LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Two

      Inspector Hyde settled himself comfortably at his desk and lit his pipe. ‘I’m very glad that you’ve decided to come in on the case, Mr Holt,’ he said between puffs. ‘You were a great help to us last time and your assistance would be very welcome, certainly.’

      ‘Well – I haven’t finally decided,’ Holt told him. ‘My chief reason for coming here this morning is to hand you this copy of the New Feature I mentioned on the telephone. The poison-pen insinuation is on page eighteen.’

      The Inspector took the magazine and with the aid of a large magnifying-glass examined the sentence written in green ink. Then he took something from a file on his desk and made a further study of that through the glass. From where Holt sat, it looked as if it might be a greetings card of some kind.

      ‘H’m … Yes …’ Hyde mumbled to himself. ‘There’s certainly a similarity. Of course, I’m not an expert in these things but I should think we’re on to something there.’

      ‘On to what?’

      ‘M’m …?’ the Inspector murmured absently, locking the file in a drawer. Holt fidgeted in his seat. ‘Now come off it, Inspector!’ he said with a smile. ‘Don’t try that hoary old cat-and-mouse game with me.’

      ‘I thought you hadn’t decided to come in on the case, Mr Holt.’

      ‘I hardly know anything about it yet,’ Holt protested.

      ‘Quite so … Now why not listen to a short summary of the facts as we’ve so far been able to assemble them, and then – well, let us say, favour me with your observations?’

      ‘Fair enough!’

      ‘Good! We’ll begin with the murder itself. Last Monday, some time between ten o’clock and midnight, or maybe a little after, an unknown assailant walked into the study where Vance Scranton was sitting at his books and shot him at very close range with a weapon of heavy calibre. The boy must have been killed instantly; most of his head was blown off. There were two unused glasses and an unopened bottle of port lying on the carpet near him.’

      ‘Unopened?’ Holt interrupted. ‘And the glasses were dry? It sounds as if he’d been expecting someone – either the murderer or a friend.’

      ‘There’s a third possibility: that the murderer was a friend. Whoever it was must have known that Vance was studying late and been reasonably sure that all the other students’ rooms in the passage – they call it Scholars’ Row – were empty. So chance murder, or an assailant unknown to Vance, can be ruled out almost entirely. There were no signs of violence other than the ghastly effects of the gunshot – the room wasn’t ransacked, the boy’s wallet was intact. The only thing that appears to be missing is a signet ring which he generally wore on his left hand. We’re checking up as to whether he’d been wearing it at the time or whether he’d simply lost it.’

      ‘I see,’ said Holt. ‘Now if I may pop in a question – what was he studying at the time of the murder? I mean, what was on his desk?’

      ‘That’s an interesting point,’ Hyde said with approval. ‘He was writing a piece of fiction, a short story I should imagine. He was supposed to be reading History and Economics but his inclinations seem to have been on the literary side. Some of his stories have even been accepted, by rather avant-garde magazines. Frankly, I can’t make head nor tail of them myself, but a chap on the Assistant Commissioner’s staff tells me they belong to the “stream of consciousness” school, whatever that may be.’

      Holt nodded. ‘I know what you mean. I’m afraid it’s not my cup of tea, though. Let’s get back to Monday night. How did the murderer get into the College?’

      ‘It was simple. The wing they call Scholars’ Row is never locked. We imagine that the murderer just walked in, opened Vance’s door, and as the boy straightened up from getting out the port and glasses for his visitor our murderer fired at point blank range. Then the murderer had only to pocket the gun, walk out of Scholars’ Row, and disappear into the fog.’

      ‘There was fog? Don’t forget, I was out of the country at the time.’

      ‘Oh, yes, it was a filthy night. No one was about. Traffic along the coast between Hastings and Brighton came to a complete standstill, so the reports say.’

      ‘I wonder if that affected our murderer. Did he drive away from the scene of his crime, or leave on foot?’

      Hyde shook his head. ‘That line of inquiry is a dead loss, we’ve tried it. By the way, don’t be too sure the murderer was masculine. There’s absolutely nothing to confirm that. It could just as easily have been a woman.’

      ‘I’d have thought Deanfriston would be out of bounds to women; it’s an all-male College.’

      ‘So it is. But Monday night was an exception. There was a piano recital and some of the students had invited their girlfriends along for the evening. The sight of a girl in Scholars’ Row wouldn’t have been especially remarkable.’

      ‘Did Vance Scranton have any girlfriends?’

      ‘Two, apparently. And they both hated each other! He had two girlfriends but he doesn’t appear to have had any real friends amongst the young men at the College. This strikes me as rather unusual. We haven’t had time yet to check on all possible alibis, but on the face of it it looks as though Vance’s fellow-students were all at the concert. That he was alone and still working seems to be rather typical of his character – an odd ball, a “loner” as I think the Americans put it. A loner and an intellectual.’

      ‘I wonder why he had no friends. Was he unhappy over here? I suppose he didn’t commit suicide, by any chance?’

      Inspector Hyde shook his head. ‘You forget – no weapon was found.’

      ‘Of course. Stupid of me.’

      ‘No, I don’t think there’s any evidence to show that Vance was unhappy. It seems more likely that his manner tended to repel friendship. As far as I can make out, he was a rather arrogant sort of fellow. Two or three students I questioned called him an intellectual snob, and his Professor described him as a neo-Fascist. No, I think Vance Scranton was a loner because he wanted to be, because he just didn’t care for the company of his fellow-men.’

      ‘But he did have two girlfriends?’

      ‘Yes.

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