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:
“Quite a lot, sir. Harland and me been watching Roger Brase’s place, like you said. Warnham came over there this afternoon, and was inside for a while and went away. Roger Brase saw him off and walked about in the grounds a bit. After dark he came out again.
“Walked down to that bit of rough ground behind. Knelt down and stuffed something into a rabbit hole. Kicked the earth out of it and went back to the house. Then we got onto it, and this is what he was burying.” He held out another service revolver.
Reggie took it. “Sand, Lomas, old thing,” he smiled. “Lots of sand. He shook the revolver over a sheet of paper.”
“Of course there’s sand,” said Lomas. “The thing’s been in a rabbit hole.”
“Yes. But this is the right sort of sand. The sand that was in Julian Brase’s blood. Service revolver. Marked R. B. Empty. Barrel not foul. But a trifle of sand about. Just clean it, Sam. Another little experiment is indicated.”
“There’s no cartridges,” Lomas objected.
“Oh, I have some. I thought we might get a little more shooting.”
Again they went to the garage, switched on the light, and shut themselves in. “Ordinary service ammunition, Lomas. No deception. We now load and fire. Six bullets, Sam.”
In the upper room he laid them on the table and sat down and bent over one with the magnifying glass. But Lomas was quicker. “Good Gad!” he said softly. “The single scratch.”
Reggie examined them one by one, slowly, minutely. “Yes. One scratch,” he said at last, and compared them with the bullet that killed Julian Brase. “Which is the same scratch. And that’s that.” He lay back in his chair and smiled. “There’s your case, Lomas.”
And again Lomas said, “Good Gad!”
“Yes. I always told you Warnham had his uses.”
“What the devil has Warnham got to do with it?”
“He went out and told Roger there was some catch about the revolver. So Roger thought he’d better put his out of the way. And here we are.”
“Yes, sir,” said Bell. “But what about this fellow Arnold?”
“Oh, Arnold! He’s irrelevant. He’s picturesque. He only wanted to hang himself to save Flora Brase. He believes she did it, of course. I dare say, she’ll forgive him.”
Lomas said something about Mr. Arnold. Lomas went out to wrestle with a chief constable who was incredulous, bewildered, and at last anxious to oblige. For the rest of that night Sergeant Harland kept watch on the house of Roger Brase.
Early in the morning Inspector Warnham called there once again and arrested Roger Brase as the murderer of his brother. It was reported by the accompanying constable that their drive back to Horsbury was like hell, so wild were the reproaches of Roger Brase at Warnham’s false friendship, so fiercely morose Inspector Warnham.
Taking the morning air at the door of the White Bull, Mr. Fortune and Superintendent Bell watched that car pass. “Not a nice man, Bell,” said Mr. Fortune, and went into breakfast.
“I’ve been wondering what set him on to do murder, sir.”
“Well, go back to the beginning. The two of them, Julian, the heir to an estate that was loaded with debt; Roger, the younger brother. Both of ’em went the pace. Julian catches an heiress. His marrying clears the estate, but if he had a child that would cut Julian out.
“He didn’t, and there was plenty of money going. Roger came in for his share. Then the wife found out her husband was a wrong ’un, and money got scarce. You heard her say Julian wanted money and she turned him down. Julian went off to tell brother Roger. No more money out of Julian’s wife.
“But if Julian was to die, the estate, the cleared estate, would come to Roger. Julian and Mrs. Julian were known to be quarreling. There was Arnold in the offing. If Julian was murdered, lots of the best people, like the rector’s wife, would suspect Mrs. Brase. It ought to be pretty easy to put it on her. That’s how it looked to Julian. So he shot. A clever fellow. Quite clever fellow. But a little timid.”
“Timid, sir?” Bell gasped.
“Well, it was all going nicely, but he wasn’t comfortable. He had to get Julian’s revolver and put it up on the hill. His error. His gross error.”
“He’d have got away with it if these Wessex police had handled the case.”
“Yes. I wonder how many clever fellows do get away with it?”
At this point Lomas, who loves not breakfast, arrived to contemplate in horror the relics on the table.
“Just reconstructing the crime, Lomas,” Reggie smiled.
“My God!” said Lomas reverently, and drank a cup of coffee with visible effort.
“Fresh air and gentle exercise,” Reggie advised him, “and you won’t know yourself at lunch. Come on. I’m going to Brase.”
Some village folk gaped from the road at the shut windows and drawn blinds of Roger Brase’s house. “Want to go in, sir?” Bell said as Reggie stopped the car.
“I want to go into the garage.”
Superintendent Bell, introducing himself to the frightened housekeeper, asked for the key. Mr. Brase — had no key. The garage stood in a shrubbery away from the house. A little experiment on the lock by Bell persuaded it to open. Reggie pulled the dust sheet off the little car within.
“Sturton Mandeville, two seater, Gorham tires. You’ll find marks to fit that on the track from the village through the park. Open the doors wide, will you? Yes. There are blood stains on the seat and the floor. I thought he was very coy with his car.”
“Do you think the man was killed in here, sir?”
“Oh, no, no! Remember the sand. No. On that afternoon Julian came to the house, and our china merchant saw him go in. Nobody saw him go out. Where did he go? To see the grounds? Let us see brother Roger’s grounds. They walked across a tennis lawn, through the garden, and beyond the garden into rough ground where heather and furze grew amid broken patches of sand.”
Here Sam joined them. “Want to see where he hid the pistol, sir? This way.” He led them on, explaining volubly.
But Reggie wandered off by himself. They found him in a little hollow, contemplating a clump of gorse. “Look. Something has lain in there.” The bushes were twisted and broken. “Something that left threads on the gorse.” He collected them carefully.
“Brown woollen threads. And Julian was in brown tweed.” He moved to and fro and stirred the loose sand, peered here and there, stooped and picked up a cartridge case. “Service ammunition. Marked by the ejector with a deep nick similar to that in the cartridges fired from brother Roger’s revolver. Well, well!”
He smiled serene. But suddenly his smile faded. “Oh, my aunt! Look!” A woman was coming — a plump, important woman in black, at full speed. “The rector’s wife! Mr. Lomas will now explain himself to the rector’s wife.” He fled.
Moral Pirates
by Joseph Gollomb
Unique in history is the lawlessness of Misson and Tew, warriors and dreamers, who founded an empire on crime
This true tale will bewilder youngsters and many a grown-up. What, moral pirates? Men who with cannon, cutlass, and pistol capture treasure galleons on the Spanish Main and then capture the hearts of their prisoners by the royal treatment they accord them? Pirates who fly the skull and crossbones and at the same time preach brotherly love?
Pirate chiefs who can slash and shoot with the best, but who will not tolerate drunkenness or even profanity on board their ships? Men who sack and plunder seaboard towns and with the loot found tiny republics on a dark continent, Utopias where men actually live in liberty, fraternity, and equality?