you, Swettenham? As many as you can.’
‘I’ll come the other side,’ said Phillipa.
With a steady hand she took a couple of saucers. Colonel Easterbrook knelt down.
The recumbent figure was draped in a roughly made black cloak with a hood to it. There was a black mask over the face and he wore black cotton gloves. The hood had slipped back disclosing a ruffled fair head.
Colonel Easterbrook turned him over, felt the pulse, the heart … then drew away his fingers with an exclamation of distaste, looking down on them. They were sticky and red.
‘Shot himself,’ he said.
‘Is he badly hurt?’ asked Miss Blacklock.
‘H’m. I’m afraid he’s dead … May have been suicide—or he may have tripped himself up with that cloak thing and the revolver went off as he fell. If I could see better—’
At that moment, as though by magic, the lights came on again.
With a queer feeling of unreality those inhabitants of Chipping Cleghorn who stood in the hall of Little Paddocks realized that they stood in the presence of violent and sudden death. Colonel Easterbrook’s hand was stained red. Blood was still trickling down Miss Blacklock’s neck over her blouse and coat and the grotesquely sprawled figure of the intruder lay at their feet …
Patrick, coming from the dining-room, said, ‘It seemed to be just one fuse gone …’ He stopped.
Colonel Easterbrook tugged at the small black mask.
‘Better see who the fellow is,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t suppose it’s anyone we know …’
He detached the mask. Necks were craned forward. Mitzi hiccuped and gasped, but the others were very quiet.
‘He’s quite young,’ said Mrs Harmon with a note of pity in her voice.
And suddenly Dora Bunner cried out excitedly:
‘Letty, Letty, it’s the young man from the Spa Hotel in Medenham Wells. The one who came out here and wanted you to give him money to get back to Switzerland and you refused. I suppose the whole thing was just a pretext—to spy out the house … Oh, dear—he might easily have killed you …’
Miss Blacklock, in command of the situation, said incisively:
‘Phillipa, take Bunny into the dining-room and give her a half-glass of brandy. Julia dear, just run up to the bathroom and bring me the sticking plaster out of the bathroom cupboard—it’s so messy bleeding like a pig. Patrick, will you ring up the police at once?’
George Rydesdale, Chief Constable of Middleshire, was a quiet man. Of medium height, with shrewd eyes under rather bushy brows, he was in the habit of listening rather than talking. Then, in his unemotional voice, he would give a brief order—and the order was obeyed.
He was listening now to Detective-Inspector Dermot Craddock. Craddock was now officially in charge of the case. Rydesdale had recalled him last night from Liverpool where he had been sent to make certain inquiries in connection with another case. Rydesdale had a good opinion of Craddock. He not only had brains and imagination, he had also, which Rydesdale appreciated even more, the self-discipline to go slow, to check and examine each fact, and to keep an open mind until the very end of a case.
‘Constable Legg took the call, sir,’ Craddock was saying. ‘He seems to have acted very well, with promptitude and presence of mind. And it can’t have been easy. About a dozen people all trying to talk at once, including one of those Mittel Europas who go off at the deep end at the mere sight of a policeman. Made sure she was going to be locked up, and fairly screamed the place down.’
‘Deceased has been identified?’
‘Yes, sir. Rudi Scherz. Swiss Nationality. Employed at the Royal Spa Hotel, Medenham Wells, as a receptionist. If you agree, sir, I thought I’d take the Royal Spa Hotel first, and go out to Chipping Cleghorn afterwards. Sergeant Fletcher is out there now. He’ll see the bus people and then go on to the house.’
Rydesdale nodded approval.
The door opened, and the Chief Constable looked up.
‘Come in, Henry,’ he said. ‘We’ve got something here that’s a little out of the ordinary.’
Sir Henry Clithering, ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard, came in with slightly raised eyebrows. He was a tall, distinguished-looking elderly man.
‘It may appeal to even your blasé palate,’ went on Rydesdale.
‘I was never blasé,’ said Sir Henry indignantly.
‘The latest idea,’ said Rydesdale, ‘is to advertise one’s murders beforehand. Show Sir Henry that advertisement, Craddock.’
‘The North Benham News and Chipping Cleghorn Gazette,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Quite a mouthful.’ He read the half inch of print indicated by Craddock’s finger. ‘H’m, yes, somewhat unusual.’
‘Any line on who inserted this advertisement?’ asked Rydesdale.
‘By the description, sir, it was handed in by Rudi Scherz himself—on Wednesday.’
‘Nobody questioned it? The person who accepted it didn’t think it odd?’
‘The adenoidal blonde who receives the advertisements is quite incapable of thinking, I should say, sir. She just counted the words and took the money.’
‘What was the idea?’ asked Sir Henry.
‘Get a lot of the locals curious,’ suggested Rydesdale. ‘Get them all together at a particular place at a particular time, then hold them up and relieve them of their spare cash and valuables. As an idea, it’s not without originality.’
‘What sort of a place is Chipping Cleghorn?’ asked Sir Henry.
‘A large sprawling picturesque village. Butcher, baker, grocer, quite a good antique shop—two tea-shops. Self-consciously a beauty spot. Caters for the motoring tourist. Also highly residential. Cottages formerly lived in by agricultural labourers now converted and lived in by elderly spinsters and retired couples. A certain amount of building done round about in Victorian times.’
‘I know,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Nice old Pussies and retired Colonels. Yes, if they noticed that advertisement they’d all come sniffing round at 6.30 to see what was up. Lord, I wish I had my own particular old Pussy here. Wouldn’t she like to get her nice ladylike teeth into this. Right up her street it would be.’
‘Who’s your own particular Pussy, Henry? An aunt?’
‘No,’ Sir Henry sighed. ‘She’s no relation.’ He said reverently: ‘She’s just the finest detective God ever made. Natural genius cultivated in a suitable soil.’
He turned upon Craddock.
‘Don’t you despise the old Pussies in this village of yours, my boy,’ he said. ‘In case this turns out to be a high-powered mystery, which I don’t suppose for a moment it will, remember that an elderly unmarried woman who knits and gardens is streets ahead of any detective sergeant. She can tell you what might have happened and what ought to have happened and even what actually did happen! And she can tell you why it happened!’
‘I’ll bear that in mind, sir,’ said Detective-Inspector Craddock in his most formal manner, and nobody would have guessed that Dermot Eric Craddock was actually Sir Henry’s godson and was on easy and intimate terms with his godfather.
Rydesdale