Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926
- Автор: Bailey H. C., Bechdolt Jack
- Год: 1926
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926». Краткое содержание книги:
Reggie rose slowly and stood surveying the landscape. “Extensive view, what?” he murmured and wandered away.
“What about it, Fortune?” Lomas called.
Reggie turned and strolled toward him. “Well, the man was shot by a revolver fired close to the left temple and died some days ago.” He looked curiously at Inspector, Warnham. “Any questions?”
“Why did they bring him to the top of a hill to shoot him?” said Lomas.
The inspector nodded. “Ah, that’s got it, sir.” He lowered his voice. “This place here was the favorite walk of Mrs. Brase. Kind of haunt of hers,” he gave the aspirates a sinister emphasis.
“Who put you on to it?”
“Well, sir, when we heard Mrs. Brase had bolted we made arrangements to search the place. There was talk in the village as Mr. Brase might be somewhere in the park and some said as Mrs. Brase was often up here. I couldn’t tell you who said it first.”
Reggie smiled wearily. “The rector’s wife, Lomas,” he said, and again wandered away.
“It might be or it mightn’t,” the inspector was offended. “Does the gentleman want to do any more, sir?” He stared angrily at Reggie’s back.
“I’m afraid he wants to do a lot more,” said Lomas, and went after him while the inspector and the doctor conferred and agreed that Mr. Fortune was too clever by half.
It is not the impression that he is wont to make. He has been heard to apologize for his work on the case, confessing he was not in his best form. Lomas, following him as he drifted hither and thither among the trees, thought that such aimless delay was sadly unlike him.
He came to a stand on the edge of the hill where the tracks met, and looked again at the extensive view. Lomas put a hand on his shoulder. “Always jolly where the chalk ends, isn’t it?” Reggie murmured.
“My dear fellow! Do you feel up to this?” Lomas said anxiously.
“Yes, I think so,” Reggie smiled.
Inspector Warnham arrived to ask if Mr. Fortune wished to be present at the post mortem. Reggie contemplated him with dreamy eyes. “Oh, ah! Where does that track go to?” He pointed to the one by which they had not come.
“That one? Down to Brase. The village,” the inspector snapped.
“Where the rector’s wife is,” Reggie murmured. “You didn’t come up that way?”
“No, sir, we didn’t. Would you come along, please? Dr. Harcourt’s in a hurry.”
III
Reggie stared at him in a mild surprise and strolled down the village track. He came back to find the body already in a car and the doctor fuming, but he lingered about the place where it had lain. “Perhaps you’ll join me at Hors-bury, Mr. Fortune,” the doctor cried, and drove away.
Mr. Fortune rose from the ground. “And that’s that,” he murmured.
Inspector Warnham and his men climbed into their car and departed and still Reggie wandered among the trees.
“What is it, Reginald?”
“Hasty, don’t you think, a little hasty?”
“Why, there’s nothing more here.”
Reggie stared at him with large vague eyes. “No. Nothing here. Come on.” They walked to their car and Reggie sank down in his seat with a sigh. “Let her out, Lomas, or they’ll hang somebody before we get there.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. A horrid case, Lomas. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Let her go. No paltry caution.”
In his office at Horsbury the chief constable of Wessex presided over a conference. He was a colonel of the old school, and he had a good deal to say which was not relevant, and Inspector Warnham reported what they all knew, and Lomas, who had been re-enforced by his lieutenant, Superintendent Bell, smoked many cigarettes.
The afternoon was thus far spent when they were interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Fortune. “I hope I don’t intrude?” he murmured, as Lomas introduced him.
“Come in, doctor, come in,” said the chief constable. “We’re waiting for the medical evidence.”
“Well, the dead man had lived rather fast. Not a very nice man.”
“We’ve got nothing against him, doctor,” said the inspector.
“Lived a man’s life, eh, what?” the chief constable chuckled.
“Yes. He was feeling like that. He was shot in the left temple at close quarters by a service revolver. Death was immediate. And he died some days ago.”
“Say a week?” the inspector asked sharply.
“Quite possible. Oh, is that a map of the place?” Reggie bent over the table. “Six inch ordnance? Good!” Superintendent Bell made room for him and he sat down to it.
“Service revolver,” the inspector repeated. “Sure of that, doctor?”
Bell snorted. Lomas laughed. Reggie looked up and gazed mildly at Inspector Warnham. “Oh, I think so, I think so,” he said, and produced a small box wherein on cotton wool lay a revolver bullet. “Any objection?”
“That’s all right,” the inspector rubbed his hands. “Service revolver. Mr. Brase went through the war, sir.” He turned to the chief constable. “There’d be a service revolver of his handy.”
“It wasn’t suicide, you know,” Reggie murmured.
“I bet it wasn’t,” the inspector grinned. “We’ll have a hunt for that revolver, sir.”
“Yes. Yes. Might have a look for the cartridge case, too,” said Reggie. “Did you notice it wasn’t there?”
“What do you mean?” the inspector cried.
“The blood wasn’t there, either.”
“Blood! He’d bled down all his face and neck.”
“Yes. Yes. And not a drop on the ground. Very tidy of him.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, doctor.”
“He wasn’t killed where you found him dead.”
Bell smiled benevolently. “Now you’ve got something, Warnham.”
“God bless my soul!” said the chief constable. “You mean to say his body was carried up there?”
“I shall say at the inquest he wasn’t killed where you found him.”
“What’s the sense of that?” the inspect tor frowned.
“My dear fellow! Oh, my dear fellow! You supply the sense. I only produce the facts.” Mr. Fortune bent again over the map.
“Cherchez la femme, what, what?” said the chief constable. “That’s the thing, Warnham.”
“Well, well,” said Reggie, and lay back in his chair and gazed at them as they began to devise the hunt for Mrs. Brase, then sighed and left them to it.
IV
Thus they arrived in the musty but seventeenth century sitting room reserved for them before the case was spoken of again. Then Reggie swaying before the fire with his cigar said: “Well, what about Mrs. Brase?” Bell handed him a photograph.
“Oh, my aunt!” he murmured. It showed a woman tall and strongly built, a woman who might be handsome, but was given by photography a haggard and restless aspect.
“They say she don’t take well, but this is like her. Striking face, sir.”
“Striking!” Lomas chuckled. “That’s the word, Bell.”
“Yes. But you can’t hang her for her face.”
“It will rather prepare the public mind, though,” Lomas said.
“This isn’t the photograph we’re circulating, Mr. Fortune,” Bell explained. “But they’re all alike.”
“Oh, photograph and description to all police stations. Warrant, too?”
“No, sir. Not yet.”
“You surprise me.”
“Spoke very sarcastic,” Lomas smiled. “Reginald, you’re being superior. It hurts my trustful nature. What’s the matter?”