John Carr - The Plague Court Murders

"It looks," I said, "like a bullet-hole."

"But, my God, the man wasn't shot!" cried Halliday. "There'd have been bullets found in the wounds. And there weren't any found by the police surgeon."

"It was a very special sort of bullet, my dear fathead," said H.M. softly. "It was made, in fact, of rock-salt.... They dissolve, my fathead, between four and six minutes at blood-heat; it takes longer than that for a dead body to cool. And, when a dead body is lying in front of one of the hottest fires in England with its back exposed.... Son, it's nothing new. The French police have used 'em for some time; they're antiseptic, and no dangerous extractions of the bullet necessary when used on a burglar; it dissolves. But if it pierces the heart, the man's just as dead as though it had been lead."

He turned, and heaved" up an arm to point.

"Was Louis Playge's dagger originally exactly the same circumference as a bullet from a thirty-eight caliber revolver? Eh? Burn me, I dunno. But Darworth ground it down to the same size: not a millimeter difference. Darworth constructed his own rock-salt bullet, fatheads, on his own lathe. He got his material from one of those pieces of rock-salt 'sculpture' that Ted very, very innocently mentioned to Masters and Ken. He left traces of the salt on the lathe. It might have been fired, there bein' no noise, either from an air-pistol-which is the method I should have chosen myself-or from an ordinary pistol with a silencer. When thick incense, is burned in a small room, notwithstandin', I conclude that it was an ordinary pistol with powder-smoke that might be smelled.... Finally, it could have been fired through a big keyhole; but, as a matter of fact, the muzzle of a .38 exactly fits one of the nice grating-spaces of any of the four windows round this room. The windows, somebody may have told you, are up against the roof. If - I say if - somebody could get on that roof...."

From outside, in the yard, there was a shout, and then a scream. Masters' voice yelled, "Look out!" and two heavy shots exploded just as H.M. pushed aside the table and heaved himself towards the door.

"That was Darworth's scheme," snarled H.M. "But the little joker firin' them shots now is the murderer. Get that

door open, Ken. I'm afraid the murderer's loose.... I wrenched the bolt back, pushed up the bar, and

dragged the door open. The yard was a nightmare of darting lights. Something ducked past us, a low shape in the moonlight, started to run for our door, and then whirled as we stumbled out. There was a needle-spit flash, and a flat bang almost in our faces. Through a wake of powder smoke, we could see Masters-a bull's-eye lantern in his hand-charging after that running figure which zigzagged about the yard. H.M.'s bellow rose above the din of shouts:

"You goddamned fool, didn't you search----?'

"Didn't say anything," Masters yelled back chokingly, "about being under arrest.... You said not to.... Head off, boys! Close in! Can't-get-out of the yard now.... Penned in...."

Other shapes, flickering long flashlight beams, darted round the side of the house....

"Got the devil!" somebody shouted out of the dark. "Penned in a corner-“

"No," said a clear thin voice out of the dark; "no, you haven't."

I will swear to this day that I saw the revolver flash lighting up a face, a mouth split in triumphant defiance, as that woman fired a last bullet into her own forehead. Something went down in a sodden heap, over against the wall near Louis Playge's crooked tree. . . . Then there was a great silence in the yard, smoke white against the moon, and dragging footsteps as men closed in.

"Let's have your lamp," H.M. said in a heavy voice to Masters. "Gentlemen," he said with a sort of bitter flourish, "go over and take a look at the most brilliant she-devil who ever gave an old veteran the nightmare. Take the lamp, Halliday - don't be afraid, man!"

The bright light shook in his hand. It caught a white face turned sideways in the mud by the wall, the mouth open still sardonically....

Halliday started, and peered. "But - but who is it?" he demanded. "I'll swear I never saw that woman before. She's"

"Oh, yes you have, son," said H.M.

I remembered a picture in a newspaper; a fleeting one, cloudy and uncertain, and I hardly heard myself saying:

"That's ... that's Glenda Darworth, H.M. That's his second wife. But you said - Halliday's right - we never

saw.... "Oh, yes, you did," repeated H.M. Then his big voice raised: "But you never recognized her all the time she was masquerading as `Joseph', did you?"

XX

THE MURDERER

“WHAT annoys me most," growled H.M., who was heating water on a forbidden gas-ring in the lavatory connecting with his office, "what annoys me most is that I should've spotted this whole business a day earlier-naturally, fatheads - if I'd only known everything that you knew. It wasn't until last night and this morning (or yesterday morning) that I got a chance to go over everything with Masters; and then I could 'a' kicked myself. Humph. Comes o' tryin' to be godlike."

It was close on two o'clock in the morning. We had come back to H.M.'s office, roused the night watchman, and stumbled up the four flights of stairs to the Owl's Nest. The watchman built us a fire, and H.M. insisted on brewing a bowl of whisky punch to celebrate. Halliday, Featherton, and I sat in the decrepit leather chairs about H.M.'s desk while he came back with the boiling water.

"Once you'd got the essential clue, that Joseph was Glenda Darworth all the time, the rest is easy. Trouble is, there was so much wool and padding round the business that it was last night before I tumbled to it. Another

thing got in the way, too; I can see that now.... "But, look here!" grumbled the major, who was struggling to light a cigar. "It can't be! What I want to know is--"

"You're goin' to hear it," said H.M., "as soon as we get comfortable. This water should be what the Irish call `screeching hot '- just a minute-that sugar, now! ..."

"And also," said Halliday, "how she happened to be in that yard a couple of hours ago, and who fired those shots through the window tonight; and how the devil the murderer reached the roof in the first place"

H.M. said, "Drink first!" After the punch had been tasted, and H.M. flattered on its quality, he grew more expansive. He settled down so that the light of the desk lamp did not get in his eyes, stretched his feet on the desk with an expiring sigh, and began talking to his glass.

"The funny part was, Ken and old Durrand in Paris stumbled slap on the whole explanation, even to the dead give-away of the business, if they'd only had the sense to apply it to the right person. But they picked on poor Mrs. Sweeney; naturally, I suppose, becoz Joseph was apparently lyin' burned to a cinder on a morgue-slab with the dagger in his back.

"Son, in essentials that theory was absolutely right. Glenda Darworth was the strong-minded, bleed-their-purses lady; the brain behind Darworth's personality; and she'd have played the part of a Cherokee Indian if it had helped their game. Trouble is, you had to look farther than Mrs. Sweeney. Because why? Because Mrs. Sweeney was never in the thick of things; she was never in a position where she could keep an eye on the people and make strategic moves unobserved; all she did was sit at home and be a respectable housekeeper for a weak-minded boy.

But Joseph - well, if you're considerin' a suspect to occupy that position, Joseph jumps out at you. He was never out of the middle of things, because he was the medium. They had to have him; he was indispensable; and not one thing could occur without his knowing it. And you had the complete answer, Ken, when that lady friend of yours deliberately told you the names of the plays in which Glenda Darworth had made her big hits. . . . Remember 'em?"