"The Widows of broome" - читать интересную книгу автора (Upfield Arthur W.)

Chapter Eight

A Puzzle in Silk

THE house occupied by the late Mrs. Eltham was a typical Broome bungalow, set well back from the road and partially concealed by ornamental trees. The cement drive ran directly past the house to the garage at the rear, and from it a cement path paralleled the house front, skirted its far side and joined the cemented yard between house and garage. Off the yard was a small grass plot on which was erected a rotary clothes hoist.

The storm shutters enclosing the encircling veranda being bolted down, the house presented a windowless aspect and was without individuality. It was owned by someone in Perth, and was still under police control. According to Inspector Walters, no one had entered it after the homicide men had returned to Headquarters.

Arriving at the rear door, Bony opened the case he had brought and tested the handle for finger-prints. The door handle was clean of any prints. With the key obtained from Walters he opened the door and tested the inside handle. It, too, was clean. Had substantiation been necessary of Mr. Dickenson’s statement concerning the man he had seen leaving the house, it was provided by the clean door handles, which should have produced fingerprints of the last investigator who locked the door.

Elated by the probability that it had been the murderer who had returned to the scene of his crime, Bony stepped into the house and sought the light switch, the storm shutters making the interior almost dark. Closing the door, he sat on a kitchen chair and rolled a cigarette whilst noting everything within visual limits.

Like many of these tropical bungalows, the house proper was devoted to bedrooms, the encircling veranda space being used for general living purposes. The storm shutters having been down for many days, the air smelled slightly musty, and yet within the mustiness was the fragrance of perfume.

This part of the veranda was obviously used as a kitchen and dining-room. It was clean and tidy. There was not much furniture, but it retained evidence of having been well kept. On the wash-bench were the utensils used by Mrs. Eltham at supper that last night of her life. The floor was covered with apple-green linoleum neither new nor yet worn.

Before moving on, Bony knelt on the linoleum and brought his eyes close to its surface. He could see his own shoe tracks, but none other, and with a finger-point he established the film of dust which had settled after the visit of the unknown man. The same degree of dust was on the wash-bench and the furniture.

Passing on round the corner of the house to the next veranda section, Bony located the light switch and foundhimself in the lounge. Small, soft rugs graced the floor. Glass-fronted cases were filled with expensive books. Two sea-scapes in oils rested on easels and seemed to be reasonably well executed. Both pictures bore the initials of the dead woman. The magazines on a small occasional table, the conch shells used as ash-trays, pieces of costly china and crystal, and the curtains and lamp-shades bespoke the tastes of a cultured woman having money to indulge them.

Confident that none had seen him enter the house, and that the lights could not be noted from either the front street or the rear laneway, Bony again sat down and made another cigarette. He was prepared to conduct a long and unhurried investigation of this dwelling, for the man who had spent some time here after the police had finally gone must have left something of himself or some evidence explaining the reason for his visit. Discovery of the motive for that nocturnal visit might well lead to the motive for the murder of Mrs. Eltham. It might lead even to the identity of the murderer.

With all their training and their scientific aids the homicide experts had failed to prove the identity of the murderer or even put forward a likely motive for the crime. On what rested that double failure? The astuteness of the murderer in small degree, and the type of community in which he lived in large degree. The mental lethargy of people all familiar with each other prevented them from noticing the unusual, and thus provided the cloak of secrecy for a killer who planned all his moves.

The problem was to discover the motive having a common denominator covering the murder of two women dissimilar in morality, circumstance and background. The victims were alike only in being widows. Several motives could be assumed for the murder of one, or that of the other, but there was no motive to be applied to both crimes.

Old Dickenson had provided a splendid lead and, if handled rightly, might give others. This lead might break the wall confronting the man who now sat and smoked a cigarette in Mrs. Eltham’s lounge, the man whose maternal forebears had bequeathed him patience which has no limitations.

Had one of Mrs. Eltham’s men friends killed her? There were nine listed by the police, but the list could not be accepted as complete. No one of these nine men had visited Mrs. Eltham immediately prior to the night of her death. That was proved by the finger-print expert. He found no male finger-prints, and according to the domestic, she had, with Mrs. Eltham’s assistance, cleaned and polished the entire house the day before Mrs. Eltham’s death. Each of the nine men knew nothing whatever of the interest in Mrs. Eltham of the other eight. That proved she had been an excellent diplomat. There was nothing whatever among the dead woman’s papers pointing to any other man in Broome. The homicide people were satisfied with the statements and integrity of those nine men, and the Broome police who knew them personally were equally satisfied.

The homicide men had gone through this house like soldier ants through a native village. They had removed all letters and other documents, and they had taken the nightgown found beside the bed to be tested at the headquarters laboratory for finger-prints. Other than the prints of the dead woman and the domestic who had washed and ironed the garment, there were none. That the murderer wore fine rubber gloves was considered certain.

This house contained four rooms. There were no connecting doors, each room opening to the veranda. One was unfurnished. Two were furnished with a single bed. Mrs. Eltham’s room was large and well furnished, and contained a double bed. Each room had the usual glazed window, in addition to which was the universal fly-screen on the inside fastened with a snap lock.

The door of Mrs. Eltham’s room was closed, and Bony tested the handle for prints and found it clean. Within was sufficient light enabling him to locate the electric switch, and he operated that with the point of a match. It, too, was clean of prints. Bony re-closed the door and stood with his back to it.

Beyond the bed was the window with its fly-screen closed and its lace curtains drawn aside. The bed was exactly as when the body had been found on it, the top sheet folded over a blanket and counterpane and the whole partly turned back as though the woman had been on the verge of getting into bed when attacked. On the door side of the bed was a small woolly mat, on the far edge of which was a pair of embroidered slippers. Over the bed’s foot sprawled a floral linen dressing-gown, and on one of two chairs lay a flecked tweed skirt, a lemon-coloured sweater, a satin brassiere and slip, and silk stockings.

When Bony moved, the dust-filmed mirror reflected his actions as he bent over the bed, when he opened the door of the wardrobe and saw the packed dresses on hangers, and when he gazed upon the dressing-table appointments and noted the dust on them and on the glass surface. There were no signs that a struggle had taken place in this room, or elsewhere in the house. There had been no signs of a struggle in Mrs. Cotton’s bedroom, either. The murderer had had time enough to remove all signs of a struggle in Mrs. Cotton’s room, and here he had much more time to do so. But why? The killer could have caught the women by the neck and could have possessed sufficient strength to prevent any disorder. But why the laying-out of the body on this bed after the nightgown had been ripped from neck to hem?

Bony sat on the vacant chair and made another of his extraordinary cigarettes. He scrutinised every point of the picture illumined by the light falling from the briar-pink shade. He tried to recreate the dreadful drama of that night of May 5th, tried to feel the woman’s growing alarm and swift horror when she heard the stealthy steps on the veranda or within this dark room. There was no cord switch with which to switch on the light without leaving the bed. To do that she needs must leave the bed to reach the switch beside the door. Had she seen her murderer? He had choked her from in front. Had she been caught and strangled before she could reach the light switch? Or had she left the room to investigate the stealthy footsteps when attacked? Questions! The answers would have made the picture much clearer.

For what had the man, seen by old Dickenson, come into this room? This was a question having much more of urgency than those others. Find its answer and a great step would have been taken by this patient and relentless tracker of men towardshis quarry.

Gradually, Bony came to feel that there was a flaw in the picture of the room. When fully conscious that there was a flaw, he sought for it and could not see it. There was nothing wrong with the bed. There was no significance in the arrangement of the dressing-table appointments. The woman’s clothes lay over the other chair in the order in which she had removed them. The small clock on the bedside table had stopped at 2.34. Whether it had stopped in the morning or the afternoon could not be proven. There were no pictures on the walls, and all the personal photographs had been removed by the police.

Presently, Bony’s restless eyes were directed to the bowl of dead flowers on the chest-of-drawers. On wilting to death, the flowers doubtless had changed the position they had occupied when alive. The stalks were not of the same length.

Those flowers had been originally arranged by a woman and, moreover, a woman with artistic tastes. Most women are expert in arranging flowers. Marie, Bony’s wife, spent a goodly portion of her time with flowers, and he had often watched her bringing a kind of orderly symmetry from chaos.

The dead flowers ought not of themselves to have fallen into a compact mass towards one side of the bowl. When the homicide men came, the flowers would not have been dead. They might have lifted the flowers to ascertain if anything had been dropped into the water. They might have moved the bowl to examine it for finger-prints. It was then that Bony recalled upsetting a vase of flowers on his own dressing-table whenever a drawer was rebellious.

He examined the dust on the surface of all the furniture, leaving the chest-of-drawers till last. The evenness of the dust film on the chest convinced him that it had been wiped after the finger-print men had left.

On pulling out the right-hand top drawer it stuck slightly and the dead flowers spilled from the bowl. He went through the contents of all the drawers, comprising bed and table linen, curtains and towels. All but the towels had been ironed. The ironed articles had been opened out, for the folds were not exactly as ironed, and that could have been done by the investigators, who also could have disarranged the flowers, or even upset them.

There were drawers fitted to the dressing-table and he looked into them. Other than face creams and powder, wads of handkerchiefs, packets of cigarettes and stockings there was nothing to interest him. Within the wardrobe, in addition to the rack of frocks there were several hats on a shelf, a drawer containing gloves, and a compartment containing shoes. Nothing of interest there.

Again in his chair, he made another cigarette and again examined the over-all picture of the room. There was something wrong, and patiently he sought to locate it. Being a woman’s room, although a married man of many years, it defeated him. He wished that his wife were there, sure that she would have seen or understood what was wrong with it, what made it incomplete. Being merely a man, he was puzzled by something which to a woman would have been glaringly obvious.

“Give!” he murmured. “Give!”

Not the least important, there was still the floor. He took from his case a powerful torch, and began on the floor about the chest-of-drawers. The floor was less dusty than the veranda spaces without. He found innumerable flower petals at one side, proving that they had been swept off at one end of the chest. He found a bobby pin near the foot of the bed table, and he found a flaky object which at once captured his interest.

It was not easy to lift from the floor, but having done so he rose to his feet and stood directly under the electric light to look at it on the palm of his hand. It was like a large fish scale, but had nothing of the fish scale’s polished surface and strength. When he dented it with a thumbnail, the dent remained. When he pressed hard with the nail, he could not divide it. The surface was pitted as though with a fine needle. It was a dull white in colour.

Fully thirty minutes he spent crawling around the floor. He found two more flakes, another bobby pin, a number of long hairs, five spent matches, parings from a pencil, and shreds of silk. These objects he placed in specimen envelopes from his wallet.

Again on his feet and contemplating the bed, he knew what was missing from this woman’s bedroom. The clothes-laden chair shrieked it. He looked down on the floor between the door and bed, for there he had found the wisps of silk. There was no silk in the chest-of-drawers. He rolled back the bed clothes and lifted the multi-spring mattress. There was nothing beneath it save the canvas sheet protecting it from the wire bed mattress.

The murderer had ripped Mrs. Cotton’s nightgown from neck to hem and had left the garment beside her body. He had similarly torn Mrs. Eltham’s nightgown and left it lying on the mat beside her bed. What had he done with Mrs. Eltham’s underwear?

Bony passed to the wardrobe and removed the frocks and suits, and in a far corner he found a large bundle wrapped about with blue silk. His eyes were as blue as the silk covering of the bundle, and he broke it open on the bed and disclosed scraps of silk of several colours: cream, black, daffodil-yellow and green. He could see where a knife had sometimes been employed to start the rip completed by hands.

He sorted the pieces into the respective colours, his mind thrilling with the ecstasy of the hunter who has come within range of the hunted. Having smoothed the pieces of black silk, he proceeded to place them in position to prove the type of garment they had once been. He worked on the cream pieces with the same result, and troubled no further with the remaining scraps of silk.

There was no mention of this bundle of torn silk in the reports compiled by the Broome police, nor was mention made of it in the General Reports compiled by the men from the C.I.B. Had the bundle been in the wardrobe when the police went through the room, they could not have missed it.

After the homicide men had left and the house was finally shut up, the murderer had returned. Motive! It was coming… coming from the little bits and pieces… coming from these desecrated items of silken underwear… a strange and terrible motive for murder.