The Studio Crime (6 page)

“What time did you leave the flat this evening?”

“About seven.”

“Was it your regular evening off?”

“No. My mother hasn't been well, and Mr. Frew said I could go and see her and spend the evening.”

“Where does your mother live?”

In Church Street, off the Edgware Road.”

“And you went straight there?”

Greenaway shifted his position slightly, and a hunted look appeared on his moody features.

“N-no. No, I didn't.”

“Where did you go?”

The valet's eyes flickered from one side of the room to the other. He licked his lips.

“Just hung about.”

Hembrow raised his eyebrows.

“Hung about this building, do you mean?”

“Yes,” mumbled the other, swallowing a lump in his throat.

“For how long?”

“'Bout three-quarters of an hour.”

“You hung about the house on an evening like this for three-quarters of an hour? Why?”

“Do'know,” said the valet with the baffled, dispirited air of one who will not tell the truth and has not the wit to think of a plausible lie.

“During the time you were hanging about the house did you see anybody enter it?”

“Dozens.”

“Dozens? Come, answer me properly, Mr. Greenaway! How many?”

“Well,” said the young man sulkily, “there was Mr. Christmas first and two ladies with him. And then a stoutish chap in a top hat and cloak—Dr. Mordby, I think he calls himself. And then my father carrying a bucket of wood. And then a queer bird in a fez.”

“That all?”

A curious stubborn and desperate look came into the valet's light eyes. He mumbled:

“Yes.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Greenaway?”

“Yes.”

“And did you see any of them come out again?”

“No—only my father. He came out for a scuttle of coal and went in again.”

“Where did you go when you had finished hanging about here?”

“Went down the road and turned into Greentree Road and walked up and down.”

“Really, Mr. Greenaway, a most extraordinary way of spending an evening in unwholesome weather like this! Why did you not go to your mother's?”

The lad looked flickeringly round the room, keeping his eyes lowered, as though hoping to find some convenient lie written miraculously on the carpet. At last he said heavily:

“Do'know. Didn't feel like it.”

“And while you were walking up and down the road did you pass anybody on the pavement?”

“No. Saw one or two people on the opposite side of the road, but it was too foggy to see who they were.”

“And how long did you go on walking up and down?”

“Oh, Lord!” muttered the young man, licking his dry lips, “I don't know! I didn't look at my watch. If I'd known I was going to be asked questions, p'r'aps I should have done. Can't a person do what he likes on his evening off?”

His voice rose on a rather hysterical note. Hembrow went on calmly:

“Well. What did you do afterwards?”

“Went for a walk.”

“Where?”

“Up towards Hampstead, I think.”

“You
think
! Come, Mr. Greenaway!”

“It was foggy,” said the young man with a sort of weary obstinacy. “I was thinking. I didn't notice where I was going. I know I turned north out of Greentree Road, but I don't know where I went after that. Then I came back to come in at about half-past nine, and Mr. Christmas jumped on me and tried to kill me in the passage.”

“Oh,” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “Just one more thing. The man in the fez whom you saw going in at the front door. Had he ever visited Mr. Frew before as far as you know?”

“Don't think so. I didn't see him much in the fog. Only when he pushed open the door and the light fell on his face. But I don't recollect ever seeing him before.”

There was a pause while Hembrow looked through his notes, and Greenaway watched him with a furtive, sullen look on his worn young face.

“Will you answer me a question?” asked John Christmas, leaning forward. “Did you ask your employer for permission to go out this evening?”

The young man flushed unaccountably and looked at John with suspicious, narrow eyes.

“No, sir, I didn't,” he replied surlily. “I didn't know I was to have the evening off till about a quarter to seven, when the master called me in and said he wouldn't be wanting me this evening, and I could go and see how my ma was.”

“Do you know whether your master was expecting any visitors this evening?”

Greenaway answered with a sort of savage brusqueness:

“No, I don't.”

“Had he a telephone call or a telegram before he gave you permission to go out?”

“Not that I know of,” answered the valet a little less inimically. He added: “The evening post came in about a quarter to seven. I'd just taken him his letters when he called me back and told me I could go out.”

“Do you remember,” asked John, “how many letters there were?”

“Yes,” said the young man sulkily, “there were three. One of them was a bill or something in a halfpenny envelope, and then there was a type-written envelope with a crest on the back and the College of Arms, or something, written on it. And there was a letter in a little grey envelope. But you won't find that, because Mr. Frew was just tearing it in bits and throwing it in the fire when he called me in.”

“Thank you,” said Christmas, looking interrogatively at the Inspector, who nodded to Greenaway to go.

“That was a good point, Mr. Christmas,” said Hembrow approvingly, shutting his note-book. “Looks as if the deceased was expecting one of his visitors, anyhow —probably the girl. Though it seems queer, if he was expecting her, that she should only stay a few minutes, as according to old Greenaway's evidence she did. That young man seems to have kept an observant eye on his master's correspondence, by the way, which may be useful to us, but isn't altogether to his own credit.”

“Natural, though, in the circumstances.”

“You mean—”

“That Miss Pandora Shirley probably corresponded with Frew occasionally, although, as Newtree tells me, she lives quite close by in Greentree Road. The vagaries of Miss Shirley, in fact, may account quite satisfactorily for young Greenaway's nocturnal wanderings and all the rest of his rather fishy story. I wonder, by the way, on which side of the road she lives?”

“Her address,” said Hembrow, turning over the leaves of his note-book, “is No. 14 Greentree Road.”

“No. 14,” repeated Christmas thoughtfully. “Yes, the even numbers are on the north side of the road, and it was on the north side that young Greenaway walked up and down for a period of time he didn't seem able to specify.”

“Come, Mr. Christmas,” protested Hembrow good-humouredly, slipping his note-book into his pocket and rising to his feet. “We have only young Greenaway's own word for it that he did anything of the kind. In my opinion—however, it's too early yet to have an opinion, and far too early to state one, even to an old friend like yourself, Mr. Christmas!”

“The other gentlemen and the ladies have gone home, I see,” observed Hembrow approvingly, as he and Christmas re-entered the studio. “Glad they had so much sense. Generally at times like these everybody in the place wants to hang around and behave like Sherlock Holmes.”

Laurence, who was bending over the writing-table looking through a pocket magnifying-glass at some sheets of paper lying there, looked up at this remark with a rather abashed smile. He murmured:

“Yes, it's queer the fascination these things have for ordinary peaceable folk like me. I suppose Mordby would say it was the primitive blood-lust finding an outlet.”

He had had, in fact, great difficulty in persuading Serafine to go home, and only the piteous protests of Imogen Wimpole, who was beginning to fear the effect on her health and beauty of all this excitement, had at last driven the younger lady forth in search of a taxi. Mordby had offered to escort them with alacrity. He preferred, apparently, to study the psychology of murder from text-books rather than at first hand, and seemed possessed with the plain, respectable man's earnest determination not to get mixed up in anything unpleasant. He had taken it for granted that Sir Marion Steen would accompany them, and Sir Marion, although it seemed to Laurence that he would have preferred to stay and watch the police investigations, had offered no objection. Mordby had shepherded him out with the air of a champion bearing off a trophy.

“Taken those photographs?” asked Hembrow of his assistant, who was packing away a large camera. “Good. You might photograph the room as well from every possible angle. I have an idea, Mr. Christmas, we shall find robbery mixed up in this.”

Laurence Newtree looked thoughtfully around the walls which had almost the appearance of a museum, so draped they were with embroidered hangings and rugs, so hung with queer weapons, masks and mirrors.

“It all looks much as usual,” he murmured. “If it was a burglary, the thief has left a great deal of valuable stuff behind him. That missal, for instance, must be worth several hundred pounds...”

“That could easily be explained,” said Hembrow. “Either the thief was after one particular object of great value and preferred to lessen the risk by leaving all the lesser treasures behind, or he was after money and did not know the value of all this stuff.”

“If we can find out what has been stolen, then,” said Laurence, “we shall have some idea of the kind of man the murderer was.”

Inspector Hembrow, who was engaged in dusting a fine yellow powder over the handle of the dagger that had killed Gordon Frew, smiled a little at Newtree's eager tone. He blew the surplus powder gently away and examined the weapon intently through a magnifying-glass. After a moment he gave an exclamation of disgust.

“Gloves,” he uttered shortly. “The murderer knew his business. Wait a bit! That's queer! There are no marks on the handle, but a very distinct thumb-mark on the blade, about two inches down—and a finger-print to correspond on the other side.”

Holding the weapon carefully by the ornate inlaid handle, he showed his discovery to John, who had been watching him with much attention. Plainly printed in the fine powder were the intricate-loops and spirals that show on the skin of a thumb or finger.

“I'm afraid these won't help us to the murderer, Mr. Christmas. There are only the two—thumb and the side of a forefinger, and they're placed in such a way as to suggest that the person they belong to was holding the dagger-point towards himself.”

“It would certainly be quite impossible to stab a man with a knife held in such a way,” agreed John. “The thumb-print runs at a slight slant towards the handle.”

“Probably they were made at some time when the weapon was taken down and dusted,” commented the detective. He compared them rapidly with a set of the dead man's finger-prints which had been taken by his assistant soon after their arrival.

“Thought so,” he commented, laying the knife down. “They're the deceased's own thumb-prints. Well, that doesn't get us much farther. Except that as the murderer evidently took the precaution of wearing gloves, it's fairly safe to assume that this was a premeditated crime... There's no need for you to wait any longer, Sergeant,” added Hembrow to the local man who had been first on the spot. “Get your men to remove the body to the mortuary. You can go, too, Codings, if you've got those photographs.”

Laurence gave a sigh of relief when the door had finally closed behind the three officers and the arm-chair by the desk stood empty. The dark, oppressive atmosphere seemed to lift a little now that the blank white face of the murdered man no longer dumbly accused the unknown. He watched with interest Hembrow's methodical examination of the papers on the desk, and was surprised on glancing at Christmas to see that he did not appear equally interested. The eccentric young man had taken a silver pencil-case from his pocket and was holding it out gravely between his finger and thumb.

“What on earth are you doing, John?” asked Laurence, absentmindedly taking the pencil thus held out towards him, divided between his interest in the detective's quick, methodical procedure with the papers and his surprise at his friend's peculiar behaviour.

John's grave face relaxed. He smiled.

“Just thinking,” he replied. “Thinking that if one were dusting an edged weapon or otherwise fingering it one would naturally take it by the handle, not by the blade, which is extremely sharp.”

“I suppose one would,” assented Newtree, “unless, of course, one wanted to examine the handle... What am I to do with this pencil you've given me, I'd like to know?”

“Give it back again,” said John with a smile, holding out his hand. “Thank you for taking it from me so meekly.”

He put it back in his pocket and seemed to forget about it, strolling over to where the Divisional-Surgeon, a small Scotsman of brisk and cheerful aspect, was packing his bag preparatory to departure.

“Plain case, isn't it, Doctor?”

“Of murder ? Oh, yes! But—” He hesitated and looked apologetically through his glasses at Merewether, who was sitting near the writing-table and watching Hembrow with a stoical and indifferent air. Then, addressing the Inspector in a brisk, official tone he went on: “It is my duty to state that had it not been for the fact that Dr. Merewether saw the deceased alive soon after nine o'clock, I should have put his death at least an hour earlier than that.”

All eyes turned instinctively to Merewether, the Inspector's in a brief, keen glance.

“Putting aside for the moment Dr. Merewether's evidence on that point. Would it occur to you on examining the body that there was a possibility of death having taken place between nine and half-past?”