The Clifford Affair (Musaicum Vintage Mysteries). Dorothy Fielding

      CHAPTER 1

       Table of Contents

      THE Assistant Commissioner of New Scotland Yard listened for a moment at one of his telephones, told the man at the other end, it happened to be Superintendent Maybrick of Hampstead, to hold on a moment, and sent one of his constable-clerks in search of Chief Inspector Pointer.

      It was then just a little before nine of a Tuesday morning. A tall, lithe, lean young man came in with a step that suggested the kilt and the springing heather.

      "Look here, Pointer. Suppose you hand over the reins of that case you're on to Clark. He can carry on all right now. Superintendent Maybrick of Hampstead wants help. Or rather, I think he needs it. He's just been called in to a horrid mess, a murder, in one of the flats in his district. From certain things he thinks it's an anarchist plot gone wrong, 'biter bit' sort of thing," Major Pelham said vaguely; "he's got into touch with the Foreign Office already. So by this time there's sure to be some F.O. man sprinting along to have a first look. Go and see what you think of it, will you? If it isn't a foreign spy job, then it should be a fine problem for you to solve. Here's the address." He handed a chit to the Chief Inspector, who left the room with his swift, unhurried stride that covered such an amazing amount of ground.

      Pointer drove to the place mentioned—a large block of flats with a view over Hampstead Heath.

      The head porter, after a keen glance at the Chief Inspector when the latter asked for "Mr. Maybrick," saluted, and took him up in the lift. The only information which he volunteered was that none of the residents had an idea of what had happened.

      "These are all service flats, sir, and news gets around terrible fast unless one's very careful. As a rule illnesses are 'maternity cases' when possible. Deaths are 'measles,' to account for the body being took away, but murder—the owners haven't given instructions about that. Not yet." The porter stopped the lift at the third floor, and stepped forward to ring the bell of a flat marked fourteen, which had no card in the little glass case beside the door. Pointer stopped him.

      "A moment!" His eye ran over the door and mat and landing, as well as up and down the staircases. Then he nodded. The porter rang. The door opened an inch. The Superintendent inside, in plain clothes too, inspected them both cautiously, then he stood back and Pointer entered.

      Maybrick saluted. He was one of Pointer's many policeman admirers. What a pity, he thought, that there was nothing here for the Chief Inspector to get his teeth into, those teeth that never let go.

      "A moment!" Pointer said again, as he switched on the light and gave one swift glance around the square hall, a glance that nothing visible escaped. Then he nodded.

      "Now lead the way."

      "Shall I tell you first what I know, sir?"

      "Not if any one from the Foreign Office is on the trail," Pointer said promptly. "They're quick workers. And I like to have my clues untouched, as far as may be."

      "No one's come yet, sir. Not even the doctor. And the clues aren't ones that can be disarranged." Maybrick was about to expand into detail, but Pointer stopped him.

      "Then this way, sir." Maybrick led down to a door at the farther end of a little passage. Pointer stepped into a tiled bathroom. In the bath-tub—it was not a pleasant sight—lay a man's body, stripped and headless.

      "Where's his head?"

      "Not on the premises, sir. Gone. Like his clothes. All gone."

      Pointer knelt down in the doorway and looked sideways across the floor.

      "Rubber-soled shoes. Man's heel marks. Apparently only one pair. What's that?" He advanced now, and bent to a tiny splash of something white on the tiles under the raised china bath.

      "Powder they use to clean the tub, sir. Shall I tell you what the head porter—"

      Again Pointer stopped him.

      "Has the body been touched by any one, as far as you know?"

      "No, sir. Not the kind of thing to get touched by any sensible man."

      "Have you photographed it?"

      "Films are being developed at the station now."

      Pointer lifted each of the hands in turn.

      They were slender, beautiful hands, that looked as though they would be clever at whatever they did. Hard work had never been asked of them.

      "Wore a ring on the middle finger of the right hand. Broad, thick ring. Signet ring very likely. Cigarette smoker. Gentleman certainly from the care of the whole body."

      There were no marks of blood-stained hands either on the bath, or on the fitted basin beside it, or on any of the taps, nor finger prints of any kind.

      Pointer stepped on into a bedroom opening out of the bath-room. Then he returned to Maybrick.

      "We can wash our hands in the bedroom. The basin in there's not even been dusted. This one has been used."

      A ring came at the door. Maybrick answered it. A small, quick-stepping, alert-eyed, gray-bearded man stepped into the flat. He was of the type to pass easily for English in England, French in France, Spanish,