Free The Widow's Demise by Don Gutteridge

Cardiff said.
    “It is my duty to do so, Humphrey. I’m very
sorry. But I’ll do it right away so you can have the body.”
    “This is all such a great shock to me,’”
Cardiff said. “Why would anyone want to hurt my Delores? She never
harmed a soul.”
    “I think the fella’s crazy,” Wilkie said.
    “Well, crazy or not, I gotta talk to him,”
Cobb said.
    Cobb went over to the stoop. “What’s your
name?” he said to Gagnon.
    Gagnon replied with a burst of French.
    “Please, speak English if you can.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize I was
speaking French,” Gagnon said.
    “The constable here says he found you bendin’
over the body with a vial of acid in yer left hand. And that’s some
nasty scratchin’ you’ve got on yer face.”
    “I did not harm the woman, Constable. I was
walking along this street, heading for Rosewood to talk to Mr.
Cardiff, when I saw a man greet the woman over there and toss
something liquid in her face. She cried out and spun around, and I
saw her fall over the fence. She jerked upward and then slumped to
the ground. Meanwhile, the man dropped the vial and fled around the
far side of the house.”
    “And what did this man look like?” Cobb ran
his hands through his untidy hair, surprised yet again not find his
helmet there. He still was not used to being a plainclothes
detective, even though he had now been at it for almost nine
months.
    “The man was short and slight. It was dusk
and the light was poor. I just caught his outline, in a kind of
blur.”
    “Well, he left his glove behind, eh?”
    “I wouldn’t know. But it’s not mine. I came
away without my gloves this evening.”
    “Let us be sure,” Cobb said, and he went over
to where he had set the glove and returned with it. “Here, try it
on.”
    Gagnon tried unsuccessfully to pull the small
glove over his large hand. “It won’t fit. It’s only half the size
of my hand.”
    “Maybe the glove was lyin’ there all along,”
said Wilkie.
    Cobb smiled, as Wilkie generally did not
deploy logical thought or, if he did, preferred to keep it to
himself.
    “You could be right, Wilkie.” Cobb took the
glove back. To Gagnon he said, “How do you explain holdin’ a vial
of acid in yer hand and bendin’ over the dead lady who managed to
scratch you before she died?”
    “I was checking to see if she was still
alive. I was going to rouse the household when the constable came
along and more or less arrested me.”
    “But the vial?”
    “It was lying beside the woman. I could see
her ruined face and I just picked it up out of curiosity.”
    “But why would the lady scratch you if she
wasn’t afraid of you?”
    “She must have mistaken me for her attacker.
You can’t think I did this. I don’t even know the woman.”
    “You never met Mrs. Cardiff-Jones?”
    “Only once, briefly. At the Charity Ball. I
had no reason to throw acid in her face.”
    “You ain’t gonna believe that load of
malarkey?” Wilkie said.
    “What do you think, Angus?” Cobb said to
Withers.
    “Plausible, but not likely, eh? That scratch
is pretty damning.”
    “I’d like you to come to police headquarters
fer more questions,” Cobb said to Gagnon. “We’ll see what the Chief
makes of all this.”
    “You’re not going to let him go?” Cardiff
said, looking over at Gagnon and then at the members of his staff
who had now all come out to see what was going on.
    “Not fer the moment, no,” Cobb said.
    He signalled to Wilkie to get Gagnon on his
feet. Cobb was very excited. This was his first solo murder
case.
    ***
    Chief Constable Cyril Bagshaw was waiting for Cobb,
Wilkie and Gagnon, having been alerted to the general circumstances
of the crime by Phil Rossiter. Bagshaw was whippet-thin. His
uniform seemed to be ironed on him (it was his sergeant’s uniform
from his glory days on the London Metropolitan Police Force). He
sported a brace of craggy brows, an outsize nose and a pair of
pop-eyes that seemed