ivan to you. Get some of the servants to give you a description of him, and ’phone it through to Flack at the Yard. Let him send it out as an “all station” message, and get in touch with the railway stations. The chap can’t have got far. Detain on suspicion. No arrest. Hello, there’s the bell. That’s some of our people, I expect. All right, I’ll answer. You get on with that.’

He had not raised his voice in giving his directions. He was as cool and matter-of-fact as a business man giving instructions to his secretary, yet he was throwing a net round London. Within five minutes of the time Bolt had gathered his description, the private telegraph that links Scotland Yard with all the police stations of London would be setting twenty thousand men on the alert for the missing servant. The great railway stations would be watched, and every policeman and detective wherever he might be stationed would know exactly the appearance of the man wanted, from the colour of his hair and his eyes to the pattern of his socks.

Foyle opened the door to a little cluster of grave-faced men. Sir Hilary Thornton, the assistant commissioner, was there; Professor Harding, an expert retained by the authorities, and a medical man whose scientific researches in connection with the Gould poisoning case had sent a man to the gallows, and whose aid had been most important in solving many murder mysteries; Grant of the finger-print department, a wizard in all matters relating to identification; a couple of men from his department bearing cameras, and lastly the senior officer of the Criminal Investigation Department, Green, and his assistant, Waverley.

Sir Hilary drew Foyle a little aside, and they conversed in low tones. Professor Harding, with a nod to the superintendent, had gone upstairs to where the divisional surgeon and another doctor were waiting with Lomont, the secretary of the murdered man, outside the door of the room where Robert Grell lay dead.

The doctors had done no more than ascertain he was dead, and Foyle himself had purposely not gone near the room until Harding had an opportunity of making his examinations.

‘I shall take charge of this myself, if you do not mind, Sir Hilary,’ Foyle was saying. ‘Mainland is capable of looking after the routine work of the department, and in the case of a man of Mr Grell’s importance—’

‘That is what I should have suggested,’ said Sir Hilary. ‘We must get to the bottom of this at all costs. You know Mr Grell was to have been married to Lady Eileen Meredith at St Margaret’s, Westminster, this morning. It’s a bad business. Let’s see what Harding’s got to say.’

Their feet sank noiselessly into the thick carpet of the stairs as they moved towards the death-chamber. From an open doorway near the landing a flood of light issued.

‘Very handy for anyone to get away,’ commented Foyle. ‘The stairs lead direct to the hall, and there are only two rooms to pass. This carpet would deaden footsteps too.’

They entered softly. Someone had turned all the lights on in the room, and it was bathed in brilliance.

A dying fire flickered in the grate; bookcases lined the red-papered walls, which were broken here and there by curios and sporting trophies gathered from many countries. There were a few etchings, which had evidently been chosen with the skill of a connoisseur.

Parallel with the window was a desk, scrupulously tidy. Half a dozen chairs were scattered about, and in a recess was a couch, over which the angular frock-coated figure of Professor Harding was bent. He looked up as the two men approached.

‘It’s clearly murder,’ he said. ‘He was probably killed between ten and eleven—stabbed through the heart. Curious weapon used too—look!’

He moved aside and for the first time Foyle got a view of the body. Robert Grell lay sprawled awkwardly on the couch, his face turned towards the wall, one leg trailing on the floor. A dark crimson stain soiled the white surface of his shirt, and one side of his dinner jacket was wringing wet. The dagger still remained in the wound, and it was that riveted Foyle’s attention. He stepped back quickly to one of the men at the door.

‘Send Mr Grant to me,’ he ordered.

Returning to the body, he gently withdrew the knife, handling it with the most delicate care. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before,’ he said. ‘Queer thing, isn’t it?’

It was a sheath knife with a blade of finely tempered steel about three inches long and as sharp as a razor. Its abnormality lay in a hilt of smooth white ivory set horizontally and not vertically to the blade, as is a rule with most knives.

Foyle carried it in the palm of his hand nearer to the light and squinted at it from various angles. One at least of the observers guessed his purpose. But the detective seemed dissatisfied.

‘Can’t see anything,’ he grumbled peevishly. ‘Ah, there you are, Grant. I want to see whether we can make anything of this. Let me have a little graphite, will you?’

The finger-print expert took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the superintendent. From it Foyle scattered fine black powder on the hilt. A little cry of satisfaction came from his lips as he blew the stuff away in a little dark cloud. Those in the room crowded around.

Outlined in black against the white surface of the ivory were four finger-prints. The two centre ones were sharp and distinct, the outside prints were fainter and more blurred.

‘By Jove, that’s good!’ exclaimed the professor.

Foyle rubbed his chin and handed the weapon to Grant without replying. ‘Get one of your men to photograph those and have them enlarged. At any rate, it’s something to go on with. It would be as well to compare ’em with the records, though I doubt whether that will be of much use.’ He drew his watch from his pocket and glanced at it. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I should like to have the room to myself for a little while. And, Grant, send Green and the photographer up, and tell Waverley to act with Bolt in examining the servants.’

The room cleared. Harding lingered to exchange a few words with the superintendent.

‘I can do nothing, Mr Foyle,’ he said. ‘From a medical point of view it is all straightforward. There can be no question about the time and cause of death. Good night—or rather, good morning.’

‘Thank you, Mr Harding, good morning.’

His eyes were roving restlessly about the room, and he dictated the work the photographer was to do with scrupulous care. Half a dozen times a dazzling flash of magnesium powder lit up the place. Photographs of the room in sections were being taken. Then with a curt order to the photographer to return immediately to Scotland Yard and develop his negatives, he drew up a chair to the couch and began to go methodically through the pockets of the dead man.

Green stood by, a note-book in hand. Now and again Foyle dictated swiftly. He was a man who knew the value of order and system. Every step in the investigation of a crime is reduced to writing, collected, indexed, and filed together, so that the whole history of a case is instantly available at any time. He was carrying out the regular routine.

Only two things of any consequence rewarded his search—one was a note from Sir Ralph Fairfield confirming an appointment with Grell to dine at the St Jermyn’s Club the previous evening; the other was a miniature set in diamonds of a girl, dark and black-haired, with an insolent piquant beauty.

‘I’ve seen that face before somewhere,’ mused the superintendent. ‘Green, there’s a “Who’s Who” on the desk behind you. I want Sir Ralph Fairfield.’

Rapidly he scanned the score of lines of small type devoted to the baronet. They told him little that he had not known before. Fairfield was in his forty-third year, was the ninth baronet, and had great estates in Hampshire and Scotland. He was a traveller and a student. His town address was given as the Albany.

‘You’d better go round to Fairfield’s place, Green. Tell him what’s happened and bring him here at once.’

As the chief inspector, a grim, silent man, left, Foyle turned again to his work. He began a careful search of the room, even rummaging among the litter in the waste-paper basket. But there was nothing else that might help to throw the faintest light on the tragedy.

A discreet knock on the door preceded Waverley’s entrance with a report of the examination of everyone in the house. He had gathered little beyond the fact that Grell, when not concerned in social duties, was a man of irregular comings and goings, and that Ivan, his personal valet, was a man he had brought from St Petersburg, who spoke French but little English, and had consequently associated little with the other servants.

Foyle subsided into his chair with his forehead puckered into a series of little wrinkles. He rested his chin on his hand and gazed into vacancy. There might be a hundred solutions to the riddle. Where was the motive? Was it blackmail? Was it revenge? Was it jealousy? Was it robbery? Was it a political crime? Was it the work of a madman? Who was the mysterious veiled woman? Was she associated with the crime?

These and a hundred other questions beat insistently on his brain, and to none of them could he see the answer. He pictured the queer dagger, but flog his memory as he would he could not think where it might have been procured. In the morning he would set a score of men making inquiries at every place in London where such a thing was likely to have been obtained.

He was in the position of a man who might solve a puzzle by hard, painstaking experiment and inquiry, but rather hoped that some brilliant flash of inspiration or luck might give him the key that would fit it together at once. They rarely do come.

Once Lomont, Grell’s secretary, knocked and entered with a question on his lips. Foyle waved him impatiently away.

‘I will see you later on, Mr Lomont. I am too busy to see you now. Mr Waverley or Mr Bolt will see to you.’

The man vanished, and a moment or two later a discreet tap at the door heralded the return of Green, accompanied by Sir Ralph Fairfield.

The baronet’s hand was cold as it met that of Foyle, and his haggard face was averted as though to avoid the searching gaze of the detective.