Vernon Loder - The Shop Window Murders

AS they approached the lift, Devenish suddenly thought that it was sheer cruelty to take his companion with him any farther.

‘You have had a horrible morning, sir,’ he said to him, noticing how he now dragged his feet. ‘If I were you, I would go out and get some air; and have something to pull you together.’

He had already given instructions to the policemen on the various doors to follow any member of the staff who had been allowed to leave the premises, and felt quite safe in letting the manager go. Kephim thanked him weakly, and left. The detective advanced to where two subordinates stood before an open lift, in a recess at the back of the building.

One was his sergeant, who had brought it up to this floor, and he made way for Devenish, and pointed silently to a tiny spot of dry blood on the floor of the lift itself. The other man handed him a long and slender knife, the handle carefully wrapped in tissue paper, with the information that he had found it lying in the corner by the bloodstain.

Devenish examined the knife most carefully, then returned it. ‘Pack it with the other exhibits, Corbett,’ he said. ‘Where was this lift when you first saw it?’

‘It was down in the basement, sir.’

‘But it can be brought automatically to any floor, can’t it?—It can? Is it a very noiseless lift, or not?—Wonderfully quiet, eh?—Right. It is hard to say whether anyone was brought down in this, or simply came up in it.—Sergeant, I want to see the night watchman who patrols this section of the store. Send him here.’

The sergeant having gone off on this errand, Devenish knelt carefully on the floor inside, and fixed the exact position and dimensions of the blood-spot.

‘It seems to me a useful bit of evidence,’ he remarked, as he got up again, ‘but here is the watchman. Carry on! I am going to question him, but farther along the corridor.’

‘This is Mann, the night watchman, sir,’ said the sergeant.

Devenish nodded to the respectably dressed man of forty who had come up, noted that he looked like an ex-soldier, and motioned him to move a yard down the corridor.

‘Now, sergeant, I have a few jobs for you,’ he said. ‘First you must see the assistant-manager, and he must telephone to a director, if needs be, to have the Store closed. We can’t carry on with people trampling over the place; and if it remains open any longer, we shall have a drive of pressmen harrying us.’

‘But what of the assistants, sir?’ asked the sergeant.

‘My dear fellow, we can’t interrogate thirteen hundred odd men and women today. It doesn’t look like a job that one of them would do either. We must keep those in executive positions for the moment, but get the rest away, and the place closed.’

‘I’ll see to it, sir. Anything else?’

‘You must visit Mr Kephim’s flat in Baker Street, and Miss Tumour’s—I’ll give you both addresses. Find out all you can, and particularly when Miss Tumour left home last night. Also discover at what hour Mr Kephim went out and returned.’

‘Very well, sir.’

When the sergeant had gone, Devenish walked over to the waiting witness. ‘What exactly is your usual round when you patrol this section of the stores at night, Mann?’ he asked, while the ex-soldier kept a steady eye on his face.

‘I come on my shift at ten, sir,’ was the reply. ‘I walk round once, and see that it is all O.K. I have a box to sit in between rounds. They’re every hour, sir.’

‘How long does it take you to get round?’

‘Fifteen minutes. That is as I do it now, sir. But then I have only been here two months, and never seen anything suspicious.’

‘Then I may assume that you set out on your rounds at a quarter-past ten, a quarter-past eleven, a quarter-past—’

‘No, sir, it is an hour after finishing each round. I start the second round at a quarter-past eleven, and have it done by half-past eleven. I set out on the third at half-past twelve, and so on, sir.’

‘You are an ex-soldier, Mann—what branch?’

‘Finished as a sergeant, sir. I was an old regular, discharged unfit 1924.’

‘A man of method apparently, anyway,’ said Devenish. ‘Now, did you see or hear anything suspicious last night in the Store?’

He took out his note-book as he spoke.

‘Nothing at all, sir.’

‘No noise like a lift going up or down, no sound that might suggest an aeroplane engine?’

‘I didn’t hear any lift, sir, but then they are uncommon quiet. I did hear a faint sound like an engine up above, but I often hear that weekends, so I don’t count it suspicious.’

‘The dynamos in the basement were running? Why don’t these people take current from the mains?’

‘I don’t know anything about it, sir. I do know Mr Mander used to tinker with machines up above. I thought he was at it again last night; though it didn’t last long.’

Devenish nodded. ‘Let me see where this box of yours is, Mann,’ he said, and called softly to the detective at work in the lift, ‘I say, Corbett, run that lift up and down a bit for the next three minutes, will you, while I am away.’

Receiving an assent from his subordinate, he accompanied the watchman along the corridor, and down another at right angles, which ended in a sort of cabinet. This cabinet contained a seat, a switchboard and telephone, and the bell of a burglar-alarm. Devenish seated himself in the chair, and looked down the corridor. ‘You don’t see much of the Store from here,’ he remarked thoughtfully; ‘only a corner of it.’

‘So I’m not seen, either,’ replied his companion. ‘If I put on my torch, I might frighten any thieves, and if I keep the place dark I can’t see. But, dark or light, I can hear better than anyone else.’

Devenish smiled dryly. ‘You must have very acute hearing indeed, if you can hear slight sounds in a place as big as this, with partitions to cut sounds off or blur them.’

‘It isn’t that my ears are specially good, but this ear here, sir,’ said the man, with a quiet smile, and pointed to a tiny horn, like a gramophone-horn, at the level of his head, which projected slightly from the wall of the cabinet. ‘Mr Mander was great for the latest dodges. I just switch on this microphone here, and every sound comes my way. More than that, sir. There’s a kind of selective attachment to it, and it tells me from what quarter the sound comes, so I can take action.’

‘Royal Engineer?’ asked the detective gently.

‘Signals, sir. But you see what I mean.’

‘Turn on the switch now.’

Mann obeyed, then looked puzzled. The detective did not look so puzzled, but faintly startled.

‘Someone’s been monkeying with your buzz-saw,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t hear any of the noises magnified now.’

Mann had obviously some mechanical knowledge. He examined the horn and the switch, then looked at the electrical connections, and swore.

‘Cut a lead here, sir,’ he said.

Devenish took out his magnifier, and examined the thing closely, then he dusted the panelling in the region of the lead, and scanned it for finger-prints. None showed. Someone had interfered with the microphone, but he had left no traces while doing it.’

‘He must have been here while you went on one of your rounds. Did you not notice that there were no sounds coming through as loud as you would expect to hear them?’

‘I didn’t, sir, but you know how it is. I didn’t suspect anyone was here, and you aren’t so sharp after nothing has happened for two months on end.’

‘An unfortunate but truly human failing,’ agreed Devenish, ‘but I must admit to defects myself. For example, I have not been listening for the sound of the lift going up and down. I must get my man to keep it working.’