Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927
- Автор: Alexander R. W., Ames John
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
“There’s the facts, Lomas. And the opinion to be formed upon them, the only possible opinion, is that a sleeping draft of chloral was put in his whisky so that he should be insensible while his throat was cut.”
“Oh, my dear fellow!” Lomas protested. “How can you say so? It’s not uncommon for a suicide to take a drug before he kills himself some other way. Landomere may have hoped to kill himself with chloral and found it didn’t act quick enough. He may have taken it so that he should die quiet. He may have had the chloral habit. Your murder theory is superfluously improbable.”
“Think again, Lomas,” said Reggie. “There was chloral in the decanter. Put your mind to it.” He smiled and took another cigar. “By the way, Bell, did you find any chloral in the flat? No, I thought not.
“Another little point. The hypothetical suicide gets some chloral without a bottle and mixes it with the whisky in the decanter. That’s a very unusual way to take your drugs.”
“Your point,” Lomas agreed. “Sorry, Reginald. You are very neat. But I don’t see my way. If a murderer could drug his whisky, why bother with this dangerous business of cutting his throat?”
“Well, I don’t know why Landomere had to die. But I take it there were urgent reasons. The murderer had to make sure. Any poison Landomere wouldn’t notice wouldn’t kill him quick. A little sleeping draft — then his throat would be cut and everything arranged to look like suicide — and it was all over in one night.”
“And if you hadn’t happened to see him, sir, the other doctor would have passed it for suicide and we shouldn’t have bothered about it,” said Bell.
“And they’d have lived happily ever after,” said Mr. Fortune. “Perhaps they will now. Are we going to have another verdict against a person or persons unknown, Lomas?”
“Another, sir?” Bell stared. “Oh, you mean that Akers case. I don’t see any likeness.”
“Both wiping out a man. Both very cleverly managed. Both givin’ evidence of organization behind — and some chap with a will.”
“It is damnably clever,” said Lomas. “Some fellow with a head, yes. Possibly some fellow in a large way of business. He must have had a staff. But why the devil should the same man have to kill both Akers and Landomere?”
“You’re coming back to that organizer of crime idea, sir,” Bell shook his head. “I don’t think it. Except for receivers of stolen goods and selling drugs and the sort of business side, they don’t happen. I mean to say, not in murders. There’s no money in murders.”
“No. No. Murder would be a side line,” Reggie murmured.
“What have we got?” Lomas lay back in his chair, “The Akers case has petered out. Landomere was murdered by somebody who knew his ways and could get into his flat. The valet is indicated. Logan’s after him. Got his description. Got some of his pals.
“What about Landomere’s life? He belonged to several decent clubs. We can’t hear of any intimate friends. His bank account’s very small. He had no capital to speak of. No visible means of support. His pass book shows money paid in irregularly, nothing suggestive in the checks he drew. They haven’t noticed any particular visitors in the flats.
“The only thing worth looking into we get from the telephone exchange is that he rang up a solicitor last week. The girl remembered that because the call lasted so long. A Mr. Howard Fyle. Not known to the police. We’ll have a talk with Mr. Howard Fyle. Anything else, Reginald?”
“Well, I was thinking of a quiet day or two in Downshire. I’d like to have Bell. Not necessarily for publication but as a guarantee of good faith. I shouldn’t publish anything, Lomas. Get the inquest quietly adjourned. Don’t tell Mr. Fyle we’re worryin’. And go hard after the valet.”
“Logan’s a thruster,” Lomas smiled. “You can have Bell, but I don’t know what you’ll do in Downshire.”
“Nor do I,” Reggie murmured. “Tryin’ everything, Lomas. Like the late Mr. Darwin playin’ the trombone to his vegetables.”
V
The next morning he arrived in a car at the suburban home of Superintendent Bell, who looked at it critically while the chauffeur stowed his suitcase. “Got a new one, Mr. Fortune?”
“A hireling. You never know, you know. Somebody might recognize mine. And I thought we’d better be incognito. Two gentlemen from Canada having a look round the old country: Mr. French and Mr. Brown.”
Bell laughed. “All right, sir. Have you brought any false whiskers?” He looked at Mr. Fortune’s pink round face affectionately. “I’d like to see you in whiskers.”
“You have a nasty mind, Bell.”
“Sorry, sir,” Bell chuckled. “I just thought of it. It is a bit odd, you know, taking all this pains to be incog. Any one who knows us well, they’ll know us just the same”
“Lots of people who never saw me know my name. I don’t want to alarm anybody. We’re going into a nice quiet country where strangers will be showy. Somebody might get interested in the car.”
“All right, sir.” Bell spread himself. “It’s like a holiday to me. I don’t know what we’re doing.”
“We’re going to see the chief constable first. I always like to keep in with the police — if possible.”
The car ran through long miles of suburban country, climbed to the wind on the hills and raced down to orchards and mellowing corn. The sprawling county town of Downshire slumbered between market days.
They put up the car and ordered lunch and walked through yawning streets to the chief constable. But he was brisk enough, a little man with a knowing eye. “I’m not going to say I’m glad to see you, Mr. Fortune. What’s the trouble?”
“You know, don’t you? But do you know any one called Landomere?”
The chief constable put his head on one side. “That suicide case, eh? I was wondering about it myself. I didn’t know there was a Landomere alive.”
“Ah, the family’s faded right out?”
“Absolutely. Generations ago. Never heard of one in my time. They owned half the seaboard once, but all their land has been sold to other families times out of mind.”
“No poor relations about?”
“I never met any one who knew a Landomere. We always think of them as one of the dead medieval names.” He turned to a map on the wall. “That was their great place, Castle Counter, on a hill in the marsh by Lythe. They had a big manor here at Ashurst. All around was Landomere country. That’s all I know about them.
“If you ask me, I wonder where this chap picked up the name.” The chief constable looked more knowing than ever. “Bill Smith calling himself Keith Howard, what?”
“Yes, that is one of the possibilities,” said Mr. Fortune.
VI
But after lunch the hireling car ran on from the woodland to the marsh, to the knoll of sandstone above the winding, muddy river where Castle Counter stood.
“Nice bit of ruin,” said Bell and smiled upon his Mr. Fortune, like a father indulging a spoiled child’s fancy. “What were you thinking of doing with it now we are here, sir?”
There was not much of it. The shell of the keep stood stark against the sea wind, the rest was tumbled stones glowing red with valerian. Fortune delivered a short lecture on medieval castles and Bell went on smiling.
Mr. Fortune wandered among the ruins. Bell came up with him where he stood contemplating the door of the keep. “There you are,” he said. A coat of arms was carved in the crumbling stone and the lion fish could still be made out. “The home of the Landomeres.”