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Hoskins had opened the door that morning from the outside, but he hadn’t touched the inside. The murderer’s fingerprints should therefore be intact.
Vandam brought his lamp to the back of the door, and he experienced a shock of real disappointment when he saw that the woodwork was too rough to receive impressions. He would get no help there.
He felt slightly overwhelmed as he thought of the variety of problems which awaited solution. Who was guilty of the murder? What was the motive? Was more than one person involved? How had Smith been lured to the shed? What was the meaning of the sweeping of the floor and the burning of the newspapers? What had been done with the hammer? These were but a few of the salient points, and on not one of them had Vandam the slightest suggestion to offer.
But he realised that this was the position of affairs at the beginning of every inquiry, and he was by no means downhearted. Rather was he pleased that what would undoubtedly prove one of the most thrilling and important cases of the year had fallen to his lot.
He did not see that he could learn anything more on the ground, and his next business must undoubtedly be to find out as much as possible of Smith’s life and personality. No doubt he would thus come across some clue which would lead him to the solution he desired.
Having sent Clarke to get a padlock put on the door of the shed, he returned to headquarters. There he tested the hammer for fingerprints, but unfortunately here again without result. Next he returned to the station, made a further examination of the murdered man’s clothes, took prints from the dead fingers, and lastly, having set in order the facts he had learnt, went in and had a long interview with his Chief.
CHAPTER III (#ulink_cca7714d-b053-5de5-8d25-312119c20d61)
GATHERING THE THREADS (#ulink_cca7714d-b053-5de5-8d25-312119c20d61)
INSPECTOR VANDAM, hot on a new case, was a very different person from the same man engaged in routine police work in his office. Not that he was at any time slack or lazy; he was naturally too efficient and hardworking for that. But the interest of a new mystery stimulated him to an enthusiasm which rendered him careless of rest or even food, and drove him on with a tireless energy until he had either found a solution of his problems or satisfied himself that none was obtainable.
In the present case, though it was considerably after his usual lunch hour when he left his Chief’s office, he contented himself with a five-minute pause for a sandwich and a cup of coffee in a restaurant before starting the next phase of his investigation. He never drank alcohol, saying that it stupefied him, while hot coffee, he held, stimulated his brain to keener and more incisive thought. Many a criminal was brought to justice, he used to claim, as a result of his coffee habit.
He had decided that his first business must be a call at Messrs. Hope Bros. store in Mees Street. The knowledge gained since Sergeant Clarke had been there earlier in the day necessitated inquiries of a different kind to those already made, and he entered the great building and asked for the manager in the hope and belief that before he came out he would have learned at least the direction in which his subsequent inquiries should tend.
Mr Crawley, it seemed, was again out, and, like the sergeant, he was received by the assistant manager, Mr Hurst.
‘I am sorry to trouble you again about this affair,’ Vandam began, when he had introduced himself and stated the subject of his visit, ‘but our people at headquarters are not quite satisfied that we have really got to the bottom of it. They fear it may not have been the accident it looked like at first sight.’
The assistant manager stared. Vandam, whose golden rule was to give nothing away and distrust everybody, watched him keenly and unobtrusively. But there was neither embarrassment nor undue interest in the man’s manner as he exclaimed:
‘Now just what do you mean by that, Inspector?’
Vandam leaned forward and spoke confidentially.
‘There’s a suggestion of suicide.’
Mr Hurst whistled.
‘So that’s the idea,’ he returned. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘We can’t see what else would have taken him to the railway at that time.’
‘Not very conclusive, is it? That your only reason?’
‘Not exactly,’ Vandam answered slowly. ‘There are others. But what do you think of the suggestion?’
Mr Hurst moved impatiently.
‘I don’t think much of it,’ he declared. ‘Smith wasn’t the suicide kind, not by a long way. Too darned fond of himself.’
‘A coward, you mean?’
‘No, not a coward. I mean he was always out to get the best for himself. Suicide wouldn’t be his line except as a last resource, and, so far as I know, he was not in difficulties.’
‘You don’t seem to have liked him very much.’
‘I didn’t like him at all,’ Hurst returned with some warmth, ‘though maybe it’s not quite the thing to be saying so with the chap just dead. But his death doesn’t alter facts. I didn’t like him and I don’t know anyone else who did.’
‘How do you account for that?’
Mr Hurst shrugged his shoulders.
‘Hard to say. Manner perhaps. But he wasn’t popular anyhow.’
‘It’s always an astonishment to me,’ Vandam remarked easily, ‘what a difference manner makes—a thing, as you might say, that there’s really nothing in. However, that’s by the way. You tell me this deceased gentleman was not popular. Now, was there anyone he actually had a row with?’
Mr Hurst favoured his visitor with a keen glance.
‘Plenty,’ he said, dryly. ‘I had a row with him myself last week. He has got across most of us at one time or another.’
‘I don’t mean trifling differences,’ Vandam insisted. ‘Were there any really serious quarrels?’
‘I could hardly tell,’ Hurst answered. ‘Once, I know, he had a scrap with another man—one of our own staff too. I went into one of the yards and I found him and this chap, a man called Swayne, fighting rings round with half the storemen looking on. Would you call that a serious quarrel?’
‘I could hardly tell either,’ Vandam smiled. ‘Were they in earnest about it?’
‘In earnest! They were out for each other’s blood. It was the devil’s own job to get them separated. They were evenly matched; both big, strongly developed men, and for a time it might have gone either way. Then Smith got Swayne down, and I wouldn’t mind betting he’d have throttled him only for the others. They rushed in and dragged him off. Swayne was nearly unconscious. They were both pretty wild at first, and each swore he would do the other in, but next day the thing seemed to have blown over.’
‘Which was in the wrong?’
‘I don’t know. No one ever did know what started it. But Smith was always nagging at Swayne, and I expect he went too far. I don’t know how Swayne stood it the way he did.’
‘Was that long ago?’
‘About a month, I should think.’
‘It looks as if Smith had some hold over Swayne.’
‘That’s what I’ve thought more than once. Swayne isn’t a bad chap and he’s certainly no coward, but he always seemed to have the wind up where Smith was concerned.’
‘He’s on your staff, you say?’
‘Yes, he’s our sales manager.’
‘I’d better see him,’ Vandam declared. ‘He might know something that would help.’
‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have some way to look. He’s just gone to England on three months’ leave to visit his relatives. Lucky chap! I wish I could get a trip like that.’
Inspector Vandam’s hopes, which had been steadily rising during the conversation, suffered a sudden drop.
‘Oh,’ he said helplessly, ‘he’s gone to England, has he? But you say he’s coming back?’
‘Yes. We’re keeping his job for him. He’s a smart fellow, too good to lose.’
‘Is it long since he left?’
‘Only just gone. He left last night.’
The night before! The night of the murder! Vandam’s hopes made a sharp recovery. Certainly he must find out more about this Swayne.
He resumed his interrogation. It seemed that Smith had also been at loggerheads with no less a person than Mr Crawley, the manager. They had had friction over some private business, the details of which Hurst did not know. But Crawley had not allowed the matter to affect their business relations, and Hurst believed it also had blown over.
Vandam asked a number of other questions, but without gaining much more information. In spite of his careful probing, he could hear of no one else whose relations with Smith were really suspicious. Therefore, having obtained the address of Swayne’s landlady with the object of prosecuting inquiries there, he thanked Hurst for his trouble, and took his leave.
His next business was at Smith’s rooms, and a few minutes’ walk brought him to Rotterdam Road. It was a street of compara-
tively new houses, mostly residential, but with a sprinkling of shops and offices. No. 25 was wedged in between a tobacconist’s and an exhibition of gas stoves, and showed in its lower windows cards bearing the legend, ‘Apartments.’ The Inspector knocked at the door.
It was opened by an elderly woman with hard features and a careworn expression, who explained that she was the landlady. Upon Vandam stating his business, she invited him in, and answered all his questions freely. But here he did not learn a great deal beyond the mere fact that Smith had occupied rooms in the house. Mrs Regan seemed genuinely shocked at the news of her lodger’s death, though Vandam suspected this was due more to the loss of a paying client and the unwelcome notoriety which would be brought on her establishment than to personal regard for the deceased.
It seemed that Smith shared a sitting-room with a Mr Holt, a bank official, though the two men occupied separate bedrooms. On the previous evening, the night of the murder, Smith had returned at about six for supper, his usual custom. Holt was later that night and did not turn up until past seven. Mrs Regan in bringing up Smith’s tray had ‘passed the time of day’ with him, as was her habit when either gentleman was alone. Smith seemed restless and excited. She imagined he had something on his mind, and this opinion was confirmed when she found later on that he had eaten hardly any supper. He had gone out shortly after eight; she had not seen him, but he had called through her door that he was going out into the country and might not be back that night. He had never returned, nor had he sent her any message.
Mrs Regan gave her late lodger a good character ‘as young men go,’ but with a curious reticence in her manner, which Vandam put down to personal dislike. The deceased was rather silent and uncommunicative, but was not too inconsiderate about giving trouble. He did not often drink to excess, nor did he bring undesirables to the house, though he kept pretty late hours. But principally he was a good pay. It seemed that to Mrs Regan prompt payment covered a greater multitude of sins than charity.
The landlady could not give a list of Smith’s friends. He had very few visitors, and of those who did come she seldom learned the names. She suggested that Mr Holt would be better able to help, and gave his business address, the Central Branch of the Union Bank.
Neither could she, in answer to Vandam’s veiled questionings, suggest anyone who might have had a grudge against the deceased. The Inspector was satisfied from the way she made her statement that she was being as helpful as she could, and thanked her politely.
‘I must search his rooms, I’m afraid,’ he continued. ‘Perhaps you would show me up?’
The rooms, one of which was on the first and the other on the second floor, were typical of the middle-class lodging-house, somewhat drab and dingy as to furniture, but not exactly uncomfortable. Dismissing Mrs Regan, who was becoming a trifle garrulous, Vandam set himself to make a systematic examination of the contents. In the sitting-room he was somewhat handicapped by the fact that he was dealing with two men’s belongings, but in any case he found nothing that assisted him. Nor when he went to the bedroom had he at first any better luck. Though he examined everything with the utmost minuteness here also, he came upon nothing of interest until he turned to a small metal despatch case which was on one of the shelves in the wardrobe. It was locked, but locks were but slight obstacles to Inspector Vandam, and with the aid of a skeleton key from a bunch he always carried, it soon stood open. Within were a bundle of miscellaneous papers, some receipts, a few letters, a number of bills and a bank book. The bills caused Vandam to whistle softly. Three were from jewellers; for a pearl pendant, £15 15s., a pair of earrings, £7 10s., a wristwatch, £5 12s. 6d.; several were from fashionable costumiers, among them one for a fur stole at £20, and others for gloves and flowers. Altogether they totalled to over £100.
Vandam metaphorically smacked his lips. When in a puzzling case he came on what he was pleased to term ‘the trail of the woman,’ he felt he was moving forward. That Smith was the kind of man these bills revealed him to be did not prove anything, but it was suggestive. A dispute over a woman! What more fruitful source of tragedy could be imagined? An obvious line of inquiry suggested itself. He must learn the identity of the woman or women in question, and find out if other suitors were in the field.
He picked up the bank book. A glance showed that the last balance had been struck a fortnight previously, when some £45 only stood to the deceased’s credit.
Smith, then, had been hard up. Not down and out, but still hard up. Though on his £400 a year he could no doubt have paid the £60 odd owing, an examination of the dates of the bills showed that so far from saving, he had been growing rapidly more extravagant during the month or two preceding his death.
‘Guess he wasn’t murdered for his money anyhow,’ Vandam thought with grim humour as he turned to the letters.
With one exception, these were commonplace enough, but as he read this one Vandam smiled with satisfaction. It was a curt note in a lady’s rather flamboyant hand, in which ‘J. L.’ assured ‘Dear Albert’ that she could not see him that night, but that he might take her out to dinner and a theatre on the following evening if he were good. The letter bore the date of a week previous, but no address. However, taken as an adjunct to the bills, it should lead speedily to the identification of the lady.
He replaced the papers in the box with the intention of taking them to headquarters, then, descending the stairs, he took leave of Mrs Regan and let himself out of the house.
‘Now for friend Holt,’ he thought, as he bent his steps towards the Central Branch of the Union Bank.
Mr Holt saw him at once. He had heard of the accident and seemed genuinely distressed by the tragic fate which had overtaken the sharer of his room. He scouted the suicide theory which Vandam put forward, saying that Smith was the last man in the world to take his own life. The Inspector’s questions he answered with the utmost readiness.
But, like the others interviewed that afternoon, he had but little to tell. He had gone to reside in Rotterdam Road about a year previously, Smith being already there. The two men, while not close friends, got on well enough together. They did not see very much of each other, as Smith was out a good deal, and their associates moved in different circles. Holt was, however, able to give the names of three men with whom Smith had been on fairly intimate terms. Vandam noted their addresses, intending to call on them next day. Generally Holt confirmed what the Inspector had already learned about the deceased’s character and habits.
‘With regard, then, to last night, Mr Holt,’ Vandam went on, ‘please tell me what occurred.’
‘Last night I was detained up town,’ the young fellow answered. ‘I did not get to my rooms until about 7.15. Smith had finished supper and was reading the paper when I went in. A word or two passed between us and then I had my supper. When I had about half finished Smith left the room, and I heard him go upstairs to his bedroom.’
‘Did you notice anything peculiar about his manner?’
‘Nothing, except that he seemed a little excited. He was restless, and kept jerking the paper about.’
‘He was quite sober?’
‘Absolutely. He seldom drank to excess.’
Vandam nodded.
‘And was that the last time you saw him?’
‘I saw him once again. When I had finished supper I went up to my room for a book, and as I opened the door he was just passing downstairs. He was carrying a small suitcase. I said, “Hallo, Smith! Going away?” “Only to spend the evening at Pendlebury,” he answered, “but if I miss the last train I shall probably stay overnight.” I went upstairs and Smith down, and that was the last I saw of him.’
Pendlebury was a residential suburb about four miles south of the city, with which it was connected by electric tram.
‘What time was that, Mr Holt?’
‘About ten minutes past eight.’
‘Smith didn’t say to whom he was paying the call?’
‘No.’
Inspector Vandam asked a good many more questions, but except that the dead man had seemed a little absent-minded off and on for some weeks past, he learned nothing further of interest.
It was too late on leaving the bank to begin another phase of the inquiry that night. Vandam, therefore, after a call at headquarters, turned homewards, and spent the evening writing up notes of what he had already done and considering his future procedure.
The inquest took place next day. It had been fixed for eleven o’clock, and Vandam spent the whole morning making his preparations and checking over the evidence of his witnesses. After a consultation, it had been decided to keep secret the fact that murder had been committed, in the hope that the assassin might be lulled into a feeling of security which would render him careless and more likely to give himself away.
The tragedy had created immense popular interest, and it was over a crowded court that the coroner was called upon to preside. Punctually to the minute he plunged into business. The jury were sworn, left to view the body, looking self-conscious and important, returned a trifle paler and obviously with less thought of their own dignity, and the taking of evidence began.
Signalman Joseph Ashe first testified as to the discovery of the body and the giving of the alarm, and from the stationmaster and the other railway officials the story of that tragic morning was told up to the arrival of the police. Inspector Vandam then swore that the body so found was that which the jury had just viewed, and Dr Bakker described the injuries.
Evidence of identification having been taken, the court was adjourned, to the surprise of everyone not in the know. The coroner stated that though certain of the details seemed to point to suicide, the police had not as yet succeeded in obtaining sufficient evidence to enable the jury to reach a finding.
The suggestion of suicide sent a thrill through those present, which was quickly succeeded by a feeling of disappointment as they realised that for the time being their curiosity must remain unsatisfied.
The inquest over, Vandam sat down to think out his next move. There were still some obvious inquiries to be made, and he decided he would get through with these at once, before pausing to take stock of his position generally.
First, there was the matter of the hammer. If he could find out where it had been sold and who had bought it, the evidence might lead him straight to his goal. Then there was the sandbag. The purchase of a strip of canvas or a sailmaker’s needle would surely be sufficiently uncommon to have attracted attention, and inquiry should bring the transaction to light. A visit to the various shops—jewellers, costumiers, florists—where Smith had made his purchases would probably lead to the identification of J. L., and if so, an entire new line of investigation would be opened up. There was also the matter of the automatic pistol found on Smith’s body. If the purchase could be traced it might be valuable. Finally, there were the inquiries into the movements of Swayne upon which the Inspector had already decided.
There was certainly no lack of clues, and Vandam saw a vista of strenuous work opening out in front of him.
He returned to headquarters and instructed Sergeant Clarke to undertake the hammer and sandbag inquiry, put another man on the automatic pistol, and set off down town himself to visit the shops.
His information came more easily than he had anticipated. Smith apparently had made no secret of his proclivities, and the Inspector soon learned that J. L. was a Miss Jane Louden, the daughter of the owner of a third-rate hotel—or rather public-house—in the poorer quarter of the town. The girl, a dark and haughty beauty, acted as barmaid, and was notoriously given to extracting purple and fine linen from the particular specimen of mankind whom she held in subjection for the time being. She had usually visited the shops with Smith, and had chosen the articles that appealed to her fancy. From the dates of the purchases it appeared that Smith had been a victim for over six months.
