A Press of Suspects Page 16

  The charwoman made a swift calculation. “About a quarter to eight, I’d say.”

  “Thank you,” said Ogilvie, well satisfied. “I’m very grateful for the help you’ve given me, Mrs. Little. It’s been most valuable.”

  “You’re very welcome, I’m sure. I only ’opes you catch the chap what done it.” Mrs. Little watched the inspector out of sight and then hurried away to acquaint the other cleaners with the sensational news that the murderer had possibly been in their midst the previous morning.

  Ogilvie went down to the second floor office and spent half an hour setting his notes in order in readiness for Haines’s arrival. Just after eight o’clock he went off to the front box to have another word with Vickers.

  “Look, Sarge,” he said, with barely concealed excitement, “there’s one thing I forgot to ask you last night and it’s important. Suppose someone had decided to stay in the building all night instead of going home—would you have known?”

  Vickers looked thoughtful. “Now that’s different,” he said slowly. “I dare say we wouldn’t ’ave done, at that. We don’t really know when people go ’ome, ’cept by chance—there’s too many of ’em, an’ often when we think they’re off ’ome they’re just slipping into the Crown for a quick one. They’re always bobbing in and out—I tell you, we get proper dizzy.”

  “Is there any patrol of the building during the night?”

  “Well, there is an’ there isn’t, as you might say. Sergeant Peach, ’e usually does a round just before midnight, putting out lights what people ’ave left burning unnecessary, and then Sergeant Granger ’e sometimes takes a turn round the place early in the morning—though only if there’s someone else at the box, mind you! Still, there ain’t no search o’ the place, o’ course. Since you ask me, I’d say if anyone wanted to ’ ide ’imself in the office all night ’e could do it easy. There’s plenty o’ places.”

  “And leave next day without anyone being the wiser?”

  “I reckon so, if ’e was a bit careful.”

  Ogilvie beamed. “Thanks, Sarge. You know, I think we may be on to something.” He went back upstairs and completed his notes.”

  It was just after half-past eight when Haines arrived. “Morning, Inspector,” he called to Ogilvie. “Any developments?”

  “There are one or two things I’d like to put up to you, Chief,” said Ogilvie modestly. He had a pleasant sense of achievement, but he was a tactful officer. “Did you manage to get anything out of Mrs. Ede?”

  Haines sat down and began to fill his pipe. “I had a useful half hour with her,” he said. “She’s a very charming woman. Not very big but a lovely figure—what you’d call petite, I suppose. Large dark eyes and a nice complexion.”

  “She sounds a knockout,” said Ogilvie dutifully. Privately he thought that his Chief’s description of feminine charms was lamentably uninformative.

  “I won’t deny she made a strong impression on me,” Haines went on, “and I can well imagine an emotional young fellow like Cardew losing his head over her. She’s one of those women with a lot of appeal—what they call ‘it’—and yet dignity too. Ede certainly picked a winner.”

  “Did she corroborate Cardew’s story?”

  “Yes and no. She wasn’t willing to let him take all the responsibility for what had happened—that was the main difference. I suspected all the time that he was being chivalrous. According to her, she found his company pleasant and they did have what she called a very mild flirtation—nothing that she would have minded her husband knowing about, she said. That’s as may be. Anyhow, she now thinks that she behaved very foolishly, and blames herself for not realising that he might become serious. She says he was so light-hearted that the possibility never entered her head.” Haines paused for a moment. “I’m inclined to believe her—it’s a common enough situation, and as a matter of fact she struck me as being genuinely fond of Ede. She was certainly brought up sharp by this business yesterday. If you ask me, Ede has been a bit too much married to his newspaper and she’d been amusing herself in what she thought was a harmless way.”

  “So she’s out, Chief?”

  “I think so. She didn’t behave in the least like a woman who’s just conspired with a lover to murder a husband. Her attitude over Cardew was all wrong for that. She was too frank—just as he was, for that matter. She didn’t try to cover up for him sufficiently. It seemed not to have occurred to her that he might be under suspicion, until I began to question her about his state of mind when he left her. She was worried enough on his account then—in fact, her behaviour was just what I’d have expected it to be if her story and his were both true. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can rule out Cardew—he might well have done it off his own bat. He’s still the only person that we know had access to Ede’s room—unless you’ve got anything more on that?”

  “Yes, I think this is where I come in, Chief,” said Ogilvie. “I’ve covered quite a bit of ground since last night.” He proceeded to give Haines a detailed account of his unproductive inquiries about keys and of his highly fruitful half-hour with the charladies.

  “The way I see it, sir, is this,” he said finally. “We know now for a fact that the cyanide wasn’t laid before a quarter past seven yesterday morning, when Mrs. Little finished cleaning the room. If we can believe the commissionaires and Miss Timmins, the murderer had no other opportunity once the cleaners had left. In that case, he must have put the stuff down before a quarter to eight, when Mrs. Little re-locked Ede’s door. There’s additional evidence to support that theory—for one thing, the newspaper that the murderer put down. The only reason I can think of why he should do that is that he had to keep the cyanide from touching the wet floor. If I’m right, then it follows that the job was done almost immediately after Mrs. Little left the shower-room, because otherwise the floor would have dried and the precaution wouldn’t have been necessary. And there’s another point—a man who’d stayed all night in the office, with the intention of going in after the cleaners, is precisely the man you’d expect to have a first edition in his pocket—whereas later on, that would have been most unlikely. I won’t say I think it’s an absolutely cast-iron theory, but it does seem to me that everything points to the job having been done in that half-hour.”

  Haines was impressed. “It’s a smart bit of reconstruction, anyway,” he said. “Good for you, Ogilvie.” He puffed away for a few moments, considering the situation in the light of these new discoveries. “Of course,” he said at last, “if you’re right, Cardew’s visit at six in the evening doesn’t mean a thing. The floor would certainly have been dry by then.”

  “How do we know he wasn’t the night prowler?” asked Ogilvie.

  “If he’d laid the cyanide in the early morning,” said Haines, “he’d hardly have gone to Ede’s room at the very moment when his victim was about to take the fatal shower. That would have been idiotic, and our man’s clever.”

  Ogilvie agreed. “Well, perhaps Cardew was telling the truth. He’s not the only pebble on the beach, Chief, as you said yesterday. That idea that he took advantage of someone else’s murder to do one of his own is feasible enough, I know, but it’s a darned sight more likely that one chap did both jobs, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, certainly,” said Haines. “We’ve got Cardew in our minds as suspect number one because his motive was so strong, but the case against him is full of holes.” He sat quietly for a while, considering competing claims. Iredale’s actions would obviously need looking into. Pringle’s, too. Pringle had had almost as good a motive as Iredale for wanting to kill Hind, and a better one for wanting to get rid of Ede. If Ede had died, Pringle might have kept his job and his racket—as it was, he would almost certainly be out on his neck before long.

  “All right,” said Haines finally, “for the time being we’ll forget Cardew. We’ll work on the assumption that the same chap did the two jobs and that the cyanide was laid during that half hour by someone who’d stayed in the office—and we
’ll see where it gets us. That means checking up on the whereabouts of the sixty-eight people who hadn’t an alibi for Hind’s murder. Okay?”

  “Fine,” said Ogilvie, rubbing his hands. “It’ll be a lot simpler than it was last time—most of the sixty-eight must have been at home at that hour in the morning, and corroboration should be easy. We ought to finish up with a nice short list.” He was eager to get started. “You know, Chief, I have a feeling that we shall be moving in for the kill before very long.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” Haines reproved him. “It may not be us who’ll be moving in! I can’t get it out of my mind that the murderer’s still around with the cyanide. Think of it—a couple of whiffs, a spot on the tongue, and there’s another body on our hands. There are so many ways he can do it.” The inspector’s gaze wandered to the ceiling, where four nozzles protruded from the plaster. “Aren’t those things up there fire sprinklers?”

  Ogilvie looked up. “Yes, they are.”

  “You see what I mean?” said Haines grimly. “We’d better have them disconnected.”

  “All right, Chief,” said Ogilvie, soberly. “But if you’re feeling as worried as that, why not circulate some sort of warning round the office? Keep people on their toes.”

  “A very good idea,” said Haines. “I think I will.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  While Ogilvie proceeded to organise a lightning round-up of the sixty-eight, Haines went along to the Editor’s room, now completely free from cyanide gas, and supervised the police work there. It had already been established at the Yard that the cyanide crystals adhering to the newspaper had been similar to the poison used in the olives. Various minute specks of dirt which had stuck to the paper were being microscopically examined, but the results, if any, would be useful only at a later stage. Otherwise, it seemed as though Ede’s room was going to be as barren of clues as the Directors’ Dining Room had been.

  As soon as the photographers and the fingerprint men had finished their work, Haines arranged for a careful search of the less frequented parts of the building in case the murderer should have left any traces of his night’s lodging. He also rang up the hospital, and was informed that though Ede was now out of danger he could not yet be interviewed. For the moment there was nothing more to do but draft a cyanide warning and wait for Ogilvie’s results. Haines returned to the second floor office.

  He had hardly sat down when there was a sharp rap at the door and Jackson came in. Judging by the portentous look on his face, he brought news of significance. A sheaf of press clippings fluttered from his right hand like streamers from an electric fan.

  “Are you busy, Inspector?” he asked. “I’ve got something here that will interest you.”

  “Come right in, Mr. Jackson. What is it?”

  “I think it’s possible I may be able to help you about the cyanide.”

  A gleam of excitement lit the inspector’s face. “Go ahead, Mr. Jackson—I’m all attention.”

  “Well, it was that remark of Inspector Ogilvie’s about the Nazis and their execution chambers that put me on to it. I felt at the time that it rang a bell, but I had so much on my mind last night I couldn’t recall just why. This morning I knew at once what it was I’d been trying to remember. It was towards the end of the war—the first of the concentration camps had been liberated, and one of our correspondents went with a Press party to have a look at it. He brought back to the office a tin of the poison that the Nazis used in the gas chambers.” Jackson solemnly handed over the clippings. “I got these from the library,” he said. “You’ll see a picture there of the actual tin. The stuff was called ZYKLON—I suppose that was a sort of trade name—but in fact it appears to have been cyanide.”

  Haines took the clippings and perused them in silence. There were several stories on the same theme, some sent from a place called Lublin and some apparently written in the office. The name of the camp was Maidanek, in Poland. Each story carried the byline, “By Our Special Correspondent, WILLIAM IREDALE.” As he read, Haines’s face grew more and more serious.

  “Of course,” said Jackson uncomfortably, “it may be just a coincidence.”

  “It may,” said Haines, still staring at the clippings, “but I should hardly think so. After all, the way the stuff was used in Mr. Ede’s room was almost an exact imitation of this gas chamber technique. Who’d have thought of that method in the ordinary course of things? No, it rather looks as though you may have hit the nail on the head, Mr. Jackson. What happened to the ZYKLON, do you remember?”

  “I don’t think I ever knew,” said Jackson with a worried look. “All I can tell you is that Mr. Ede had charge of it for a time—that was when I saw it myself.”

  “Well, we can’t ask him—not yet. I’d better see Iredale.” Haines dialled Miss Timmins’s number, inquired politely how she was feeling, and once more enlisted her help. Then he sat staring at the photograph of the ZYKLON. According to the story, there had been seven pounds of it. The quantity was terrifying.

  Jackson got up. “I’d better leave you to it,” he said.

  “Just a moment, Mr. Jackson.” Haines unscrewed his fountain pen and made some alterations in the draft warning he’d been working on. When he’d finished, he passed it across to the Assistant Editor. “I suggest putting that up on every notice board in the office. Is that all right with you?”

  Jackson read it through twice. “I suppose so,” he said slowly. “It may make the staff rather jumpy.”

  “That’s what I want. The way things are at the moment, there’s not a man or woman in this building who’s an insurable risk, and that’ll be true until we get our hands on the murderer. People can’t be too careful.” He looked uneasily at the Assistant Editor. “As a matter of fact, I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to advise the temporary closing of the office.”

  “That’s impossible, of course,” said Jackson sharply. “Good heavens, Inspector, we managed to keep going all through the blitz.”

  “This could be more lethal than the blitz,” said Haines.

  Jackson chewed his wispy white moustache. “Surely the man you’re after can’t be completely indiscriminating. There must be some method in his madness.”

  “Possibly, but that’s no help to us if we don’t know what the method is. He may have very sweeping plans. We’re certainly not justified in neglecting any reasonable precautions.”

  “Very well,” said Jackson. “I’ll have this notice duplicated, and in the meantime I’ll read it over to one or two of the directors. If they agree, as they no doubt will, I’ll see that it’s circulated this afternoon. Shall I leave the clippings with you?”

  “If you don’t mind,” said Haines.

  When Jackson had gone, he sat for a while in gloomy reflection. No policeman, he felt, had ever had a heavier responsibility. It was true that so far there had been a certain pattern about the murderer’s activities, but it wasn’t a rational pattern. He might strike again at any moment on a mere homicidal whim. The fact that he was probably regarded as a good and trustworthy colleague by dozens of people was frightening. Haines was so disturbed that presently he put in a call to the Yard and had a talk with the Assistant Commissioner. After that, he felt better, and turned again to the clippings. He was just thinking it was rather unlikely that anyone would have stored away a tin of cyanide five years ago with the intention of committing a murder at some later date when there was another knock at the door and Iredale came in.

  Haines gave him a curt nod and motioned him to a chair. Shock tactics seemed called for. “Mr. Iredale,” he said, “I understand that you once brought a tin of cyanide into this office.”

  Iredale stared. “I did?” He looked quite blank; then shook his head with increasing emphasis. “I’m sorry, Inspector, but I haven’t the remotest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “It was called ZYKLON.”

  The blank look slowly faded; recollection came flooding in. A flush darkened Iredale’s
face as he met the inspector’s flinty eyes. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I remember now, of course.”

  “It’s a great pity you didn’t remember earlier,” Haines snapped. “A spontaneous recollection a couple of days ago would have impressed me. As it is …” His shrug completed the sentence.

  “For Heaven’s sake, Inspector, you surely don’t imagine that I kept it from you deliberately? I’m sorry I didn’t think of it, but that all happened years ago, and we were talking all the time about cyanide, not ZYKLON. I just didn’t connect the two things.”

  “You knew that ZYKLON was cyanide. You say so here, in these articles of yours.” Haines tapped the bundle of clippings with the stem of his pipe.

  “Yes, but the damned word isn’t written on my heart. I tell you I’d forgotten about it—just as everybody else had. I simply didn’t associate the two things, and I think it’s unreasonable to expect me to have done so after all this time.”

  Haines grunted. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me just how you came to bring the stuff here in the first place? What was the point?”

  “I certainly wasn’t planning to decimate the office with it, if that’s what you’re thinking. I brought it back because it was my job to report facts, and a tin of ZYKLON seemed a pretty impressive fact to me. Before the Russians took us to Maidanek, a lot of quite intelligent people here seemed to think that the rumours about gas chambers were just propaganda. Well, I saw the gas chambers—I went over them, I saw how they worked. I saw the ZYKLON stacked up in a storehouse like so much insecticide. I also saw the pulverised bones of about a million people it had killed, if that interests you. It seemed quite a story to me, but the office played it down at first—they found it too gruesome and almost incredible. So I flew home with the stuff, and a few other unpleasant relics from the camp, and as you can see we went to town on the story.” He met the inspector’s bleak gaze squarely. “Anything sinister about that?”