Enter A Murderer

CHAPTER XXI This Ineffable Effrontery

Inspector Fox was accustomed to what he termed unpleasantness, but for a moment he nearly lost his grip on the iron ladder.

“Props,” he said slowly. “So Props was the man, after all.”

“Come up here,” said Alleyn.

They stood together on the first gallery. Their faces were on a level with the shoulders of the swinging body. The rope that had hanged him was a slack end of the pulley that had suspended the chandelier. It was made fast to a cleat on the top gallery. Fox leant out and touched the hand.

“He’s still warm.”

“It happened,” said Alleyn, “just before Thompson rang up the Yard.”

He stood with his hands clenched to the rail of the gallery, gazing, as if against his will, at the body.

“I should have prevented this,” he said. “I should have made the arrest this afternoon.”

“I don’t see that,” said Fox in his ponderous way. “How could you have foretold—”

“This ineffable effrontery,” finished Alleyn. “Poor Props.”

“That sort’s very liable to suicide.”

“Suicide?” Alleyn turned to him. “This is not suicide.”

“Not—?”

“It’s murder. Come up to the gallery here.”

They climbed the upper length of ladder. Alleyn paused when his head and shoulders were above the top gallery and switched on his torch.

“Swept!” he said, with a kind of triumph. “Now, my beauty — I’ve got you!”

“What’s that, sir?” asked Fox from below.

“The gallery’s been swept. Do suicides tidy up the ground when they set about it? Thick dust farther along. The typewriter was too tidy and so’s this gallows. There’ll be no prints, but the mark of the criminal is all over it. We can take the body down now, Fox. I’ll stay here a moment. You go back.”

They had to draw the body in to the first gallery and then get it down the ladder — no easy job. At last Props lay on the stage in his accustomed surroundings. In answer to Fox’s whistle the others had come in from the doors. Thompson was white about the gills and couldn’t speak. Alleyn turned to him.

“We’ve had ill luck to-day, Thompson,” he said. “I should have made more sure of him.”

“It’s my fault, sir.”

“No,” said Alleyn; “the poor devil was too quick for you.”

“I still don’t see how it was worked.”

“Suppose I said I’d meet you here. Suppose I’d killed a man and you knew it. I get here first. I go up there to the platform, put a noose in that rope, and make the other end fast. Then I climb down again. You come in, very nervous. You’ve been followed, you say, but you’ve shaken them off. We start to talk. Then I say I can hear someone coming along that passage. ‘By God, they’re after us,’ I say. ‘Come on up this ladder. Quick.’ I go up first, past the lower landing. He follows. I get to the top landing and wait with the noose in my hands. As his head comes up, I drop it over. One fierce tug. He loosens his hands and claws his neck. Then a heavy thrust and — That’s how it worked.”

“My oath!” said Fox.

“Yes, but I’ve left a broom up there because I know my stockinged feet will leave prints in the dust — the thick dust. So while Props is jerking in the air I sweep away the dust. He’s hidden by the ceiling-cloth. He won’t be missed until to-morrow. It’s an old building — some more dust will have fallen then. They may not find him at once, and if they do it looks like suicide. So I take the broom down with me and leave it on the stage in its usual place. Then I run down those nightmare passages into the little store-room. Thompson is in the yard outside. I wait. Presently I hear him go off to get his man from the front of the theatre. That’s my chance. When he comes back — I’m not there.”

“I see,” said Fox heavily. “Yes. I see.”

“Now, look here.” Alleyn bent over the body. “The head and shoulders are covered in dust. It was there while he was still hanging. It was swept off the top gallery. Analysis will prove it. We’ve got to come all over scientific, Fox.”

“It can’t be Saint and it wasn’t Props. That’s two people cleared away in favour of your theory, sir.”

“It is.”

“What do we do now, then?”

“Get hold of the men who were watching the rest of the party.”

“I’ll ring up the Yard. Reports should have come through by now.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “Do that, Fox. I’m especially anxious for the report from Cambridge.”

“Yes.”

“And from — who’s that fellow? Oh, Detective-Sergeant Watkins. Find out if he’s been relieved, and if he has tell them to get hold of him and send him round here.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And ring up Bailey. He’ll be in bed now, poor creature, but we’ll have to beat him up. And the divisional surgeon. Oh, Lord — here we go again.”

Fox disappeared through the proscenium door. Alleyn went back along the stone passages. He turned up the lights and examined the floor and walls carefully. He walked, hugging the wall, all the way to the room with the broken window. Here he examined the floor, the walls, the window-sill and the yard outside. He turned his torch on the gate, climbed it, and scrutinized the top meticulously. Here he found a tiny scrap of black cloth which he preserved.

Then he returned to the stage.

He shook some of the dust from Props’s hair into an envelope, sealed it up, and, taking a fresh envelope, turned his attention to the shoulders of the coat. He climbed the ladder to the top gallery, where. he took a further sample of dust. Using his pocket-lens and his torch he examined the rope carefully, paying particular attention to the noose and the three or four feet above it. He also scrutinized the rail and floor of the gallery for some distance beyond the place where the ladder came up. He then measured the length of the drop. Returning to the stage he found a broom under the electrician’s gallery, and from this also he obtained a specimen of dust. He examined the body, paying particular attention to the hands. Bailey and the divisional surgeon arrived while he was still about this business.

“You’ll find no prints except his,” said Alleyn.

The surgeon made his examination.

“I hear the verdict is murder,” he said. “I don’t know your reading of it, inspector, but he died from strangulation and a broken neck. I can see no signs of anything else, except a slight bruise at the base of the neck.”

“Could that have been caused by a downward kick from a stockinged foot?” Alleyn asked.

“Yes,” said the surgeon. He looked up to where the iron ladder ran into the galleries. “I see,” he said.

“What about Watkins?”

Fox, who had returned to the stage, answered: “He’d gone home but they are turning him out.”

“Any news from Cambridge?”

“A long statement from a servant at Peterhouse. They’re sending it round with the officer who went down there. The mortuary van’s here.”

“Right. They can come in now.”

Fox went to the stage door and returned followed by two men with a stretcher.

Props was carried out of the Unicorn at exactly midnight.

“I feel like Hamlet when he killed Polonius,” said Alleyn.

“Shakespeare,” said Fox. “I don’t read that sort of thing myself.”

But the surgeon stood on the stage and said quietly: “ ‘Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.’ I suppose the words have been spoken here before,” he reflected.

“Under somewhat different circumstances,” said Alleyn harshly.

“Here’s Watkins,” said Fox.

Detective-Sergeant Watkins was a stocky, sandy-headed man. He looked worried.

“You want to see me, sir?” he said to Alleyn.

“I want an account of your day, Watkins.”

“Very monotonous it was really. The party I was looking after stayed indoors from the time I relieved until the time I came off.”

“Are you sure of that?”

Watkins flushed.

“I sat on a bench in the gardens opposite and I stood by the lamp-post. I never took my eyes off the door, sir.”

“Who passed in and out?”

“Other people in the building. I saw my party several times — looked out of the window.”

“When was the last time you noted that?”

“At fifteen minutes to ten, sir,” said Watkins triumphantly.

“Who came out of the building after that?”

“Quite a number of people, sir. Going out for supper-parties and so on. I recognized most of them as residents.”

“Any that you did not recognize?”

“There was a woman. Looked like a working woman, I thought, and a couple of housemaids, and before them an old gentleman in a soft hat and a dinner suit and a sort of opera cloak. He was a bit lame. The commissionaire got him a taxi. I heard him say ‘The Plaza Theatre’ to the driver. I asked the commissionaire about them just to be on the safe side. He’s a dense sort of bloke. He thought the woman must have been doing odd work in one of the flats. The old gent he didn’t know, but said he came from the top floor, and had probably been dining there. The housemaids came from the street-level flat”

“That’s all?”

“No, sir. One other. A young fellow wearing a shepherd’s plaid double-breasted suit, a bowler hat, and a dark blue tie with pale blue stripes, came along. I crossed the street and heard him name our party’s floor to the liftman.”

“Had he a fair moustache and a carnation in his coat?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he reappear?” Alleyn asked sharply.

“He came out again after about five minutes and walked off towards the square. That’s all, sir. I was relieved at ten-fifteen by Detective-Sergeant Allison. He’s still on duty.”

“Thank you. That’s all, Watkins.”

“Have I gone wrong anywhere, sir?”

“Yes. You’ve mistaken a murderer for an innocent person. I don’t know that I blame you. Get one of these men to relieve Allison and ask him to report here immediately.”

Watkins said nothing, but looked miserable. He and Thompson conferred sympathetically. After a few moments Watkins said diffidently:

“If I may, sir, I’d like to relieve Allison myself.”

“Very well, Watkins. If anybody comes away from the building, man or woman, stop them, speak to them, get their names and addresses and make sure they are what they seem. Thompson, you can go too if you like. Don’t look so injured, both of you. We’ve all gone wrong over this.”

A pause, and then Thompson addressed the lining of his hat with some feeling.

“We’d both go back on P.C. night-duty before we’d let you down, if you know what I mean, sir.”

“That’s right,” said Watkins fervently.

“Well, push off, you couple of boobies,” said Alleyn. He turned to Fox. “I’m going to the telephone. The statement from Peterhouse ought to be here any moment. If Allison comes before I’m back, get a report on those lines from him.”

“Are you going for a warrant-to-arrest tonight?” asked Fox.

“I don’t think so. I’ll still stage my performance tomorrow morning.”

Alleyn went through the front of the house and sought out the telephone in the box-office. Enlargements of actresses smiled or stared soulfully at him from the walls. “All the best,” “To dear Robert,” “Ever yours,” he read. In the centre was a magnificent picture of a woman standing in an open window. Written firmly across the mount were two words only: “Stephanie Vaughan.” When he had dialled his number Alleyn turned and gazed steadfastly at this picture.

“Hullo!” said a sleepy voice in the receiver.

“Hullo. I thought I said there were to be no more little visits.”

“Oh — it’s you.”

“It is,” said Alleyn grimly.

“I had an idea. You needn’t get all hot and bothered, I didn’t see anybody. I rang for five minutes and then came away. Even the servant was out.”

“You rang for five minutes, did you?”

“Yes. I say, is everything all right?”

“Perfectly splendid. There’s been another murder at the Unicorn.”

“What!!”

“Go to bed and stay there,” advised Alleyn and hung up the receiver.

He crossed over and looked more closely at the photograph on the opposite wall.

“Oh, hell!” he said and went back to the stage of the Unicorn.