Annie Haynes - Inspector Stoddart's Murder Mysteries (4 Intriguing Golden Age Thrillers)

Wilton's surprise evidently increased as he stared at the detective. "I should say it was impossible. It would be impossible for anyone to get into the flat without my knowledge or my wife's."

The inspector made a rapid note in his book.

"Well, my inquisition is nearly ended, Mr. Wilton, but I must ask you this: do you think or have you ever had occasion to think that there is any connexion between Mrs. Wilton's death and that of Dr. John Bastow?"

Wilton's eyes met the inspector's squarely, there was even a faint smile playing round his lips as he said:

"None at all, but the fact, which the 'Daily Wire' kindly pointed out, that I was in the houses on both occasions."

The inspector took no notice of the remark.

"You may remember the paper that was found in the doctor's blotter and the similar one that was found later on in the drawer of his desk with the same words upon it?"

"'The Man with the Dark Beard'? I should rather think I do," Wilton ejaculated. "I haven't been given much chance to forget. Why, how long was it before the 'Daily Wire' gave up starring 'Who is the Man with the Dark Beard' across its front page? And as good as hinting that he was poor old Sanford Morris."

"And you think he was not?"

Wilton really laughed now.

"I am sure he was not. I saw a good deal of Sanford Morris when I was with Dr. Bastow, and he was not the stuff that murderers are made of."

"Did you ever discuss the question with Mrs. Wilton?"

"Only once," Wilton said with obvious unwillingness. "We did not agree and we decided to drop the subject."

"I gather then that Mrs. Wilton thought Sanford Morris guilty?" the inspector said with a keen glance.

"She appeared to," Wilton agreed reluctantly.

"Simply because he was a man with a dark beard?"

"I don't know of any other reason."

The inspector waited a minute or two looking at his book, but not in reality seeing one word of his notes written therein. Basil Wilton's story was not giving him the help he had hoped for. When he spoke again his voice had altered indefinably:

"Have you any idea who wrote those words and put them where they were found?"

Wilton hesitated. "Well, really, I don't know anything about it. But of course one couldn't help suspecting that girl that bolted—the parlourmaid—Taylor. I do not mean of the actual murder, but I think she must have known or guessed something; why should she run away if she had nothing to conceal?"

"Why should she run away because she knew or guessed something—unless her knowledge was a guilty knowledge?" the inspector countered. "No, I don't think the paper was written by Mary Anne Taylor, Mr. Wilton. But, just one more question: you were unexpectedly late going home on the night of your wife's death, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was," Wilton said frankly. "My brother and I had a lot to talk about and the time passed more quickly than I realized."

"And then you did not go home in a taxi as Mrs. Wilton wished."

"I did, part of the way. But it was a nice night, and I thought a walk would do me good."

"I think that's all," the inspector said as he rose. "Well, Mr. Wilton, thank you for being so open with me; it is quite likely that I may want to see you again within the next few days."

"Well, you will know where to find me, that is one thing," Wilton said with that twisted smile of his. "Your myrmidons are always at my heels, Inspector Stoddart."

Table of Contents

"You sent for me, sir?" Harbord closed the door behind him.

Inspector Stoddart was sitting before the desk in his private room at Scotland Yard. He was looking grave and preoccupied.

"Yes. What do you make of this?" Harbord looked curiously at the scrap of paper he pushed forward.

"It is a cloak-room ticket for a bag deposited at St. Pancras waiting-room on June—"

"The day of Mrs. Wilton's death," the inspector finished. "I found that ticket this morning, Harbord, in the pocket of a coat of Basil Wilton's in his room at his brother's house. That was one discovery and this"—opening a drawer and taking out a small oblong object—"was another."

Harbord poked it gingerly with the tip of his finger.

"An automatic—where did this come from, sir?"

"Where we ought to have found it before," the inspector said shortly. "At the top of Wilton's wardrobe in his room at the flat. The front and sides of the wardrobe stand up higher than the actual top, leaving a depression on which people can keep boxes and things. There were none here, though, which helped to put me off the scent. This morning I determined to make a further thorough and systematic search of Wilton's room. I was rewarded, as you see, after going over the floor and walls of the room with a microscope. I got on the steps and leaned over the front of the wardrobe, and found this," touching the revolver. "Whoever put it there did his work thoroughly. There are several wedge-like pieces of wood as well as strips that go right across, used to keep the wardrobe together when it is up, to be taken out when it is moved from house to house or room to room. This automatic was jammed up in one corner and looked at first sight just like one of the ordinary bits of wood, for they were all covered with dust. It was not until I had observed that there were more wedges on one side than on the other that I found this."

Harbord stared at it.

"Finger-marks?"

Stoddart shook his head. "Our man is a bit too clever for that. He either wore gloves or handled the thing with something soft. But I called round at Giles and Starmforth's, the gunsmiths, on my way here; two chambers of this revolver have been discharged, and the bullet that killed Mrs. Wilton fits."

"Pretty strong evidence," Harbord commented. "And the ticket, sir?"

"I want you to come along with me to St. Pancras and we will make some investigations. Curious how often murderers take the very evidence that convicts them and leave it in the cloak-room of one or other of the big London stations," Stoddart added meditatively.

"Yes. Bags and cloak-rooms seem to hold a strange fascination for them," Harbord agreed. "But in this case, anyhow, the bag will not contain the body of the victim, dismembered or otherwise."

"Not Mrs. Wilton's body anyhow," the inspector said with significant emphasis as he locked his case-book in his desk and got up. "Well, the sooner we get the bag open, the sooner we shall know what it contains."

Harbord glanced curiously more than once at his superior as they made their way to St. Pancras.

Arrived, the inspector produced his ticket and received a small, old-fashioned Gladstone bag. He wrinkled up his brow as he looked at it.

"Now, what the dickens—"

He beckoned to one of the station constables and after a very short delay was taken to a small room at the back of the office. The bag was set on a table and, with Harbord and the station detective looking on, the inspector took out a bunch of keys and turned one of them in the very ordinary lock with little difficulty. Inside there was first a box, then a quantity of papers; lastly, carefully wrapped in paper, a curious, bedraggled-looking object. The eyes of the detectives were riveted upon this.

"What on earth is it? It looks like hair," Harbord said, bending over it.

"It is hair." The inspector caught it up. "Heavens, man! Don't you see what it is? An artificial brown beard!"

"Ah!" Harbord drew in his breath sharply. "Then that means—"

"We don't know what it means yet," the inspector rejoined sharply.

He put it back in its paper and turned to the box, which Harbord had lifted out and placed on a chair beside the table. Stoddart started and looked at it more closely. How long and fruitlessly he had been searching for a red lacquer box with golden dragons sprawling over it, and yet when it stood before him he had not recognized it! He took it up and scrutinized it. Where had it been, he asked himself, all this time he had been looking for it? If only inanimate things could speak!