LITMIR.BIZ

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‘Just as well.’

      ‘No. He’s not very pretty,’ muttered Dr Curtis absently. He bent down. Fox moved the lamp.

      ‘It seemed a bit queer to me his lasting so long, doctor,’ said Fox.

      ‘The head’s a queer thing,’ observed Dr Curtis. ‘There have been cases of survival – What was the angle, Kantripp?’

      ‘Slightly upward. But it may have shifted.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You say, Fox,’ said Alleyn, ‘that he tried to speak?’

      ‘Well, sir, not to say speak. He made noises.’

      ‘It wasn’t likely, I thought, that he could say anything,’ said Dr Kantripp, ‘but Mr Fox thought there was just a chance. As Curtis says, queer things happen with injuries to the brain. There have been cases –’

      ‘I know. What are those marks beside the eyes? Hypostases?’

      The two doctors exchanged glances.

      ‘I didn’t think so,’ said Dr Kantripp diffidently.

      ‘Bruises, more likely,’ said Dr Curtis. ‘You don’t get hypostases there. Not with the way he’s lying.’

      ‘They said, Fox, that he sat on the right-hand end of the seat?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Have a look at the left temple, would you, Curtis?’

      Dr Curtis began to take away the dressing over the left eye.

      ‘You’re quite right, Alleyn,’ said Dr Kantripp. ‘There’s a cut on the temple under the bandage. I was going to show you. Yes, there it is.’

      With a swift and delicate gesture Alleyn placed his long left hand across the staring right eye and the left socket. The heel of his hand was against the right side of the face, thumb downwards.

      ‘There’s a sort of fancy steel fretwork affair in the wall of the lift,’ said Fox. ‘With knobs on. There’s a bit of a smear on one of the knobs. It looks as if it had been wiped.’

      ‘Does it, indeed?’ Alleyn murmured and swiftly drew away his hand. ‘We’ll get him out of here,’ he added.

      ‘I’ve left orders for the mortuary van.’

      ‘Yes. Thank you, Curtis. You’ll do the post-mortem tomorrow?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I think before I see the family we’ll take a look at the lift. You can get to work in here, Bailey. Try those bruises for prints. You’d better go all over the face. It’s a faint hope but you’d better have a shot at it. Then the skewer. Then come along to the lift. And, Thompson, you get some shots of the head, will you?’

      ‘Very good, Mr Alleyn.’

      Alleyn did not move away from the bed. He stared at the face on the pillow and the single eye in the face seemed, in return, to glare sightlessly at him. Alleyn stooped and touched the jaw and neck.

      ‘No rigor yet?’

      ‘Just beginning. Why?’

      ‘We may have to perform an unpleasant experiment. Is the nurse still here?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Dr Kantripp.

      ‘When Bailey and Thompson have finished, get her to tidy him up. He’s a nightmare as he is. Come on, Fox.’

      II

      Fox had caused the mechanism of the lift to be switched off, had sealed the doors and had posted a uniformed constable on the landing. The lift was dark inside and, waiting there at the Lampreys’ landing, it wore an air of expectancy.

      ‘Window at the top of the door,’ said Alleyn.

      ‘That’s right, sir.’

      ‘Didn’t you say that he sat in here, yelling for his wife? With the doors shut?’

      ‘So the butler said.’

      ‘He might have been whisked down below.’

      ‘Perhaps he kept his thumb on the stop button, Mr Alleyn.’

      ‘Perhaps he did.’ Alleyn switched on the light. ‘Now, where was he?’

      ‘From all accounts he was sitting in the right-hand corner with his head leaning against that steel grid affair and his bowler hat tilted over his face. Of course the lift’s been used since then. The doctor, for one, came up in it. As soon as our chaps came in they attended to that. Still, it’s a pity.’

      ‘It is.’ Alleyn peered at the steel framework of the wall. ‘There’s the smear you talked about on that bulge or knob or what-you-will.’

      ‘Very fancy design, isn’t it, sir?’

      ‘Very, B’rer Fox. Grapes, you see, mixed up with decorative lumps. Modern applied art. How tall was he?’

      ‘Six foot and a half an inch,’ said Fox immediately.

      ‘Good. You’re six foot, aren’t you? Just sit at the other end, Foxkin. Yes. Yes, I fancy that if you sat there and I caught you a snorter on the right side of your head, your left temple would miss that corresponding knob by half an inch or so. However, that’s altogether too vague. It looks as if we’ll have to get him in here to try. I see these knobs have got slight depressions in the surface. Look at our particular one. Somebody, as you capably observed, has wiped it. And the seat, as well. Not very proficiently. Bailey will have to deal with this. Hallo!’

      Alleyn stooped and flashed his torch under the seat. ‘I suppose you’ve already spotted those, you old devil,’ he observed.

      ‘Yes, sir. I thought I’d leave them for you.’

      ‘What delicacy! What tact!’ Alleyn reached under the seat and drew out a pair of heavy driving-gloves with long gauntlets. He and Fox squatted on the floor and examined them.

      ‘Bloody,’ said Fox.

      ‘Blood, or something that looks like it. Between the middle and the third fingers of the left hand, and on the inner surface of those fingers. And a little on the palm. Can you see any on the right-hand glove? Yes. Again, a little on the palm. Bless my soul, Fox, we must take care of these. Give them to Bailey, like a good chap, and then tell me the whole story as far as you’ve got.’

      Fox went into 26. The constable cleared his throat. Alleyn gazed at the lift well. The door into 25 opened and a good-looking pale young man peered out on to the landing.

      ‘Oh, hallo,’ he said politely. ‘I’m sorry to bother you. You’re Mr Alleyn, I expect.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Alleyn.

      ‘Yes. I’m so sorry to make a nuisance of myself, but I thought I’d just ask if it was likely to be a very long time before you began to pitch into us. I’m Henry Lamprey.’

      ‘How do you do,’ said Alleyn politely. ‘We’ll be as quick as we can. Not long now.’

      ‘Oh, good. It’s just that my mama is rather exhausted, poor thing, and I think she ought to go to bed. That is, of course, if my Aunt Violet can be moved off the bed or even out of the room which I must say seems to be doubtful … What is the right technique, do you know, with widows of murdered men who are also one’s near relations?’

      ‘Is Lady Charles with Lady Wutherwood at the moment?’ asked Alleyn. Henry came out on the landing and shut the door. He stood in the shadow of the lift.

      ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My mama is in there and so is Tinkerton who is my Aunt Violet’s maid. It appears that my Aunt Violet is in a sort of coma or trance and really doesn’t

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