THE CROW'S INN TRAGEDY (Murder Mystery Classic). Annie Haynes
don't know," John Walls said slowly. "It is a funny sort of thing anyway. I tell you what, Spencer, I shall go round and knock at the private door."
"What's the good of that?" Spencer objected sensibly. "If he's out it will make no difference. And if he is in and won't answer at one door he won't at the other."
"Well, anyway, I shall try," John Walls persisted. His rather florid face was several degrees paler than usual as he went through the clerks' office. Man and boy, all his working life had been spent in the Bechcombes' office, and he had become through long years of association personally attached to Luke Bechcombe. Within the last few minutes, though there seemed no tangible ground for it, he had become oppressed by a strange feeling, a prevision of some evil, a certainty that all was not well with his chief.
The private door into Mr. Bechcombe's office opened into a passage at right angles with the door by which clients were admitted to the waiting-rooms and to the clerks' offices.
John Walls knocked first tentatively, then louder, still without the slightest response.
By this time he had been joined by Spencer, who seemed to have caught the infection of the elder man's pallor. He looked at the keyhole.
"Of course the governor has gone out. But I wonder whether the key is in its place?"
He stooped and somewhat gingerly applied his eye to the hole. Then he jerked his head up with an inaudible exclamation.
"What--what do you see?" Walls questioned with unconscious impatience. Then as he gazed at the bent back of his junior that queer foreboding of his grew stronger.
At last Spencer raised himself.
"No, the key isn't in its hole," he said slowly. "But I thought--I thought--"
"Yes, yes; you thought what?"
Both men's voices had instinctively sunk to a whisper.
Spencer was shorter than his senior. As he looked up his eyes were dark with fear, his words came with an odd little stutter between them.
"I--I expect I was mistaken--I must have been. You look yourself, Walls. But I thought I saw a queer-looking heap over there by the window."
"A queer-looking heap!" Without further ado the other man pushed him aside.
As he knelt down Spencer went on:
"It--there is something sticking out at the side--it looks like a leg--a leg in a grey trouser--do you see?"
There was a moment's tense silence. Then Mr. Walls raised himself.
"It is a leg. Suppose--suppose it is the governor's leg! Suppose that heap is the governor! He may have had a fit. We shall have to break into the room. Just see if Thompson has come back. If he hasn't get hold of two of the juniors quietly. Send another as fast as he can go to the nearest doctor, and get some brandy ready. It's a strong door, but together we ought to manage it."
There was no sign of Thompson in the office, but one of the articled pupils was a Rugby half back. Spencer returned with him and one of his fellows and the Rugby man attacked the door with a vigour that had brought him through many a scrum. It soon yielded to their combined efforts, and then with one accord all the men stood back. There was something at first sight about the everyday aspect of the room into which they gazed that seemed oddly at variance with their fears. Then slowly all their eyes turned from Mr. Bechcombe's writing-table with his own chair standing before it, just as they had seen it hundreds of times, to that ominous heap near the window.
John Walls bent over it, then he looked up with shocked eyes.
"He--I am afraid it is all over."
"Not dead!" Spencer ejaculated; but one look at that ghastly face upon the floor, at the staring eyes, and wide open mouth with the protruding tongue, drove every drop of colour from his face. He turned to Walls with chattering teeth. "It--it must have been a fit, Walls. He looks terrible."
"Is there anything wrong?"
It was a woman's voice. With one consent the men moved nearer the private door so as to shut out the sight of that ghastly heap.
"Is there anything wrong?" There was an undertone of fear about the voice now.
John Walls turned.
"Mr. Bechcombe has been taken ill, Miss Hoyle--very ill, I am afraid."
The sight of his white, stricken face was more eloquent than his words. Cecily Hoyle's own colour faded slowly.
"What is it?" she questioned, looking from one to the other. She was a tall, thin slip of a girl with clear brown eyes, a nose that turned up and a mouth that was too wide, a reasonably fair complexion and a quantity of pretty, curly, nut-brown hair that waved all over her head and low down over her ears, and that somehow conveyed the impression of being bobbed when it wasn't. Ordinarily it was a winsome, attractive little face, but just now, catching the fear in Walls's voice, the brown eyes were full of dread and the mobile lips were twitching. "Can't I do anything?" she questioned. "It must be something very sudden. Mr. Bechcombe was quite well when I went out."
John Walls laid his hand on her shoulder.
"You can't do anything, Miss Hoyle. We can none of us do anything. It is too late."
Cecily shrank from him with a cry.
"No, no! He can't be--dead!"
A strong hand put both her and John Walls aside.
"Let me pass. I am a doctor. What is the matter here?"
John Walls recognized the speaker as a medical man who had rooms close at hand.
"I think Mr. Bechcombe has had a fit, sir. I am afraid it is all over."
"Stand aside, please. Let us have all the air we can."
The doctor bent over the man on the floor, but one look was sufficient. He touched the wrist, laid his hand over the heart. Then he stood up quickly.
"There is nothing to be done here. He has been dead, I should say, an hour or more. We must ring up the police, at once. You will understand that nothing is to be moved until their arrival."
"Police!" echoed John Walls with shaking lips.
"Yes, police!" the doctor said impatiently. "My good man, can't you see that this is no natural death? Mr. Bechcombe has been murdered--strangled!"
Chapter IV
The first floor of 21 Crow's Inn was entirely in the hands of the police. Two plain clothes men guarded the entrance of the corridor, others were stationed farther along. Both the big waiting-rooms were filled, one with indignant clients anxious to go home, the other with the clerks and employees of the firm.
Two men came slowly down the passage. Inspector Furnival of Scotland Yard was a man of middle height with a keen, foxy-looking face, at present clean-shaven, and sharp grey eyes whose clearness of vision had earned him in the Force the sobriquet of "The Ferret." His companion, Dr. Hackett, carried his occupation writ plain on his large-featured face and his strictly professional attire.
Both men were looking grave and preoccupied as they entered the smaller office which had been little used since Mr. Bechcombe's partner retired. Inspector Furnival took the revolving chair and drew it up to the office table in the middle of the room. Then he produced a notebook.
"Now, Dr. Hackett, will you give me the details of this affair as far as you know them?"
"I can only tell you that I was summoned about two o'clock this afternoon by a clerk--Winter, I fancy his name is. He told me that his employer was locked up in his office, that they thought he had had a fit and were breaking the door open, and wanted me to be there in readiness as soon as they had forced their way in. I hastily put a few things that I thought might be wanted into my bag and hurried here. I arrived