John Rhode - Invisible Weapons

‘Eh!’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘How the devil do you know that?’

‘While I was in here waiting for you, sir, I heard a gentleman go into the cloakroom and lock the door behind him.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, look here. Fransham’s heart is inclined to be dicky. And I’m a little bit afraid this hot weather may have upset him. I’d like to get the door open, but I don’t know how to manage it.’

‘Perhaps there’s a window that you could climb in by, sir?’ Linton suggested.

Dr Thornborough shook his head impatiently. ‘No good!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve thought of that already. The window’s barred, and, if it wasn’t, it doesn’t open wide enough to let anybody through. Do you think you could manage to force the door?’

Linton smiled. He was six foot two, broad in proportion and weighed seventeen stone. ‘I think I might be able to manage it, sir,’ he replied.

‘Come along then.’ They hurried across the hall and the doctor pointed to the door of the cloakroom. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Now let’s see what you can do.’

‘I shall have to break the lock, I’m afraid, sir,’ Linton replied warningly.

‘Oh, damn the lock! Fire away and open the door. That’s all I care about.’

Linton applied his shoulder to the door and gave an apparently effortless heave. With a sound of rending wood the door flew open. Linton entered the cloakroom, Dr Thornborough close at his heels. Just inside the doorway they came to a sudden halt. Stretched on the ground in front of them was the body of an elderly man lying flat on his back.

At that moment the deep boom of the luncheon gong rang like a knell through the house.

Before the reverberations of the gong had died away, Dr Thornborough was on his knees beside the fallen man with Linton standing close behind him. The doctor made a rapid examination.

‘It’s Uncle Bob, and he’s dead!’ he exclaimed without looking up. ‘For Heaven’s sake shut the door, Linton, and fix it somehow so that it won’t open. We don’t want the women crowding in here and seeing this.’

Linton shut the door and managed to jam the broken lock. Then he returned to his station by the doctor’s side, uncertain what he should do. Even his inexperience could tell at a glance that Mr Fransham had not died of heart failure.

The body stretched on the floor was that of a man nearing sixty, grey-headed and clean-shaven. His rugged features and protruding chin proclaimed him to have been a man of strong will. In the front of his head above the middle of his forehead the skin was broken and the bone beneath it fractured. Linton felt assured that Mr Fransham had died as the result of a blow from some blunt instrument. The blood from the wound had trickled down the dead man’s cheek and collected in a small pool on the rubber flooring.

The cloakroom measured about fifteen feet by twelve. Its only entrance was by the door from the hall. The wall on the left of this entrance was provided with a series of hooks, upon which hung an array of masculine coats and hats. Against the opposite wall was a water-closet and, separated from this by a thin partition running half-way across the room, a lavatory basin. In the wall behind the basin was a window, glazed with frosted glass, and between this and the basin a wide window-ledge faced with vitrolite. Only a small panel of this window, less than a foot square, was made to open. It was now open inwards and secured by a rod and pin. The window looked out upon the carriage-way running beside the house from one of the drive gates to the garage. On the outside the window was protected by stout iron bars set about six inches apart. The carriage-way was about twelve feet wide, and it was bounded on its further side by an eight-foot brick wall.

Dr Thornborough rose slowly to his feet, keeping his eyes fixed upon the dead man’s face. ‘This is pretty ghastly,’ he muttered, more to himself than to Linton. ‘Uncle Bob dead like this, and here of all places. I don’t begin to understand it.’ He looked up suddenly and faced the policeman. ‘What are we going to do about it, Linton?’ he asked helplessly.

‘It’s my duty to take particulars, sir,’ Linton replied rather stiffly. ‘To begin with, would you mind telling me this gentleman’s full name and address?’

‘His name is Robert Fransham,’ Dr Thornborough replied. ‘His age is fifty-eight and his address is 4 Cheveley Street, London, SW1. You’ve heard me call him Uncle Bob, but he’s not really my uncle, he’s my wife’s, and the devil of it is that his sister, my wife’s mother, is staying with us at this very moment.’

‘What in your opinion was the cause of death, sir?’

‘You can see that for yourself, I should think. A depressed fracture of the anterior portion of the skull, severe enough to cause immediate death.’

‘Can you suggest what could have caused such a fracture, sir?’

‘I can’t. That’s just the puzzle. The fracture was caused by the impact of some hard body, of course. And that body must have been of a definite shape. You know what a cube is, I suppose?’

‘I think so, sir. It’s the shape of dice or of lumps of sugar.’

‘That’s right. Well, the nature of this fracture suggests that Fransham was struck by the edge of a cube an inch and a half across. And if you can suggest how that happened, you’re cleverer than I am.’

‘Perhaps if we were to search the room, we should find the object, sir.’

‘You’re at liberty to search as much as you like. In fact, it seems to me that this business is up to you. Meanwhile, I’m faced with the particularly unpleasant task of breaking the news to my wife. She and her uncle were devoted to one another, and she’s going to take it pretty badly.’

Dr Thornborough walked slowly out of the room and Linton secured the door behind him. He had no wish to be interrupted at this stage of the proceedings. He was first in the field and meant to take full advantage of the fact.

The dead man was lying flat on his back at right angles to the wall on which the coat-hooks were fixed, and with his arms outstretched. His feet were towards the lavatory basin and a few inches from it in the horizontal direction. The basin itself was half full of soapy water, still warm.

Linton examined the dead man’s hands and found that they were damp and soapy. This, together with the position in which the body was lying, suggested that Mr Fransham must have been actually washing his hands when he was struck. A cake of soap still moist was lying on the floor beneath the basin. Two clean towels hung on a rail nearby. Their appearance indicated that neither of them had been used.

Linton took up his position in front of the basin as though he were about to wash his hands in it. Looking straight in front of him he found that his head was on a level with the open pane of the window. Further, his view of the wall on the opposite side of the carriage-way was not obstructed by the protecting bars. From the centre of the basin to these bars was a matter of thirty inches, measured horizontally.

Linton entered these facts in his notebook and shook his head forebodingly. He didn’t at all like the way in which things were shaping. But for the moment he had done everything that could be expected of him. It was time that he got into touch with his superiors.

He opened the door of the cloakroom and peeped out. There seemed to be nobody about, though he could hear the sound of voices behind the closed door of the dining-room. He went to the telephone instrument which stood on a table in the hall, and rang through to Sergeant Cload, keeping his eye on the cloakroom door meanwhile.

His report to the sergeant was very guarded, since he was not sure who might be listening to him.