WHO KILLED CHARMIAN KARSLAKE? (Murder Mystery Classic). Annie Haynes
been here since you came?" the inspector said, looking at the smashed door which had been pushed back on one side.
"No, sir."
The inspector frowned, looking into the room. It was obvious that Charmian Karslake had not yielded up her life without a struggle.
"Some sounds surely ought to have been heard," he said. The furniture was overturned, the ornaments from the mantelpiece and the knick-knacks from the dressing-table lay about in the direst confusion.
As was the case in most of the rooms in the Abbey, the floor was polished and beautiful old rugs were laid beside the bed, before the fire-place and the window. These were tossed aside, the silk eiderdown lay upon the floor. Quite evidently the bed had not been slept in, but in the struggle the bed-clothes had been torn off and lay half on the ground. Where Charmian Karslake had fallen the pool of blood, even now hardly dry, lay on the floor, and the rug beyond was stained at the edges.
The inspector looked around. "Not a great deal to be learned here at first sight, eh?"
Harbord did not answer. He was giving all his attention to the door, examining the lock with care. The panels of the door had been forced and the lock hung useless, but still locked. The bolts on the inside had not even been shot. Of the key there was no sign. Harbord was examining the door handle and the lock through his microscope. The inspector stepped past him and went over to the dressing-table. The necklace of pearls still lay there, and there were the usual accessories. After a cursory glance the inspector went to the dressing-room. Here poor Charmian Karslake's gold frock lay over the back of a chair as she had thrown it. He went across and felt it over. Harbord came in and stood beside him.
"You won't find anything, sir. All the women have given up pockets, confound them!"
"Yes. And the bags they carry instead they never can remember," the inspector added. "It is always—'Where is my bag?' What they do it for I can't imagine. Fancy a man having his pockets fastened up and carrying his keys and money and everything in a bag which he dangles about by the handle."
"Some of 'em haven't got handles either," Harbord said, as his sharp eyes glanced about the room. "My sister's hasn't. She just carries it about tucked under her arm, a pochette she calls it. She told me handles had gone out of fashion, the other day."
"So have brains, I should imagine," grumbled the inspector.
He was standing before Miss Karslake's nearly empty dressing-bag. Celeste had taken out most of the actress's belongings. At the bottom of the bag was the usual debris of papers. The inspector went on his knees and picked out the only thing with writing on. But there were no notes that appeared to be of the slightest value. A bill or two, a couple of receipts, a pencilled line from the manager of the Golden, torn-up scraps out of which the inspector and Harbord could make nothing. Then just as they were clearing out the last the inspector bent down with a sharp exclamation:
"What is this?"
Harbord stopped beside him. The inspector held the paper towards him.
"Look at this."
Harbord looked. The paper appeared to have been torn out of some book. On it had been scrawled over and over again in a bold characteristic writing: "Paula Galbraith Paula Galbraith."
"What does this mean?" the inspector said, staring at it. "Paula Galbraith. Has Miss Karslake met her before? If it had been the other girl, the American—Mrs. Richard Penn-Moreton—I shouldn't have been surprised. But Paula Galbraith. How could the two have come across one another? Well, that is another question we have to find the answer to."
"Another?" Harbord repeated, raising his eyebrows.
"Why did Charmian Karslake come down to Hepton?" the inspector went on. "Not, I think, because she had taken a fancy to Lady Moreton, and the latter sent her an invitation to the dance."
"You think she had some private reason for wishing to come to the Abbey?"
The inspector nodded. "As far as I can see it is perfectly obvious that she had. It is our job now to find out what that reason was. Another question that will suggest itself to my mind is, Was Charmian Karslake really an American, or was she an English girl who, making name and fortune in America, had some motive for throwing off her nationality and taking on that of the United States?"
Harbord looked at him. "What motive could she have had?"
The inspector shrugged his shoulders. "That we have to find out.
"That is the box the maid spoke of."
He pointed to a small morocco case standing on a little table with one or two other belongings of Miss Karslake's.
"We had better see if the money is intact as far as we can."
The little lock, which Charmian Karslake probably thought absolutely safe, was soon opened. The inspector felt in his pocket and produced a curious looking little instrument. He applied this to the lock and in a minute the morocco case lay open before him—open, but empty! Of the notes of which Celeste had spoken there was no sign.
"H'm! what do you make of that?" the inspector said, glancing at his assistant.
Harbord did not speak for a minute, then he said slowly:
"I imagine Miss Karslake took them out herself. It is scarcely likely that the murderer spent much time in the room after the crime was committed. Doubtful, too, even if he had possessed himself of Miss Karslake's keys, whether he would have guessed that that little box contained money. And, granted that he did, would he have stopped to open the box? He would have been more likely to put the whole thing into his pocket."
Stoddart clapped the young man on the back. "Well thought out, Harbord. Now we must 'phone the Bank—the Imperial Counties—and see if they have kept the numbers of the notes. I don't think we shall do very much good by looking further round here. We are more likely to find the clue, without which we are wandering round in a maze, either in one of the other rooms in the Abbey or in Charmian Karslake's flat. At the present moment I feel inclined to put a few questions to Miss Paula Galbraith. But first the Bank—"
He led the way out of the room and, with a word to the policeman at the door, he and Harbord made their way to the station.
As they reached the gallery, from which they could see down into the hall, they heard the sound of voices. One was a woman's, low, but tense with feeling:
"No, I tell you I will not listen."
Then came a man's:
"By Heaven, Paula, I will not let you go, you shall explain."
Stoddart laid his hand sharply on Harbord's shoulder, but quickly as the detectives stopped some sound had evidently betrayed their approach to the two in the gallery. They stopped. The woman came quickly towards the detectives, her golden head uplifted; the man disappeared in the opposite direction. Harbord drew back. Stoddart stepped forward.
"Miss Galbraith, I believe."
The girl looked at him, unseeing for a moment, then she started violently as if suddenly waking up.
"Yes."
"I am Inspector Stoddart of Scotland Yard," the detective went on.
Was it a momentary gleam of fear that flashed into the girl's blue eyes?
"Yes. I knew you were coming to—to—"
"To investigate the mystery of Miss Karslake's death," the inspector finished. "I should be glad of a few minutes' talk with you."
The girl frowned. "It would not be of the least use. I could not tell you anything that could possibly help you."
"You must let me be the judge of that, I think," the inspector said lightly, but with a certain firmness in his tone.
Miss Galbraith bit her lip. "Will it do in the morning?"
"I am afraid not. If you will kindly come into the library, which Sir Arthur has placed at our disposal, I shall probably keep you only a very short time."