Sudden death, p.15
Sudden Death, page 15
‘I wonder,’ said Kendal doubtfully. ‘You may be right.’
‘I must be right,’ French returned. ‘I tell you, Kendal, it was murder. And what’s more, we’ll get them both. Whichever of them actually did it, they’re equally guilty.’
‘I’m only sorry I’m on this Entrican business and not working with you,’ Kendal returned. ‘I’d like to see it through now.’
‘If you can fix it up I should be only too delighted,’ French invited, as he collected his papers prior to taking his leave.
Next morning he was early at Frayle. There one by one he interviewed the whole household. Did anyone know of the gas fire in the late Mrs Grinsmead’s room having been lighted within a reasonable time of her death? If not, had anyone other than a member of the household had an opportunity of lighting it?
In reply to the first of these questions French learned nothing whatever. But in answer to the second everyone reminded him that on the night of the tragedy there was a dinner party with five guests. Except for these five, no one had visited the house within a week of its mistress’s death.
French was perfectly aware of the five guests, and particularly that Mrs Holt-Lancing was one of them. But though he had asked for the information, he did not see how a guest could have worked the trick with the gas fire.
For the time being he switched his mind off the fire and turned once again to the question of the windows. The murder theory involved Mrs Grinsmead having neither shut the windows herself, nor known they were shut. Someone had therefore gone into the room for this purpose. Could he find out who?
Gladys, the maid, said she had partially closed the windows and drawn the curtains about seven o’clock. At ten Sybil had gone to her room. The windows must therefore have been closed between those hours. Who had closed them?
Ensued another interview with each member of the household. The result was again disappointing. Everyone in the house could have gone unseen into that room and closed the windows, but everyone denied having done so.
French, however, did learn one significant fact. The possibilities as to the closing of the windows were not confined to the members of the household. The two ladies who had attended the dinner party had gone up to the pink spare room on arrival. Either of them could have done it.
French saw that if Mrs Holt-Lancing were a party to the crime, this might prove an important discovery. Further questions showed that she had been the last to arrive. As she knew the house so well, Gladys had not shown her upstairs, but had simply said to her, ‘The pink room, madam, if you please.’ As Mrs Holt-Lancing had gone upstairs, Mrs Alcock had come down. Irene Holt-Lancing had therefore had ample opportunity to go into Sybil’s room and close the windows.
So far, so good. Grinsmead might have lit the fire and got his wife to turn it off; either Grinsmead or Irene Holt-Lancing might have closed the windows. But had they done so? French saw that he would have to interview them both again, when perhaps he would be able to surprise an admission out of one or other.
Wearily he turned back to that puzzling point, the turning on of the gas. He felt that before he saw his suspects he must have some theory as to how it could have been done.
He sat down at a table in Sybil’s room to think the thing out. And first, was it possible that the tap could have been turned on before Sybil bolted the door?
This meant, he was positive, before Sybil bolted the door on Anne’s departure. Anne’s room was next door, and the walls of houses of this type are not thick. It would have been impossible for anyone to have knocked at Sybil’s door and had the door unbolted, after Ann had left and before Sybil had gone to sleep, without Anne hearing it. To settle the point French questioned Anne. No one, she declared positively, had entered Sybil’s room after she had left. Before accepting the evidence French satisfied himself that the click of the bolt could be plainly heard in Anne’s room.
If, then, Anne herself were not guilty, and French now felt satisfied about this, the gas must have been turned on after the door was bolted. How could it have been done?
He thought again of the obvious idea of fixing some tool to the tap with a cord leading out under the door, which would pull the tap open and then slip off and be drawn out under the door. But the more he considered it, the more firmly convinced he became that Kendal was right and that this had not been done. There were two taps in question: on the left of the fireplace the main one on the approach pipe, which cut off both fire and ring; and on the right the batswing tap, which controlled the fire alone and on which Sybil’s fingerprints had been found. The door was in the corner of the room to the left, so that a pull on a cord would have been from right to left across the front of the fireplace. Both the taps were very stiff, so that only an extremely strong apparatus would have operated them. The main tap could not have been turned fully on, that is, parallel to the pull on the cord, as it was found. Even supposing a tool could have been made to turn it at all, this would certainly have disengaged itself while the tap was still at a considerable angle to the pull. In the case of the batswing tap the thing was even more impossible. The pull was in the wrong direction—parallel to the shaft of the tap. It would have tended to draw the tap as a whole towards the fire, and not to turn it round. And there was no fulcrum or leverage or pulley which could have been employed to alter the direction of the pull.
French spent a couple of hours considering and experimenting, and at the end of his investigation he found himself more than ever convinced of the impracticability of the scheme.
His next move, however, seemed more promising. He took out the two little side screws and lifted away the casting covering the bottom of the fire. At once he experienced a thrill of eager satisfaction. There were marks in the dust covering the pipes. Someone, not so long since, had been working with these pipes!
But wait a moment. Was he going too fast? No use in building up a theory on false premises. Ormsby, he knew, had not had the front off; had Kendal?
He replaced the casting and went down to the telephone. After considerable trouble he located Kendal and put his question. No, Kendal had not touched the casting; he had had no occasion to do so. Good! That was all French wanted.
French returned to Sybil’s room, and locking himself in, once again removed the casting. His reaction to dust marks was almost automatic. He got his fingerprint apparatus and dusted the entire fittings with white powder. But here he drew blank. The surfaces were too rough to retain impressions.
French sat back on his heels and examined the fittings. The main pipe, coming in at the left side of the fireplace, ran across near the floor to the right side, then turned up. In this vertical portion was the tap controlled by the batswing handle. The pipe then ran back across the fireplace towards the left, but at a higher level. Near the centre of the fireplace it ended in a sort of rosehead or nozzle like that of a garden hose, a brass cap pierced with a number of small holes. Through these holes the gas issued into the atmosphere when the taps were on. In front of the cap was a larger pipe with an open end towards the nozzle, which led on across the fireplace to the left, and thence to the burners. The gas entered this pipe, carrying with it sufficient air to make the correct burning mixture. The nozzle was about ¾ in. in diameter, the inlet pipe about 1¼ in. diameter, and the two pipes were about – in. apart. A thin removable hood was sprung on to the inlet pipe, which projected back over the upper part of the nozzle. French slipped the hood off and the pipes with the space between them became fully exposed.
Absently French’s hand stole to his pocket and he drew out his pouch and pipe and began automatically to fill the latter. Here certainly was a place at which the gas could be stopped. If something soft like a pad of rubber were pressed firmly on the face of the nozzle, it would close the little holes and do the trick. But how could such a pad be fixed? Well, that wasn’t so difficult. Wedges driven in between it and the inlet pipe would do it. Yes, that seemed possible.
French lit his pipe and began slowly to smoke. That seemed all right so far. If the gas exit at the nozzle were closed, the gas could then be turned on and no gas could escape. If then the pad were pulled out by means of a cord from the door, the gas would escape into the room.
But how could the wedges be pulled out? French saw that here was the difficulty. The cord would pull, not in the direction in which the wedges should be drawn, but at right angles to it. The cord would not move them.
And then he saw a further difficulty. Wedges could scarcely be driven in while the hood was in place. And he had found it in place.
At the same time the marks in the dust showed that something of the kind had been done. French retired to an armchair in the corner of the room and smoked stolidly while he continued thinking the matter over.
Presently he attacked the problem from a new angle. Whatever was done, whether the nozzle was padded up or not, apparatus of some kind would have been required. Could he find that apparatus?
Suppose Grinsmead were guilty. He would have withdrawn the apparatus beneath the door. What would he have done with it?
He would not have kept it, as that would be dangerous. How could he have disposed of it?
French tried to put himself in Grinsmead’s place. There he was in the middle of the night with some compromising materials. How could he get rid of them?
The kitchen range? No, the fire would be out before the apparatus would be available. So would the other downstairs fires, and upstairs there was only gas.
But would the downstairs fires be out? Could Grinsmead not have built up the necessary fire before going to bed?
If any part of the apparatus were metal or rubber, French thought an attempt to burn it would be unlikely. But if it had been made of wood and leather this might have proved the solution. French knocked out his pipe and went down to interview the servants.
But from them he learned nothing. None of the fireplaces on the tragic morning held an exceptional amount of ashes, nor was the unburnt coal in the boxes lower than usual. Nor were any pieces of metal or other material found in the ashes.
French had provided himself with a search warrant, and he now took advantage of it. He settled down to hunt for the apparatus. Grinsmead’s bedroom, his study, his workshop—all were examined with scrupulous care, but without result. Nor did French’s careful searches elsewhere nor his veiled inquiries lead to anything whatever.
A hopeless case, he thought at length. Whatever had been used had been destroyed. However, the point was so important that as a last resource he got down into the ashpit and began turning over the household debris. He had a nasty couple of hours among old tins, broken crockery, cinders and dirty rubbish of all kinds. But even this self-sacrifice remained unrewarded.
On his way back to the house he turned rather hopelessly into the garden. Was there any rubbish heap or other place in which something might have been buried in the middle of the night? He did not think so. Such work could not have been done in the dark without fear of leaving traces, and a light would have been dangerous. No, there was no help there.
He decided unhappily that this promising clue had petered out and that he must try something else. And then as he turned to the door his eye fell on a large water barrel at the corner of the house. It was fed from the roof and used for water for the garden. Without hesitation French walked over and turned on the tap. The water spouted out and began to creep across the grass.
It ran for an hour, leaving the entire surroundings in a sea, and then at last only a couple of inches of water was left. French threw in a piece of wood and with difficulty and bad language scrambled in. Standing on the wood, he bent down and began feeling through the water.
Ten seconds later his fingers touched a small object. He drew it out and stared at it wonderingly.
It was a bit of thin metal about half an inch wide and four inches long, curved into a quadrant. At one end a hole had been drilled, through which a cord had been passed and knotted, leaving two ends each about six inches long. A peculiar cord, that. As French cleaned it, he thought it was made of black silk. The metal was covered with a thin skin of rust, as if it had been in the barrel a comparatively short time only.
A bit of clock spring, French thought, and then suddenly his heart leaped. Clock spring! Yes, a bit of clock spring would solve his problem. A pad of rubber held over the gas nozzle, not by wedges which could not be pulled out, but by clock spring, which could! And there was the explanation of the two cords: one would pass out under the door and pull the spring out, the other would be attached to the pad, so that as soon as it was released and dropped from the nozzle it would also be drawn out of the room. French climbed out of the barrel, wiped his hands, and made a sketch. Yes, he had it at last!
Here A was the gas nozzle and B the air intake pipe. The pad C, of rubber and pear-shaped, was placed across the nozzle and fixed firmly in position by the clock spring D. If now the cord F were pulled, the spring would be drawn out, the pad would drop to the floor, and would in its turn be pulled out by the cord E. Both spring and pad would pull noiselessly across the floor and would easily pass under the door.
French could scarcely contain his delight. Here was not only proof of his theory, but a highly promising clue. Who had bought some yards of this heavy black silk cord? Who had had a hole drilled in a piece of clock spring? Surely these purchases would be traceable and would lead straight to the murderer!
He decided that his first step must, however, be to test the apparatus out. Accordingly he left Frayle and took the first bus to Ashbridge. There he bought six yards of a strong, smooth, dark-coloured cord—not indeed silk, but good enough for his purpose. Next at a plumber’s he got a scrap of fine sheet rubber, about 3/16th inches thick. From this he cut a pear-shaped piece large enough to cover the nozzle, while leaving a projection to which the cord could be attached. He drilled a hole in the projection, passed the end of the cord through and tied it, cleaned the clock spring and tied it also on to the cord about a foot from the pad, and the apparatus was ready. Then he went to the police station, told Superintendent Godfrey of the experiment he wished to try, and asked for the help of Kendal that evening. Finally he rang up Anne Day to say that he was returning to Frayle about nine that night, and asking that she and Gladys should remain in to meet him.
Kendal was eager to know their business, but French would not enlighten him. ‘Bit of an experiment,’ was all he would say. ‘It wouldn’t be so valuable if you knew what to expect.’
Shortly before nine the two men left Ashbridge on Kendal’s motor bicycle combination. At Frayle French left Kendal downstairs, going up alone to Sybil’s room. There he fixed his pad and spring and led the cord across the floor to the door, passed it underneath, and hid the end of it under the mat in the corridor. Then he turned on the tap of the fire, and having waited to make sure that the pad was gas-tight, he called Kendal and Gladys.
‘I want you, Gladys,’ he said, ‘to go into that room and fix the windows exactly as you did that night. Do everything else in the room that you did on that night, exactly as you did then. Look about you to the same extent. If you see anything unusual, tell me at once. Kendal, you’re to be observer in the matter. Don’t interfere, but note what is done. It’s just an experiment, you understand, Gladys.’
Gladys and Kendal went into the room, and Gladys fussed about at various jobs. Then she came out to French and said she had finished.
‘And you saw nothing unusual?’ French insisted.
She had seen nothing. Everything seemed exactly as on the night of the tragedy.
‘I’m much obliged to you, Gladys,’ French said. ‘That’s all. Now will you please ask Miss Day if she will come here.’
Gladys disappeared, and presently Anne arrived, curious and slightly resentful. French, as usual, was polite.
‘We want your help in a small experiment, Miss Day,’ he explained, going on to make the same request of her as he had of Gladys. Again Kendal was to be observer.
Anne did as she was asked, without, however, noticing anything unusual. French thanked her, and let her go downstairs. So far everything had gone well. As French had foreseen, neither of these women had noticed the cord.
French was even more pleased that Kendal had not observed it. Of course it wasn’t easy to see; the murderer had been depending on that. The direct light of the electric lamp above the bed did not fall on it, and owing to its dark colour it was almost indistinguishable among the shadows.
‘Now, Kendal,’ French went on, ‘I want you to go into that room and have a stretch on the bed. You may read, but you are not to look carefully about. You are, indeed, to be Sybil Grinsmead, and you will therefore get quickly drowsy. I’m sorry, but you may have to stay there an hour or more. But directly you notice anything strange, come out and tell me.’
Kendal grinned. ‘You’re not doing it badly, French,’ he declared. ‘It seems like the Speckled Band over again. What am I to expect? A gentle hiss like steam passing from a kettle?’
‘If you hear that,’ French answered, ‘come out and tell me.’
French saw his colleague satisfactorily settled, then came out and shut the door. He had determined to do nothing for an hour, so as to demonstrate that the fire was quite gas-tight at first. Accordingly, when the hour had passed, he stole softly to the door, lifted the mat, and was about to pull the cord, when he stopped.
He saw suddenly that he was making his test under much more severe conditions than those which had obtained at the time of the murder. The clock spring, falling on the tiled hearth and being drawn over the curb, might make a very faint sound. This sound, of course, could not have been heard by Sybil, who was drugged and asleep. Still less could it have been audible to anyone outside the room. But Kendal, awake and alert, might hear it.
