Death in the Dentist’s Chair: A Golden Age Mystery Read online

  “Sure that’s the best you can do for us? Nothing else you can remember?”

  A gleam of humour appeared in Osborne’s faded blue eyes.

  “Not unless I pitches you a tale, and I take it that wouldn’t be much good to you. I ’andles too many people’s luggage for me to remember much about ’em. Sorry I couldn’t do no better for you.”

  “You’ve given us a shove in the right direction,” said Arkwright, as he dismissed him. “Someone else may have noticed them. If you pick up any information, you let us have it.”

  Osborne nodded, rose stiffly to his feet and began winding an enormous and apparently interminable muffler round his neck. He was drawing the end through the knot when Arkwright’s last words, which had been slowly germinating in his mind, bore fruit.

  “I reckon as the railway constable might ’ave somethin’ to tell you if you asked ’im,” he volunteered.

  Arkwright looked up quickly.

  “Where does he come into it?”

  “It was when the lady first got into the car. I was waitin’ with the luggage and the constable spoke to the gentleman. There was a taxi wanted to draw up and there wasn’t no room for it. ’E ’ad to ’op in and back the car nearer to the one behind. That’s when I first see ’e was drivin’ it ’imself.”

  “Did he speak to the constable?”

  “There couldn’t ave been more than a couple of words passed between them. Then ’e got down and signalled me to come over to ’im.”

  Arkwright frowned thoughtfully. He had an eye for detail that had stood him in good stead before now.

  “Why did he do that if he wanted the stuff taken to the cloak-room?” he asked abruptly.

  The porter shifted his cap to his other hand and scratched his head.

  “Now you come to mention it, I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I was nearer the cloak-room where I was and that’s a fact.”

  “What were his movements exactly?”

  Osborne’s eyes closed in an effort at concentration.

  “Well, first ’e ’opped up, like I told you, and backed the car. Then ’e ’opped down and went round behind, and I thought ’e was lettin’ down the luggage rack, so I started to move. I ’adn’t ’ardly started when ’e looks round the back of the car and beckons to me, but when I gets round to the back ’e tells me to take the lot to the cloak-room. I thought to myself as ’e’d changed ’is mind, like.”

  “And when you brought back the cloak-room ticket he came to meet you and took it from you. Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  After he had gone Arkwright added his notes to the detective’s report. On the arrival of Gordon with the murdered woman’s luggage he sent him back to Victoria to fetch the station constable while he«embarked on a careful inspection of the contents of the two cases. They were both locked, but the locks were of the kind that are invariably supplied with inexpensive luggage and presented little difficulty. As it turned out, Arkwright might just as well have spared himself even that slight exertion, for there was literally nothing in either of the cases that provided even the smallest clue to the woman’s identity. The larger contained clothing, including a couple of evening dresses, of the same style and quality as the dress she had been wearing when she was killed. The smaller case held only toilet articles and the things necessary for one night. There was not a letter, document, photograph, or even a newspaper cutting in either of them.

  Arkwright sat back on his heels and regarded the two cases on the floor before him, his face dark with perplexity and exasperation. If the murdered woman carried one of those voluminous hand-bags that are so much in use nowadays there was every reason to suppose that she had her passport and any private letters with her when she was killed, but such a complete dearth of the usual epistolary moss gathered even by the most confirmed rolling stone was, to put it mildly, unnatural. And she had told the porter that she had no big luggage! The only remaining possibility was that she had followed the custom in vogue with wealthy Americans and had forwarded her trunks through an agent, in which case they would materialise in a day or so, but Arkwright did not feel hopeful. He was gradually being forced to the conclusion that she had only come over for a couple of nights and that the bulk of her possessions was still on the other side of the Channel. If, as he was beginning to think, she had no friends in England and her papers remained ungetatable, things were at a hopeless deadlock. The only chance, in that case, was to concentrate on the car and its owner and, unless the constable on duty at Victoria possessed an unusually retentive memory, it did not look as if that line was going to lead far. Arkwright settled to wait for his arrival in a mood that was not lightened by the receipt of a report from the Guildford police to the effect that nothing had been heard of Cattistock. His housekeeper had called at the police station to ask what she was to do with his correspondence and was beginning to betray acute anxiety as to his welfare. She had been directed to deliver all letters to the station. The three she had brought with her accompanied the report.

  Arkwright opened them, only to fling them on the table with a snort of exasperation. Two small bills from local tradesmen and a form from the secretary of a well-known charity committee to say that Cattistock’s annual subscription of five shillings was overdue. Arkwright reflected dourly that if the sums had been larger the correspondence might have furnished proof that the man was pressed for money, but the three claims together did not amount to fifteen shillings and there was no reason to believe that they would not have been met promptly if he had been at home. According to the report he was, as the housekeeper had said, well thought of in the neighbourhood and had the reputation of settling his accounts regularly.

  To Arkwright, in his present frame of mind, the statement of the constable was as the first bright gleam of sun on a dull day. He proved to be young and earnest, with the tan of his native Dorset still on his cheeks. He had been only two months in London and was inclined to take both himself and his job with a seriousness that would have been amusing under other conditions. As it was Arkwright blessed the gods that had placed this particular man on such a spot at such a time, for he not only remembered the car, but could describe it and even had ideas about the number.

  “I wouldn’t like to say for sure, sir,” he said, with a caution that betrayed his peasant stock. “There were five cars I took count of that evening and I may have got them a bit mixed.”

  “Can you remember the others?”

  The constable reeled off five sets of numbers with commendable precision.

  “How did you come to have them so pat?” asked Arkwright, with a gleam of amusement.

  The constable flushed.

  “I started doing it for practice, sir,” he explained. “Then I got into the way of it. Being in the station yard there, I often have to say a word to the drivers and, when I do, I make a note of the number of the car in my mind, as it were, and go over them in the evening, just to see how many I can remember. It’s just a sort of habit.”

  “An uncommonly good one,” said Arkwright. “It’s a thing I’ve recommended to any number of recruits, but I’ve never caught one at it till now! I gather that you’re not too sure of these?”

  “The numbers themselves are all right, sir,” was the reply. “I can pretty well vouch for that. I’ve got a sort of system of my own for remembering them. What I’m not sure about is whether I gave you the right one. I’m a bit hazy about the order in which that car came.”

  “Then if we follow up the lot we can be pretty sure of hitting on the car? They’re all London numbers, I see.”

  “That’s right, sir. Morris Oxford, dark green or dark blue, I’m not sure which.”

  “Notice anything special about the driver?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir. He wasn’t looking my way when I spoke to him and he didn’t turn round. Just muttered something and climbed into the car and backed her. I could see he had a beard, but that was all. Once he’d cleared the way I didn’t take no
further notice of him.”

  Arkwright dismissed him, making a mental note to keep an eye on him if he went on shaping well, and stepped across to the Traffic Branch. There he had little difficulty in tracing the owners of the five cars in question.

  Having more faith in the constable’s memory than the youngster had himself, he decided to begin with the number he had first mentioned. The owner of this car, it appeared, ran a public garage near Buckingham Palace Road. He accordingly went there.

  At the sight of his card the proprietor left his office and came to meet him, revealing himself as a short, stocky little • man, badly hampered by an artificial leg which he managed with difficulty. He had ex-officer written all over him and Arkwright, at the sight of him, blessed his luck for sending him yet another witness capable of making a coherent statement. The man’s greeting was characteristic.

  “What are you trying to fasten on me, Inspector?” he demanded, with a grin. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it!”

  “We’re letting you off lightly this time,” Arkwright assured him, “though I’m not sure that one of your cars hasn’t been up to mischief.”

  The man stared at him for a moment, then his eyes narrowed.

  “Bet I can tell you which it is,” he exclaimed. “Have a look at this.”

  He limped ahead of Arkwright down a long alley of cars into the back of the garage and stopped opposite a dark green Morris Oxford.

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  Arkwright glanced at the number plate.

  “That’s the offender,” he admitted.

  The little man cocked a shrewd eye at him.

  “Want to know where she was last Monday evening, the fourteenth, by any chance?” he asked.

  Arkwright smiled.

  “We should be glad of any information you can give us,” he agreed noncommittally.

  “Properly speaking, it ought to be the other way round,” grumbled the proprietor. “However, I’ll do what I can for you. As a matter of fact, I’ve got it all pat. At about seven o’clock on Monday night a man came in and said he wanted a car for the evening. I gathered that it was the usual restaurant and theatre business. As he hadn’t dealt with us before and wasn’t taking a driver I had to ask him to pay in advance, which he did.”

  “He paid in notes, I suppose?” put in Arkwright.

  “Yes, and there was nothing fishy about them. I tried one on my bank manager next day.”

  “Can you describe the man?”

  “Medium sized, middle-aged, with a small, pointed grey beard. Dressed in a good quality rain-coat and a felt hat. That’s all I can remember.”

  Arkwright nodded.

  “That’s near enough. It’s our man all right,” he said. “Did he give his name?”

  “No. To tell you the truth I didn’t bother much about him. One gets pretty good at sizing people up in this business and I put him down as all right. Looked well to do and respectable and all that.”

  Arkwright stared at the car thoughtfully.

  “Don’t happen to have kept any of those notes, I suppose?” he asked.

  The other nodded.

  “Owing to what happened afterwards I felt a bit suspicious about them, so I stuck them in an envelope, and when I went to the bank I got the manager to vet them for me. He passed them all right and changed one of them for me into silver. I’ve been carrying the other two about with me ever since, meaning to shove them in the till.”

  He took a wallet from his pocket and extracted an envelope which he handed to Arkwright. Arkwright inspected the two pound notes it contained and held one of them up to the light.

  “Was this green stain on it when you got it?” he asked.

  “Yes. Nobody’s handled it but myself and the bank manager.”

  Arkwright took two pounds from his pocket and gave them to him, keeping the others in exchange.

  “I’ll take charge of these if you don’t mind,” he said. “And now I’ll ask you how you knew that this was the car I was after?”

  The proprietor glared at him.

  “I like that!” he exclaimed indignantly. “Considering you had a full description of this car first thing Tuesday morning!”

  “There are about two hundred police stations in London,” suggested Arkwright mildly. “Which of them did you patronize?”

  The glare subsided, to be replaced by a broad smile.

  “One up to you,” admitted the little man. “Honestly, I thought that was what you had come about.”

  “On the contrary, I came for information.”

  “Then you shall have it,” was the sardonic answer. “Though you may not know it, you were looking for that car, at least, in my ignorance, I thought you were, through the greater part of Tuesday morning. That chap who took it out forgot to bring it back.”

  “Seeing that it is back, may I ask where we found it?”

  “In a mews near Grosvenor Place,” answered the owner. “I can’t help feeling you ought to have known that!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So that’s what you thought I came for,” said Arkwright solemnly, giving quite an able imitation of the imbecile stage policeman. But the little ex-officer at his elbow did not miss the dry humour that lurked in his grey eyes and was not surprised when he continued, with a complete change of tone: “Now it’s my turn. This is a case of murder and there seems every reason to believe that your little tin Lizzie, there, is an accessory!”

  But the manager had played poker, too, in his day. His face remained imperturbable.

  “You don’t say so,” he drawled. “I must admit I’m surprised at her. She’s been a quiet, well-behaved little body up till now. Are you going to arrest her? I’ve got my living to make, you know.”

  “Depends on what I find in her. Has she been overhauled since she came in that night?”

  “She has been looked over cursorily, just to make sure that no damage had been done to her, but it was the engine we were interested in, mostly. She hasn’t been cleaned yet.”

  “Been out since then?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, she’s a bit of a maid of all work. I use her sometimes myself, but, as a rule, I only let her out to customers like that chap the other night, people I’ve had no dealings with before and who aren’t taking a driver. There’s been no demand for her since Monday. Except for the engine, she’s just as she was when your people brought her in on Tuesday.”

  Arkwright opened the door, climbed onto the running board and ran his eye over the cushions and wood-work. The proprietor watched him for a moment, then turned and limped off in the direction of his office, to return almost at once carrying an electric torch.

  He handed it silently to Arkwright, who grunted his acknowledgments. His head was under the steering wheel and he was examining the wood-work of the door next the driver’s seat. He turned the light of the torch on it and watched the beam as it travelled slowly upwards until it reached the seat itself. The cushions revealed themselves as rubbed and dusty, but otherwise uninjured. Slowly the little disk of light swung round and rested finally on the upholstery to the left of the seat.

  “Got it, by Jove!”

  The exclamation came from the garage proprietor, who had climbed onto the running board beside Arkwright and was peering over his shoulder.

  Beginning about eight inches above the edge of the cushion of the seat and running down to it, was a long, dark brown smear.

  The proprietor heaved himself to the ground, hobbled round to the other side of the car and hoisted himself once more onto the running board. His round face sharpened with curiosity and excitement, he resembled a fox terrier at the mouth of a rat hole.

  “Let me get that cushion out!” he exclaimed. “If that’s blood, somebody’s hand’s been down there.”

  Arkwright straightened his back and stood waiting.

  “Careful you don’t shift anything,” he enjoined, keeping the torch focussed on the cushion as the proprietor lifted it carefully out.


  Underneath, jammed into a corner, was a pair of motor gauntlets. Arkwright bent over and picked them up gingerly. They were literally stiff with dried blood.

  The proprietor gaped at him, his face considerably less florid than it had been but a moment before.

  “So that’s that,” he said. Then, with an attempt at his former manner. “Poor old Lizzie! What a damned shame!”

  He helped Arkwright to make a careful search of the whole of the interior of the car, but there was nothing further of any interest to be found.

  “Chap must have been killed outside the car,” he said, when they had finished, “and those gauntlets just shoved down there afterwards.”

  Arkwright picked up a bit of newspaper from the floor and wrapped the gloves in it.

  “The murder was committed inside the car, I suspect,” he asserted, “and a shawl muffled round the neck of the victim in time to catch the spurt of blood.”

  “Spurt?”

  Arkwright nodded.

  “Jugular. The shawl was saturated.”

  The little man looked as if he had suddenly come across a very nasty smell.

  “Good Lord!” he ejaculated. “It seems to have been a pretty skillful job! Sort of professional touch about it, what?”

  “There was,” assented Arkwright grimly. “And about the other, too!”

  The proprietor’s jaw dropped.

  “What other? Isn’t one of this sort enough for you?”

  Arkwright, the parcel containing his gruesome find under his arm, turned to go.

  “It’s a comfort to feel that we’ve got something under our hats at the Yard that you don’t know,” he said complacently. “We must ask you to leave that car as it is and keep it in the garage for the present.”

  “Do you think I’m likely to send it out in that state? This is a garage, not the Chamber of Horrors!” exclaimed the proprietor disgustedly, as he accompanied him to the door. He did not speak again till they reached the street, then:

  “You didn’t tell me that poor old Lizzie’s victim was a lady. Very discreet of you. But I do read my paper in the morning and when two women get their throats cut on the same day one can’t help wondering! How does the official hat feel now, Inspector?”