John Rhode - Invisible Weapons

‘His wife’s uncle was found dead in his house soon after one o’clock yesterday.’

‘How very annoying! I should hate any of my well-loved and respected relatives to expire in my arms. Unless, of course, their testamentary depositions compensated for the shock to my nerves. But surely you haven’t come to talk to me about the deceased uncle of the doctor’s wife? Sounds too terribly like a lesson in elementary French.’

‘That’s just what I have come to talk about. It’s just possible that you may have seen or heard something which may throw light upon the man’s death. To begin with, what were you doing between one and a quarter past yesterday afternoon, Mr Willingdon?’

With a gesture, Willingdon indicated the table.

‘Much what I’m doing now, or should have been doing but for the unexpected pleasure of your visit,’ he replied. ‘Replenishing the jaded body with its needful sustenance.’

‘And what did you do when you had completed the process?’

Willingdon pointed to the sofa. ‘I laid myself recumbent on yonder couch,’ he replied. ‘And there I still was when the summons of the door-knocker roused me from my slumbers.’

‘You had a visitor?’ Jimmy suggested.

‘You have divined the truth, inspector. It’s not the first time that people have knocked on the door while I’ve been down here. But, as a rule, I don’t open it and after a time they go away. I had no intention of opening the door yesterday afternoon, imagining that time would abate the nuisance. So it did, but the nuisance reasserted itself. It manifested itself this time by a tapping on the window. I couldn’t stand that, so I got up to see who it was.’

‘What time was this?’ Jimmy asked.

Willingdon frowned. ‘I have always refused to be a slave to that ridiculous convention which you call time,’ he replied. ‘Besides, there’s no such thing, as any of these modern scientific johnnies will tell you. It was sometime in the afternoon, too early for my system to demand the stimulus of tea, and not yet late enough for it to have recovered from its post-prandial somnolence.’

‘Somewhere between two and three o’clock, perhaps?’

‘Very likely. I opened the window, and a husky voice hailed me. “Got any fags to spare, guv’nor?”’

‘What did the man look like?’ Jimmy asked.

‘Nothing on earth. You couldn’t imagine him unless you had read The King in Yellow , which I don’t suppose you have.’

Jimmy smiled. ‘“Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the king,”’ he quoted. ‘Is that what you were thinking of?’

‘Once more you have divined it. There was something kingly in his assurance that his request would not be denied. And the tatters—the yellow tatters! Nowhere but in Carcosa could he have found a garment like that.’

‘Could you describe it?’

‘Words don’t often fail me, as you may have noticed. But for that purpose, I can think of none adequate. It still retained a faint suggestion of military discomfort about the collar, as though some veteran of the Peninsula war had cowered in it behind the lines of Torres Vedras. In colour it was yellow, the yellow of dank and mouldering corruption. It was probably verminous, and most certainly it stank.’

‘Could you describe the man who was wearing it?’

‘Red hair, wandering blue eyes and a pungent aroma of perspiration. Those were my impressions.’

‘Did you give him any cigarettes?’

‘I did. I gave him a handful out of that box you see over there. I thought it was the quickest way of getting rid of him. And he said, “Honourable toff, here’s my best thanks.” I liked that, for he’s the first person who’s ever thought me honourable or considered me a toff.’

‘What happened after that?’

‘“Erupit, evasit, as Tully would phrase it!” He hasn’t troubled me since, I’m thankful to say.’

In reply to further questions Willingdon gave the following information. He had taken the cottage for a month, having seen it advertised in The Times

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