John Rhode - Invisible Weapons

There must be some significance in the fact that the track in the field terminated exactly level with the window. Could the criminal have used this means of approach? Jimmy had already satisfied himself that Mr Fransham could not have been attacked from the top of the wall. But could his assailant have climbed the wall and dropped into the carriage-way? Such a feat would not have been beyond the powers of an exceptionally active man. But surely Coates, however much his attention might have been distracted at the moment, would have heard or seen something of this performance?

Jimmy began to examine the wall to see if it contained any crevices which might have afforded foothold. But the wall was comparatively new, and the pointing was still almost perfect. It was a nine inch wall, built in English bond with alternate headers and stretchers. And, as Jimmy scrutinised its surface, he noticed that round one of the headers the texture of the mortar was slightly different from elsewhere. He applied his finger to the place, and found that the surface yielded to his touch. A little further investigation proved that the joint was not made of mortar at all, but of plasticine. Jimmy pressed his hand against the header, which immediately slid back.

He left it at that, and hurried back through the gap in the hedge to the farther side of the wall. Here he found one of the bricks protruding an inch or so. It was an easy matter to grasp it and pull it right out. He bent down and looked through the hole thus formed in the wall. Its line of vision passed horizontally through the opening of the window into the cloakroom beyond. When Mr Fransham bent down over the basin, the top of his head must have been exactly in front of the hole.

Jimmy very soon satisfied himself of the way in which the brick had been removed. The mortar round it had been patiently scraped away, probably by some instrument in the nature of a long screwdriver. A few particles of this mortar lay at the foot of the wall among the roots of the grass. The brick had then been taken out and the walls of the cavity scraped smooth. But if the brick had then been reinserted, the absence of the mortar would have left a space all round it, which would have been noticed at once. An ingenious method had been adopted to get over this. The brick had been carefully wrapped in several thicknesses of gummed paper until it exactly fitted the cavity. The ends of this paper had then been masked with plasticine, coloured so as to match the mortar exactly. Upon replacement of the brick no visible sign remained of the wall having been tampered with.

Jimmy examined the paper in which the brick had been wrapped. He saw at once that it consisted of sheets of some periodical. On removing one or two layers, he found a sheet upon which the name of the periodical appeared. It was the British Medical Journal of the preceding May 22 .

He put the brick back very carefully in its place. Then he picked up the army greatcoat and made his way back with it to the police station.

Sergeant Cload’s face stiffened as he caught sight of his burden. ‘Wherever did you find that, sir, if I may ask?’ he exclaimed.

‘In the very spot where Alfie says he spent last Friday night,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Bring him along here again for a minute, will you?’

Alfie reappeared and Jimmy held the coat up before his eyes. ‘Did you ever see this before, Alfie?’ he asked.

Alfie’s eyes opened wide in amazement. ‘Why glory hallelujah! If it isn’t my old coat come back to find me,’ he exclaimed. Then he frowned suspiciously. ‘You must be the cove that took it off me,’ he said with an air of finality.

‘Wrong this time, Alfie,’ Jimmy replied. ‘All right, sergeant, take him away.’

By the time that Cload returned, Jimmy was busy drawing a plan in his notebook. He looked up and grinned cheerfully at the sergeant. ‘Jolly case, this,’ he said. ‘It’s absolutely brimful of contradictions. To begin with, how did Alfie’s coat find its way to the corner where its original possessor spent Friday night?’

Cload shook his head. ‘You can’t take any heed of what Alfie says when he’s like this, sir,’ he replied. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he was deliberately lying when he told us that story just now. He may honestly have believed that those things had really happened, whereas he had only imagined or dreamt them.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Jimmy, taking the paper containing the cigarette ends from his pocket. ‘I found these lying on the grass under Alfie’s coat just now. Alfie can’t have enjoyed them very much, for in nearly every case he’s left an inch of stump. And if you look closely at them, sergeant, you can see the name of the brand printed on them. Black’s Russian Blend.’

‘Yes, I can see that plain enough, sir,’ Cload replied. ‘But I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of them before.’

‘That’s very likely, for they aren’t sold everywhere. You can only get them at one of Black’s shops in London. It seems to me that those cigarette ends to some extent confirm Alfie’s story of the cove he met.’

Cload looked a trifle dubious. ‘When Alfie’s in these moods, he’ll ask anybody he meets for fags. And it doesn’t follow that whoever gave him these asked for his coat in exchange.’

‘It doesn’t follow, certainly. Your theory, I take it, is that Alfie, following his usual habit, accosted some worthy citizen of Adderminster and was given the cigarettes of which these are the ends.’

‘That’s about it, sir. I don’t somehow believe in the man with the flashlamp who bought Alfie’s coat. Whoever could want such a filthy old thing as that?’

‘Ah, that’s just it! But do you know anybody in Adderminster who smokes Black’s Russian Blend?’

‘I can’t say that I do, sir, but that doesn’t count for much. There are plenty of people in Adderminster who go up to London three and four times a week. There’s nothing to prevent any of them from buying these cigarettes at one of the shops you speak of, sir.’

‘I wonder if Dr Thornborough smokes them?’

Cload shook his head. ‘The doctor only smokes a pipe, sir. I’ve heard him say more than once that cigarettes always make him cough.’

Jimmy glanced at the clock. ‘It’s a quarter to one now,’ he said. ‘If I walk up to Epidaurus , I ought to catch the doctor as he comes home to lunch.’

When Jimmy reached the house, Lucy informed him that the doctor had already returned, and showed him into the consulting-room. Here, a minute later, Dr Thornborough joined him. He looked very careworn, and it was easy to tell that the events of the last twenty-four hours had played havoc with his nerves.

‘Well, inspector?’ he demanded curtly. ‘What’s your business?’

‘My business is concerned with Alfie Prince, doctor,’ replied Jimmy quietly.

Dr Thornborough had clearly expected a very different answer. ‘Alfie Prince!’ he said, wearily passing his hand across his forehead. ‘I’d forgotten all about him. You must excuse me, but this terrible affair has shaken me up pretty badly. What do you want me to do about Alfie Prince?’

‘Nothing, just now, doctor. Alfie’s out of mischief for the moment in one of the cells at the police station. You saw him yesterday on your way home to luncheon, didn’t you?’

‘Not to speak to. He merely happened to cross the road in front of me.’

‘How far away from you was he when you saw him?’

‘Oh, a couple of hundred yards, I dare say. Certainly not less.’

‘Did you notice him particularly?’

‘I can’t say that I did. Seeing that it was Alfie, I didn’t take any further notice of him,’

‘Were you surprised to find him wandering about up here?’