Footsteps in the Dark Read online

  ‘Yes, not a pretty sight,’ Charles said.

  They remained seated in the bar, until the noise of a car approaching roused Wilkes from his awe-struck meditations. The car drew up outside, and he hurriedly concealed the tell-tale glasses. ‘I’ll go and let ’em in, sir,’ he said, and went out to the main door.

  Charles and Peter followed him. Inspector Tomlinson was standing in the entrance, and at sight of Charles he said briskly: ‘Very good of you to wait, sir. Hope we haven’t kept you. If you’ll come out I’ve got a car here, and you can tell me what has happened while we go along to this place. Where is it, sir?’

  ‘Only a stone’s throw. I’ll direct you.’

  ‘Who’s the dead man, sir? Do you know him?’

  ‘Duval. The artist I spoke to you about.’

  ‘I remember, sir,’ the inspector said. As usual he displayed nothing but a business-like and detached interest in the occurrence. ‘Will you get in beside Sergeant Matthews in the front, sir, and tell him the way? This is Dr Puttock, the Divisional Surgeon. Can you find room behind, Mr Fortescue? I’m afraid it’s a tight fit.’

  Peter managed to wedge himself between Dr Puttock and the inspector, and the car started forward. In a few minutes it turned into the rough lane, and drew up outside the cottage.

  ‘I shall have to ask you gentlemen to come in with me,’ the inspector said. ‘Hope you don’t mind, sir.’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Charles said, and got out of the car.

  They went into the cottage, and the sergeant, producing a note-book began to write in it, his eyes lifting from it from time to time to observe everything in the room. None of the three men paid any attention to Charles or Peter for some time, but when the body had been taken down and laid on the floor, the inspector seemed to become aware of them again, and said kindly: ‘Not very pleasant for you two gentlemen, but we shan’t keep you very long, I hope… Note the position of that chair, Matthews. Looks as though deceased must have stood upon it, doesn’t it?’ He glanced down at the doctor who was kneeling beside the body, making some sort of an inspection. ‘Clear case of suicide, eh, doctor? As soon as the ambulance comes we’ll get the body away.’

  The doctor spoke over his shoulder. ‘Hand me my bag, will you, inspector?’ He opened it, and took out a pair of forceps. As far as Peter could see, from his place by the door, he was doing something inside the dead man’s mouth. Then the doctor shifted his position slightly, and Peter could see only his back. At length he got up, and closely scrutinised something that his forceps had found. He took a test-tube from his case, and carefully dropped the infinitesimal thing the forceps held into it. Then he corked it tightly.

  The inspector watched him with the air of an inquisitive terrier. ‘Got something, doctor?’

  ‘I shall want to do a more thorough examination,’ the doctor replied. He glanced down at the body. ‘You can cover it, sergeant. I’ve finished for the present.’ He replaced the test tube in his case. ‘I’m not satisfied that this is a case of suicide,’ he said. ‘I found a scrap of cotton wool in the deceased’s nostrils, very far back.’

  The inspector pursed his lips into a soundless whistle. ‘Nothing in the mouth, doctor?’

  ‘Nothing now,’ said the doctor significantly.

  ‘Better go over the place for finger-prints,’ the inspector said. ‘Now, Mr Malcolm, if you please, I’d like to hear just how you happened to find the body.’

  Charles gave him a clear and concise account of all that had passed that evening, up to the time of the discovery of the corpse. He neither omitted any relevant point nor became discursive, and at the end of his statement Sergeant Matthews, who had taken it down, looked up gratefully.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ the inspector said. ‘If more witnesses were as clear as you are the police would have an easier time.’

  Charles smiled. ‘I’m not exactly new to this sort of thing,’ he said.

  The inspector cast him a shrewd glance. ‘I thought I’d spotted you, sir. I saw you at the Norchester Assizes about six months ago, didn’t I?’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ Charles said. ‘Now there’s one other thing I’d like to mention. When my brother-in-law and I reached the Bell Inn, the barman went to rouse Wilkes, the landlord, while I was ringing you up. As soon as I had finished speaking to the station, I turned round to find that Strange had come in with his own latchkey, and had been listening to all I’d said.’

  The doctor looked up sharply. ‘Strange?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes, doctor, we’ve got a note about him,’ the inspector said. ‘Go on, sir.’

  ‘He asked us what we had found, and upon my refusing to tell him, he seemed distinctly annoyed, and said, as near as I can remember, that he advised us to stop poking our noses where they weren’t wanted. I asked whether that was a threat, and he replied that it was a warning which he advised us to take.’

  ‘That’s very interesting, sir,’ the inspector said. ‘You say he came in from the street?’

  ‘Yes, using his own key.’

  ‘Then Strange was not in the Inn when this happened,’ the inspector said. ‘I think I’ll be having a word with him.’ He nodded to the sergeant. ‘You’d better run these gentlemen back to their home, Matthews. I take it they know at the Inn where we are, sir?’

  ‘Wilkes knows, yes.’

  ‘Then he’ll direct the ambulance on. Now, sir, I don’t think there’s any need for me to keep you standing about here any longer, but if you could make it convenient to come over to the station tomorrow we may have something more to ask you. And we’d like you to read through your statement, which we’ll have put into longhand by then, and sign it. Sergeant Matthews will drive you home now. I hope what you’ve seen won’t keep you awake.’ He went out with them to the car, and saw them off. The police car backed down the lane to the main road, and in a very short time deposited them at their own front door.

  Celia and Margaret were both awake, and no sooner had the two men entered the house than Margaret leaned over the banisters, and asked them to come up at once and tell them what had happened.

  Celia was sitting up in bed with a shawl round her shoulders. ‘Thank goodness you’re back!’ she sighed. ‘You’ve been away such ages we’ve imagined all sorts of horrors. Did you discover anything?’

  Charles and Peter exchanged glances. ‘They’re bound to know when the inquest comes on,’ Peter said. ‘Tell them.’

  ‘Inquest?’ Margaret said sharply. ‘Who’s dead? You haven’t – no, of course you haven’t.’

  ‘It’s Duval,’ Charles explained. ‘We didn’t find him in our grounds, so Peter suggested we should go down to his cottage. And we found him there, dead.’

  ‘Murdered?’ Celia quavered, gripping her shawl with both hands.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Charles answered, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘Apparently he hanged himself, but we shan’t know definitely whether it was suicide or not till the inquest, I imagine.’

  ‘But what a ghastly thing!’ Margaret said. ‘Who can – oh, surely it wasn’t murder? Why should anyone think so?’

  ‘Well, perhaps it isn’t,’ Charles said consolingly. ‘Peter and I have got to go over to the police-station to-morrow, and we may hear something fresh then. At present we only know that the doctor wasn’t satisfied, and is going to conduct a post mortem.’

  ‘Please tell us just what happened!’ Margaret begged.

  Charles made the story as short as possible, and he did not mention the doctor’s discovery. At the end of his tale Celia said: ‘If anyone killed him it was the Monk, and now we know for certain he’s not a ghost. Well, I always said I wasn’t scared of flesh and blood, but do you think it’s safe for us here?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ her brother replied. ‘If the Monk did murder Duval it’s fairly certain he did it because Duval had discovered his identity. Or even because he knew Duval had been talking to us. He isn’t likely to try to do any of us in. Too risky, for one thing, a