with a mental shrug at Nigel’s amazing imbecility in having overlooked his own cast-iron alibi, got on with the work. Roberts, the pantry-man, proved unprofitable. He had been in his pantry solidly for twenty minutes when the gong sounded. The cook and odd-boy were also completely without interest. Alleyn turned his attention to the hall itself.
He produced a tape measure and carefully took measurements between the cocktail table and the foot of the stairs. The tray with its sordid array of used glasses had been left untouched.
‘All very nice and proper,’ grumbled Alleyn to Detective-Sergeant Bailey; ‘nothing disturbed except the minor detail of the body.’
‘Lovely funeral if we’d only had a corpse, sort of,’ responded Bailey.
‘Well, young Bathgate says the body was lying at right angles to the gong. The last that Mary saw of Mr Rankin he was standing at the cocktail tray. Presumably at the end of it when he was struck. Come here, Bunce. How tall are you?’
‘Five-foot-eleven in me socks, sir.’
‘Good enough. The body is just on six foot. Stand here, will you?’
Bunce stood to attention, and Alleyn walked round him, looking at him carefully.
‘What do you make of this, Bailey?’ he said. ‘This job was done inside five minutes at the most. The knife was in that leather slot by the stairs, unless it had been previously removed, which I think unlikely. Therefore, the murderer started off from here, took the thing in his right hand—so—and struck from the back.’
He went through the pantomime of stabbing the constable. ‘Now see what I mean. I’m six-foot-two, but I can’t get the right angle. Bend over, will you, Bunce? Ah, that’s more like it; but the banister gets in the way. He may have been leaning over the tray. It’s too far if I stand on the bottom step. Wait a bit. See if you can get anything from the bottom knob of the banister, will you, Bailey?’
‘It’ll be a fair mess of prints,’ said the expert glumly. He opened a small grip and busied himself with the contents.
Alleyn nosed round the hall. He inspected the main switch, the glasses, the cocktail shaker, the gong, all the tables and woodwork. He paused by the grate. The dead clinkers of last night’s fire were still there.
‘I ses, “Don’t you touch none of them grates”,’ said Bunce suddenly; ‘there’s only gas upstairs.’
‘Quite right,’ rejoined the inspector; ‘we will deal with the fireplaces ourselves.’ He bent over the fireplace and, taking a pair of tongs, removed the clinkers one by one, laying them on a piece of newspaper. As he did this he kept up a running commentary to Detective-Sergeant Bailey.
‘You’ll find Miss North’s prints on that sketch plan of the house that I put on the tray there. Also Bathgate’s. We must have everyone’s, of course. The tooth-mugs upstairs will be profitable in that direction. I hate asking for prints, it makes me feel so self-conscious. There’s nothing on the knife, needless to say—nor yet the switch. A nitwit wouldn’t leave a print behind him nowadays if he could help it.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ agreed Bailey. ‘There’s a proper muck up on the banister, but I rather think we’ll get something a bit better from the knob.’
‘The knob, eh?’ said Alleyn, who had now drawn out the ash-tray from under the grate.
‘Curious position, too. There’s a clear left-hand impression pointing downwards. Quite an awkward place to get your left hand, with the banister curving out at the bottom the way it does. It’s right on the inside edge. Very clear, too. Saw it with me naked eye at once.’
‘Your naked eye is uncanny, Bailey. Try the head of the stairs. Hullo, what’s this?’
He had been sifting the ashes in the tray, and now paused, squatting on his heels and peering at a small grimy object in the palm of his hand.
‘Made a find, sir?’ said the fingerprint expert, who was now at work on the stair-head.
‘Somebody’s been chucking away their belongings,’ grunted the inspector. He produced a small magnifying glass and squinted through it.
‘A Dent’s press button,’ he murmured, ‘with just a fragment of—yes, of leather—charred, but unmistakable. Ah, well.’ He put his trophy in an envelope and wrote on the flap.
The next twenty minutes he spent crawling about the floor, standing on chairs to examine the stairwell and outside of the treads, gingerly inspecting the cigarette boxes, and directing Bailey to test the coal scuttle and fire irons for prints.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘for the bedrooms. The mortuary van will be here any time now, Bunce. I’ll leave you to attend to that. Come on,’ he said, and led the way upstairs. On the landing he paused and looked about him.
‘On our left,’ he informed Bailey, ‘the bedroom of Mrs Wilde, the dressing-room of her husband, the bathroom, and Mr Bathgate’s room. All communicating. Very matey and rather unusual. Well, begin at the beginning, I suppose.’
Mrs Wilde’s room was disordered and bore a faint family likeness to a modern comedy bedroom. She had taken away its character, and Florence had not been allowed to put it back. The bed had not been made, and the early morning tea-tray was still on the table.
‘There’s your mark for prints, Bailey,’ said the inspector, and once again the expert produced his bag.
‘The alibi here is pretty good, I understand,’ remarked Bailey, sifting a fine powder over the surface of a cup.
‘Pretty good?’ answered Alleyn. ‘It’s pretty damn’ good for all of ‘em except Miss Grant. She did tell a nice meaty lie about her movements, and followed up with a faint on top of it.’
He opened a suitcase and began going through the contents.
‘What about this Russian affair, sir? The doctor or whatever he is?’
‘Yes, he seems to be a likely horse. Do you fancy him, Bailey?’
‘Well, from what you’ve told me about the knife and all that, it looks sort of possible. Personally I favour the butler.’
‘If Tokareff’s our man, he is pretty nimble on his pins. His room is some way along the passage and he sang, so they tell me, continuously. As for the butler—he was in the servants’ quarters the whole time and was seen there.’
‘Is that dead certain, sir? After all, he has done a bunk.’
‘True. He is rather tempting; but when you’ve got your prints from the banister, I’ll know better if I’m on the right track. Do your stuff in the bathroom now, will you, Bailey? Bathgate and Wilde will be found to predominate. Then come back and go through this tallboy for me while I get on to the other rooms. Do you mind working out of your department for a bit?’
‘Pleasure, sir. What am I looking for?’
‘A single glove. Probably yellow dogskin. Right hand. I don’t expect to find it here. Make a list of all the clothes, please.’
‘Right, sir,’ said Bailey from the bathroom.
