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

As she finished the parlourmaid opened the door. She was looking nervous and worried.

"Oh, Miss Hilary—" she began. "The doctor—"

"Well?" interrupted Miss Lavinia "What of the doctor?"

"He is in the consulting-room, ma'am, but he doesn't take any notice when we knock at the door. Mr. Wilton and I have both been trying."

"What are you making such a fuss about?" said Miss Lavinia contemptuously. "The doctor doesn't want to be disturbed. That is all."

The maid stood her ground, and again addressed Hilary:

"I have never known the doctor lock the door on the inside before, miss."

"Well, of course, if it was locked on the outside, he would not be there," Miss Lavinia rejoined sensibly. "I'll go and knock. He'll answer me, I'll warrant."

Hilary was looking rather white.

"I will come too, Aunt Lavinia. Dad often sits up late over his research work. But he promised me he wouldn't to-night. It was my birthday yesterday and he had to go out, so he said he would come in for a chat quite early this evening."

Miss Lavinia was already in the hall.

"I expect the chat would have been a lively one from the few words I had with him when I came in. Well, what are you doing?"

This question was addressed to Basil Wilton, who was standing at the end of the passage leading to the consulting-room.

Like the parlourmaid, he was looking pale and worried. Miss Lavinia's quick eyes noted that his tie was twisted to one side and that his hair, short as it was, was rumpled up as if he had been thrusting his hands through it.

"There is an urgent summons for the doctor on the phone, and we can't make him hear," he said uneasily.

"I dare say he has gone out by the door on the garden side," Miss Lavinia said briskly. "Yes, of course that is how it would be. Locked the door on this side and gone off the other way to see some patient."

"That door is locked too," Wilton said doubtfully. "And the doctor has never done such a thing before."

"Bless my life! There must be a first time for everything," Miss Lavinia rejoined testily. "Don't look so scared, Mr. Wilton. I'll go to the door. If he is in, he will answer me, and if he isn't—well, we shall just have to wait."

She pushed past Wilton. Shrugging his shoulders, he followed her down the passage.

There were no half measures with Miss Lavinia. Her knock at the door was loud enough to rouse the house, but there came no response from within the room.

Meanwhile quite a little crowd was collecting behind her—Wilton, Hilary and a couple of the servants.

"Nobody there, anyhow," she observed. "That knock would have fetched the doctor if he had been in. Come, Hilary, it is no use standing here gaping."

She turned to stride back to the morning-room, when the parlourmaid interposed:

"I beg your pardon, ma'am. I think—I'm afraid the doctor is there."

Miss Lavinia stared at her.

"What do you mean? If the doctor were there he would have answered me."

The maid hesitated a moment, her face very white. As she looked at her even Miss Lavinia's weather-beaten countenance seemed to catch the reflection of her pallor. It turned a curious greenish grey.

"What do you mean?" she repeated.

"I have been into the garden, ma'am. I remembered that the blind in the consulting-room did not fit very well, and I went and looked through. The light was on and I could see—I think—I am sure that I could see the doctor sitting on the revolving chair before his table. His head is bent down on his arms."

"Then he must have fainted—or—or something," Miss Lavinia said, her strident tones strangely subdued. "Don't look so scared, Hilary; I don't suppose it is anything serious."

Wilton touched Hilary, who was leaning against the wall.

"We shall have to break the door in, dear. And you must not stay here; we shall want all the room we can get."

"Break the door in!" Miss Lavinia ejaculated in scornful accents. "Why, Mr. Wilton, you will be suggesting sliding down through the chimney next! Go to this window in the garden that you have just heard of. If it is closed—and I expect it is, for doctors are a great deal fonder of advising other people to keep their windows open than of doing it themselves—smash a pane, put your hand in and unlatch it, and pull the sash up. It will be easy enough then."

"Perhaps that will be best," Wilton assented doubtfully.

"Of course it will be best," Miss Lavinia said briskly. "You stay here, Hilary. We will open the door to you in a minute Come along, Mr. Wilton."

She almost pushed the young man before her down the passage and out at the surgery door. That opened on to the street, and a few steps farther on was a green door in the high wall which surrounded the doctor's garden. That was unfastened. As Miss Lavinia pushed it open she raised her eyebrows.

"Anybody could come in here, burgle the house and leave you very little the wiser," she remarked with a glance at Wilton.

"Yes; but it isn't generally left open like this," he said as he closed it behind them. "It is always kept locked by Dr. Bastow's orders unless anything is wanted for the garden—coal for the greenhouse, or manure."

But Miss Lavinia was not attending to him. She broke into a run as they emerged from the little shrubbery and began to cross the narrow strip of grass that lay between it and the house. On the farther side of this, immediately under the windows, there was a broad gravel path.

Miss Lavinia hurried across it, and placing her hands on the window-sill moved her head up and down.

"Well, how that young woman saw into this room puzzles me! The blind is drawn as close as wax!"

"On that side perhaps." Wilton had come up behind her, and now drew her across.

Here the blind seemed to have been pushed or caught aside, and any tall person standing outside could see right into the room; since much to Miss Lavinia's amazement the curtain inside was also caught up.

"Why, it's a regular spy-hole!" she said as, putting her hands on the window-sill and raising herself on tiptoe, she applied her eyes to the glass.

A moment later she dropped down with a groan.

"She is right enough. John is there, and I don't like the way he sits huddled up in his chair. Mr. Wilton, you had better get in as soon as you can."

Wilton needed no second bidding. One blow shattered the pane nearest him, and putting his arm through he raised the catch, then the sash, and then vaulted into the room. Miss Lavinia waited, one arm round Hilary, who had joined her.

It seemed a long time before Wilton came back, but it was not in reality more than a minute or two before he parted the curtains again; and stood carefully holding them so that Hilary could not see into the room.

"I fear the doctor is very ill," he said gravely. "I have the key. We will go round."

Hilary threw off her aunt's arm.

"Go back to Dad, Basil. What do you mean by leaving him? I can get in this way too."

She put her hands on the window-sill, and would have scrambled in, but Wilton held her back at arm's length.

"You don't understand, Hilary. You can do no good here. Your father is—"

"Dead—no, no—not dead!" Hilary said wildly.

Wilton's eyes sought Miss Lavinia's as he bent his head in grave assent.

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"Murdered? God bless my soul! I never heard such nonsense in my life!" Miss Lavinia Priestley was the speaker.

Basil Wilton was facing her and beside him was a short, rather stout man. Dr. James Greig was an old friend of Dr. Bastow's and a telephone summons had brought him on the scene. A third person at whom Miss Lavinia had scarcely glanced as yet stood behind the other two.

As a matter of fact, very few people did glance a second time at William Stoddart, which fact formed a by no means inconsiderable asset in Stoddart's career in the C.I.D. For William Stoddart was a detective, and one of the best known in the service too, in spite of his undistinguished exterior.