Ogilvie lost no time in getting hold of Sarge Vickers’ address, and half an hour later he was climbing the stairs of the block of council fiats in Paddington where the commissionaire lived. Over a cup of cocoa, he told of the attempt on Ede. Vickers was deeply shocked and obviously anxious to help, but the replies he gave to Ogilvie’s questions were uniformly negative. There was absolutely no possibility, he declared, of any of the duplicate keys or the master key itself having been given to an unauthorised person, or taken by anyone without permission. Instructions on the first point were strict; and the front box was never left unattended. Vickers had not parted with them himself, and he doubted strongly that either of his henchmen, Sergeants Peach and Granger, who shared the night-shift between them, would have done so. He mentioned that the Proprietor and one or two of the directors had master keys of their own, and Ogilvie made a mental note to look into that, though he couldn’t see any hopeful prospects there. In the end, the inspector had to accept Vickers’ assurances. The senior commissionaire was evidently a man who took his responsibilities seriously, and he stuck to his ground. Subject to what the two other commissionaires might say, it appeared most unlikely that the murderer could actually have gained possession of a key.
Ogilvie sat considering the position. Someone had got into the room. Leaving aside Cardew, and on the assumption that Miss Timmins’s evidence was to be believed, there now seemed only one possibility to be investigated—and a slim one.
“Tell me, Sarge, when is Mr. Ede’s room cleaned and how do the cleaners manage about keys? Is there any particular drill?”
“Well,” said Vickers, “Mrs. Little and ’er ladies, they come every morning sharp at seven—that’s in Granger’s shift—and ’ e gives ’ er the master key so she don’t ’ave to bother with a great bunch of ’em. She keeps it till the cleaning’s finished, around nine o’clock, and then she gives it to me.”
“I see. And did she give you the key this morning, as usual?”
“Yes, Inspector, just after nine. She’s a very reliable woman—she wouldn’t leave it lying about, if that’s what you’re thinking. She’s been cleaning them offices near ten year, I reckon, an’ never a complaint from anyone.”
Ogilvie took a thoughtful sip of his cocoa. “Would any of the night staff have been still working, do you suppose, when the cleaners arrived this morning?”
Vickers shook his head. “The last of ’em leaves long before that. Hours before.”
“Well, would any of the staff have arrived as early as that to start the new day’s work?”
“Not they!” said the commissionaire. “Late finishers and late starters, newspaper people are. The boys are the first to get there, an’ they don’t arrive till close on nine-thirty. Then a typist or so comes tripping along, an’ after that they all start rolling in. But while the cleaning’s being done, the building’s empty.”
Ogilvie pressed him. “You told the Chief the other day that you kept track of all strangers calling at the office, but that you didn’t always notice the movements of the staff. Supposing that someone you knew quite well had decided to pop in at about eight o’clock this morning, just for once—would you have noticed?”
“That we should, and I’ll tell you why—’cause it ain’t never ’appened. There’d ’ave been something said, you may be sure. Oh, yes, we’d ’ave noticed that all right.”
Ogilvie rather thought so too. “Ah, well,” he said, getting up, “thanks for the nightcap, Sarge.”
Picking up a cab outside the flats, he managed to arrive back at the Morning Call just in time to catch Sergeants Peach and Granger at their midnight switchover. For ten minutes he questioned them closely, but they both bore out what Vickers had already said. Neither of them had given out keys for the Ede-Timmins rooms; neither had parted with the master key in the past few days, except to Mrs. Little. The front box had at no time been left unattended. Granger was as positive as Vickers had been that no member of the staff could have got into the office before nine o’clock without being noticed. Ogilvie satisfied himself that there was no shaking the men, and went off to get a few hours’ sleep. One way and another, he reflected, things were beginning to look pretty bad for Cardew.
When he returned to the Morning Call just before seven, Mrs. Little was already there, standing before the box in animated conversation with her three assistants. She was a large, cheerful woman, with immense forearms and pudgy red hands. It was evident from her manner that Sergeant Granger had already told them the news.
Ogilvie introduced himself and got briskly down to business. “You won’t be able to clean the rooms belonging to Mr. Ede and Miss Timmins this morning,” he told Mrs. Little, “but apart from that I’d like you to carry on, all of you, just as you usually do, and I’ll follow and watch.”
“Now ain’t that just like a man!” said Mrs. Little “Sure you wouldn’t like to take a pail, Inspector?”
Her flock gave a subdued titter and followed Mrs. Little and the policeman into the lift. When it disgorged them at the main editorial floor Mrs. Little said: “We always start on this floor, see, ’cos it’s left in such a state. Goodness knows what some of their ’omes must be like, ’specially the reporters.” She led the way to a large cupboard room, where the women donned overalls and began to fill their buckets from a tap. There was an air of festival about them as they chattered and laughed. It was a beautiful morning, they had a handsome inspector with them, and there had almost been another murder. What more could anybody ask?
“Now,” said Mrs. Little in a business-like tone, “what ’appens is this. It’s the same every day, so you can’t make no mistake. First of all I goes round with the key what Sarge just give me, and I unlocks all the doors on this floor.” She led her entourage to the Assistant Editor’s room. “I starts with Mr. Jackson and then I goes on to Miss Timmins and Mr. Ede …” She stopped, her way blocked by a young and very large uniformed policeman.
Ogilvie said: “Morning, constable,” and Mrs. Little looked wistfully at the closed door. “Sure you wouldn’t like to go in, sir?”
“Not just now, thank you, Mrs. Little. You can just pretend to unlock them.”
She giggled. “Who do you think I am—Shirley Temple?” Reluctantly she passed Ede’s room, “Well, then, there’s the Leaders and the Sports and the Foreign and the Arty and the Subs and the Reporters and the News. Quite a walk, ain’t it?” Ogilvie followed a pace behind her.
“And that’s the lot,” she said, flinging open the door of Features. She slipped the key back into her overall pocket. “Now we can all get started. My girls know just what they got to do—we ’ave the rooms divided up amongst us, see?”
“Very efficient, Mrs. Little. And who cleans Mr. Ede’s room, as a rule?”
“I do it meself. Always. Then I knows it’s been done proper.”
“Good,” said Ogilvie. “Well, now, when you did Mr. Ede’s room yesterday morning, did you clean the shower-room as well?”
“O’ course I did.”
“What exactly did you do to it?”
“I give the tiles and the floor a wash over and ’ung a clean towel on the ’ook and tidied up a bit like. Mr. Ede ’adn’t used the shower the night before, so there weren’t much to do. Didn’t take more’n a few minutes all told.”
“There was a wooden thing on the floor by the shower, wasn’t there?—you know, one of those things to step out on?”
“Oh, yes, that’s always there.”
“Did you move it to wash under it, or did you just wash round it?”
“Now look ’ ere, young man …” began Mrs. Little indignantly.
“I’m sorry,” said Ogilvie, with a disarming smile. “You moved it, eh? And when you’d finished, you put a clean! newspaper underneath it, did you?”
Mrs. Little looked horrified. “Whatever would I do that for? Shockin’ wet mess it’d make when Mr. Ede come to take ’is shower! No, I didn’t put no newspaper there.” Clearly she pitied the inspector’s ignorance.
“I see,” said Ogilvie, a gleam of excitement in his eyes. Vital facts had suddenly begun to emerge. The period in which the murderer could have operated was narrowing fast. The newspaper had suddenly taken on an entirely new significance. Whatever the commissionaires might say, it was now pretty clear that somebody had been around during the cleaning operations, or soon after. Ogilvie set to work eagerly to discover just what had happened.
“About how long do you spend in each room, Mrs. Little?”
“Ten minutes, near enough,” she said. “There’s no time for more, with so many of ’em to do. We ’ave to keep a strick timetable, or we’d never get through.”
“Quite so. I’m rather interested in that timetable.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. I starts in Mr. Ede’s room about ten past seven, and about twenty past I finishes in there an’ goes through into Miss Timmins.”
Ogilvie nodded. “And at about the same time, I suppose, the other cleaners are moving into their second rooms, too?”
“If they’re not, they ought to be.”
“So that at, say, twenty-five past seven, the position would be this. Mr. Ede’s outer door would be unlocked …”
“Wide open,” said Mrs. Little. “Airin’ the room.”
“That’s better still—wide open. And you would be in Miss Timmins’s room—with the communicating door closed, I dare say? It’s on a spring, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is, and it just won’t prop open nohow. Shockin’ awkward to get through with an armful O’ brooms and pails, I can tell you.”
“And the other cleaners would all be inside their second rooms at that time?”
“Yes.”
“And a little later, you’d all have moved into other rooms, and the outer doors would still be open?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Mrs. Little, slightly mystified.
Ogilvie looked thoughtfully at the charwoman. “Do you suppose,” he asked, “that anyone on the staff here would have any idea about how you go to work? You know, the routine?”
Mrs Little folded her enormous forearms and stood frowning. “Well, I dunno about now Inspector. It was different during the war, O’ course. A lot of the chaps that work ’ere used to sleep in the building then—down in the shelter.”
“Is that so?” said Ogilvie, with quickening interest. Here was an approach that he hadn’t thought of at all.
“Yes—and we used to see ’em when they come up in the mornings sometimes. Talk about scruffy! Lor, you should’ve seen ’em. We nearly always ’ad a few words with ’em. That’s one thing the war did—made people matey, what it didn’t make corpses.” She sighed reminiscently. “Oh, yes, proper ’ ome from ’ ome it was ’ere for some of ’em.”
“Suppose, Mrs. Little,” said Ogilvie, “that the man who tried to kill Mr. Ede had been around the office while you were cleaning—you know, keeping out of your way and watching his opportunity. Do you think he could have got into Mr. Ede’s room for a couple of minutes after you’d finished there, without being seen or heard by any of you?”
Mrs. Little stared. “It don’t seem all that likely, I must say, but I s’pose it could ’ave ’appened if ’e made sure the coast was clear first, like. There’s a fair racket when we’re cleaning, an’ we certainly don’t ’ave no time to stop and look around.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. Now there’s just one more thing—what time did you lock up the rooms on this floor?”
The charwoman made a swift calculation. “About a quarter to eight, I’d say.”
“Thank you,” said Ogilvie, well satisfied. “I’m very grateful for the help you’ve given me, Mrs. Little. It’s been most valuable.”
“You’re very welcome, I’m sure. I only ’opes you catch the chap what done it.” Mrs. Little watched the inspector out of sight and then hurried away to acquaint the other cleaners with the sensational news that the murderer had possibly been in their midst the previous morning.
Ogilvie went down to the second floor office and spent half an hour setting his notes in order in readiness for Haines’s arrival. Just after eight o’clock he went off to the front box to have another word with Vickers.
“Look, Sarge,” he said, with barely concealed excitement, “there’s one thing I forgot to ask you last night and it’s important. Suppose someone had decided to stay in the building all night instead of going home—would you have known?”
Vickers looked thoughtful. “Now that’s different,” he said slowly. “I dare say we wouldn’t ’ave done, at that. We don’t really know when people go ’ome, ’cept by chance—there’s too many of ’em, an’ often when we think they’re off ’ome they’re just slipping into the Crown for a quick one. They’re always bobbing in and out—I tell you, we get proper dizzy.”
“Is there any patrol of the building during the night?”
“Well, there is an’ there isn’t, as you might say. Sergeant Peach, ’e usually does a round just before midnight, putting out lights what people ’ave left burning unnecessary, and then Sergeant Granger ’e sometimes takes a turn round the place early in the morning—though only if there’s someone else at the box, mind you! Still, there ain’t no search o’ the place, o’ course. Since you ask me, I’d say if anyone wanted to ’ ide ’imself in the office all night ’e could do it easy. There’s plenty o’ places.”
“And leave next day without anyone being the wiser?”
“I reckon so, if ’e was a bit careful.”
Ogilvie beamed. “Thanks, Sarge. You know, I think we may be on to something.” He went back upstairs and completed his notes.”
It was just after half-past eight when Haines arrived. “Morning, Inspector,” he called to Ogilvie. “Any developments?”
“There are one or two things I’d like to put up to you, Chief,” said Ogilvie modestly. He had a pleasant sense of achievement, but he was a tactful officer. “Did you manage to get anything out of Mrs. Ede?”
Haines sat down and began to fill his pipe. “I had a useful half hour with her,” he said. “She’s a very charming woman. Not very big but a lovely figure—what you’d call petite, I suppose. Large dark eyes and a nice complexion.”
“She sounds a knockout,” said Ogilvie dutifully. Privately he thought that his Chief’s description of feminine charms was lamentably uninformative.
“I won’t deny she made a strong impression on me,” Haines went on, “and I can well imagine an emotional young fellow like Cardew losing his head over her. She’s one of those women with a lot of appeal—what they call ‘it’—and yet dignity too. Ede certainly picked a winner.”
“Did she corroborate Cardew’s story?”
“Yes and no. She wasn’t willing to let him take all the responsibility for what had happened—that was the main difference. I suspected all the time that he was being chivalrous. According to her, she found his company pleasant and they did have what she called a very mild flirtation—nothing that she would have minded her husband knowing about, she said. That’s as may be. Anyhow, she now thinks that she behaved very foolishly, and blames herself for not realising that he might become serious. She says he was so light-hearted that the possibility never entered her head.” Haines paused for a moment. “I’m inclined to believe her—it’s a common enough situation, and as a matter of fact she struck me as being genuinely fond of Ede. She was certainly brought up sharp by this business yesterday. If you ask me, Ede has been a bit too much married to his newspaper and she’d been amusing herself in what she thought was a harmless way.”
“So she’s out, Chief?”
“I think so. She didn’t behave in the least like a woman who’s just conspired with a lover to murder a husband. Her attitude over Cardew was all wrong for that. She was too frank—just as he was, for that matter. She didn’t try to cover up for him sufficiently. It seemed not to have occurred to her that he might be under suspicion, until I began to question her about his state of mind when he left her. She was worried enough on his account then—in fact, her behaviour was just what I’d have expected it to be if her story and his were both true. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can rule out Cardew—he might well have done it off his own bat. He’s still the only person that we know had access to Ede’s room—unless you’ve got anything more on that?”
“Yes, I think this is where I come in, Chief,” said Ogilvie. “I’ve covered quite a bit of ground since last night.” He proceeded to give Haines a detailed account of his unproductive inquiries about keys and of his highly fruitful half-hour with the charladies.
“The way I see it, sir, is this,” he said finally. “We know now for a fact that the cyanide wasn’t laid before a quarter past seven yesterday morning, when Mrs. Little finished cleaning the room. If we can believe the commissionaires and Miss Timmins, the murderer had no other opportunity once the cleaners had left. In that case, he must have put the stuff down before a quarter to eight, when Mrs. Little re-locked Ede’s door. There’s additional evidence to support that theory—for one thing, the newspaper that the murderer put down. The only reason I can think of why he should do that is that he had to keep the cyanide from touching the wet floor. If I’m right, then it follows that the job was done almost immediately after Mrs. Little left the shower-room, because otherwise the floor would have dried and the precaution wouldn’t have been necessary. And there’s another point—a man who’d stayed all night in the office, with the intention of going in after the cleaners, is precisely the man you’d expect to have a first edition in his pocket—whereas later on, that would have been most unlikely. I won’t say I think it’s an absolutely cast-iron theory, but it does seem to me that everything points to the job having been done in that half-hour.”
Haines was impressed. “It’s a smart bit of reconstruction, anyway,” he said. “Good for you, Ogilvie.” He puffed away for a few moments, considering the situation in the light of these new discoveries. “Of course,” he said at last, “if you’re right, Cardew’s visit at six in the evening doesn’t mean a thing. The floor would certainly have been dry by then.”
“How do we know he wasn’t the night prowler?” asked Ogilvie.
“If he’d laid the cyanide in the early morning,” said Haines, “he’d hardly have gone to Ede’s room at the very moment when his victim was about to take the fatal shower. That would have been idiotic, and our man’s clever.”
Ogilvie agreed. “Well, perhaps Cardew was telling the truth. He’s not the only pebble on the beach, Chief, as you said yesterday. That idea that he took advantage of someone else’s murder to do one of his own is feasible enough, I know, but it’s a darned sight more likely that one chap did both jobs, don’t you think?”
“Oh, certainly,” said Haines. “We’ve got Cardew in our minds as suspect number one because his motive was so strong, but the case against him is full of holes.” He sat quietly for a while, considering competing claims. Iredale’s actions would obviously need looking into. Pringle’s, too. Pringle had had almost as good a motive as Iredale for wanting to kill Hind, and a better one for wanting to get rid of Ede. If Ede had died, Pringle might have kept his job and his racket—as it was, he would almost certainly be out on his neck before long.
“All right,” said Haines finally, “for the time being we’ll forget Cardew. We’ll work on the assumption that the same chap did the two jobs and that the cyanide was laid during that half hour by someone who’d stayed in the office—and we’ll see where it gets us. That means checking up on the whereabouts of the sixty-eight people who hadn’t an alibi for Hind’s murder. Okay?”
“Fine,” said Ogilvie, rubbing his hands. “It’ll be a lot simpler than it was last time—most of the sixty-eight must have been at home at that hour in the morning, and corroboration should be easy. We ought to finish up with a nice short list.” He was eager to get started. “You know, Chief, I have a feeling that we shall be moving in for the kill before very long.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” Haines reproved him. “It may not be us who’ll be moving in! I can’t get it out of my mind that the murderer’s still around with the cyanide. Think of it—a couple of whiffs, a spot on the tongue, and there’s another body on our hands. There are so many ways he can do it.” The inspector’s gaze wandered to the ceiling, where four nozzles protruded from the plaster. “Aren’t those things up there fire sprinklers?”
Ogilvie looked up. “Yes, they are.”
“You see what I mean?” said Haines grimly. “We’d better have them disconnected.”
“All right, Chief,” said Ogilvie, soberly. “But if you’re feeling as worried as that, why not circulate some sort of warning round the office? Keep people on their toes.”
“A very good idea,” said Haines. “I think I will.”