Free Death-Watch by John Dickson Carr Page A

middle of these storybook dreams and rescues from romantic dangers, down dropped a real corpse; and young gallantry did nearly break his neck when he faced reality. But I said Eleanor was older and wiser, and there’s the revealing part of the whole thing …”
    “How so? If you’ve not any facts —”
    “She saw on the floor, dead, somebody she took for this young chap. And over him she saw Boscombe, with a gun in his hand. That was why she went hysterical. She never for a second doubted Boscombe had shot him.’’
    Hadley ran a hand across his dull-coloured hair. “Then Boscombe—”
    “He’s in love with her, Hadley; I almost said bitterly in love, and I rather think she hates him. That little soft-footed nervous fellow is full of a kind of iron and water, and she may be a bit afraid of him. If she thought he would kill or had killed our friend Donald, there’s a curious inference to be drawn with regard to the other—”
    Hadley peered at him from under lowered brows.
    “There’s also the inference,” he pointed out, almost idly, “that Ames, in the darkness of that hall, might have been mistaken for Boscombe … We have enough complications already, I admit; but Boscombe interests me.”
    “The shoes and gloves and the broken window, and Stanley?”
    “Oh, I’ll get the truth out of them,” said Hadley, quietly. There was something in the commonplace words, and in the very faint smile that accompanied them, which made Melson shiver. He had a feeling that something would be smashed, as though the chief inspector were to bring his gloved fist down on one of the glass cases and scatter its brittle contents. Hadley moved over easily and stood with his inscrutable dark eyes in the lamplight. “I have an idea that Boscombe and Stanley were going to put up a bit of a fake ‘crime’ to pull Ames’s leg. You’d thought of that?”
    Dr. Fell made an indistinguishable noise.
    “And the most significant thing in the whole affair,” Hadley went on, “was the testimony as to who did or did not know Ames. And I promise you that I’m going to sweat out every filthy he that’s ever been told in this house, by God! Until I find the swine who came up and stabbed a good man in the back!”
    His fist crashed down on the table; and, with the eerie effect of an answer, there was a knock at the door. Hadley was his old impassive self when Sergeant Betts appeared, carrying something wrapped in a handkerchief.
    “The—the knife, sir,” he reported. He looked white. “There was nothing in his pockets, nothing at all, except a pair of gloves. Here they are. Old Busy never …” Checking himself abruptly, he gave an unnecessary salute and waited.
    “Take it easy, old son,” said Hadley, trying not to show that he looked uncomfortable. “We none of us like it. We—Shut that door! Hum. Er—you didn’t talk? You didn’t let anybody find out who he is? That’s important.”
    “No, sir, although two have been asking a lot of questions—the stoutish lady with the dyed hair and the fussy little bloke in the grey dressing-gown.” Betts regarded him with some sharpness under a wooden exterior. “But a queer thing happened only a minute ago. While we were going after fingerprints—there aren’t any on that arrow-headed thing, by the way—”
    “No,” Hadley commented, sourly. “I didn’t suppose there would be. I’d like to find somebody in this day and age who did leave finger-prints. Well?”
    “—While Benson was doing that, and we were standing in the doorway, out of another doorway comes a big bloke, you see, sir, with a funny shambling walk and a queer look in his eyes. And Benson says, ‘Good God,’ under his breath, and I said, ‘What?’ and Benson says (under his breath, you see, sir, because the lady was looking on and saying she wasn’t nervous and she was always good in sick-rooms anyway), Benson says, ‘Stanley. He ought to recognize Old Busy …’”
    Hadley remained impassive.