The Z Murders (2 page)

Chapter II

The First Murder

While life had reigned, the hotel smoking-room had been a dead place. Now death had come, it suddenly grew alive. Faces materialised out of the pale light, voices exclaimed or whispered, and figures flitted restlessly.

Temperley was never quite certain how this necessary agitation had accumulated so swiftly, or how it had grown from a shapeless thing to a functioning organisation. He supposed he must have cried out on making his gruesome discovery. Yes, when harping back afterwards, he remembered finding himself at the door, calling to the commissionaire, and then turning and pointing to the arm-chair by the window with its gruesome occupant. But the memory was distorted and hazy, for through it ran the confusion of a fatigued and violently startled man, and also a queer, quite separate agitation for which at first he could not account.

Then he realised that the agitation was due to the abrupt departure of the lady from the smoking-room, and to the ominous persistence of her absence. Why was not her face here, among the rest?

The night-commissionaire's face—there it was, rising like a pale ghost above the little gleams of the official collar. A sleepy maid's face, flushed with nightmare; a callow youth's face, with a smear of boot-blacking on it; a tall man's, wagging over a once-resplendent dressing-gown; a constable's. These faces and others bobbed round the room, augmenting like mushrooms after rain. But the lady's face was not among them, and Temperley would have given five pounds to have seen it there…

“Why am I worrying?” he wondered suddenly. “What the devil does she matter to
me
?”

And now to the facial gallery came two further additions. One was elderly and grave. The second was also elderly, but had a sharper quality.

“Stand away, there!” came the constable's voice, quiet and important. During a short temporary lull before the arrival of the newcomers, the constable had stationed himself by the dead man as though to make sure that no one brought him to life again. Now he stepped aside, respectfully deferential towards those for whom he had cleared a path.

The newcomers reached the arm-chair, and stood for a few seconds regarding its limp contents. The second man transferred his gaze to the first man and raised his eyebrows. The first man, aware of the interrogation out of the corner of his eye, nodded.

“Dead,” he said, laconically.

“No doubt about it, doctor,” agreed the other, who had merely been awaiting the surgeon's verdict as a matter of procedure. “Shot.”

Standing in the shadows, Temperley started slightly. Shot? He had heard nothing…

“Bull through the heart,” replied the doctor, as he bent closer. “Well—it's a quick way to go, inspector. Some I know wouldn't mind.”

“All depends on whether you're ready to go,” grunted the inspector, his gaze now roaming towards the window. “As he's past helping, you won't want to move him till he's been photographed, will you?”

“That suits me,” answered the surgeon. “My job's simple.” The brief examination of the one individual beyond all personal interest in it concluded, and the inspector turned away. He gave a few instructions. Then: “May I have a few words with the man who was with—who found him?” he asked.

Temperley stepped forward. One's mind is over-receptive and over-sensitive at poignant moments, and Temperley's recorded three unrelated facts as he advanced. One was that a constable now stood guarding the smoking-room doorway. He seemed like a gate. Another was that the inspector-detective had an inch of white thread on his shoulder. The third was that the smear of blacking on the callow youth's cheek had grown from the shape of a small black apple to a long grey banana; but whether this were due to the oppressive heat of the room or the working of an agitated finger on fleshy canvas, Temperley did not know.

“Ah,” said the inspector, subjecting him to a glance that merely appeared to be casual. “May I know your name, sir?”

“Richard Temperley,” answered Temperley.

“Thank you,” murmured the inspector, noting the fact on paper. “You are staying here?”

“Only for an hour or two,” replied Temperley. “I'll explain that.”

“Yes, please do,” said the inspector. “And how about a couple of chairs? There's no need for us to be uncomfortable.”

He motioned to the constable inside the room, and a space was cleared where the conversation could proceed with some semblance of privacy. Temperley found himself back in the arm-chair by the fire, while the inspector shoved another opposite him, and sat down in it.

“How would you like me to do it, inspector?” inquired Temperley, who had been thinking hard during the interim. “In my own words, or will you help me with questions? This is the first murder I've ever been present at, so you must excuse me if I'm a bit green.”

“I can see you're green,” responded the inspector, not unsympathetically, “or you'd be more careful of the words you use.”

“What have I said?”

“You said you were present at the murder.”

“Oh, I see.” Temperley paused. “Well, I'll amend that, if I may. I don't know whether I was present or not.” A sudden thought came to him. “No—I
couldn't
have been!” he exclaimed, impulsively. “That shot—I never heard it.” He paused again. The inspector was watching him closely. “Unless—”

“Yes, Mr. Temperley. Unless?”

“Unless I was dozing,” concluded Temperley, rather lamely.

“And the shot woke you up?”

“Yes.”

“The noise was not recorded, however, in your waking dream.”

“How do
you
know?”

“You'd have mentioned it, obviously.”

“So I would. No—I heard nothing—either waking or dreaming.”

“Do you deduce anything from that?”

“What do you mean?”

As Temperley asked the question and found the inspector's eyes boring into him with a sort of grave persistence, he began to realise the personality he was dealing with for the first time. This was no ordinary official. The inspector was a human being struggling through a queer and difficult world side by side with other human beings, and conscientiously carrying out his particular job. Relentless in his duty, perhaps, but sympathetic behind the relentlessness. So, at least, Temperley judged him at this moment; and, in the strange battle that was to ensue between them, he had many subsequent opportunities of testing this judgment.

Whether the judgment were right or wrong, the immediate result of it was to lighten a little the load on Temperley's mind, and to render him more natural. But he did not like the theory towards which the inspector seemed to be working—the theory that the murder had been committed before Temperley had entered the smoking-room…and before the lady had left it…

“What I mean is this,” the inspector's voice broke in on his thoughts. “Some guns bite without barking.”

“A silencer!” exclaimed Temperley, quickly.

The inspector noted his relief.

“Yes, this shot was probably one of the silent kind. But before I advance my theories, let me know your facts, Mr. Temperley. You said you were staying here only a few hours?”

“Yes, I've just come off the night-train from Preston.”

“Five a.m.?”

“That's right.”

“Glasgow train, isn't it?”

“I think so, but I only joined it at Preston.”

“And—before that?”

“Windermere.”

“On a holiday, eh?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Well, and when your train arrived at Euston—”

“Wait a minute, inspector. We must go back to Preston.”

“Oh?”

“The dead man and I shared a first-class compartment from Preston.”

Fresh interest shot into the inspector's eyes at this information. “You know him, then?” he demanded.

“Merely as a snoring travelling companion,” answered Temperley, and added, with a faint smile, “People who snore annoy me, inspector, but I don't shoot them.”

If the inspector thought this funny, his face studiously avoided recording the fact. “Did anything that might bear upon this case occur on the journey?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Temperley assured him.

“Or when you got to Euston?”

“Nothing.”

“Who left the compartment first?”

“I did.”

“Yes? And then?”

“He passed me while I was talking to a porter.”

“Go on.”

“The porter suggested I should finish my sleep here, in this room.”

“Yes?”

“Apparently, he—the dead man—had the same idea. He was in the hotel entrance when I arrived. I went to the room—this room—”

“Wait! Did he precede you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He was tying up a boot-lace.”

“Where?”

“In the entrance.”

“I see. So you entered the smoking-room first?”

“Yes.”

“And found it empty?”

“Damn!” thought Temperley. “Now we're coming to it! But it's ridiculous. A girl like that could never—”

“I know a lady was in the room before you,” came the inspector's voice, “so you needn't be gallant.”

“How do you know?” demanded Temperley, reddening slightly.

The inspector shrugged his shoulders, as though deprecating the world's lack of faith in his kind.

“You're not the first person I've spoken to,” he said. “Where was this lady when you entered?”

“She was standing by the fire,” murmured Temperley. “By this chair I'm now sitting on.”

“In what sort of position?”

“How do you mean?”

“At ease? Strained? Agitated?”

“It was too dim to see.”

“But, surely? When you drew closer?”

“I didn't draw closer.”

“Why not?”

“I went back to the hall.”

“Why?”

Temperley hesitated. Then he blurted out,

“This may sound a bit silly but I'm telling you the truth—”

“Nothing else is of any use to me.”

“Exactly. That's why you're getting it. I went back to make an inquiry about my luggage. The night-porter will corroborate this. Also, that it was a quite unnecessary inquiry. I haven't any earthly idea why I asked it.”

“What was it?”

“Just to know if I needed a check for my luggage.”

“That doesn't seem so extraordinary.”

“Perhaps not. But, the impulse—just at that particular moment! You see, if I'd stayed—”

He paused. But not till later did he have any knowledge of what might have happened had he stayed. And, when the knowledge came, his forehead grew damp.

“Well—if you'd stayed, Mr. Temperley,” queried the inspector, after a pause.

“Perhaps I might have—prevented it!”

“How? The dead man was not in the smoking-room when you returned to the night-porter!” Temperley was silent. He felt he was saying too much. “Where
was
he?” pressed the inspector. “Still in the hotel entrance?”

“No.”

“Where then?”

“We passed each other in the passage.”

“Oh. Then he was in the smoking-room immediately
after
you left?”

“Yes.”

“Where, also, was the lady?”

“Yes.”

“What was his attitude when you passed each other in the passage?”

“Attitude? Oh—fretful—as it had always been.”

“Nothing significant, then?”

“No.”

“Did you speak to each other?”

“No.”

“How long were you away? Talking to the night-porter?”

“About a minute. Maybe, two.”

“Have you any idea of the time?”

“Yes. It was a quarter-past five.”

“How do you know that?”

“A clock struck the quarter just as I returned to the smoking-room.”

“I see. And, when you returned, you found only the man there? The lady had gone?”

“How do you know that?”

“I don't. It's a guess. A good one?”

“Yes—she'd gone,” admitted Temperley. “Or, rather, she was going. She passed me as I went in.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“No.”

“Was she agitated? Well, you needn't answer that. I can see by your expression that she
was
agitated. Forgive me for seeming personal, Mr. Temperley, but may I ask why you are so interested in this lady, if you do not know her? And that's another question you needn't answer unless you want to.”

Temperley frowned, but found it impossible to feel resentful. Why
was
he so interested? The inspector was merely echoing his own question.

“I'm—I'm dashed if I have any idea,” he replied, honestly. “Perhaps I just feel—that she
couldn't
have had anything to do with this frightful business. And, by the way, inspector, she wasn't
very
agitated—as far as I could judge.”

“But she
was
very beautiful!” murmured the inspector, without cynicism. Temperley flushed again, and the inspector smiled almost apologetically. “I understand, Mr. Temperley. There was a time when I, like you, rebelled against the idea of coupling crime with beauty. But—facts beat us, sir. We must keep our dreams for our private moments. Well. This—disturbing lady. She went out of the room and she did not come back?”

“No.”

“And you have no idea where she is?”

“None at all.” That was something to be grateful for!

“Where was the dead man. When you entered the room?”

“Just where he is now.”

“And just
as
he is now?”

“That I can't say.”

“What did you do?”