LITMIR.BIZ

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their original shapes—shells emptied, now, of so much perhaps explosive matter. Had Randolph been shot for the sake of what was in these packets? Was that the murderer’s intended spoil? Letters, or papers? Not money or valuables, certainly; enough of those had been left on the dressing-table. And what kind of letters or papers were worth the taking of a man’s life? Apart from secret treaties and other materials of thrilling fiction, which Mr Bligh did not take very seriously, he knew of one kind which had, not seldom, been considered worth that price of guilt and peril.

      But surely old James Randolph, that busy architect of good works, could have had no interest in blackmail. Scotland Yard knew of some little peculiarities of his—it knows so much about so many public characters, little as they dream of it. But there was nothing savouring of illegality. Besides, the man had been for years immensely wealthy, and the sources of his wealth were no secret. There could have been no temptation to one of the most sordid of crimes.

      Setting aside this difficulty for the time, Mr Bligh poked about diligently among the brown paper and string; and on the carpet beneath them he soon discovered a safety-razor blade. His lips pursed themselves in a silent whistle. Here, no doubt, was the instrument chosen hastily for the opening of the packets—a blade taken from the razor where it had been placed in readiness for use. Bending down, the inspector noted that this was a blade of the make that went with the unscrewed razor on the dressing-table; a duplicate of the two in unopened envelopes in the razor-case.

      If, thought Mr Bligh, the man who cut strings with this blade has left no fingerprints, it can only have been because he was careful not to do so. The inspector used his own pocket-knife to raise the little slip of steel from the carpet, and place it beside the water-bottle and tumbler already destined for expert examination.

      His eyes now began to search the wall at this part of the room, and he discovered at once the small keyhole of a built-in safe—a safe of a primitive type, as Mr Bligh’s experience suggested.

      It was as he noted this that heavy and hasty footsteps were heard on the stairs, and the excited red face of a young constable appeared over the shoulder of the sergeant in the doorway. The formula which Mr Bligh had employed so many hundreds of times in the earliest phase of his career rose again to his lips. ‘Now then,’ he said gruffly, ‘what’s all this?’

      ‘This is the man posted at the street door,’ the sergeant explained in the tone of one inured to the follies of inexperience. ‘What is it, Clarkson?’

      ‘I’ve just found this, sir, in the corner of the passage, just inside the entrance,’ the young man said. ‘I thought it might be important.’ He held out a green tie-on luggage-label, the string of which had somehow been snapped. ‘It’s a dark spot just there, and this label is much the same shade as the carpet. The door opens into a narrow passage, as you know, sir, and it would be awkward going out in a hurry with a bag of any size. This label may have caught against something, and come off without it being noticed, if the man was a bit flurried—so I thought, sir.’

      The inspector, who had listened to this with wooden impassivity, now took the label in his hand. It was inscribed, in a shaky but sufficiently legible script, ‘Bryan Fairman, passenger to Dieppe.’

      ‘Dieppe, eh?’ Mr Bligh said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder.’ He spoke sharply to the attentive sergeant. ‘Get me the Yard on the phone at once.’ The apparatus stood on one of the two small tables flanking the bed; and the sergeant jumped to it.

      ‘Very good, Clarkson,’ the inspector said. ‘This may very possibly have a bearing on the case. I am acting on it now. You can go back to your post.’ He took the telephone instrument in hand.

      In a few moments he was in touch with a colleague at headquarters, and giving swift instructions that inquiry should be made whether a passenger giving the name of Bryan Fairman had travelled by the night-boat reaching Dieppe that morning. The French police, he said, should be asked to co-operate to the extent of keeping this man, if identified, under observation, supposing that he had remained in Dieppe. If not, it would be of great assistance if his movements could be traced, as a serious charge might be brought against him.

      Mr Bligh rang off.

       CHAPTER IV

       NOT HARD OF HEARING

      ‘AND now,’ Inspector Bligh said to his subordinate, ‘for a look at the sitting-room, and that queer piece of evidence, as you call it.’

      He led the way downstairs to the room beneath the bedroom. It was an apartment of less bare appearance than the other, an effect of more luxurious comfort being produced at once by the deep-piled, patternless grey carpet which covered the whole extent of the floor from wall to wall. Two low-backed, thick-cushioned armchairs flanked an old-fashioned fireplace. One of these, the one having its back towards the window, had between it and the wall a table just large enough to hold a grey-enamelled telephone instrument, a London telephone directory, and an orderly pile of journals and printed documents. There were an oval centre table and, before the window, a small writing-table; both, as the inspector correctly guessed, ‘pieces’ of great price. At right angles to this last an inviting double-ended sofa stood backed against the wall; beside it, rising a modest two feet from the floor, was a narrow bookcase. In the bedroom there had not been a book to be seen. The bookcase here appeared to be occupied entirely by works of reference, from the austerity of Bradshaw, Baedeker and Whitaker to the more engaging appeal of a tall row of art-sales annuals.

      Mr Bligh spent little time in examining the room and its contents as a whole. All appeared to be in precisely the state of undisturbed neatness that a man of rigidly orderly habits would require in his own establishment. It was the writing-table to which a gesture from the police-sergeant directed his special attention. Upon it was trimly laid out the usual array of writing materials, with a small open-fronted cabinet of Chinese lacquer, on the shelves of which were arranged in various sizes, note-paper, sheets of blank paper, cards and envelopes.

      Upon the flat top of the cabinet stood an upright engagement-block. It had a separate leaf, with a sentence of Scripture at the foot, allotted to each day, and the leaves were set loosely so as to be turned over on metal rings as each day passed. On the leaf which now met the eye, two afternoon appointments at City addresses were noted, followed by the words, ‘5:30. T. Searle to call,’ presumably referring to some visitor expected by Randolph at his own house. The leaf so exposed was that for the day which had just begun; not, as would have been natural, the leaf for the previous day, the day of the crime. That leaf was missing, and vestiges of paper showed that it had been torn roughly from the file. Handling the block delicately, the inspector satisfied himself that this was the only leaf that had been so removed.

      The block, he knew, had not been touched during the first police examination of the premises some hours before, when the signs of a leaf having been torn away had been noted. He considered the fact with bent brows. Someone, before or after the murder, had been tampering with this record of Randolph’s arrangements, and tampering to some purpose. The fingers of Mr Bligh’s left hand drummed lightly on his hairless skull—an indication with him of restrained excitement.

      ‘You were right,’ he observed to the gratified sergeant. ‘This is important. I don’t know, though, that I should call it queer when a murderer destroys the only direct evidence of his having been on the spot. And now I want to see this man Raught. Send him to me in here.’

      Randolph’s manservant, who had been told to stay in his bedroom adjoining the sitting-room, soon presented himself—a lean, small, dark-visaged individual with a furtive eye. A shifty-looking character at the best of times, thought the inspector; and now looking sick and frightened. Mr Bligh stared hard at him for a few moments; then said with a quietness that seemed only to add to the man’s discomfort: ‘So your name is Simon Raught.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘You were the late Mr Randolph’s personal servant, and you always slept on the premises when he was staying here. That

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