A Press of Suspects Read online

  Jackson beamed. “It will be a pleasure.”

  The two policemen followed Phillips across the corridor to the men’s cloakroom, where a decontamination point had been improvised. Another man was there with a lot of apparatus. In a short time the four of them were dressed in special suits and gas masks, and Phillips led the party into Ede’s room. The windows were wide open and the atmosphere had no doubt cleared considerably during the past half hour, but Phillips and his assistant were taking no chances and began to use their ammonia sprays lavishly.

  Haines and Ogilvie went through into Ede’s dressing-room suite at the far end of the room. It was, they saw, a well-equipped annexe, consisting of a changing room, a wash-room, and a tiled shower cubicle. Thrown across a settee in the changing-room were the clothes that Ede had taken off, and beside them the evening clothes he had intended to put on. The door of the cubicle was open. The shower had been used, but at first glance everything seemed in order. Heavily encumbered, Haines got down on his knees to examine the floor, sweat pouring down his back. Ogilvie peered round his shoulder. Beside the shower there was a piece of duckboard consisting of half a dozen wooden slats screwed on to two battens. Haines lifted one corner, disclosing a sodden newspaper. It was a copy of the Morning Call, of that day’s issue. Both men inspected it closely. Haines ran a finger over the wet surface and found it crystalline. The cubicle, he realised, must still be deadly.

  It was plain enough now what had happened. Someone who had known Ede’s habits must have slipped into the shower-room and put the stuff under the duckboard. Ede had stepped out on to it after his shower, with warm water running off him, and at once the cyanide had given off its deadly gas and knocked him out before he could get beyond the door. Haines was just wondering how Ede could have failed to notice the smell of cyanide on first entering the shower-room when Ogilvie drew his attention to a patent disinfector on the wall. Those things, he knew, gave off a strong perfume of their own, sufficient to conceal the presence of the cyanide as long as it was still dry.

  By now the decontamination officers were waiting to spray the shower-room. With a last glance round, Haines place the wet newspaper carefully on the duck-board and carried the whole thing out into the main room. Phillips had brought a gas-proof container into which the inspector dropped the exhibits. The main thing now was to get the suite properly aired, so that the Yard experts could come in and make their detailed examination.

  It took Haines and Ogilvie a little time to divest themselves of their special clothing and wash away all traces of cyanide. When they got back to the Assistant Editor’s room, Jackson was waiting for them. He had sent a message in to Miss Timmins, who was making a good recovery in the Women’s Rest Room under Katharine Camden’s ministrations. “Well, did you manage to find out anything?” he asked eagerly.

  “There’s no doubt how it was done, Mr. Jackson,” said Haines, mopping his forehead, “but that’s about as far as we’ve got at the moment.” Briefly, he described what they had seen in the shower-room.

  “Good Heavens!” exclaimed Jackson, as Haines finished, “how unbelievably horrible!”

  “Proper execution chamber,” observed Ogilvie. “Just like the ruddy Nazis.”

  “Well, we’d better get on,” said Haines. “I’d like to know more about that newspaper, Mr. Jackson. What time would it have been available in the office?”

  Jackson, who had been frowning down at his desk as though trying to capture an elusive memory, looked up slowly. “I’m sorry, Inspector—what did you say?”

  Haines repeated the question.

  “That depends on what edition it was,” Jackson told him.

  “It had three stars,” said Haines, “if that’s any help.”

  “Ah, then it must have been a West of England paper. Let me see, we were running a bit late last night. The first copy must have been off the presses just after half-past ten.”

  “That gives us a time limit one way, then,” said Haines. “The stuff couldn’t have been laid before ten-thirty last night.” He was wondering if the cyanide had been actually carried into the room in the newspaper. “Come on, Ogilvie, let’s go and see what Miss Timmins has to say. Perhaps she’ll be able to tell us something more definite.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Though her cheeks were still pale and her eyes red, Miss Timmins managed to face the two policemen with her usual air of efficiency. Self-drilled to cope with recurrent crises, she wasn’t going to let even an attempted murder get her down—particularly now that she knew the attempt had failed.

  “We need your help badly, Miss Timmins,” Haines told her. “The position is this. Between half-past ten last night and six o’clock this evening, someone went into Mr. Ede’s room in his absence and put the poison in the shower-cubicle which nearly killed him.” He let that sink in. “Tell me, was it Mr. Ede’s regular practice to take an evening shower at the office?”

  “Only when he was going out and had to change,” said Miss Timmins.

  “Did many people know that he was going out to-night, do you suppose? Members of the staff, I mean?”

  “I should think quite a number. I told Mr. Soames because of getting a reporter to cover the dinner, a if one reporter knows a thing like that there’s no reason why everyone shouldn’t know.”

  “Quite so. Well, now, Miss Timmins, assuming that someone did go into Mr. Ede’s room between those two times, when in your view would that have been most likely to happen? What were the opportunities?”

  Miss Timmins plucked at the now rather crumpled frill around her throat and her forehead creased in anxious thought. “I can’t imagine, Inspector. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible at all.”

  “It may have happened when you weren’t in the building, you know. Let’s consider that possibility first. What were the arrangements about locking your room and Mr. Ede’s?”

  “I have a key to my room,” said Miss Timmins, “and Mr. Ede has a key to his. When we leave at night we both lock our own doors, and when we come in in the morning we both unlock our own doors.”

  “What about the communicating door?”

  “That doesn’t lock.”

  “And do you take the keys home with you, or leave them with the commissionaire?”

  “We take them with us. Sarge has another set down at the front box, and of course he’s got a master key as well.”

  Haines made a mental note to have the keys checked. “Well, one thing at a time. Do you remember locking your door last evening?”

  “Yes—it was about seven o’clock.”

  “Was Mr. Ede still in his room then?”

  “No, he’d gone a few minutes earlier. I heard him lock his door.”

  “But he may have come back later in the evening, eh?”

  “No,” said Miss Timmins, “not last night—Mr. Jackson was on duty. Mr. Ede would always come back if there was any special reason, of course, but last night there wasn’t, so he talked to Mr. Jackson on the telephone instead.”

  “Then to the best of your knowledge, Miss Timmins, both doors were securely locked from the time you left last night until you arrived this morning?”

  She pondered for a moment. “Well, there would be the cleaners,” she suggested.

  “Ah, yes, of course. We shall have to go into that. But as far as you and Mr. Ede were concerned, the rooms remained locked?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you arrive this morning?”

  “At ten o’clock. Mr. Ede came in just before eleven.”

  “The doors were locked when you arrived, and everything in the rooms seemed just as usual?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. Now what about to-day? What opportunities would anyone have had to slip into Mr. Ede’s room unobserved between ten o’clock and six? Plenty, I suppose?”

  “Oh, not at all,” said Miss Timmins, quickly. “In fact, I don’t see how anyone could possibly have …”

  “Think carefully,” Haines press
ed her. “It was only a question of a moment or two, you know.”

  “I realise that,” said Miss Timmins, “but the only time we were both out at once was during lunch, and then we locked up—we always do. We’re most careful about it, because newspaper editors have all sorts of important papers lying about.”

  “But Mr. Ede must have been out of his own room several times during the day—at conferences, for instance?”

  “Oh, yes,” she agreed, “he does pop out quite a bit, but I’m here all the time and it’s part of my job to be a watchdog.”

  “You can hardly watch his outer door from your room.”

  “I can hear, though. It’s become a sort of second nature to me to know what’s going on in there. In any case, it’s a rule that that door isn’t used by the staff—Mr. Ede sometimes lets people out that way, but they never go straight in to him. Anyone who wants to see the Editor must come into my room first.”

  “The intending murderer would have wanted not to see the Editor,” Haines pointed out. “This was an exceptional circumstance … What is it, Miss Timmins?” The secretary’s hand had fluttered to her lips in a gesture of dismayed recollection.

  “I’ve just remembered—Mr. Cardew was in there. But of course, that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with …” Her voice trailed off.

  “Wait a moment,” cried Haines sharply, “Let’s get this straight. You mean that Mr. Cardew was there while Mr. Ede was out?”

  “Yes. It was just after six o’ clock. You see, Mr. Cardew’s a particular friend of Mr. Ede’s and so he’s in a special position. He uses that door more or less as he likes—he’s the only one who does. I’d quite forgotten about him. When I heard someone in there I thought at first it was Mr. Ede—he’d been out, you see—but when I looked in I saw that it was Mr. Cardew. He was just leaving.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “No, he’d gone before I had a chance to speak to him, and Mr. Ede came back almost immediately afterwards.”

  “How long would you say Mr. Cardew was in the room?”

  “Hardly any time at all. Only a minute or two.” Haines glanced across at Ogilvie. “I think we’d better have Mr. Cardew in,” he said.

  “Right, Chief,” Ogilvie agreed briskly, and went out.

  Miss Timmins looked very perturbed as the door closed behind him. “But, Inspector, I’m sure Mr. Cardew couldn’t possibly …”

  “You’ll have to leave that to us, Miss Timmins. Now I want you to search your memory once again. Are you quite certain that nothing else of that sort happened during the day? You can see for yourself it’s most important that there should be no mistake.”

  “I’m absolutely positive,” said Miss Timmins, adding rather coldly, “and I simply can’t believe that anyone would have dared to bring poison into Mr. Ede’s room knowing perfectly well that there was somebody sitting next door.”

  Haines stroked his chin thoughtfully. That did take a bit of believing—except that this murderer had shown himself to be an unusually cool customer. He filed the doubt away. “Well, Miss Timmins,” he said, “we’ve arrived at this position, it seems—that from the time you went home yesterday evening until you found Mr. Ede lying on the floor to-night, the only persons who entered or could have entered Mr. Ede’s room in his absence were Mr. Cardew, or someone who gained unauthorised possession of a duplicate key? Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, of course, yourself,” added Haines, looking straight at her.

  Miss Timmins stared at him blankly for a moment. “Well, really …” she began in an outraged tone.

  “We have to think of everything, you know,” said Haines gently. He was beginning to wonder whether he had paid sufficient attention to Miss Timmins. What was she really like beneath that facade of efficiency? Could she, perhaps, be one of those frustrated spinsters with sexual obsessions? Had she been in love with her boss, and for some reason turned against him? There was no blinking the fact that she had had a unique opportunity to put the poison in Ede’s room—and poisoning was more often than not a woman’s crime. He remembered that she had had no alibi for Hind’s murder, either—and, of course, she had known all about the luncheon party. But what could she have had against Hind? Though she was a pleasant enough person, she was hardly a pin-up girl, and it was inconceivable that there could have been any secret relationship between her and Hind. And she certainly couldn’t have intended the olives for Ede—she of all people would have known his qualities as a host. Haines decided that he was venturing into unnecessarily deep waters. There would be time enough to return to Miss Timmins when he had disposed of the more likely suspects.

  “Anyhow,” he said, his scrutiny over, “I’m very grateful to you, Miss Timmins. You’ve been most clear and helpful. Now if I were you I should go home and try to get a good night’s rest. You’ll probably feel a reaction in the morning, you know, after all this turmoil. Good-night.”

  The hint of suspicion had been too much for Miss Timmins. “Good-night,” she sniffed, her composure broken at last.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Haines sat tense as a coiled spring, listening to the rapid approach of footsteps along the corridor. The door opened and Cardew came in, looking flushed, with Ogilvie at his heels.

  “Sorry I had to send the runners out after you, Mr. Cardew,” said Haines. “Not too inconvenient, I hope?”

  “Not at all,” said Cardew. “I was only at my flat.”

  Haines nodded. “Take a seat, won’t you? I expect you’ve heard the good news about Mr. Ede?”

  “Yes—I’d just phoned the hospital when Inspector Ogilvie rang me.” The young man seemed to be making an effort to speak calmly. “It’s been an appalling shock.”

  “It’s been a great shock to all of us,” said Haines. “However, all’s well that ends well, Mr. Cardew. Have a cigarette.”

  “Thank you.” Cardew helped himself from the inspector’s case and flicked on his lighter. He inhaled deeply and relaxed.

  The spring uncoiled. Leaning forward in his chair, Haines said harshly, “Why did you go into Mr. Ede’s room at six o’clock this evening?”

  Cardew’s mouth opened and shut soundlessly. He was knocked completely off balance.

  “Well, Mr. Cardew, why was it?”

  Cardew’s face had gone white. “I—I’m sorry, Inspector,” he stammered, as if groping desperately for an answer that would bear investigation. “I—I just don’t remember …”

  “You don’t remember! Less than three hours ago, and your mind’s a blank! Let me try to refresh your memory about the incident. You went to Mr. Ede’s room by his private door just before six o’clock. You stayed there for a few minutes only, and you left the room just before he returned. You must have gone there with some purpose in mind. What was it?”

  Cardew was breathing hard. The strain of the past few days, ending in this frightful attack on Ede, had been almost more than he could bear, and his brain was anything but clear. “Let me think, Inspector—just let me think. This awful business has driven everything out of my head. It must have been something to do with work, I suppose …”

  In a voice full of menace, Haines said, “I suggest that you went there to spread cyanide on the floor of his shower room—to kill him, Mr. Cardew.”

  Cardew sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing. “How dare you say that, you swine?” White and shaking, he stood glaring at the inspector. Ogilvie had risen too, ready for trouble.

  Haines sat quite still. “Unless you can give me a proper explanation of what you were doing there,” he said sternly, “I’ve no alternative but to consider that possibility. Sit down, Mr. Cardew, and control yourself. You must realise that you’re in a very serious position, and blustering won’t help you. As far as we’ve been able to discover, you were the only person to spend any time alone in Mr. Ede’s room during the day. You appear unable to produce on the spur of the moment an explanation of what you were doing there. If ever I’ve
seen guilty hesitation on anyone’s face, I saw it just now.”

  “I didn’t do it, I tell you—it’s a monstrous accusation. Why should I?

  “What are your relations with Mrs. Ede?” asked Haines quietly.

  Cardew looked as though he were about to leap across the desk. “Leave her out of it, damn you, do you hear?”

  Haines sighed. “Mr. Cardew, you are evidently under great emotional stress. Now if you’ll just try to calm down, I’ll give you a little advice. If you think it wiser, you can refuse to answer any more of my questions until you’ve got in touch with your lawyer. In that case, I shall assume that the information I have about you and Mrs. Ede is correct, and I shall direct my investigations accordingly. You may be sure that we shall soon be in possession of all the facts. Alternatively, you can tell me the truth yourself, in which case I may at some stage have to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” cried Cardew. “If you’ve heard anything, it’s just filthy gossip … Oh, God!” He buried his head in his hands.

  Haines waited. Ogilvie was sitting back impassively, watching with secret admiration his chief’s ponderous but devastatingly effective technique.

  Presently Cardew looked up, his sensitive face distorted with the effort to reach a decision. “Very well,” he said in a steadier manner, “I suppose I’ll have to tell you everything.” He hesitated a moment longer, and then plunged. “When I went to Ede’s room tonight, it was to tell him that I wanted to resign from the paper.”

  “So soon after your new appointment?”

  “I had to. The—the fact is, I’m in love with Mrs. Ede.”

  “And she with you?”

  “No, no. Everything’s been on my side. God, this is humiliating!”