The deed maladroit yields three deaths instead of one.
The Other Half-Rome, R. Browning.
He ended, having recovered his calm, and resuming his usual rather quiet business-like manner, turned back to Riley.
“There’s nothing for us to do here now, or rather nothing for me. You take charge here, and I’ll be off and get on with my inquiries.”
He went out of the flat and down the stairs. As he went out of the front door into the street Mrs. Dutton, who had clearly been waiting for him, came out of her flat.
“Inspector, could you spare just one moment?”
Glancing at her white face and shaking hands, and understanding what the shock to this woman must be, and genuinely sorry for her, Woods nodded.
“I’ve just a moment, Mrs. Dutton, but try not to keep me. There are things I must be getting on with.” He stepped inside her door and stood with her in the passage.
“Yes, of course,” replied the poor lady, very unsteadily. “I’m sorry to disturb you. But my niece and I simply can’t stay here, we both feel that. We want to go away now, at once. Have you any objection? I mean, I know you’ll want to ask us about Penelope, about her arrangements to come here and so on, but if we just go to a hotel somewhere in town will that be all right?”
Woods paused and reflected. He saw that this proposed arrangement might fit in very well with his plans, but it was rather difficult for him to decide on the spur of the moment what he wished done. Eventually he made up his mind.
“Well, Mrs. Dutton, I quite understand your feelings, and as long as I know where you are, and how I can get at you, you are perfectly at liberty to go where you like. If you go to a hotel, or friends, please let us know at once, and please be sure you are on the telephone.”
Seeing the involuntary look of fear which crossed her face, he added very gravely: “I needn’t tell you this is a terribly serious matter, Mrs. Dutton. And I do tell you, in confidence, that I think I am going to solve the problems of these murders, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a bad business, and time mustn’t be wasted. There mustn’t be any delay at any point. Will your niece be with you, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” she answered; “it rather depends on whether we go to friends or not. If we go to friends, I expect we should separate, but if we don’t find anyone who can take us in at such short notice, then we shall keep together and go to a hotel. I couldn’t be by myself,” she added, with a violent and irrepressible shudder.
A thought struck Woods. “Just one thing, Mrs. Dutton. You were at home all this afternoon, I understand?”
“Yes, I was.”
“In which room were you between three and four o’clock?”
“I was resting in my own bedroom, until you came to see me.”
” Your room looks out on the back?”
“Yes.”
“So you can’t tell me when Mrs. Fordham went up to the flat?”
Mrs. Dutton looked ready to faint. “No, indeed I can’t, Inspector. I wasn’t in this room by myself at all, the whole afternoon.”
“Your niece, where was she?”
” She was downstairs in her own room until you called; that was at about half-past three, so she told me.”
“Then no one was in this sitting-room during the afternoon from three o’clock to four, except when we three were here together?”
“No one.”
“And this is the only room that gives a view of the front steps?” queried Woods.
Mrs. Dutton nodded. “Yes; actually the spare-room, which my niece has been using, looks on to the street, but the portico sticks out, and one can’t see that part of the steps which leads to the upper flat from her window.”
Woods noted this fact, and then went on more briskly: “Well, I just wanted to be quite sure, Mrs. Dutton; now I must be off. Please ring up the station directly you’ve fixed on where you’re going,” and without further delay he returned to his office.
There an hour later Brown came in to report on the result of his search amongst the papers in Penelope’s desk and drawers.
“I don’t know that I found anything of importance, sir,” he said. “There were a lot of household bills and things, mostly paid. I’d say from what I found they were living very much on the poverty line. I’ve brought along her household accounts, and you’ll see for yourself how small they are.”
“Any personal accounts?”
“Hardly any. She must have paid cash mostly. Just a few receipted bills, nothing outstanding that I could find. I did notice one odd thing, though, and brought it along.”
He produced a business order book. It had a plain cloth cover, and within a block of bill-heads, stamped with the office address of a floor-covering firm. About half had been used, and only the perforated counterfoils remained.
“This was pushed in amongst some other things in her drawers, sir. It clearly isn’t hers, and I imagine is her husband’s.”
“Why did you bring it?”
“Well, sir,” with some hesitation, “I thought in a case like this anything at all out of the ordinary ought to be reported. Of course it probably got in there by mistake; she may have picked it up with some other books and papers and just crammed it in. But actually I brought it along because I noticed one odd thing about it.”
He laid the little book open and pushed it towards Woods, who bent forward to look at the blank top page.
“Of course this page on the top hasn’t been used, sir, but you can see in a good light the impressions and cracks left by the entry on the last page. They were done with a deep pencil or pen and they’ve marked through.”
Woods carried the book to the window, and sloping it to the right could see Brown’s statement was correct. He could make out a few words, quite clearly dented upon the blank page.
“Can you read anything, sir?” said Brown anxiously.
“Yes, I can see part of an address. Printed in block capitals. Something ending in ‘iggton’, and below that 52 Ber St., N.W.”
“Yes, sir,” triumphantly, “that’s what I thought. And, you see, I happen to know Ber Street myself, and I know there’s no one living at 52 with a name ending in ‘iggton’.”
Woods stared.
“What’s that you say?”
“Well, I happen to come from Norwich, sir, and Ber Street is one of the old streets there, and so it took my attention when I came to London and was studying up the maps. I noticed a Ber Street up in the north-west, and I happened to be up that way one free afternoon, and just for curiosity I looked it up and walked along it. It’s only a very short street, a cul-de-sac, and there’s no 52 in it.”
“Sure of that?”
“Quite sure, sir, all the more so because our Ber Street at home is a great big wide place; they say it’s an old Roman road in fact, so I took all the more notice of this one being so small.”
“Go up there now and make an official report, Brown. And send for Frinton; we’ll have to get this book tested and the marks photographed. Glad you brought it along.”
With a smile of congratulation he turned back to his desk, and Brown hurried off to do his congenial errand.
At ten o’clock the next morning Mrs. Dutton was awoken from an uneasy sleep by the sound of the telephone trilling outside her door. She had been taken in by some friends, but their small house had only one spare-room. In consequence Anne had been obliged to inflict herself on Henry and Doreen. She had professed not to share her aunt’s nervousness, and had wished to go to a hotel by herself, declaring peace and solitude were what she personally needed, but her aunt’s horror at the idea had prevailed upon her to go to her brother. Solitude was actually the last thing Mrs. Dutton desired, and the violence with which her heart began to beat at the sound of the telephone made her feel quite ill. Almost immediately the door opened, and the maid appeared.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, madam, but it’s the police inspector.”
“Oh! Does he want to speak to me?” in a trembling voice.
“No, madam, I told him you were still in bed, and he said a message would do. He wants to know if he may use your flat this morning? He says, to tell you he wants to see Mr. George Fordham and one or two other people there, if you have no objection?”
“Oh yes,” answered Mrs. Dutton, rather mystified, but thankful nothing more was required of her. “Tell him of course he can. I left the keys with the porter at the residential hotel.”
In another moment or two the maid returned.
“He says to thank you, madam, and he is arranging to see Mr. Fordham there this morning, and he’ll tell the porter to let Mr. Fordham have the key if he gets there first.”
Mrs. Dutton felt too tired to take much interest in the inspector’s arrangements, and sank off into a doze again.
She was dimly aware that a little later the telephone rang again, but no one came to disturb her. When the maid brought her belated breakfast in she said:
“I didn’t disturb you again, madam; Mr. Godfrey said I’d better not. He rang up to know if you could tell him where Mr. Fordham was likely to be this morning. So I told him what the inspector had arranged, and he said that was what he wanted to know and rang off.”
Thankful she was only required to listen and acquiesce and that no active effort was demanded of her, Mrs. Dutton peacefully began upon her toast and coffee.
No such peace and content were to be found in the flat she had deserted. There Woods and Riley were foregathered in the front sitting-room, waiting in an anxiety which was proclaimed by their movements. Woods kept glancing at the clock.
“It’s going to turn on the time, Riley,” he broke out, as the clock chimed eleven o’clock. “You’re sure you told Fordham not to be later than eleven?”
” Quite sure,” replied Riley. “I told him you must see him at once, and here, and you’d be gone yourself before a quarter-past eleven.”
“And you told the Godfreys that Mr. Fordham wanted to see Mr. Godfrey, most urgently?”
“Yes, I carried out your instructions quite accurately. Asked to speak to Miss Godfrey, then told her it was a mistake, I’d wanted Mr. Godfrey, but gave her the message, and rang off at once.”
“Well,” said Woods, “that’s quite right, that’s all we can do. We must just hope for the best now—ah! here he is!”
As he spoke he had been looking out of the window, and had beheld George Fordham’s figure coming along the opposite side of the road. To Riley’s surprise, Fordham, instead of coming across to No. 5, turned in at the door opposite, and hastened rapidly up the steps and out of sight.
“Why, where on earth has he gone?” he asked aloud.
“Well, I got Hetherington to send him a line, saying he must see him, and at once. I fancy he’s just gone up there now to see what’s up, before keeping his appointment with me.”
They stood waiting a few minutes, but almost immediately George reappeared, this time accompanied by Hetherington, who came striding across the street, side by side with the slimmer and rather taller figure of Fordham.
“Go and let them in, Riley,” said Woods, “but I’ll go into the back room. Bring Mr. Fordham in here and send Mr. Hetherington in to me in Mrs. Dutton’s bedroom. Don’t tell them I’m there. Be quick.”
Indeed George’s violent ring at the front door was already being followed up by an impatient tattoo on the knocker.
Riley hastened along the passage, while Woods slipped quickly into the back bedroom. From there he heard Riley’s voice.
“Good morning, Mr. Fordham, the inspector wants you to wait in the sitting-room if you don’t mind. He’ll be with you in a moment.”
“What on earth is he up to?” snapped George in reply. “What does the fellow want, I’d like to know? First he rings me up at my house and says he wants to see me here. Why on earth here? This isn’t his house, it’s Mrs. Dutton’s. And then I get a message from Mr. Hetherington that he must see me at once. I go in there and find the inspector’s been leaving messages with him to bring me across here. What’s it all about? I’m not going to put up with this mystery and nonsense, I can tell you! What’s the fellow up to, I say?”
“You’d better ask the inspector that yourself, sir,” said Riley pacifically, as he shepherded George into the front room. “Mr. Hetherington, I’d just like a word with you.”
George turned to glare angrily, but Riley swiftly shut the door upon him, stepped outside, and actually stood prepared to prevent his coming out into the passage, as a brief glimpse of his angry, lowering face had almost threatened.
At this juncture Woods appeared at the door of the back room.
“Well, Mr. Hetherington,” he said softly and anxiously. “What do you say.”
Hetherington looked at him for the fraction of a moment in silence, and then said quite firmly: “That’s not the man who came to my door that night, Inspector. I’m quite sure. This fellow has a different build, and he didn’t stand in the same way, and his voice wasn’t the same. I’m really quite positive it’s not the same man.”
Riley looked if possible even blanker and more surprised than before as his gaze went to Woods’s face. For the inspector, instead of being surprised or cast down by Hetherington’s statement, appeared quite satisfied and almost pleased.
“Well, Mr. Hetherington, that’s what I really was expecting you to say. I didn’t think this was the same man, but I wanted confirmation of my idea if I could get it. Your impression has made me feel what I’m going to do is right.”
At this moment a rat-tat-tat came at the door below. Woods glanced at his watch, noticed it was just on the quarter-past, and, going softly to the head of the stairs leading down to the basement, gave a very low whistle. In response to this a couple of shadowy figures began to emerge from the unlit quarters below. As they reached the top of the staircase they were revealed as uniformed constables, and behind them appeared to be more still.
Glancing into Hetherington’s amazed face, Woods silently indicated the front door.
“Don’t wait, Mr. Hetherington, get back to your own flat. I’m afraid this isn’t going to be the place for any of the public.”
Rather reluctantly Hetherington obeyed, and started for the door. He noticed that Riley, following behind him, did not latch it, and looking back as he crossed the road, he saw that in fact it was set slightly but distinctly ajar.
Meanwhile, having seen Hetherington off the premises, the sergeant obeyed Woods’s beckoning finger, and, followed by two of the uniformed men, they advanced into the drawing-room.
George, who had been standing in the window, turned his furious red face upon them. He was clearly prepared to burst out into a volley of abuse when Woods, going forward with a hand outstretched towards him, touched him on the shoulder and said in a voice which sounded unnaturally loud in the silence that had fallen: “George Fordham, I arrest you in the name of the law for the murder of your wife.”
The next moment pandemonium broke forth. Fordham leapt straight at the inspector, his hands striking wildly and violently. Woods, shielding his face and throat, staggered. Riley rushed to the rescue, and Roberts flung himself on Fordham from behind. They crashed to the floor in a struggling heap.
Flying feet came tearing up the steps and along the passage, and Henry Godfrey suddenly appeared, dashing in from the street as the sound of tumult broke out. He stopped short on the threshold, petrified at the scene which met his eyes. Then, as he stood for a moment, the figure of Woods disentangled itself from the heap. Riley and Roberts between them held down an unrecognizable form, while the inspector, breathless and panting, bent to snap handcuffs on the wrists now held together by Riley.
Godfrey uttered no word. He only gazed until the two officers rose, dragging Fordham to stand upon his feet. Staring, still silent, into that convulsed face, Godfrey fell back a pace. While Woods and the others paused a moment, wiping their foreheads and recovering their composure, his hand went swiftly to his pocket. Before any of them had time to check him his hand rose to his mouth, a loud report, a cloud of smoke, and his body toppled over to lie in a crumpled heap.
“Curse it all,” roared Woods savagely, “don’t say that fellow has cheated the gallows!”