traced a bright circle upon it. “The bottle-top murder! The names they think of for sensationalism....”
* * * * * * *
When Perry Lonsdale arrived next morning he found a complete change had taken place in the shadowy, indifferently dressed woman he had befriended the previous night. The air of gloom and mysticism had gone. She was smiling and her red frock enhanced her features and, somehow, put a sparkle in her deep violet eyes.
“Well, well, and how is the bird of the night this morning?”
Perry sat down opposite her.
“I’m feeling very much as though I’m in wonderland, and still wondering how I’m going to repay you.”
“The first condition is understandable,” he said, “and the second can be forgotten. I have a proposition for you. Not being a good salesman, I think I’d better start with a plush box and let that do the talking for me. That is, if you’ll let it.”
Perry nodded and took a small case from his pocket. As he snapped it open Moira found herself staring at a massive diamond clawed on to a thin gold band.
“Why, it’s beautiful! She inspected it closely. “I don’t think I have ever seen one quite so lovely. But,”—her eyes were deeply inquiring—“why have you done this, Perry?”
“I think we should become engaged,” he said, trying to sound casual. “To which I don’t doubt that you will raise all sorts of objections about us not knowing much of each other. Let me make it clear that on my side that simply doesn’t count. I’m the kind of chap who makes snap decisions. Up to now, all the women I’ve met—barring those in the forces who were usually engaged anyway—have been socialites, as shallow as soap-dishes and by no means as useful. It’s different with you. I’ve thought about you most of the night and this morning I called on the jeweler. Now let’s have your reaction.”
Moira sighed. “What sort of a fool would I be to turn down a chance like this?” she murmured.
Perry smiled, took the ring and slipped it on the third finger of her left hand.
“You’ll never regret this, Moira,” he said. “I used to think that love-at-first-sight was sheer bunk; now I’m a convert. It can happen. In fact, it has. If there is anything I should know about you, I’m just not interested. As for me, my offerings include my money—more or less unlimited; my London flat, and my country home. Most important of all, I’m offering my love.”
“Country home?” Moira’s unfathomable eyes brightened. “Where? Near here?”
“You have mentioned,” Perry said mysteriously, “that you like quiet places. My country place, the “Larches,” is quiet, even dull in some respects, but that can be changed with a woman’s touch. It’s in Somerset, on the borders of a little place called Brinhampton, near Taunton. I’d much prefer to live in London, but I expect that you—”
“I’d much prefer Somerset. I love the country—the peace and the quiet it brings.”
Perry beamed with joy. “Leave everything to me,” he said. “This is going to be a Lonsdale wedding, with all the pomp and glory that attaches to the name.”
“Well, I....” Moira hesitated a long moment, then her hand with the gleaming diamond reached across the table. “Of course, Perry. Whatever you say.”
“Fine!”
* * * * * * *
In one of the many offices at Scotland Yard, a conference was in progress.
“Frankly, sir, I can’t make head or tail of it,” Division Inspector Jones of the Manchester C.I.D. said. “I’ve followed every rule in the book and made every inquiry I can, but there still does not seem to have been any particular reason for the murder of Joyce Kempton. That’s why I had all the information relayed to you. The facts are straightforward enough. Joyce Kempton roomed on Barbor Street. Quite an ordinary sort of place, same as any bachelor girl might have. She was a salesgirl at the perfume counter of Bagshaw’s Emporium on Portland Street. She had no apparent enemies. She had a boy-friend named Richard Lane, but from what I can make out he kept company with a girl called Sylvia Cotswood as well.”
“Look here, Jones, I’m not a memory expert,” Chief Inspector Raymond Calthorp interjected. “Stop reeling off all these confounded names, will you? It gets confusing.... Let’s get back to this chap Richard Lane. You have interviewed him, of course?”
“That’s what I’d like to do, sir, but I can’t. He’s gone. I went to his rooms, but his landlady told me he’d left the evening before Joyce Kempton was found murdered. I’ve got McDane busy trying to trace him, but so far without result. I do consider it significant, though, that he told his landlady about seven o’clock that he was going to spend the evening with Miss Kempton.”
“What sort of a statement has Miss Kempton’s landlady got to make?” Calthorp asked musingly.
“She simply says she didn’t see anybody strange about. It’s one of those strictly ruled boarding-houses where young men are not permitted to visit girl boarders. On the other hand, it has an ever-open front door so the boarders can come and go without hindrance. Anybody could have entered, of course, but since the landlady occupied the front room and has her eyes on most of the things that go on, it doesn’t seem likely. Only thing I can think of is the fire escape, which passes the window of Joyce Kempton’s room.”
“I see. The girl had been lying dead all night, then?”
The divisional inspector nodded. “According to the doctor she’d been dead twelve or thirteen hours, which would be between seven and eight o’clock the previous evening. That casts suspicion on Richard Lane since he had planned to meet her at seven o’clock. There’d been a struggle, too. That girl fought hard to save her life, I’d say—But you’ve seen the photographs of it?”
“I’ve seen them and studied them,” said the chief inspector, “together with the reports from the forensic laboratory and fingerprint department. All forensic can tell us is that the girl was slain by the jagged top of a bottle. It severed the jugular vein and inflicted other severe injuries as well. The blood on the bottle-top checks with that of the girl. The bottle had contained eau-de-cologne.”
“That’s right, sir,” the divisional inspector agreed. “I discovered the bottle had come originally from the perfume counter in the emporium where the girl worked. She might have purchased it herself, but my guess is that Richard Lane bought it for her. Maybe he told her to select what she wanted from her own counter and then paid for it. Though why he should want to kill her afterwards is something which goes right beyond me.”
“I believe this bottle was empty?” Calthorp inquired.
“After breakage it was, but there was eau-de-cologne beside the dressing table. In fact it was the aroma and the girl’s silence that led her landlady to call the police. The door was locked on the inside, by the way, which again suggests the fire escape.”
Calthorp picked up the photograph of the bottle and studied it.
“And there are no fingerprints? No anything?”
“Nothing. Even poroscopy doesn’t tell us anything. As it looks right now, Joyce Kempton was murdered for no apparent reason—in the most homicidal manner possible.”
Chief Inspector Calthorp got up from his chair and sauntered over to the window. Without turning his head he said. “What about this girl Sylvia Cotswood? Since she is Richard Lane’s other girl friend, she’s important. Have you interviewed her?”
“Not yet. I haven’t found out where she lives. I learned from Joyce Kempton’s associates at the emporium that Joyce had talked a lot about Lane, and mentioned several times that she considered herself far better than that “frozen piece” Sylvia Cotswood to whom, it seems, Lane had been attracted before he took a sudden interest in Joyce.”
Calthorp