The Wrong Way Down (20 page)

“To make a beginning, I have found the weapon with which Miss Paxton was killed.”

The girl's hands moved on the yellow satin of the chair, and closed tightly.

“The police,” continued Gamadge, “would soon have found it; I merely got here first. If they didn't get here first it was because they made two reasonable assumptions—either (as was more probable) the murderer brought the weapon along and took it away afterwards, or else the murderer left it here, and wouldn't return for it. Why return for it, especially to a house that might be swarming with policemen?

“So the police didn't hurry a search of this house, I searched it myself just now, and having found the weapon I could make a more or less satisfactory reconstruction of the crime.

“The murderer must have visited the house at least once before that fatal visit last night; to discover that the iron rail of the balcony was loose, to loosen it still farther, to plan the whole campaign. It is obvious that the murderer possessed a key. The visits could be made by day or night without Miss Paxton's knowledge—she was rather immobilized in her sitting room, or in her bedroom up above, by her disinclination to climb stairs.

“We come now to the murder itself. An appointment was made with Miss Paxton by telephone, made after I had telephoned to her shortly before seven o'clock. She mentioned no such appointment to me, and if she had made one she would surely have mentioned it. The murderer telephoned as late as possible to prevent just such a possibility. Someone was coming to call at nine o'clock.

“At approximately nine o'clock, then, Miss Paxton is in her sitting room working at her letters. You didn't feel much sympathy for her when
you
called on her; but to me she is a sympathetic figure, innocently working away. She is waiting for the doorbell to ring. It rings, and she goes down and opens the front door.

“I'm inclined to think that at first she saw no one.”

Miss Vance lifted her white face to look at him.

“I don't think,” explained Gamadge, “that the caller would have cared to be seen clearly by a passer-by, and would therefore be standing in shadow—against the side of the portico. Miss Paxton opens the door; a well-dressed person steps forward into the light from the hall, and with a word of greeting goes straight past Miss Paxton and into the house. The front door is closed, the visitor turns.

“Miss Paxton may have had time to wonder why the visitor was carrying a longish parcel, loosely wrapped in newspapers. I say newspapers because—as you know from my own activities last night—people do carry the last editions about with them when they wouldn't carry another sort of bundle.

“But I don't think Miss Paxton had time to wonder about the newspaper parcel, or about anything else; since from now on the action becomes rapid, very rapid indeed. Let us imagine that the visitor drops something to the mosaic floor—something like a bunch of keys, that would make a noise. Miss Paxton looks down at it. In that moment the paper wrappings drop away from whatever the visitor is carrying, something heavy swings up and down, Miss Paxton sinks under it as if she had been poleaxed.

“Instantly the weapon—a curious, long-handled thing which I believe to have been wrapped in something waterproof, like a fragment from a thin raincoat—the weapon is set down; a purple woollen scarf is whipped out of the murderer's pocket, and is wrapped tightly around Miss Paxton's head and neck. To keep blood from the mosaic? Not entirely for that reason, in fact not principally for that reason, since the mosaic can be washed—will be washed. No: for technical reasons which I won't go into now. Accept the fact that it had to be used, just as Miss Paxton's coat had to be found and put on her, instead of the golf cape which she wore for short outings and kept near her in the sitting room.

“The weapon is taken upstairs to Miss Paxton's bathroom, which is windowless and can be lighted up. Always safer, you know, not to put lights on and off and allow people in the rear to see them and compare times afterwards.

“The weapon is examined for bloodstains, but there are none under the waterproof wrapping. I didn't tell you what it was, did I? It was a brass doorstop, broad at the base, and the brass shell of the base weighted with a smooth, fitted piece of iron. It made the kind of wound that Miss Paxton would have received if she had fallen from the balcony to the pavement. It belongs here in the house, in a bedroom whose door has a loose latch; but I have another reason for thinking that it belongs here: the murderer would never have used an unusual weapon that could be traced, and such things often can be traced to the original owner or purchaser.

“But why, you may ask, take the thing away, a heavy thing like that, only to bring it back again on the night of the murder? Why not leave it in some convenient place downstairs, in those closed rooms where Miss Paxton obviously never went? Because the murderer would have had no excuse to go alone into those rooms, or elsewhere; and Miss Paxton had to be kept near the front door, and in the hall, where the flooring was washable.

“There are materials for cleaning and washing, I have no doubt, in Miss Paxton's bathroom. They were brought downstairs, and the mosaic carefully scrubbed if it needed scrubbing. I don't think it did.

“Everything was replaced, or wrapped up to be carried away. A stamped addressed letter was brought down and put in the pocket of Miss Paxton's coat; that was an extra touch, not necessary. People go out for airings at night, even when they have no letters to mail.”

His eyes met Iris Vance's again.

“We might pause here,” he said, “to ask ourselves whether our pickpocket murderer hadn't brought the portrait of Lady Audley along too, wrapped around that doorstop, under those newspapers. The best, perhaps the only chance to restore it to one of those tip-out cupboards. The murderer might have had your idea—that if it should be found in that tip-out cupboard, as it surely would be found, my whole theory of a theft would be proved false.”

Iris Vance asked faintly: “But what good would that do—to anyone but me?”

“Miss Vance, the police would rather not make trouble for that nice Mr. James Ashbury of San Francisco; they would be very glad to find some way of avoiding trouble. They'd like to be able to believe that a holdup man was on your stairs last night, that the same holdup man, fascinated by whatever Mrs. Spiker had in her handbag, followed her to the Hambledon and then to my place and murdered her with a thirty-two calibre pistol. They'd like very much indeed, if they could, to believe that Miss Paxton's death was an accident after all.

“But you know what I'm prepared to say about that portrait of Lady Audley in the tip-out cupboard.”

She said: “You think now that I did it all.”

“There's always that nasty little hitch, though; why, after I came trampling into the picture with my telephone call to you, should you have gone on with the murder scheme? The police assume that if you'd known the murder was coming off last night you'd have dropped the scheme or stopped it. But we mustn't waste time theorizing now; we must get on with the murder scheme, which has arrived at the moment of great risk. But was it so great? A matter of three minutes at most, I should say, and a clear view up and down the avenue for blocks.

“The murderer had to go out on the balcony, push down the railing, and retreat, leaving one of the old doors open. The risk consisted in the chance that someone would pass and see the open door and the flat railing while the murderer was still in the house. But the murderer had reconnoitred first, and wasn't in the house afterwards for long. Just a minute more to turn off the hall light, place Miss Paxton's body on the street where it was found, shut the front door and walk away, up- or downtown. One more minute to turn the corner—then safety.

“And if anybody came around a corner before the murderer got there, what was to prevent the murderer from giving the alarm? ‘I've just passed somebody who seems to have had a stroke or a heart attack.' The newcomer goes to look or to get help, and the innocent bystander melts away. Innocent bystanders often do—they hate being mixed up in street accidents and giving their names and waiting for the ambulance or the police.

“Now tell me, Miss Vance: do you think the whole thing, from the murderer's arrival to the murderer's exit round the corner, could possibly have taken more than a quarter of an hour?”

Iris Vance had sunk back into her chair; her eyes were closed. She did not reply.

“Not more,” said Gamadge. “The only thing that took any time at all was the washing up—everything else was a question of minutes. As for Mrs. Spiker—no need to reconstruct that murder. Did you know that she was shot down at my door? I wish you had seen her.”

Iris Vance rose suddenly, turned away from him, and went blindly towards the dark hall. She was halfway down the stairs by the time Gamadge had found the switch on the landing. He was about to turn it when she stopped; the front door had opened.

Gamadge had a moment's glimpse of a silhouette against the dusk of the street—a big, hunched figure, a blur of face lifted, a hand gripping the knob. Then the door was pulled shut and the hall was empty.

Iris Vance was clinging to the stair rail. She looked up and back at Gamadge, horror in her eyes—for he was smiling.

“What a lot of keys there must be to this house,” he said. “Even Bowles got in. But he wouldn't stay, didn't like the look of us. I shan't run after him without my hat; and your man won't, he has to stick to you. But why should we run after him? He's all washed up now, poor fellow. Miss Vance—no—don't
you
run after him!”

But she was gone, and the door swung to again.

Gamadge went up to the next story, got his hat and coat off the rail, and went in to find the cleaning woman. She was ready for the street, pulling on her long-fingered gloves.

“All done, Mrs. Keate?”

“Yes, sir. Here's the trunk key; I got everything in, but you'd better look round. Was that the laundry man? I can feel it when the front door slams.”

“No, I haven't called him yet.”

“The garbage was so little I put it in a paper bag. I could throw it into a rubbish can on Lexington.”

“That's an idea.”

“And there's a little food, not much. It's in a carton.”

“Too much for you to take home with you as a favor to me?”

“No, sir. Thanks.”

They went downstairs; she paused on her way into the sitting room and looked up at the wall: “Wasn't there some kind of picture up there yesterday on the faded place?”

“Yes. Miss Paxton had me take it down for valuation.”

“Poor old lady, I guess the work was too much for her.”

She went through to the pantry and came back with her bundles clasped in both arms. Gamadge said: “Here, that's too much; let me—”

“No, it's all right. I'll soon get rid of the paper bag with the garbage. Don't forget the laundry, sir.”

“I'll attend to it tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the extra money.”

“You certainly earned it.”

He opened the front door for her and closed it after her. Then he stood in the dark hall, almost in an attitude of listening; but there was no sound in the empty house.

T
HE CLEANING WOMAN
slapped along on her flat-soled brogues from the Ashbury house to the next corner south, across Park Avenue, and on to Lexington. There she got rid of the bag of garbage in the rubbish basket, and then stood waiting for her downtown bus. Others waited with her; men with their chins sunk into their collars—for a chill breeze had come up from the East River—women with their handbags clasped against them for fear of pick-pockets. This was the going-home hour, but the heaviest traffic was North to Harlem and the Bronx.

The bus came at last, lumbering down the avenue and swooping to the curb. A few passengers left it by front and side doors, and the waiting crowd climbed on. Mrs. Keate had her nickel ready, dropped it into the box and pushed in. She snatched a handle midway to the exit doors as the bus lurched on.

A late-comer had jumped aboard as the doors began to close; he too had his collar up and his hatbrim down, and yet he didn't try to join the warm huddle further in. He remained up front, quite deaf to the exhortations of the driver, until people shoved past him to get off at the next stop. When they had gone he did move along, caught hold of a handle, the first on his left, and stood swaying; every now and then he bent over a little to peer out at the street numbers as they went by.

Mrs. Keate had worked herself into a seat near the exit doors, next to a window; she sat looking out at the gray streets, settled with her belongings on her lap as if for a considerable journey. The bus jogged on to the Seventies and through them, stopping at every fourth corner, stopping for red lights. Still crowded, it jogged on through the Sixties.

In the middle Fifties it stopped once for a light, and the cleaning woman rattled impatiently at the exit doors. The driver opened them at last for her, and she got off. She hurried to cross the Avenue in front of the bus before the light changed.