Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 12, 1967

Roy Vickers Dinner for Two

Another irresistible true-to-life {almost frighteningly so) case from the records of the elephant-memoried, never-give-up Department of Dead Ends, an imperishable semi-procedural series in the history of the modem detective story...

Today, if you were to mention the Ennings mystery, you would be assured that “everyone knows” that Dennis Yawle murdered Charles Ennings. In this case, “everyone” happens to be right, though for the wrong reasons. The public of the day decided that he was guilty because he denounced an attractive young woman of pleasing manners and assumed respectability. And “everyone knows” that nice young women don’t commit murder, whatever their walk in life, and that self-centered, solitary, aggressive little men sometimes do.

Charles Ennings was a patent agent. He lived in a flat on the third floor at Barslade Mansions, Westminster, the kind of flats that are occupied by moderately successful professional men and junior directors. A bachelor, with a promiscuous impulse freely indulged, he nevertheless managed to avoid scandalizing his neighbors.

His dead body was found in his sitting-room by the daily help at eight-thirty. Death, which had occurred upwards of ten hours previously, had been caused by a knife — thrust in the throat — an ordinary pocket knife such as could then be bought in any cutler’s for a few shillings. The news, of course, did not appear before the lunchtime editions.

Dennis Yawle, the murderer, was a prematurely embittered man of thirty-two. He had taken a science degree in chemistry and had been employed by a well-known firm of soap manufacturers for the last nine years at a modest salary. His personality, rather than his science, had precluded him from promotion. The firm had given him a chance as manager of their depot in the Balkans; but he disappointed them in everything except his routine work. Incidentally, it was in the Balkans that he had learned how to use a knife for purposes other than the cutting of string.

In chemistry alone he was enterprising. He had worked out some useful little compounds, unconnected with soap, and had patented them through Ennings. His income had been substantially increased, but not to the point where he could prudently resign his job.

He believed that Ennings had tricked him over his patents, which was true. He believed that he had lost Aileen Daines because he had insufficient money — which may have been true. Hysteria was added to grievance by the further belief that Ennings himself had enjoyed the lady’s favors for a brief period before discarding her for another, which was probably an exaggeration. By that particular exaggeration many a man has been flicked from hatred to murderous intent.

Daily at lunchtime he would emerge from the laboratory in North London with his colleague, Holldon. Holldon had his daily bet on the races, and always bought a paper from a stand outside the restaurant. He would prop it up during lunch, while Yawle generally read a book. But on January 18th, 1933, he brought no book, because he had to stage a little pantomime with Holldon’s paper.

First, he must eat his lunch, which was not too easy. When the coffee arrived he delivered his line, which began with a yawn:

“Any news in that thing?”

“No. They’ve had to plug a murder to fill space.”

Holldon was doing everything right, even to pushing the paper across the table. Yawle’s stage business with the paper was easy enough.

“Good — lord!” He shot it out, and Holldon was sufficiently startled to attend. “I know this chap who’s been murdered. I say, Holldon, this is pretty ghastly for me! I was with him last evening — I must ring the police.”

“I’d keep out of it, if I were you. You have to turn up at court day after day in case they want you to give evidence.”

“But they’ve called in Scotland Yard, which means that the local police can’t produce a suspect.” Yawle kept it up until the other professed himself convinced.

Five minutes later he was speaking on the telephone to Chief Inspector Karslake, giving particulars of himself.

“I was at that flat last night between seven and half-past. I don’t suppose I can tell you anything you don’t know but I thought I’d better give you a ring.”

Karslake thanked him with some warmth, and said he would send a man to Mr. Yawle’s office.

“Well-l, I have rather a crowded afternoon in front of me. I could make Scotland Yard in about twenty minutes. If you could see me then, we could get my little bit tidied up right away.”

In his pocket was a crystal of cyanide to complete the tidying-up process if necessary.

To walk up to the tiger and stroke it was a desperate improvisation, necessitated by the blunders of an ill-designed murder. Indeed, it is doubtful whether his plans had ever emerged from the fantasy stage, until he struck the blow — if we except the solitary precaution of observing the porter’s movements.

For three nights previously he had strolled past the flats on the opposite side of the road, noting that between seven and eight the porter was extremely busy — with three entrances and forty-five flats, most of whose tenants were arriving or departing by taxi or car. It would be child’s play to slip in — and out again — without being seen.

In the fantasy, he eluded the porter, passed through an empty hall, ascended an empty staircase.

In actuality, he did elude the porter. But the hall was not empty. In the miniature lounge, consisting of one palm, a radiator, and three chairs, stood a girl who, as he fancied, bore some resemblance to Aileen Daines. That is, she was neither tall nor short; she was slim and dark, with regular features and liberal eyebrows. She glanced at the electric clock, sat down and began to sort her shopping parcels. Yawle looked straight into her eyes, but she took no notice of him, which, irrationally, inflamed his sense of the loss of Aileen.

The staircase, too, contributed its quota of trouble. Most people used the automatic elevator — that was why he had chosen the staircase. On the first turn, between floors, he all but crashed into an elderly lady from behind: it was such a near thing that she dropped a parcel.

He was himself startled and at a loss. The woman, small but imposing, fiftyish, glared at him with an indignation that had a quality of voraciousness — to his nerve-racked fancy, she looked as if she wanted to pounce upon him, spiderwise, and eat him.

“I’m most awfully sorry, madam! Very careless of me! I hope I didn’t frighten you.”

The voracious, spiderlike quality vanished from a face which was ordinary enough and even pleasing. She accepted the parcel with a graceful, old-fashioned bow and the kind of smile that used to go with the bow.

He hurried on to the first floor — up the next flight, to the second.

“I say! Do you know you really lose time when you do two stairs at once?”

The thin, piping treble had come from a boy of about ten.

“Do I? Pr’aps you’re right. I’ll take your advice.”

This was a nightmare journey. The murder, still in part a fantasy, receded. Funny how that girl had reminded him of Aileen! Must have been like her, in a way. But that girl was sure of herself and happy. If only he could tell what had happened to Aileen!

The device of writing to her parents to inquire had not occurred to him. By the time he reached the third floor, Aileen’s present condition was deplorable and even unmentionable — as a result of the general behavior of Charles Ennings.

When Ennings opened the door he was wearing a dinner jacket, which somehow made everything worse. He seemed younger than his fifty years: the heavy lips had become masterful: he had pulled himself in, probably with corsets. He looked successful, confident, insolent.

“I want to talk to you, Ennings.”

“By all means!” Ennings was un-enthusiastic, if not positively damp. “Between ourselves, I don’t do business at home, but — come in, won’t you?”

The hall was but a bulge in the corridor of the flat. Opposite were two doors some ten feet apart. Ennings opened one and Yawle entered the kind of near-luscious sitting-room he had expected, littered with cabinet photographs of the current inamorata — not even attractive, in Yawle’s eyes.

The telephone rang, as if to emphasize that Yawle’s presence was an intrusion.

“No, it was a washout,” said Ennings into the receiver. “I got home at the usual time after all, and I’m taking an evening off. Can’t talk now, I have a client who’s in a hurry.”

Ennings cut off. He pointed to an armchair, but Yawle remained standing. Ennings sat in the other armchair.

“Gronston’s,” said Yawle, “have put my Cleanser in every grocer’s, and every oil shop and every hardware store in the country. And it’s selling.”

“Of course it’s selling! It’s a damn fine fluid, old man. Who’s saying it isn’t!”

“Why do I get such measly royalties? Why is the contract signed by Lanberry’s instead of by Gronston’s?”

“So that’s what’s biting you!” Ennings had had this conversation, in one form or another, with a good many inventors. “Between ourselves, Lanberry’s is a holding company, if you know what that means—”

“I know that Lanberry’s holds one desk in one room in a back street off Holborn. And I know that the Chairman is a clerk employed by you. I’ve been there.”

“You’ve been there!” snorted Ennings. “So it only remains for the bloodsucking financier to burst into tears and disgorge the loot! My good young man, you’re poking your nose into things you don’t understand — and you’re making an infernal fool of yourself.”

The main purpose, of course, was to talk about Aileen. Yawle had given no detailed thought to the matter of the royalties. Ennings and his dinner jacket — successful, confident, insolent — was riding him.

“I shall take it up with Gronston’s! There’s another thing—”

“Good! I hope you’ll be fool enough to do just that. In the meantime you can take yourself and your business to the devil. Your business! Your invention! Between ourselves, there are a good few others who’ve rediscovered that old formula, or copied it out of a back number—”

So, in the end, Aileen’s name hadn’t even been mentioned.

The skill of the Balkan bandits with their short knives — very like our pocket knives — is based on a knowledge of how to hold the knife. If you hold it properly, as Yawle did, in the palm of the hand, you leave no fingerprints on the haft. Your index finger lies along the back of the blade, slides down it as the blade impacts with an upward sweep: so there’s no detectable fingerprint there, either. If your aim is accurate, as Yawle’s was, there is neither bother nor noise in the killing.

Ennings remained sitting in his armchair as he had sat in life.

If all the movements were performed correctly, there should be no stains. Yawle studied himself in the mirror. There were no stains. The brainstorm, the movement of hysteria, had passed, leaving him cool, tingling with a sense of achievement and well-being. He felt successful, confident, insolent.

He noted that Enning’s electric clock registered seven twenty-three. He had been in that flat for less than six minutes, all told.

He shut the door of the sitting-room. He was halfway to the front door when he heard footsteps on the landing. He backed away from the front door, found himself opposite the room next to that of the sitting-room. The dining-room. He opened the door.

The footsteps died away. The light from the corridor of the flat had fallen on a white tablecloth. Using his sleeve, he switched on the room light.

The table was laid for two, and the food was on the table. Cold food. Smoked salmon; chicken; trifle in fairy glasses, with a peach on top — canned peach! So Ennings had been expecting a girl! Who might turn up at any minute!

Yawle was in the act of opening the front door, was reaching forward for the latch, when he again heard footsteps approaching. This time he did not panic. He merely stood back, so that his shadow should not fall on the glass panel.

This time the footsteps stopped outside the door. The knocker was lifted and discreetly applied. Yawle kept still. In due course, people go away when there is no response to a knock.

But this caller did not go away. There came the unmistakable sound of a latchkey being inserted.

There was no time to rush back to the dining-room. He slipped into the sitting-room, locked himself in with the dead man, turning the key with his handkerchief.

He did not hear the outer door of the flat being shut. For a moment he was ready to believe that his over-taut nerves had tricked him — that there had been no footsteps and no latchkey.

Some ten seconds later there came a light knock on the door of the sitting-room. Then the handle was turned. Yawle held his breath.

“Char-lie! It’s me-e!”

A full throated, middle-contralto. Aileen had a middle contralto voice, too. But that voice was not — could not be — Aileen’s voice. If it were Aileen, would she hand him over to the police?

As, by hypothesis, it was not Aileen, there was a danger amounting to certainty that the owner of the voice would hand him over to the police.

Seconds passed without any sound to give him a clue as to what was happening.

Then the sound of the front door being shut.

Within a minute or so he had evolved a feasible theory of his predicament. The girl has been given a latchkey, so she’s one of Ennings’s harem. She thinks he’s cut a date with her, so she’s gone off in a huff. If she’s waiting for him on the landing — but she won’t be! She’s on latchkey terms and would curl herself up in the flat. Give her a couple of minutes to get clear.

When the two minutes had passed he slipped out of the flat, pausing only to shut the outer door as silently as possible. The main thing was to avoid being seen or heard leaving the flat.

No footsteps. No one on the staircase. By the time he reached the second floor, his confidence returned.

That table spread with a meal for two was nothing less than a first-class alibi, provided the body were not discovered in the next ten minutes or so. No man, he could point out, would be such a fool as to murder another in a flat when he knew that a guest was momentarily expected.

He had merely to pretend that he had seen the table when he entered the flat, and he could add that Ennings had explained that he was expecting a girl friend. He need not even bother to dodge the porter.

When Yawle reached the ground floor, the porter was not there to be dodged or not dodged, being occupied with a tenant who had arrived with luggage at another entrance. Yawle strode on.

In the miniature lounge the girl who resembled Aileen Daines was adjusting her make-up. Unaware of his presence, she snapped her bag, gathered up her shopping parcels and went out of the building.

Might be Ennings’s girl friend, he reflected — but without deep interest, for his ego was fully inflated. He had done what he had done — he had turned deadly peril to positive advantage. He would top it off by making use of the porter.

Luckily, he had a pen on him. He began to write a noncommittal message for Ennings, but found to his surprise that his hand was shaking. Never mind! His resourcefulness was equal to any emergency.

He found the porter at the third entrance.

“I’ve just left Mr. Ennings and I find that I’ve absent-mindedly pocketed his fountain pen.” It was a standard model, unidentifiable. He gave it to the porter, with a florin. “If I were you, I wouldn’t return it until the morning. The fact is, porter, he is entertaining — well, let’s say a friend!”

By bedtime, Yawle’s confidence had ebbed. Again and again he reviewed his movements, with increasing alarm. He had got clean away, but could he be dragged back? He ticked off the items.

The first person to see him enter the block had been the girl, but she obviously had not noticed him and could be ignored. Then the old lady who had looked at him like a spider. She might or might not remember him enough to give a description.

Then there was that wretched boy — almost certainly a Boy Scout obsessed with stairs and footsteps, who would love telling the police everything.

With that sterling alibi of the dinner table it would be safe to come forward, unsafe to hang back.

“There’s the boy, the middle-aged woman, and the girl — all three saw you entering the building at about seven-ten, Mr. Yawle?” Chief Inspector Karslake was making notes as he spoke. “Can you remember what they looked like?”

“The boy I didn’t notice — an ordinary boy of about ten or so. The woman, smallish, about fifty, old-fashioned, but not exactly old, round sort of face. The girl — middle twenties, about my height, dark, good looking, well-marked eyebrows, slim, quietly dressed. But I’m sure she didn’t know I was there — if you’re thinking of asking these people whether they saw me.”

“It’s only for checking up with others,” Karslake assured him. “Please go on, Mr. Yawle.”

“I went to the flat. Ennings opened the door. He was in a dinner jacket and told me he was expecting a friend to dinner. The way he said it, I guessed it was a girl. He showed me the dining-room — I suppose so that I shouldn’t think he was stalling me — cold supper set for two. I said I would only keep him a few minutes. As soon as we got into his sitting-room the phone rang. He answered briefly and cut off.”

Yawle waited while Karslake wrote. He had not anticipated that everything he said would be noted.

“And then you both sat down and discussed your business?”

“If we are to be literal, I didn’t sit down — wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t going to stick around.”

The next bit was tricky. In the night he had worked out that the porter might have noticed when Ennings’ guest went upstairs — that it must have been while he was in the flat.

“We were about halfway through our business when his girl turned up.”

“And he got up to let her in?”

Confound the man with his passion for footling little details! Be careful to tell no unnecessary lies.

“She let herself in with a latchkey. I said I’d just write out a note and then—”

“Half a minute. Don’t think I’m niggling, Mr. Yawle. The fact is, we use everything an honest witness tells us to check on the people who are not public spirited and may be hiding something. How did you know someone had come in with a latchkey if you were shut up in a room talking business?”

“Ennings had one ear listening for that latchkey.” Yawle managed a realistic snigger. “He got up, spoke to her, said he would be with her in a few minutes.”

Karslake passed him a chart of Ennings’s sitting-room.

“Will you show me on that chart where you were standing when he went to speak to the girl?”

There was only one spot where one could stand to talk to a man sitting as Ennings had sat.

“On the hearth rug — here.”

“Could you identify the girl, Mr. Yawle?”

“Oh, no — no! Certainly not!”

“But you must have seen her if you were standing there!” It was a statement rather than a question, and Yawle shrank from contradicting.

“Well — yes — but — in these circumstances, Inspector, I simply can’t make a statement involving someone else unless I’m sure of what I say.”

“You couldn’t put it better, Mr. Yawle. All I want you to tell me now is what you saw. To begin with, you saw it was a girl and not a man. Tall or short? Fair or dark?”

“I don’t think we need winkle it out that way. I can go as far as this — she was of the same physical type as the girl I noticed in the hall when I was coming in. But I cannot state that she was the same girl.”

It would be better, he had decided, not to add that he had also seen the girl when he was leaving the building.

“From your description of the girl in the hall the thing a man would notice first would be those eyebrows,” persisted Karslake.

“Y-yes. But—”

“Was she in evening dress?”

“No.”

“Same sort of clothes as the girl in the hall, eh?” As Yawle did not deny it, “Very natural that you won’t state it’s the same girl, because you aren’t quite positive. Very proper attitude, if I may say so. Where did Ennings park the girl in the flat?”

“I don’t know. He came back to me. I wanted to make that note. I’d forgotten my pen and he lent me his. I went on talking a minute or so and absent-mindedly pocketed his pen. When I got downstairs — which I suppose was about half-past seven — I looked for the porter and asked him to return the fountain pen—” Yawle repeated the snigger “—in the morning.”

Karslake had the air of an inspector who is not only satisfied but even grateful.

“I think that’s about all, Mr. Yawle. We shall round up the boy and the woman on the stairs so that you can identify each other. The local police will probably want you for the inquest. Otherwise, I don’t suppose we shall trouble you—” he pressed a bell push “—if you’ll be good enough to give us your fingerprints before you go.”

A junior entered with a frame and Yawle obliged.

“As far as I know,” he said when the process had been completed, “I didn’t leave any fingerprints in the flat. Don’t think I touched anything except that fountain pen.”

“But look at it from our point of view, Mr. Yawle.” Karslake was urbane and even confidential. “Until we’ve taken your prints we can’t prove that it wasn’t you who had dinner with Ennings.”

“Dinner with Ennings?” echoed Yawle, genuinely puzzled.

“Well, supper if you like, as it was cold stuff. There were prints other than those of the deceased on the cutlery, the plates, the glasses, some of the dishes — someone who doesn’t take salt or pepper but fairly shovels the sugar on a sweet.”

“D’you mean that meal was eaten?” gasped Yawle.

“You bet it was! Look here, I’m not suppose to show this, but you’ll see it at the inquest tomorrow.”

Karslake displayed photographs of the dining-room and of the table, of the debris of a meal consumed by two persons. Yawle observed particularly the fairy glasses that had held the trifle. The glasses in the photograph were opaque, with nothing showing above the rims. Before consumption the trifle had topped the rim and the canned peach had topped the trifle.

Yawle left Scotland Yard, dazed to the point of being but barely aware of his surroundings. That dinner had been untouched when he left the flat. As Ennings was dead, he could not possibly have had dinner with the girl. Therefore, somebody else had dinner with the girl — which was absurd.

Alternatively, the flat had been burgled after the girl had gone. The burglars, notwithstanding the presence of a corpse in the flat, had sat down to a meal — which was even more absurd.

Which all proved that the dinner had not been eaten when, in point of fact, it had been eaten.

That it removed all danger from himself was scarcely heeded. That photograph gave him a creeping doubt of his own sanity. He had read of eye-witnesses making wholly false statements in wholly good faith. In some amazing way he must have seen an untouched meal when he was really looking at the debris of a meal.

That meal cropped up again at the inquest. One of the jurymen, unsupported by the others, challenged Yawle’s evidence in a question to the Coroner.

“How do we know that this meal was eaten after Mr. Yawle had left the flat? It might have been eaten before — I mean, it might have been lunch, or anything. I’m not suggesting it was, but as it’s important evidence I think we ought to have that point cleared up.”

“I think I can help there, sir,” said Yawle. “When the deceased took me into his dining-room I happened to notice particularly two fairy glasses containing trifle, with a canned peach on the top. If the police can confirm that statement I think it must prove that I saw the meal laid out before it was consumed.”

The police could confirm that statement. The jury returned a verdict of murder against a person unknown, with a rider indicating the young woman who had entered the flat with a latchkey at approximately seven-twenty.

The boy was found some six weeks later. He had spent a couple of nights with an uncle, one of the tenants, who suddenly remembered that fact and reported it with profuse apologies. The boy had gone back to boarding school at Brighton: the incident had utterly passed from his mind, and he failed to identify Yawle.

The elderly lady with the parcel was another unexpected stumbling block. When appeals through press and radio failed to solicit response, the Yard was ready to believe that she was an invention of Yawle’s, prompted by a desire to tie the time of his presence at the flat at both ends. Innocent people often did that kind of thing.

The porter was interviewed again and again. His story remained sufficiently consistent. It was his busy time, dodging from one of the three entrances to another. There had never been any trouble with the police — they weren’t that kind of tenant, and he was not given to observing their actions. He had not seen Mr. Yawle until he made his request concerning the fountain pen — which was close to seven-thirty.

He had certainly noticed a young woman sitting in the hall-lounge round about ten past seven. That was nothing unusual. He had only noticed her because, as he passed, she was fiddling with her bag and dropped something, but picked it up before he could do it for her. He mentioned her eyebrows and her dress, which was not the expensive kind.

The dragnet went out through the West End, though from the description of the porter and of Yawle, she was not likely to be found in any of the bars or night clubs. The search became intensive, was carried to the theatres, including the dress circles and stalls, with the result that, some six weeks after the inquest, Yawle was asked to accompany a plainclothes man and wait outside a City office about lunch time.

Out of the office came Aileen Daines.

“Hullo, Dennis!” She shook hands with frank friendliness. “I’m so glad to see you — I was going to write. You see, Leonard and I — yes, at Easter.”

When she had gone, Yawle rejoined the plainclothes man.

“You saw her speak to me. She is not the one we want. I know her very well indeed.”

The porter, at the same time on the next day, was not so positive. By a majority vote, as it were, of his muddled recollections, he decided that he did not think this young lady was that young lady.

“All the same, there’s the bare possibility that this young lady is that young lady,” said Karslake when he was discussing the report with his staff. “Used to be Yawle’s girl, eh? There might be some tangled sex stuff there. We haven’t enough to sail in with a request for her dabs. Now, if one of you boys could manage to watch her eating — when she isn’t with her young man — we might get a line.”

None of them did see her eating, but one of them obtained her fingerprints without her knowledge. And that dropped her out of the case — and dropped the case itself into the Department of Dead Ends.

As weeks lengthened into months, Yawle ceased to worry about his sanity in the matter of the dinner which could not possibly have been — but had been — eaten. He still carried the crystal of cyanide in a dummy petrol lighter, but it had become a talisman rather than a menace.

Learning that Ennings’s estate had been proved at £60,000 he went to see Gronston’s, who gladly gave him details of the royalties paid to Lanberry’s. Yawle brought an action against the estate for balance of royalties withheld by a fraudulent device.

The action was heard in the following Spring. Detective Inspector Rason was present, not because he expected to find in the public gallery the girl who had murdered Ennings, but because it was a routine duty to keep contact with the principals in an unsolved crime.

The hearing was very brief, for there was in effect no defense. Yawle obtained judgment for some four thousand pounds and his costs. The judge remarked that the deceased had behaved as an unscrupulous scoundrel and that Hendricks, his shabby little clerk who survived him, would do well to examine his own conscience.

Rason decided to do a little examining of the clerk’s conscience himself, for he had the glimmer of an idea. Over a pint of beer and a sandwich Hendricks was willing to talk.

“I knew there was going to be a rumpus when Mr. Yawle turned up at my room,” said Hendricks. “I gave the guv’nor the wire, but he only laughed at me.”

“When did Mr. Yawle turn up at your room?” asked Rason.

“I dunno — not the date anyhow. Must’ve been about a week before the guv’nor copped out.”

That was the sort of thing Rason was hoping for. What business had Yawle transacted with Ennings when he knew that Ennings had been cheating him? No business. He had gone to demand restitution. And had borrowed Ennings’s fountain pen to make a note of it? Rats!

Barking up the wrong tree, mused Rason. Proving that Yawle quarreled with Ennings and killed him, whereas the job is to find the girl and prove she did.

Back in the office he was reluctant to admit that he had wasted his morning. He tried hard to squeeze a girl into the discovery that Yawle had known that Ennings was swindling him. No link-up.

Start with the girl, now! She comes in with a latchkey, has her dinner, and then knifes him. Why? She must’ve expected him to get fresh. Can’t pull the dewy innocent with that latchkey in her bag. Suppose she was an inventor, too? In the sitting-room she finds something, proving that Ennings has been buying her the stockings out of her own money?

The next morning he paddled back to Hendricks.

“Have you got on your books a girl, middle twenties, height about five-six, thickish eyebrows—”

“I’ve never seen any of ’em except Mr. Yawle. And we got no girls. Only a couple o’ widows, legatees of course.”

“Let’s have the widows!”

Mrs. Siegman lived in Hampstead, was middle-aged and had virtually no eyebrows. Mrs. Deaker lived in Surbiton, which was an hour’s drive out of London, allowing for traffic. With some difficulty Rason found a small house with a brick wall surrounding the garden on the outskirts of the suburb.

The door was opened by a good-looking girl in the middle twenties, height about five-six, dark, with well-defined eyebrows.

“Are you Mrs. Deaker?”

“No. Mrs. Deaker is in town. I’m her companion and at the moment her domestic staff too. Do you want to leave a message?”

Rason presented his official card.

“Oh!” said the girl, and Rason decided to spring it on her.

“What were you doing in Barslade Mansions, Westminster, the night Charles Ennings was killed?”

“Oh!” said the girl again. “I’m not going to tell you anything until I have a lawyer.”

“In that case I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me to Scotland Yard,” said Rason.

He was with her while she packed a suitcase and left a note for her employer, kept her within arm’s reach while he telephoned the Yard. On the journey the only admission she made was that her name was Margaret Hailing. On arrival at the Yard she made no objection to having her fingerprints taken.

Some three hours later Dennis Yawle turned up at Scotland Yard in response to a request by telephone. Some five minutes previously Margaret Halling’s employer had arrived with a lawyer. All three, with some half a dozen others, were enduring time in a waiting-room.

Detective Inspector Rason thanked Yawle profusely, took him along a corridor behind the waiting-room.

“I want you to look through this little panel, Mr. Yawle — they can’t see you — and tell me if there’s anybody in the room you recognize.”

Yawle looked through the panel. A smile broadened.

“Yes,” he said. “I shall never forget that face! That is the elderly lady whose parcel I picked up on the stairs.”

“Well, I’m—” Rason was more astonished than he had been for a long time. “Excuse me, Mr. Yawle.” In his agitation he pushed Yawle back to the panel, put his hand on the crown of Yawle’s head, and gently twisted until Yawle could be presumed to have a view of the seat in the window.

This time there was no broad smile. Rason had the impression that he saved Yawle from subsiding to the floor.

“That’s the girl with the eyebrows — the girl I saw in the hall.”

“And she’s the girl you saw when she let herself in with the latchkey?”

“I don’t know. I said at the time I couldn’t be sure the girls were the same.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Yawle — we never lead a witness,” said Rason unblushingly. He was now in extremely high spirits, for he had had another glimmer. “Your statement in my file says they were of similar type. That passes the buck to us.”

They went to Chief Inspector Karslake’s room. The chair at the roll-top desk was placed at Rason’s disposal, with Karslake on his left, for this was Rason’s case, and his own room was too much of a museum for interviews.

“Well, I suppose the first thing to do,” hinted Karslake, when he had heard the news, “is to have the girl in for a formal identification.”

“No, it isn’t, sir,” said Rason, picking up Karslake’s house telephone.

“Mrs. Deaker, in the waiting-room — ask her if she would like to see me. If so, bring her in.”

“Mr. Yawle,” said Rason. “This old girl has given Mr. Karslake a good deal of trouble, one way and another.” Karslake’s surprise changed to profound disapproval, as Rason went on: “If she hands us anything you know to be phoney, I’d be grateful if you’d chip in and flatten her out.”

Yawle assented politely. The “old woman” presented no problem. She could do nothing but confirm his statement.

Mrs. Deaker chose to brave the detective without the support of the lawyer, who was earmarked for Margaret Hailing.

“I think you have seen this gentleman before, Mrs. Deaker?” Rason indicated Yawle.

“Not to my recollection,” answered Mrs. Deaker. “Perhaps if you were to tell me his name—?”

“At Barslade Mansions, Westminster, on the evening of January 17th, 1933, this gentleman retrieved a parcel you had dropped on the staircase.”

“Did he! Then it was very kind of him, and it is ungracious of me to forget.”

“We advertised in the press and on the radio, asking you to come forward, Mrs. Deaker,” said Rason severely.

“I remember those advertisements. I didn’t realize you meant me!” She glared at Yawle. “Did you describe me as an elderly woman? That’s what the advertisement said!” Before Yawle could excuse himself, she went on: “I suppose I do seem elderly to a man of your age. However, if we may consider the incident of the parcel as closed I would like to tell the police about Margaret Hailing, my companion. She was there solely because my taxi brought her there. I was dining with a friend. Her train home from Waterloo was not until eight-ten. It was a cold night and I told her to sit in the lounge by the radiator until it was time to leave.”

“Who was the friend with whom you were dining, Mrs. Deaker?”

“The man who was murdered. Mr. Ennings. But of course, you must know all about him, as you’re still looking for the murderer. Now that we have mentioned the subject, you may wish me to account for my own movements, though they are of no significance, or I would have reported them.

“Mr. Ennings was a friend — a very intimate friend — before I married, somewhat injudiciously, the man who invented the Deaker commutator. He handled my husband’s affairs. In recent years, after his death, Mr. Ennings and I — Mr. Ennings and I resumed our friendship, which was cemented by the fact that my husband had made him trustee.

“Mr. Ennings telephoned me in the morning that he might be detained at some special meeting or other. As I was doing a day’s shopping, I was to come — he would have a cold meal prepared — and I was not to wait dinner for him after seven-thirty.

“As to the parcel incident, I never enter an elevator unless there is a responsible-looking man in charge. I used the staircase — which took a long time — no doubt because I am elderly! I duly waited until seven-thirty, and then I sat down to dinner by myself. I waited in the flat until a little after nine-thirty and then caught the ten-five home.”

Rason had taken from the dossier the photographs of the debris of the meal.

“When did you see Mr. Ennings?”

“Obviously, I didn’t see him at all.”

“How did you obtain entry to the flat?”

“I lifted the knocker, as there was a light in the hall.” Her words were labored as she went on: “I thought I had sufficiently emphasized the fact of our friendship. I have a latchkey. Here it is.” She took it from her bag and gave it to Rason. “I went to the sitting-room, but the door was locked. I knocked, then called his name. Then I looked about the flat, shut the front door and went into the dining-room to wait for him. Once, I thought I heard the front door being closed, but it was a false alarm, so I sat down and had my dinner.”

Yawle had reached forward and snatched from Rason’s desk the photograph of the debris of the meal.

“I don’t think so, Mrs. Deaker!” cried Yawle. “Look at this photograph. Two persons ate that dinner!”

They were glaring at each other.

“Half a minute, Mr. Yawle!” interposed Rason. “I thought Mr. Karslake had told you everything! Did he forget to tell you that there was only one set of fingerprints on those dishes?”

“Then they must be mine!” sighed Mrs. Deaker. “I had hoped to escape this public humiliation. The degrading truth is that I can eat — and I often do — as much as two men! By nine, I concluded that Mr. Ennings must have had his dinner. So I... I... I really did—”

Rason left Mrs. Deaker floundering in a whirlpool of social shame.

“Well, Yawle, let’s get back to that young girl you saw in the flat, whom you can’t quite identify with the young girl you saw in the hall. Eyebrows an’ all, too! Or would you rather ask Mrs. Deaker some questions about that sitting-room door that was locked on the inside? At about twenty past seven, as near as makes no matter to you, Yawle!”

But Yawle possessed a talisman in a dummy petrol lighter that warded off all further assaults on his dignity.