Phase
III
The Man Under the Snow
The porter of Montmorency House, awaking next morning, discovered that even in the well of his flats, where the air is ever the most stagnant in London, the snow was melting fast. After breakfast he saw some clothes emerging from the slush. This annoyed him, for he cherished that little court. The tenants, he remarked to his wife, were always doing something messy, but dropping their trousers down the well was the limit. He splashed out into the slush and found a corpse.
After lunch Reggie Fortune, drowsing over the last published play of Herr Wedekind, was roused by the telephone, which, speaking with the voice of Superintendent Bell, urged him to come at once to the mortuary.
“Who’s dead?” he asked. “Sandford hanged himself in red tape? Kimball had a stroke?”
“It’s what you might call anonymous,” said the voice of the Superintendent. “Just the sort of case you like.”
“I never like a case,” said Reggie, with indignation, and rang off.
At the door of the mortuary Superintendent Bell appeared as his car stopped.
“You’re damned mysterious,” Reggie complained.
“Not me, sir. If you can tell me who the fellow is, I’ll be obliged. But what I want to know first is, what was the cause of death. You’ll excuse me, I won’t tell you how he was found till you’ve formed your opinion.”
“What the devil do you mean by that?”
“I don’t want you to be prejudiced in any way, sir, if you take my meaning.”
“Damn your impudence. When did you ever see me prejudiced?”
“Dear me, Mr. Fortune, I never heard you swear so much,” said Bell sadly. “Don’t be hasty, sir. I have my reasons. I have, really.”
He led the way into the room where the dead man lay. He pulled back the sheet which covered the body. “Well, well!” said Reggie Fortune. For the dead man’s face was not there.
“You’ll excuse me. I shouldn’t be any good to you,” said the Superintendent thickly, and made for the door.
Reggie did not look round. “Send Sam in with my things,” he said.
It was a long time afterwards when, rather pale for him, his round and comfortable face veiled in an uncommon gravity, he came out.
Superintendent Bell threw away his cigarette. “Ghastly, isn’t it?” he said with sympathy.
“Mad,” said Reggie. “Come on.” A shower of warm rain was being driven before the west wind, but he opened everything in his car that would open, and told the chauffeur to drive round Regent’s Park. “Come on. Bell. The rain won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t wonder you want a blow. Poor chap! As ugly a mess as ever I saw.”
“I suppose I’m afraid,” said Reggie slowly. “It’s unusual and annoying. I suppose the only thing that does make you afraid is what’s mad. Not the altogether crazy—that’s only a nuisance-but what’s damned clever and yet mad. An able fellow with a mania on one point. I suppose that’s what the devil is, Bell.”
“Good Lord, sir,” said Superintendent Bell.
“What I want is muffins,” said Reggie—“several muffins and a little tea and my domestic hearth. Then I’ll feel safe.”
He spread himself out, sitting on the small of his back before his study fire, and in that position contrived to eat and drink with freedom.
“In another world, Bell,” he said dreamily—“in another and a gayer world it seems to me you wanted to know the cause of death. And you didn’t want me to be prejudiced. Kindly fellow. But there’s no prejudice about. It’s quite a plain case.”
“Is it indeed, sir? You surprise me.”
“The dead man was killed by a blow on the left temple from some heavy, blunt weapon—a life-preserver, perhaps; a stick, a poker. At the same time, or immediately after death, his face was battered in by the same or a similar weapon. Death probably occurred some days ago. After death, but not long after death, the body received other injuries, a broken rib and left shoulder-blade, probably by a fall from some height. That’s the medical evidence. There are other curious circumstances.”
“Just a few!” said Bell, with a grim chuckle. “You’re very definite, sir, if I might say so. I suppose he couldn’t have been killed and had his face smashed like—like he did—by the fall?”
“You can cut that right out. He was killed by a blow and blows smashed his face in. Where did you find him?”
“He was found when the snow melted this morning in the well at Montmorency House.”
“Under the snow? That puts the murder on the night of the fifteenth. Yes, that fits; that accounts for his sodden clothes.”
“There’s a good deal it don’t account for,” said Bell gloomily.
“I saw him just as he was found?” Bell nodded. “Somebody took a lot of pains with him. He was fully dressed—collar and tie, boots. But a lot of his internal buttons were undone. And there’s not a name, not even a maker’s name, on any of his clothes. His linen’s new and don’t show a laundry mark. Yes, somebody took a lot of pains we shouldn’t know him.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, sir.”
“Don’t you? Is it likely a man wearing decent clothes would not have his linen marked and his tailor’s name somewhere? Is it likely a man who had his tie and collar on wouldn’t do up his undershirt? No. The beggar’s clothes were changed after he was killed. That must have been a grisly business too. He’s not a tenderhearted fellow who did this job. Valet the body you’ve killed and then bash its face in! Well, well! Have some more tea?”
“Not me,” said Bell, with a gulp. “You talked about a madman, sir, didn’t you?”
“Oh, no, no, no. Not the kind of mad that runs amuck. Not homicidal mania. This isn’t just smashing up a chap’s body for the sake of smashing. There’s lots of purpose here. This is damned cold, calculating crime. That kind of mad. Some fellow’s got an object that makes it worth while to him to do any beastliness. That’s the worst kind of mad, Bell. Not homicidal mania—that only makes a man a beast. What’s here is the sort of thing that makes a man a devil.”
“You’re going a bit beyond me, sir. It’s a bloody murder, and that’s all I want.”
“Yes, that’s our job,” said Reggie thoughtfully. Together they went off to Montmorency House.
“How would you describe deceased, sir?” said Bell.
“Man of about fifty, under middle height, inclined to be stout, unusual bald.”
“It ain’t much to go by, is it?” Bell sighed. “We don’t so much as know if he was clean shaved or not.”
“He was, I think. I saw no trace of facial hair. But it’s rash to argue from not finding things. And he might have been shaved after he was killed.”
“And then smashed? My Lord! And they smashed him thorough too, didn’t they?”
“Very logical bit of crime, Bell.”
“Logical! God bless my soul! But I mean to say, sir, we haven’t got much to go on. Suppose I advertise there’s a man of fifty missing, rather short and stout and bald, I shall look a bit of an ass.”
“Well, I wouldn’t advertise. He’d had an operation, by the way—on the ear. But I wouldn’t say that either. In fact, I wouldn’t say anything about him just yet. Hold your trumps.”
“Trumps? What is trumps then, Mr. Fortune?”
“Anything you know is always trumps.”
“You’ll excuse me, but it’s not my experience, sir.”
They came to Montmorency House, where detectives were already domesticated with the porter, and had done the obvious things. The body, it was to be presumed, had fallen from one of the windows opening on the well. The men who had flats round the well were all accounted for, save one. Mr. Rand, tenant of a flat on the top story, had not been seen for some days. Ringing at Mr. Rand’s door had produced no reply.
“Well, we do seem to be getting a bit warmer,” said Superintendent Bell. And his subordinate in charge of the inquiries at the flats beamed and rubbed his hands, and remarked that Rand seemed to have been a mysterious chap—only had his flat a few weeks, not used it regularly, not by any means; no visitors to speak of, civil but distant. “That sounds all right,” said Bell, and looked at Reggie.
“What was he like?” said Reggie.
“Middle size to biggish, wore glasses, well dressed, brown hair, which he wore rather long, they say,” the inspector reeled off glibly.
“That’s put the lid on,” said Bell. “Won’t do for the corpse. Warren. Not a bit like it. Well, sir, where are we now?” He turned to Reggie.
“You will go so fast,” Reggie complained, and sat down. “I’m pantin’ after you in vain. What’s the primary hypothesis, Bell?”
“Sir?”
“Do we assume the corpse is Rand, or that Rand chucked the corpse out of window?”
“Ah, there’s that,” said the inspector eagerly. “We hadn’t worked on that.”
“We haven’t worked on anything, if you ask me,” said Bell gloomily. “What’s your opinion then, Mr. Fortune?”
“The primary hypothesis is that we’re looking for an able, masterful madman. Therefore my opinion is that the whole thing will look perfectly rational when we’ve got it all combed out—grantin’ the madman’s original mad idea.”
“Am I to go round London looking for a rational madman?” Bell protested.
“My dear chap, you could catch ’em by the thousand. There’s nobody so damned rational as the lunatic. That’s where he falls down. Do not be discouraged. He’s logical. He don’t keep his eye on the facts. That is where we come in.”
“We’ve come in all right, but we don’t seem like getting out,” Bell grumbled. “I’m keeping my eye on the facts all right. But they won’t fit.”
“You’re very hasty today, Bell,” said Reggie mildly. “Why is this?”
“I can see that fellow’s face,” Bell muttered.
“Well, well! He’s told us all he can, poor devil. We’ll get on, if you please. Because Rand’s away, it don’t follow that Rand’s the corpse. It might have come out of some other tenant’s window. Know anything about the other tenants?”
“All most respectable, sir,” said the inspector.
“My dear man, the whole affair is most respectable. Do get that into your head. I dare say we’ll find the corpse was a conveyancer murdered by a civil servant. A crime of quiet middle-class taste. What sort of fellows are the other fellows?”
“Well, sir, there’s a retired engineer, and a young chap, just married, in the Rimington firm, and a naval officer, and several young doctors with consulting-rooms in Harley Street, and one of the Maynards, the Devonshire family. That’s all with any rooms on the well. I’ve seen ’em all, and, if you ask me, they’re right out of it; they’re not the sort, not one of them.”
“I dare say,” said Reggie. “They don’t sound as if they would fit. None of them heard anything?”
“No, sir; that’s queer, to be sure.”
“It happened the night of the blizzard. You wouldn’t have noticed a bomb. Well, who was Rand?”
“That’s what no one knows, sir. He’d only been here a few weeks. They’re service flats, you know, and furnished. He gave a banker’s reference. Bank says he has no money reason to be missing. Quiet, stable account. Income from investments. Balance three hundred odd. But the bank don’t know anything about him. He’s had an account for years. He used to live off Jermyn Street, apartment-house. The landlady died last year.”
“And the landlady died last year,” Reggie repeated. “He’s elusive, is Mr. Rand. Same like our corpse. But is Rand missing, Bell? He’s not been seen for a few days. There’s not much in that. He never used his flat regularly.”
“And, so far as we know, deceased isn’t Rand.”
“Well, I don’t know quite as far as that,” said Reggie.
“Good Lord, the porter who found him didn’t recognize the body.”
“Remember his face.”
“My God, don’t talk about his face.”
“Sorry, sorry. Well, I dare say the porter was upset too.”
“Yes, but the porter said Rand was biggish, and the body’s on the small side. The porter said he had a lot of hair, and the body’s absolutely bald.”
“My dear chap, give a man a straight back and a bit of manner and lots of fellows think he’s biggish—while he’s alive. And a man that’s absolutely bald is just the man to wear a wig.”
“I thought we were to go by facts,” Bell said gloomily.
“And so we are, Bell. Just a-going to begin, Mr. Snodgrass, sir. No rash haste.”
“Have you got something up your sleeve?”
“Not one little trump. Oh, my dear Bell, how can you? Did I ever? My simple open heart is broken.”
“You’re damned cheerful, aren’t you?”
“My dear man, I never made you swear before. My dear Bell! Sorry. Let’s get on. Let’s get on. I want to call on the elusive Rand.”
There was nothing individual about the rooms of Mr. Rand. He had been content with the furniture supplied by the owners of the place, which was of the usual wholesale dullness. Reggie turned to the manager of the flats. “I suppose there’s nothing in the place Mr. Rand owns? Not even the pictures?”
“The pictures were supplied by the contractors for the furniture, sir. So—”
“The Lord have mercy on their souls,” said Reggie.
“So there is nothing of the tenant’s personal property except his clothes.”
“He is elusive, our friend Rand,” Reggie murmured, wandering about the room. “Smoked rather a showy cigar. Drank a fair whisky. Doesn’t tell us much about him. Do the servants come here every day?”
The manager was embarrassed. “Well, sir, in point of fact, we’re short-handed just now. Not unless they’re rung for. Not unless we know the tenant’s using the rooms.”
“Don’t apologize, don’t apologize. In point of fact, they haven’t been here since”—he looked critically at some dust upon a grim bronze—“since when?”
“I should say some days,” said the manager, with diffidence.
“I should say a week. No matter. Many thanks.”
Superintendent Bell with some urgency ushered the manager out. When he had done that he turned upon his inspector. “Confound you. Warren, what do you want to stare at the wastepaper basket for? That chap would have seen it if Mr. Fortune hadn’t got interested in the smokes and drinks.”
Reggie laughed and the inspector abased himself. “Very sorry, sir. Didn’t know I stared. But it is so blooming odd.”
Bell snorted and lifted the basket on to the table. It was nearly full of black burnt paper. “Why did they burn it in the basket?” said the inspector.
“Because the fireplaces are all gas stoves, I suppose,” said Bell. “But I don’t know why they couldn’t leave the stuff on the hearth.”
“Because this is a tidy crime,” said Reggie. “Nice, quiet, middle-class crime. No ugly mess. I told you that.”
The Superintendent gazed at him. “Now what can you know, you know?”
“I don’t know. I feel. I feel the kind of man that did it. Don’t you? I’ll lay you odds he came of a neat, virtuous, middle-class home.”
The Superintendent started. “Who are you thinking of?”
“You are so hasty today. Bell. I haven’t got a ‘who.’ Still anonymous is the slayer. But I’ll swear I’ve got his character.”
“Have you, though!” said Bell. “Tidy fellow! Don’t make a mess! Remember that face?”
“Oh, I said he was mad.”
“Well, I’m not yet. I’m only feeling what I can feel.” He began to examine the burnt paper. “Letters mostly. Some stoutish paper. Some stuff looks a bit like a notebook. That’s all we’ll get out of that.”
“Well, except the one thing. Whoever did that was clearing up. Clearing up something that might have left traces that might have been dangerous. Same like he cleared up the dead man’s face. Don’t you see? Somebody and some affair had to be absolutely abolished.”
“Yes. What was it?”
“We mayn’t ever know that,” said Reggie slowly.
“I believe you,” said Bell, and laughed. “I feel that, sir.”
The inspector and he began to examine the room in detail, opening drawers and cupboards. But except for tobacco and spirits they found no trace of Mr. Rand. Nothing had been broken open, but nothing was locked. “No keys on the deceased, were there, Mr. Fortune?” said Bell suddenly. “And that’s a point, too. Very few men go about without any keys.”
“Well, hang it, very few men go about without any money,” Reggie expostulated. “The corpse hadn’t a copper. You can take it the way we found him wasn’t the way he used to go about. He’d do his vest up, for instance.”
“Ah,” said Bell sagely. “You’ve got it all in your head, I must say. That’s the thing about you, Mr. Fortune, if you don’t mind my saying so. You’ve always got a whole case in your mind at once; there’s some of us only see it in bits, so to speak.”
Reggie smiled. He understood that Superintendent Bell was repenting of having lost his temper, and was anxious to make it up. “I never found so good a fellow to work with as you. Bell,” he said. “You always keep a level head.”
Superintendent Bell shook it and stared at Reggie. “Not today. As you know very well, Mr. Fortune, begging your pardon. I’ve been rattled, and that’s the truth. Ought to know better at my time of life, to be sure. I’ve seen a good deal, too, you might say. But there’s some things I’ll never get used to. And that chap’s face upset me.”
Reggie nodded. “Yes. I was sayin’—the only things that make you afraid are the mad things. And the only thing that does you good is to fight ’em. That’s why I’ve cheered up.”
“That’s right, sir. Well, now, these facts of yours. There’s no papers anywhere. All burnt in that basket. Rather odd there is not so much as a book.”
“I don’t think he was a man of culture, the elusive Rand. But you’ve missed something, haven’t you?”
“I dare say,” Bell grinned. “I generally do when you’re about.”
“There’s not a sign the murder was done in this room.”
“Oh, I saw that all right. But we hadn’t any reason to think it was.”
“No,” Reggie sighed. “No. So tidy. So tidy.” And they went into Mr. Rand’s bedroom.
That also was tidy. No trace of a struggle, of blood. That also had no papers, no books, nothing personal but clothes.
“Spent a good deal at his tailor’s,” said Bell, looking into a well-filled wardrobe, and read out the name of a man in Savile Row. “Hallo. They’re not all the same make. Some cheaper stuff. Why, what’s the matter with his boots, sir?” For Reggie was taking up one pair after another.
“Nothing. All quite satisfactory. About a nine and rather broad. The corpse wore about a nine and had a broad foot. What’s that about his clothes? Different tailors? Are the clothes all the same size? All made for the same man?” Suit after suit was spread out on the bed. They were to the same measure; they all were marked “W. H. Rand.” “Quite satisfactory,” Reggie purred. “They’d fit the corpse all right. Pretty different styles, though. He dressed to look different at different times. He is elusive, is W. H. Rand.”
They began to open drawers. There was the same abundance, the same variety of styles in Mr. Rand’s hosiery. “Yes, he meant to be elusive,” Reggie murmured. “Anything from a bookmaker to a churchwarden at a funeral. 16½ collars, though. And that’s the measure of the corpse. Is all the linen marked?”
It was, and with ink, so that the mark could only be removed by taking out a piece of the stuff. “If the corpse is Rand, where the devil did his shirt come from?” said Reggie. “The slayer unpicked the name from his coat. That was one of the Savile Row suits. But the shirt? Did the slayer bring a change of linen with him? Provident fellow, very provident.”
Bell, on his knees by a chest of drawers, gave a grunt. “Lord, here’s a drawer tumbled. And that’s the first yet. It’s new stuff, too—not worn.”
Reggie bent over him and whistled. “Not marked. Same sort of stuff as the corpse wears. And the drawer’s left untidy. The first untidy drawer. Well, well. Everybody breaks down somewhere. He began to be untidy then. When he got to the shirt and the vest.” He shivered and turned away to the window. “This damned place looks out on the well,” he cried out, and turned back and sat down. “Bah! The slayer did that, I suppose,” he muttered, and sprang up. “Believe in ghosts, you men?”
“Good Lord, sir, don’t you start giving us the jumps!” said Bell.
Reggie was at the dressing-table. “Sorry, sorry,” he said over his shoulder, opening and shutting drawers. Then he turned with something in his hands. “That wasn’t such a bad shot of mine. Bell. Here’s a wig. The corpse is uncommon bald. The elusive Rand had lots of brown hair. Here’s a nice brown wig.”
“There’s no blood on it!” Bell cried.
“No. I guess this is Mr. Rand’s second best. The one he had on when he was killed wouldn’t look nice now.”
“That about settles it,” Bell said slowly.
“We haven’t seen the bathroom,” said Reggie.
Bell looked at him and shrugged.
“Not likely to be much there, sir,” said the inspector.
“There could be,” said Reggie gravely, and led the way.
It was a bathroom of some size but no luxury. Only the sheer necessities of bathing were provided. The lower half of the walls was tiled, the floor of linoleum. Reggie stopped in the doorway. “Anything strike you about it, Bell?”
“Looks new, sir.”
“Yes. Nice and clean. Tidy, don’t you know. But there’s no towels and no sponge. Yet in the bedroom everything was ready for Rand to sleep there tonight—pyjamas, brushes and comb, everything. Didn’t he use towels? Didn’t he have a sponge?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“This is where the slayer cleared up after the murder. And he took the dirty towels and the bloody sponge away with him. Tidy fellow—always tidy. Just wait, will you?” And he went into the bathroom on all fours. About the middle of the room he stopped, and pored over the linoleum, and felt it with the tips of his fingers. Then he stood up and went to the window, opened it, and looked out. He examined the sill, and then sat himself on it in the manner of a window cleaner, and began to study the window frame. After a minute or two he pulled out a pocketknife, and with great care cut a piece of wood. He put this down on the edge of the porcelain basin, and resumed his study. When he had finished he went down again on his hands and knees, and wandered over the floor. He made an exclamation, he lay down on his stomach, and stretched underneath the bath. When he stood up he had in his hand something that glittered. He held it out on his palm to Bell.
“What’s that, sir? A matchbox?”
“It might be. A gold matchbox—provisionally. No name. No initials. On opening—we find inside—a little white powder”—he smelt it, put a fragment on the tip of his finger and tasted—“which is cocaine. Well, come in, Bell, come in. See what you can make of the place. I can’t find a fingerprint anywhere.” He slipped the gold box into his pocket.
The two detectives came in, and went over the room even more minutely than he. “There’s nothing that tells me anything,” said Bell.
Reggie sat on the edge of the bath. “Well, well, I wouldn’t say that,” he said mildly. “It’s not what we could wish, Bell. But there are points—there are points.”
“All right, sir. Call Mr. Fortune,” Bell grinned.
“I don’t say it’ll ever go into court. But some things we do know. The dead man is Rand, the elusive Rand. He had papers worth burning. He was killed by a powerful man with one or two blows, probably in the sitting-room. After death he was stripped and dressed in the unmarked clothes, probably here. For his body was brought where a mess could be cleaned up, to have the face smashed in. You can see the dents in the linoleum where his head lay. And then he was pitched out by that window. There’s a bit of animal matter, probably human tissue, on that scrap of wood. Then the slayer packed up everything that was bloody and went off; and one of ’em—the tidy slayer or the elusive Rand—one of ’em used cocaine.”
Superintendent Bell shrugged his shoulders. “It don’t take us very far, sir, does it? It don’t amount to so much. What I should call a baffling case. I mean to say, we don’t seem to get near anybody.”
Reggie grunted, got off the bath, and taking with him his bit of wood, went back to the sitting-room, the two detectives in silent attendance. There he tumbled Mr. Rand’s cigarettes out of their box, and put his bit of wood in it.
“I suppose there’s nothing more here,” he murmured, his eyes wandering round the room. “Try it with the lights on. Switch on, inspector. … No. Ah, what’s that?” He went to the gas fire and picked out of its lumps of sham coal a scrap of gleaming metal. The next moment he was down on his knees, pulling the fire to pieces. “Give me an envelope, will you?” he said over his shoulder, and they saw he was collecting scraps of broken glass.
“What is it, sir?”
“That’s the bridge of a pair of rimless eyeglasses. And if we’re lucky we can reconstruct the lenses. When Rand was hit, his glasses jumped off and smashed themselves. That’s the fourth thing the slayer didn’t think of.”
“You don’t miss much, Mr. Fortune. Still, it is baffling, very baffling. Even now, we don’t know anybody, so to speak. We don’t even know Rand. What was Rand, would you say? It was worth somebody’s while to do him in. I suppose he knew something. But what did he know? Who was Rand?”
Reggie was putting on his overcoat. He collected his envelope and his cigarette box and put them away, looking the while with dreamy eyes at Superintendent Bell. “Yes,” he said; “yes, there’s a lot of unknown quantities about just now. Who the devil was Rand? Well, well! I think that finishes us here. Will you ring for the lift, inspector?” When he was left alone with Bell, he still gazed dreamily at that plump, stolid face. “Yes. Who the devil was Rand? And if you come to that, who the devil is Sandford?”
“Good Lord, Mr. Fortune, do you mean this business is that business?”
“Well, there’s a lot of unknown quantities about,” said Reggie.